They've got that Rider Pride...

I'm a little behind with my blog, so at the risk of duplicating what some may have seen in the LP, I will quickly share with you where I was the night the Riders won the Grey Cup (and why I thought it was going to be the last night of my life, haha).

On Sunday evening at approximately 8pm our time, Shawn, Nichole and I began to prepare for a late night of listening to the Grey Cup game over the internet. We had done our research earlier that day to determine where we could find a 24 hour internet cafe and ensure we would be welcome until the wee hours of the morning. The Garbia Lodge, a hotel quite close to Jisonayilli turned out to be our best option, and we were fortunate it was within biking distance because it would have been virtually impossible to "pick a taxi" (local lingo) at the hour we finally packed it in.

We arrived at Gariba decked out from head to toe in green and white- Shawn wearing a watermelon on his head adorning a big "S";Nichole with her freshly painted green motorcycle helmet; and I with a bandana, pigtails, long white socks, and an unsightly combination of lime and grass green attire. We were armed with 4-5 hours worth of popcorn, pringles (an incredibley expensive import here), water and a terrible mixture of coffee and Milo that Nichole concocted. We were accompanied by two other Canadians who joined us for the beginning of the game (but due to the fact that they were from B.C. and Alberta, their stamina to stay up for the whole game dwindled...we expect simply because they were jealous, ; ) The staff got quick a kick out of our get-up and kindly showed us to the small internet cafe on the grounds.

Sometime around the 3rd quarter or so, at about 1:30 a.m. when we were down to just Nichole, Shawn, myself and a few crumbs of pringles, a man nonchalantly entered the cafe. I was in the far right hand side of the room, sitting on a table, with Shawn to my left, and Nichole a few feet further down, writing an email on the laptop. I looked over at the unknown man, who had not greeted us upon entering (a bit strange in Ghana) and realized he was holding a machette in this hand. His fingers were clasped around the handle and the blade was slightly concealed by his forearm. Perhaps it was the late night, or too much coffee, but all of a sudden my mind began to race as I imagined what on earth this person was doing in here at this hour with a machette. I slowly got off the table and began edging closer to the window (to evaluate whether it was a potential escape route) and tried to glance at Shawn to see if he had noticed the massive knife in our "visitor's" hand. Shawn seemed unconcerned, and Nichole hadn't noticed anything as she was engulfed in the article she was typing out. My knees began to feel weak as I panicked while the man's back was to us...he had turned on the small tv in the other corner and was standing watching it. Finally, Shawn went over to say something to him (I was hoping he would step up and be a man...haha) and shortly after the man left again. In the end, we were able to confirm that the man was actually Gariba's night watchman and he had simply come in to check on us. Most night watchmen carry machette's here (actually, so do school children sometimes if they're doing work in the field after school), so his "weapon" was not out of the ordinary. None the less, it took me a good 20 minutes to relax and have a good laught about it.

As we all know, the Riders won and though we weren't able to make it out for the mass celebration on Dewdney, we will likely never forget where we were the night the Riders won the GREY CUP! (And when I tell the story to my grandchildren, the machette will probably get bigger, the man will be larger and scarier, and the LP article will somehow become the global news. ; ) haha