Well I accidentally did that thing where I forgot to blog since last like what, Wednesday? Tuesday? So now I have a lot of things to say but I forget. You may think this is not a problem since it is only Monday, but luckily we are now doing a lot of shit unlike in another place I know (aka the village) so I do have a lot of things to say. I may even split this into two blog entries to preserve everyone’s sanity. Reading a large block of text is just tough for everyone! Well I will start with last week when we went to Mole National Park because I think this is where I left off. We left Tamale at about 11 on Wednesday to go to Mole. I don’t remember if we did anything that day before departing. I think that may have been the day I presented my mini isp. These presentations could be boring but luckily my group gets me so they were introduced to the greatness of me presenting things. My topic was actually kind of boring (really, does anyone care how many goats each farmer has?) but as usual I managed to make it interesting with a combination of A. a picture slideshow B. saying things in a concise and funny way and C. having Take Me Home Tonight and We R who we R play along with my slideshow. Do these songs have anything to do with animal husbandry? No, obviously not. Were they funny? Yes, clearly. So that was fun. Anyway we left for Mole on the famous awful road. They really psyched us out for it, and I would say that it wasn’t that bad…but it really did suck. I mean we weren’t like flying in the air as if the trotro was the plane from Lost crashing down to the island, but there were definitely moments when the trotro was tilted at close to a 45 degree angle. Also just the worst not real road ever for four hours makes your ass hurt really bad. So it was unpleasant but we survived. That night at Mole was mostly just chill time because we weren’t going on the Safari until the morning. We were staying at the park, they have accommodations that Papa Atta either described as ‘chalets,’ ‘chariots,’ or ‘Charlottes.’ I’m going to assume chalets was what he meant but we had several lengthy discussions about this. Obviously it wasn’t really a chalet…but it was swanky by Africa standards. We had seven rooms in a block that all shared a mutual porch. Again, swanky by Africa standards means our room could have been a midrate motel room if the ceiling were less exposed and the floors were less made of stone and if there had been running water. But it was big and comfortable and had a fan and I liked it. I should take more pictures of these things. And then got to go in the POOL. This was excellent. We had dinner at the Mole restaurant so we got to pick from things like semi American foods and foreign foods that weren’t Ghanaian which is always one of our favorite activities. I had a delicious chicken curry. That night we all just relaxed, observed the warthogs that had taken up residency outside our ‘chalet’ and liked to either charge at people or lie in their doorways. There was a nice lookout spot and a bar so those things are always helpful. We also met some other travelers who are with a church in INDIANA (look at that) doing some kind of NGO work. Yay for the only tourist places in Ghana being obroni hot spots. Then the morning came and the SAFARI! We had to get up very early as you would imagine but I was not that tired so good for my body learning to adjust. We split into two groups and set off with armed guides. I hope I got a picture of our armed guide because he looked like a real badass with a rifle. I want to be an armed guide at Mole National Park. The safari was beautiful and we saw some gazelles, more warthogs, lots of monkeys chilling really close to us with babies, and oh wait…something else..something big…what could it be…OH YEAH WE WERE LIKE TEN FEET AWAY FROM ELEPHANTS. Obviously that was fake forgetting if anyone didn’t get that. I mean real elephants in Africa? I call that an obroni’s dream. Mole National Park is cool because it’s straight up just where the animals live, like animals weren’t gathered to come there or anything, and you can go on safari and not even see anything because the animals are just going about their daily life and the park doesn’t do anything to control their movements. But we were lucky and got to be super close to them and take pictures and love it! So amazing! Nothing like having an armed guard tell you that you have to back up because the elephants are walking too close to you. We were only in Tamale for one week but we still fit in a lot of stuff. On Friday we had the option to visit a mosque and I chose to do so. We’d had a lecture on Islam earlier in the week and it was very interesting (well you know how I feel about lectures but it was as good as it could be) so I was excited to be able to actually be involved in it. I haven’t gone to church here since the first day in Kumasi but I was glad to get a different perspective on religion. The mosque was really an amazing experience. We participated in the prayer at the mosque at a girls school just outside of Tamale where our lecturer works. The students first instructed us on how to I think its called ‘perform abolition’ by cleansing ourselves before going into the mosque. The first thing they had us do was go into this cement semi bathroom stall outside thing and wash our ‘private parts’ as they said which was a weird way to begin it but hey there you go. Then it got normal when we washed our hands three times and our noses three times and our teeth three times and our faces and ears. And then legs and arms. Then we were clean so they helped us make our scarves into things that actually cover our whole heads. Then we went into the mosque and participated in the prayer. I was just really glad that they were so welcoming to us and let us do something with them that is so spiritual and personal. Afterwards the girls at the school asked us a lot of questions and none of them got angry at them when I said I didn’t grow up in a religious family so yay points. I am continually amazed by how kind and interested in us the Ghanaians are. They then gave us Islam names and wanted 100 pictures with us (fine by me I love 100 pictures) and we headed back to Tamale. That afternoon a few of the girls from my program and I also visited the cultural center AKA a place with a bunch of little shops selling things for me to buy. Normally I would not bother writing about this because it isn’t that interesting to hear about, but two really funny things happened and I got an awesome shirt. My shirt says ‘Make fufu not war’ on the front with an illustration of someone pounding fufu and the back says ‘sharing is caring, you’re invited’ which is great because ‘you are invited’ is a big phrase here in terms of sharing food (or anything really) that we are all stealing and bringing back to America. I don’t know if everyone will get how supremely awesome this shirt is or if it’s a thing that only sit Ghana students find excellent. After purchasing this shirt I was describing to Terrin how the shops with lots of leather goods smelled like “tack shops in the United States of America.” This made both of us laugh a lot because who calls America ‘The United States of America’ in casual conversation? Me, apparently. We were still laughing about this when we left the cultural center and then the next funny thing happened. I saw three white girls and since I’m used to three white girls only being people I know, I go HEY GUYS! And waved really big..and then I looked at them and they just weren’t any white girls that I know. So that was hilarious and awkward also. More things happened. Life went on. I have this weird thing where I don’t know how to transition between segments in this because I don’t want to describe every little thing I do but I’m really bad at moving between events where I skip a lot. So apparently my way of transitioning is writing paragraphs about nothing IE this one. OKAY on Sunday aka yesterday we arrived in Cape Coast. I LOVE CAPE COAST. It is the first city here that I really feel an instant love connection with. It is, as you would imagine, right on the coast. We can walk to the beach from our hotel in five our ten minutes! It smells nice and I can see the ocean and there is a breeze and it is pretty and I’m in love. Our hotel made me nervous at first because I have to walk up two very narrow flights of stairs to get to my room but I am in love with it anyway. I am in a single room here, many of us are, so that is awesome. My room is really small but it has a balcony which I am on right now so I am the happiest girl. We have all of our meals on the ROOFTOP of our hotel…I love my life. Slash I mostly feel like SIT is paying us back for the first six weeks of the program with four awesome days in Cape Coast but I’ll take it. Not that the first six weeks were bad, but challenging would be the operative word. Alas, we are only in Cape Coast for four days. I have already decided slash decided the second we got here that Cape Coast will be a Monterey Situation. For those of you who are not me a Monterey Situation is when you have a FUCKING AWESOME EXCELLENT TIME IN A REALLY COOL PLACE but you are only there for a very short time. This is referring to freshman year when I went on the Steinbeck trip to Monterey and was in Monterey for a total of less than 36 hours but it was still just really beautiful and enriching and excellent. Excusing the part where I cried but I mean people travel mishaps are really stressful slash I learned things from my tears so no judging. Speaking of tears I like never cry anymore its weird. I probably got it all out of my system when I cried for three days straight leaving school, ha. When we got here yesterday it was still relatively early in the day so a bunch of us decided to go to the beach. I LOVE THE BEACH. The beach in Cape Coast is AWESOME because A. it is way cleaner than Accra, AKA there are not trash bags curling around your ankles in the water B. it is not busy so we had lots of space to ourselves C. IT IS THE BEACH IN AFRICA WHICH NEVER STOPS BEING COOL D. I love the beach and E. The waves are large and fun. We got thrown around by nice huge waves and it was the best of times. Then we found a beach bar (are we sensing a theme of my time in Ghana?) which had great beef kebabs that had none of that non-meat skin or sinew crap that so many kebabs have and yummy drinks. All in all a fantastic day. Today was a VERY full day both physically and mentally and schedually. In the morning we visited and toured Cape Coast Castle which was a slave castle during the hundreds of years time period that the slave trade was taking place. I am going to do a separate entry on this because I want to get all of my facts right and because it was just a very intense experience that deserves more than one paragraph in my entry. So look for that today or tomorrow. In the afternoon we took the bus to Kakum National Park to go on a CANOPY WALK! If you do not know what a canopy walk is, it is the coolest thing ever where nets with metal bottoms with wood boards on them are strung up hundreds of feet in the air and you walk in it between trees. AKA THE COOLEST THING EVER. As they said when we began, the experience is meant to imitate walking on top of the trees. SO COOL. Just like… I took tons of pictures but they won’t do it justice. Just the feeling of the boards under your feet and the ropes moving on the side of you and being able to see so far and being hundreds of feet in the air with only some ropes and a piece of wood holding you up is INSANE and SO COOL and probably pretty similar to what that tree house stage in Myst would be like if Myst were real and not a computer game. I just love nature. That has been one of my favorite parts of this Ghana experience is the nature things we have done, like the river blindness lake and the safari in Mole and this canopy walk. We were talking today how cool it would be to do your ISP on National Parks and preservation or wildlife conservation or just you know hanging out in the parks all day. Nobody made any comments about how cool this would be compared to any specific National Parks in America. Nobody said that. Speaking of ISP, I am now lost about what to do for mine. I had my plan to study art communities at the ArtHaus but I just found out that the guy doesn’t let people live there anymore so he could still be my advisor and I could still do work there but I would have to find other accommodations which would be fine but then I wouldn’t really want to do the whole project on art communities because it would be more just like me doing art with this guy. So then I’d have to find a new angle because art on its own is just too big of a topic for a small person like me. Now I’m thinking about all the other things I’m interested in like the parks and colonialism and loving Cape Coast and I just don’t know what I want to do. Any advice on this would be much appreciated slash then I’d know if people actually read this blog or if all the views are just me looking at it when I’m bored. BUT NO REALLY I NEED HELP SHOULD I STAY IN ACCRA AND STILL WORK WITH ARTHAUS MAN OR SHOULD I DO HALF THAT AND ALSO BE IN CAPE COAST AND DO ART STUFF HERE OR SHOULD I STAY IN CAPE COAST OR SHOULD I COMPLETELY CHANGE MY TOPIC OR SHOULD I TRY TO MELD ART WITH OTHER THINGS….HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Hokay I think I have more things to say but I will say a lot in my entry on Cape Coast Castle. It is almost dinner time yay, I am always hungry. And then I can drink some of the giant bottles of palm wine I bought at the park today. Palm wine is like slightly alcoholic lemonade slash I love it because it tastes more like lemonade than any lemonade I can find here, (seriously there is none.) Also I’m pretty convinced it is like 1% alcohol TOPS because it tastes so good. So I miss you all I love you and goodbye.
Tag Archives: lectures
Here today, gone Tamale, hot Tamale, more Tamale jokes
This week we’re in Tamale! I like this city a lot, I wish we were here for more than a week. It’s much more relaxed than Accra or Kumasi. Lots of people are on bikes which makes it feel more familiar. It is the NGO capital of Ghana, so there are actually a lot of white people here. This was really weird at first but then you realize that it is nice because more white people means that people are used to seeing white people which means that you don’t get OBRONI yelled at you 1000 times per day. It wasn’t the worst thing but this is definitely a nice break. We have also been doing activities in the afternoon which makes me happy because I like our field trips much better than sitting in class. They make me feel like I’m really doing something with my time here.
I always make lists of things I’m going to blog about…and then leave them where I am not. I.E. I’m now working on this/finishing my mini ISP at the bar at our hotel (don’t judge me it’s convenient) but my list of things to write about is in my room. Bah Humbug. Well let’s talk about Tamale some more. It was supposed to be really hot here and since it is mainly Muslim we have to wear a lot more clothes so this was nerve wracking. But luckily it hasn’t been too hot this week so we are not dying. On our second day here we went on a tour that was really a shopping trip because we got head scarves and these awesome smock shirt things. We mostly got head scarves to be appropriate when we go to the mosque on Friday but I have been wearing mine every day because it stops me from touching my hair too much and I’m also really angry at my hair right now so it is just a great situation. Our teachers say that the head scarves make the locals respect us more because it shows that we are trying to embrace the culture but I think that people just laugh at me in it. I think that I have accidentally embarked on a buying things spree. I was doing really well at NOT buying things thus far, I mean I purchased every day necessities and snacks and paid for transport but I hadn’t gotten any souviener WHAT THE HELL HOW DO YOU SPELL THAT WORD type of stuff since the beach. But then we got the smocks and the head scarves and then yesterday we went to this Shea Butter Cooperative (yes it’s a thing) and I bought tons of shea butter soap and pure shea butter. I mean it’s mostly going to be gifts first of all, AND shea butter is like 30 bucks for a tiny tub in the US and I got a medium tub and a small tub and 6 soaps all for 16 cedi. So really it was a good deal. I just wish my money didn’t get eaten up so fast by other things like drinks and transportation and stuff.
One of the things I like about this group (though this would be true of any new group of people) is that they are not tired of my stories AND they don’t know and therefore can’t judge me when I tell stories that relate to things that I supposedly talk about too much. See, school friends, I can see all of you shaking your heads already because you already know what I’m going to refer to. But nobody here does that! Therefore I’m allowed to tell LEGITIMATELY FUNNY AND GOOD STORIES without getting in trouble just because those legitimately funny and good stories happen to have suspicious minor characters. I was going to make an I.E. but that would be taking it a bit far since everyone already knows what I’m talking about.
Today in the afternoon we saw a new dance performance and drumming ensemble. I love it when we do this! African dancing is probably my favorite unexpected part of the program. I am obvs the horriblest dancer but I love to watch it and I do love participating even though I suck. As I said to Terrin today, I suck too much at dancing to consider doing it for my ISP but I hope that I get to do more while we’re here. It’s just something that is enjoyable for me to watch and is also an experience that makes me feel like I’m really absorbing Africa versus when I do things like writing a paper and accidently mostly playing FreeCell which I could easily be doing in America or elsewhere.
During the mornings in Tamale we’ve been having 4 hours of lectures which is….sigh, challenging. Even with Adderall and when they are semi interesting I still have to do another activity like making a list or scheming things or writing letters to keep me from zoning out altogether. Some of the lectures have been quite good but it was still challenging. Today was quite the lecture day actually, our first lecture was a history of Ghana lecture, AKA a topic that could be interesting but when the lecturer is talking really fast and Becca can’t put sentences together when listening to lecturers I was doing my usual of writing random sentences that I got while not really knowing what was going on. But then during the question section at the end somehow it came out (I think this actually came from a question I asked but I don’t really know how) that the lecturer considers colonialism to have been a positive thing for Africa. My mind was just blown even before the ensuing questions because so much of my interest in Africa has been based in colonialism/postcolonialism/hating colonialism. The rest of the conversation upset many people in my group but I did/do my best to remain as objective as possible, especially from an academic standpoint. He went on to say that Ghanaians (I assume not all because no one can speak for everyone but you know) see colonialism as something that happened and they choose to see the positive things that came out of it, his examples being technology and industrialization and formalized education. I’m not really sure if they actually view colonialism as positive or whether they choose to look at the positive things that came out of it because Ghanaians in my experience have been a very positive people. This is a difficult thing for me to write about because I feel that most things I or anyone could say will step on one person or another’s toes, but I will do my best. This conversation just really got me thinking. We as Americans are able to have the view that most of us do on colonialism because we can view it from an intellectual and humanitarian viewpoint. After the studies I’ve done on Africa I pretty much blamed most problems on the abuses during colonialism, but I can see now how that is not a completely encompassing view. It’s really easy for an American to say “Africa would be better off if colonialism had never happened, they were fine living traditionally without the industrial revolution, nobody needed to mess with that.” I’ll also say here that I’m not arguing at all that colonialism was done for the right reasons or was executed right or was a good act at all. I’m just trying to explore this topic. But anyway, it’s easy to say that when you live in a swanky first world country. But if you live here in Ghana, especially as someone educated, and realize that without colonialism you would probably never have gotten your education and would most likely not live in an industrialized city, the framework changes. It’s also really really easy for us as Americans to write off this man’s opinion as ignorant or sad or whatever other words, but what would you do if something so awful happened in your past? Would you sit around thinking about all the shit that happened and how sorry you feel for yourself, or would you realize the positive things that came out of it, say ‘it happened,’ and do your best with what you have now? It was just very interesting and something that I’ll probably keep thinking about for a while. I don’t really have an opinion on it yet it just got me thinking.
I have a very nice mental rhythm for missing Redlands without being sad about it. Like I miss it and my friends and everything the way I miss anything that is not with me but I don’t spend my time wishing I was there. I do though wish my friends were here. Sometimes to the point where I imagine them sitting on my shoulder in miniature having a conversation with me. (Two hour walks are really lonely okay!) I think that traveling independently or well with a new group is really good for me but I do also think that one day I really want to go on an intense trip with a friend that I already know and can adventure with. There are just some times when I think it would be so much fun to be cavorting around Tamale with Victoria or trying to find something to do in the village with Steph. And all the rest of you friends but those two were the first that came to my mind. I am definitely enjoying my time with the group here, but it’s still very different than people that you have a long term deep friendship with. (Long term friendship…I would say that.) I’m at a great place where I am happy being here and really able to enjoy every day and the things we do, but I’m not doing that thing where I worry about the passage of time and when things end. Because I’ve got a nice long time left here, then I will have a nice time to relax and become a real person again, and then I get to GO BACK TO REDLANDS! Life is good forever! I’m also entertaining the prospect during lectures when I can’t pay attention of going back to California early, possibly around New Years, so if anyone wants to hang out with me slash house me slash visit during this time holler at an obroni.
Also this hotel we’re staying at in Tamale is SICK. By African standards. In the US it would be like sketchy as balls, but I feel like the line of Jack’s in Titanic, “We’re riding in high style now!” We have a bathroom with a WORKING SHOWER and a flushing toilet. The downside of the bathroom is the sink doesn’t work and Andrea found a snail in the shower yesterday. Coming out of my soap bag. Kill me. I can handle the lizards who lived in my room, I can handle a spider the size of my hand on the ceiling, I’ve even become semi a little bit not really but I have to be okay with cockroaches, but snails are just my not thing. Ew. Luckily I have all my shea butter soap to replace the bar that I will now throw away. Anyway the room also has a fan and big beds and um it is the best. The lock seems like you could break it with a strong knuckle and my outlet is semi broken but I could not be happier with our new accomodations. Life seems like it’s gonna be pretty smooth sailing from here actually. We continue on this educational tour to Cape Coast and the Volta Region, and judging by what we’re doing now that’s like vacation (well…a jangy vacation) and then it’s ISP time! Trent and I have started trying to contact the guy at the ArtHaus so we can work out doing our ISPS there. We haven’t gotten through yet but that’s Africa for you. I’m so excited for this period of time. And not just because I will probably be able to wear this dress that I’m currently wearing as a skirt at the arthaus without a stupid t shirt under it without anyone caring about it. But no really I can’t wait to work with this place slash if for some reason I can’t I’ll die. No lies I’d work with that cool art professor in Kumasi with the long shirts. Or forget my talentless legs and learn how to dance. The possibilities really are endless.
I think I have more things to say but as always I forget. Tomorrow we go to Mole National Park YIPPEEE, it is actually the American visiting Africa’s dream, we’re going to see ELEPHANTS and GIRAFFES. We better at least. We have to travel on apparently the worst road ever (nicknamed abortion road? Ack) to get there but I kind of like doing ridiculous things. So yay! I will update after we get back because I bet it will be the greatest thing. As Papa Atta says I’m enjoying my life, and as Jack Dawson says I’m trying to make each day count. Oh also…a girl on my trip has met Leo. I DIE.
Bokrum Estate is Narnia and Analoga Junction is the doorway that never exists when you need it
Wow it’s been quite a last few days! Quite a few adventures getting lost (I live in an imaginary place in Kumasi, I swear) excellent street food, and weird things that are now normal. I will begin with Wednesday. The girl on my program whose homestay is close to mine, Kelly, went to the hospital with malaria on Tuesday night (life is excellent everywhere) and thus it was my first time going to school alone. I waited at the taxi spot for like fifteen minutes, but all the taxis were full plus there were like 80 people waiting and no one was getting taxis. So I started walking, and this guy in a car with some logos painted on it pulled over and offered me a ride. According to our teachers this is an acceptable form of transportation so I said yes. It turns out that this guy owns a hotel, ‘Time Hotel’ (things have funny names here) right next to my intersection. He was quite a jolly fellow and gave me a ride to what they call Airport roundabout. This is where I hit trouble. He/comrades told me to walk this certain direction and I would hit a taxi spot thing. This did not happen. I walked for a while, then I walked some more, then I just kept walking. At this point I had no idea where I was and didn’t recognize anything but advertisments for ‘Glo’ (still don’t know what this is) and MTN and Elite 1 Admission etc. So I called Kwame, the guy who is basically just paid to hang out with us and not teach anything, and said I was lost. He said where are you. I said I don’t know that’s why I’m lost. Then it got really bad service and I recognized a gas station so I hung up and turned there. A random guy told me that I was going in the right direction (Semi false) but I called Kwame back anyway. I still didn’t know where I was enough to tell him anything (‘a gas station’ doesn’t really help here) so he told me to ‘give the phone to a Ghanaian’ to help me. I gave the phone to a random guy selling plantains or phone credit or something and him and Kwame talked in really fast Twi that I obviously did not understand, but the conversation ended with him getting me a taxi and asking for my phone number. Typical of Ghana life. I made it to school then, yay!
That day we went to a priestess in the morning. It was hours away. Like at least one and a half. But it was a pretty cool experience. We asked her questions about her priestessdom a lot of which were lost in translation but it was still interesting. At this point nobody was forcing it down my throat like I actually had to believe it so it was interesting to see the traditional religion perspective. Then they tried to sell us a bunch of stuff (welcome to our lives, being sold shit at a religious shrine) and I resisted. I’m getting great at not buying stuff because I just can’t face the thought of carrying it all around for the next three months. I’ll buy souveigners sovineers soveigners WHAT THE HELL IS THAT WORD in November before I go home but now I just cry about moving around. Anyway then we did this dance session which is always fun. She hugged us all it was very sweet. This was when one of our group members ‘was chosen by the spirits’ and some really ridiculous story that I am not going to tell on public forum because the amount of skepticism I have would start to verge on sarcasm and that is just a slippery slope that I am not interested in slipping. But if you want the full story, skeptic and all, shoot me an email and I’ll be sure to divulge. After this part we had personal consultations with the priestess if we wanted. All of us but three did, it was only 2 cedi and it was an interesting thing to do. I went first, we were supposed to go in with a question but she usually just ended up talking and then maybe answering the question or not. I went in and she said before I said anything that I should ‘hold my pen tightly in school,’ that ‘if I work hard in school I will be very smart and successful’ that ‘one day people will worship me,’ and then the big humdinger…that a water spirit follows me in my hometown. Yes, lakes Mendota and Monona DO have a strange fascination with me, how did you know?! (see the sarcasm can’t help itself) Now I have no problem with these ‘predictions’ obviously, but I’m pretty sure that everyone would like to hear that people will worship them one day. Apparently she said some ‘really creepily accurate’ things to some people but I don’t have much detail. It was a cool experience though. My question for her was about how I should deal with anxiety (I actually know very well how to deal with anxiety but I couldn’t think of any specific life problems because someone outside probably would have heard me if I said how do I make my fellow students stop being rude) and I don’t think she (or either of the translators, for that matter) really got the concept because they all just seemed to not know what I meant by ‘worrying about things in the future.’ She then told me to tell Yemi (my program director) my problems and that I should come back with white powder if I wanted more consultation. Some people are going back later and I might go with a specific problem in mind to see what they say, because it is very interesting if not something I believe in.
After this we were the starvingest (that’s actually not funny for me to write on my blog about studying abroad in Ghana…but too late. My ability to be politically correct is just nonexistent) so I tried to convince Kwame to take us to a restaurant on the way back to school. This was unsuccessful so it was already 1 PM and we then had the hour and a half drive back to school. Yay…not. We went on the LONGEST search for this elusive ‘cheeseburger and indian food’ restaurant in a really crowded region of Kumasi, but luckily we eventually found it. And this restaurant, was, is, and always will be THE GREATEST THING. The menu is HUGE and has cheeseburgers, sandwiches, indian food, chinese food, pizza, and like EVERY KIND OF FOOD. No Mexican food but life is rough. We ordered 13 cheeseburgers and ‘chips’ aka fries and in addition I got samosas and this weird spicy indian chicken appetizer. (of course I got more food than everyone else in the group. This is my life.) The burgers were actually AMAZING and not even by ‘I never get to eat American food standards.’ Well, kind of by those standards. But it was still amazing. Also we learned that Sylvia (one of the ladies who helps SIT) has NEVER EATEN CHEESE. This obviously made me very sad because cheese accounts for much of the happiness in my life. It’s not that they don’t have cheese in Ghana, they do, but it just isn’t a big thing like it is in America (or in my life.) We had cheese on our cheeseburgers but that’s all I’ve seen of it so far. Also it isn’t pasteurized so it might be sketchy for us to eat it, but I also don’t give a fuck and if I find some I’m buying it because my stomach is already shot so I may as well add some unpasteurized cheese. Of course the only other people in the restaurant were other obronis (which is funny that we all find this place because it’s not very obvious and also Kumasi isn’t exactly a tourist spot.) In the week that we’ve been here I have seen a total of 8 white people not related to SIT and four of them were in that restaurant or on the way to the restaurant. The others – one was a girl crying next to a suitcase at a gas station (perhaps this was an SIT student in disguise), a guy in a safari outfit walking on the street (LOOOOSER! There’s no elephants in Kumasi! You have to go to the North, duh.) and two ladies at the zoo today. I will get to the zoo later.
After the obroni restaurant (our affectionate name for it) we all went home. I was promptly fed rice with sauce which was unfortunate since I was still full but I ate some anyway. This happens to me a lot because the homestay pretty much feeds me within the hour of when I get home whenever that is, and I always end up eating really late with the obronis if we are free or getting a snack on the way home of a normal day.
The next day Kelly was still in the hospital (sad puppy paws) so I foraged my way to school alone again. I had called Kwame to help me figure out my commute the previous night but instead of telling me what to do he just got my host brother on the phone and told him to take me to school. This isn’t really that helpful because yes I get there but I still don’t really understand the process of how he does it. This is an odd concept because you’d think that once I did it with someone it would be easy but there is some kind of taxi secret language or something and I just do not know it. Anyway me and my host brother (also named Kwame…I think this is their day name and not real name…everyone has a name based on the day they were born…its confusing) set off at the normal time and started walking because the usual no taxis. This is the walk that is 40 minutes if you can’t find a car. Luckily Mr. Time Hotel Man found us again, this time in a pickup truck. His comrade in the front seat moved to the bed with my host brother and I got in the front seat. Obroni chick treatment right there. He took me to the roundabout again and then Kwame shimmyshammied our way to school. He also paid for the taxis which made me feel guilty but whatever it happened. So no lostness but was still late and still know nothing.
Twi classes are going, as one would expect, terribly. I am the worst at the language and not being able to concentrate obviously doesn’t help. As an added bonus I get to listen to everyone who doesn’t take Adderall tell me how if they were on Adderall they’d be so good at it and I’m like GUYS IT’S NOT A MAGIC DRUG THAT MAKES YOU LOVE LEARNING TWI. IT JUST MAKES YOU CONCENTRATE ON THINGS. SO IF YOU GET BORED LEARNING TWI, YOU’LL STILL GET BORED LEARNING TWI ON ADDERALL BUT YOU WILL BE MUCH BETTER ABLE TO CONCENTRATE ON YOUR DRAWINGS OF TACOS AND WRITTEN HISTORY OF SOME OF THE SILLY THINGS THAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL IN THE PAST YEAR AND A HALF. Too many capitals sorry haha. I just got on a roll. Luckily we have a break in the morning where I always have to go get a snack. I eat white bread for breakfast every single day which does not even remotely fill me up so I always need a snack and a coke or a Fanta. Coke and Fanta are big things here. But they come in glass bottles and then you give the bottles back so they can be reused. This is a great practice but I have a feeling that it would never work in America because of the germphobia. But I like it.
We have now started afternoon dance classes – oh wait but we had our last lecture on Thursday. It was actually probably one of the worst lectures I’ve ever had in my life, if you can even call it a lecture. I like can’t even explain what happened but it was observation and participation techniques and the guy like said no words but then asked us for examples and we said the most obvious things ever and then wrote them down on these giant pieces of paper and then he talked for like AN HOUR about these weird African metal trinkets and passed around at least fifteen books and all the while we COULD NOT HANDLE OURSELVES. Usually we’re a pretty calm if sleepy group during lectures but this time we just couldn’t live. There was laughter and side conversations and just inability to handle our lives and the guy just didn’t even notice a thing. I don’t know why it was so ridiculous…but it was.
THEN we had our first dance lesson. Well not first we’ve been dancing since we got here but our first with this one teacher in Kumasi. She’s a character. Not the nicest lady but she’s funny. We also have to learn a lot of odd songs with hard to remember tunes that no one can sing and play weird clapping games or just clapping rhythms and it’s all very odd. The dancing is hard but really fun. I’m glad we get to do something active, it keeps me occupied way more than class. The dances will all be cool for me to parade at parties back at school….not. Most of them involve us doing things in a giant circle and then doing really complicated body movements including one that involves putting your leg up like a bird and doing a hip thrust. I am not really getting any better at dancing but the freestyle sections of the dances are always good for me!
I know that more things have happened in these past few days but it is hard to remember and that is fine because I can save some stories for real life. If I can even call them stories. A lot of the time I feel like I don’t really have stories, just weird things that happen in Africa like selling giant wood fixtures by the side of the road.
I will describe Friday by the sheer amount of food that I consumed. So the usual breakfast of bread. Then during break this thing that is basically cake and a lemon Fanta (the best flavor.) then banku for lunch (banku is my shit,) a Fanice for after lunch snack –
HERE I MUST TELL YOU ABOUT FANICE. IT IS THE BEST THING. IT IS ICE CREAM….IN A BAG. YOU CAN BUY IT ANYWHERE ON THE STREET. THE. GREATEST. THING.
Anyway, then after dancing I went with a few of the girls to this bar where we had kebobs (another FANTASTIC DISCOVERY ABOUT GHANA) okay I must devote more than parentheses to kebobs. Everyone knows about kebobs but these are just so great because they are fresh and probably recently slaughtered chicken or goat (sorry for that) and made right in front of you but the greatest part is they put this AMAAAAAAZING spice on them that is some kind of awesome pepper. I LOVE KEBABS. Then I went home quickly to gather my things for our adventure that night (obviously getting another Fanice on the way home) , let my host sister know that I’d be staying away for the night (my host mom like doesn’t exist. The siblings are basically my parents which is funny because all but one of them are younger than me…but every young person here is super mature and acts like 10 years older than they are) and headed to a taxi. Here I bought two more kebabs (goat this time) and then at a gas station at one of our stops on the way to the highlife concert I got ANOTHER FANICE and some chocolate and a juice called ‘morning blend.’ I stopped eating at this point but it was just a great snack day. THREE FANICES IN ONE DAY, LIFE IS SO GREAT.
That night Kwame took us all out to this highlife concert (highlife is a type of music that I still don’t really understand at all or know how to characterize) but it seemed very suspiciously like reggae. I think that highlife is very different from reggae but clearly I know nothing so who knows. Anyway this was great fun because we were able to be with the big group but hang out in little groups and we just danced a lot and had a grand old time. It’s nice to just dance fun and crazy and not like at a frat party. Watching the group dynamics during this is VERY INTERESTING THOUGH, especially how Kwame and our other semi helper people are involved, and if you want this analysis and funny stories please email me. PLEASE IT IS HILARIOUS. After this we went to a club (also Kwame’s doing, what a guy) and that was more fun good times. A bunch of us got rooms at a hotel that night so we didn’t have to find our way home in the dark and late night ness, esp since one of the junctions on the way to my house just doesn’t exist. I say the name and no one ever knows what I’m talking about. All in all it was a very good night full of bonding and fun conversations and me continuing in my quest to figure out who the guys in our group (there are only 4) ‘like’ out of the girls/who they would get with. Since I have no attraction feelings for any of them it is fun for me to try and analyze this and Trent (the one who I am closest to) seems to think it is funny and not creepy so it gives me entertainment. I haven’t figured anything out yet for sure but I have my suspicions.
I will interject here with a section about Kwame. I CAN’T TELL WHAT THE HELL HIS JOB ACTUALLY IS. He’s always with us but he never teaches anything, doesn’t seem to organize much, sometimes chaperones us, but mostly just talks to us and hangs out with us/ takes us to clubs. Okay, that last one has only happened once. I’m pretty sure that he is just paid to hang out with us and be a semi-close-to-our age mentor friend guy. His interactions with the students are interesting to say the least. This is another one that is a great story but maybe not for the public eye. VERY funny though, again I want to tell it.
There is a lizard on my wall. Oh my life.
Anyway, my relationship with Kwame is very similar to mine with most of my older male friends where it’s kind of like big brother/sidekick/help me with my life type of thing. By help me with my life I mean help me get to school, ha. I can’t say the same for everyone in the group….ominous pause.
Also funny story, Kwame was in the hospital with Kelly when I called him asking to help me figure out how to get to school and she asked him about the morning where I got lost afterwards, like if I was upset or not and apparently he said “No Becca doesn’t get upset she just talks fast.” Or something equal parts funny and true. A pretty good description of my life right now because when stressful things happen which is always I usually am just like huh, unfortunate, how am I gonna get out of this one. I think it’s helped by the fact that I feel VERY safe here. I’ve never felt threatened even though people pay one million times more attention to me than anyone ever would in America. The Ghanaians are just generally very nice and helpful and malicious intentions aren’t as big of a thing here as they are in other countries, or so I’m told. Even getting hit on isn’t actually that much of a problem if you know how to handle it. If you just ignore it or smile/wave instead of getting into conversations with people it isn’t really that stressful. A few people in the group have had issues with this – not with specific people but with getting used to just giving face and walking away instead of getting engaged in conversation. I find it startlingly easy, a sentiment shared by most of the girls in the group.
I am starting to bond more with the group I think. It’s still hard for me when we’re all together doing one thing (versus able to split into smaller groups) BUT I talked to a few other girls about this and we all feel the same way in this and other respects so that was very helpful, good to know I’m not the only one who has been having struggles. It still really bothers me when people are rude but I figure it will either dissipate when we get to the villages (we split up for that) or people will keep doing it and then I will get so frustrated that I will be unable to avoid calling them out on it. Either way it’ll work out.
Today we went to the zoo, which was a good day but the zoo was like maximum depressing. I’m not an ‘I hate zoos’ person at all, I love the zoo! But this one was just like not good old Henry Vilas Zoo. I mean obviously. But okay the zoo. So the animals were like the saddest things. There was this horse tied to a tree that I was excited to see…but it actually almost made me cry. It was BY FAR the most malnourished horse I’ve ever seen in real life (and I’ve seen a lot of skinny skinny horses) and the weird rope-ish-not really rope thing it was tied with was wrapped all around its feet and it probably has horrible thrush, BUT the worst part was it had this GIANT growth/sore thing coming off of one of its lips. Also really chafed withers which makes me think that this poor thing has probably been used for some type of pony ride which is simultaneously a horrifying and impossible thought since I’m pretty sure if I would have touched it it would have just fallen over and died. So that was the worst. The other animals weren’t as depressing. Some of them actually had very nice open style cages or enclosures with a lot of room, some of them had more room than at American zoos. They had squirrels in a cage which I obviously thought was funny because I mean it’s a squirrel that’s not exactly an exciting animal to a Midwesterner. Same with the geese. There were just bats flying around the sky in some places which was very interesting. The donkeys were far less depressed than the horse. There were peacocks just wandering about which was fun. Monkeys did tricks for bananas, the usual. It was definitely a good cultural experience even though I now kind of want to do my ISP on ‘saving the poor sad almost dead horse from the Kumasi zoo.’ Also I don’t know why I thought that a zoo in Africa wouldn’t be depressing. I’m about to say a totally white person travels to Africa thing, but I hope that when we go on our travel trip around the nature and north and stuff that we can see some wild animals in their actual habitat.
Now I am home. I feel bad when I don’t hang out with my host family but they are always just watching TV so I can do that with them sometimes but I figure its okay for me to have alone time since I’m with other people ALL THE LIVELONG DAY EVERY DAY. I’m definitely bonding with Andy far more than the rest of the family but I have had chats with all of them at one point or another. Small talk isn’t a big thing here like it is for Americans though so that is what it is. Sometimes I practice Twi with them but it’s hard to practice when I know nothing. It’s a good family though, I’m very happy at this homestay and we all get along well. I like having the older kids and the freedom to come and go as I please and sit and watch tv with them or just hang out in my room.
I have found that I’m generally very at peace here and am happy in a different way than I am at home. I’m not really happy based on the things I do but based on just having a general mindset of interest and relaxedness. It’s quite a skill to be content while doing things like going to the bathroom in the complete darkness or walking through a commercial area so crowded that at times it just STOPS like traffic, but I’m learning. I just like Africa. Since getting here I haven’t really disliked it but at first I just wasn’t attached, I was more like observing it all and just taking it in. Obviously I don’t like some of the things I have to do, but that’s very separate from my likeage of Ghana/Africa/the experience as a whole. And I just fucking love Fanice so much. I still spend 70% of my free thinking time thinking about food but Fanice helps soften the blow of no Taco Bell.
Never Ghana Give You Up 