Larabangin'

The rest of the day was spent walking on eggshells (not literally, of course). I had met a teenager at the park who I feared was one of the pseudo-guides. He wanted to take me to see Larabanga's famous mosque and I, being naturally polite, gave one of those non-committal answers that would end up coming back to haunt me. He kept following me, even on bike back to the Salia Brothers (Sometimes Ghanaians don't understand that Westerners find this behaviour creepy). There was also something about donating to the local soccer team. My tourist alarm was going off in my head, so I spent the next few hours in the fortress Salia, where I was safe from the rest of the world.

At sunset, I got a real tour of the village with one of the brothers' nephews, Ali. The highlight, of course, was the mosque. The chapel-like mud-and-stick structure is known as the oldest mosque in the country, dating back some six centuries. Nobody knows for sure, because it's all folklore. But the story behind it is great, featuring rulers, holy men, prophesies and a flying Qu'ran from Mecca.

Later, my new Legon friends Joanna and Jillian were invited for some T.Z., a local meal. I forget what T.Z. stands for, but it's somewhere between fufu and akple. Being that it was homemade, the sauce was awesome. The weird part was that the allegedly pseudo-guide was there with us and he didn't know that I had already gone on a tour! We all went for minerals (soft drinks) afterwards and I had a long conversation with him and it turned out that he really wanted to be a professional tour guide and loved learning history. As strange as it was, had I misjudged the boy? It's hard to say, but I felt like I had definitely not been up front with him, let alone shortchanged him. I spent the last few hours of the night in pensive mode...