January 29, 2010
Yesterday I woke up to the smell of rice cooking by my roommate, so I ate rice in bed with chicken and sauce! Here, if they make food and want you to join them, they will say “You're welcome” or “You're invited.” At first, I was confused as to what I was welcome to, but it's just another phrase here that they use. Also, when they are asking you what you will eat, they say “What will you take?”. I really like finding out all of these phrases, and Ghanaians like to hear how we say it differently. I went to a “school” to volunteer after that. We had to take a tro tro, but it was only about 10 minutes to Kissima, a small, poor village. All of the children there cannot afford to go to school, so a man name Kwame in their community started to teach them. An international student, Renee from the US is now the head leader of this since she was studying here last semester too. She helps to teach the children and recruits other volunteers to help her, so I went to help. It was very fun, but very hectic. We teach them on someone's front porch. The children are all ages, and they are at many different levels. We taught them songs, and letters, but many children already knew the alphabet.
We eventually split off into different age groups, so I took the younger ones to read stories to them. One of the children liked the word “monkey” (she was probably hearing it for the first time), so on every page of a Curious George book, she pointed out every monkey. It was really cute. When we were catching the tro tro back, one of the members of the community bought us water sachets, so, though I am still not used to drinking out of water from a little plastic sack, I had to drink some of it in front of them. When we came here, they told us to take them little by little so our body can adjust to them. When we were waiting to take a tro tro back, Ghana was playing a football game (soccer) and they scored a goal. So, every car on the road listening to the game started honking their horns. Even though I had already experienced this, it was still really cool to see it again!
I went to twi class after that, and then all of us got picked up by a bus to go to a really nice restaurant for our program dinner. In Ghana, no bathrooms have toilet paper in them, (you carry your own around) so seeing as how this restaurant did have it, it was really nice. There was a jazz singer there, so we ended up dancing and singing after we had our dinner. When we came back from that, some of us decided to go to a club for more dancing, so we all hurriedly got dressed up. Heather, Judith, Taylor, Bitty, Libby, and I all fit into one cab (he had to pay the front guards 1cidi to let him pass since we were fitting 7 people in a 5 person vehicle). When we tried entering the club, the bouncer did not let us through because I was wearing “slippers” or sparkly flip flops. (I have no heals here!) He wouldn't change his mind when we tried to pay him off, so we walked away to wait for some of our other friends that were coming later to bring me shoes with heels or at least a back on them. When a man saw this, he asked what was wrong, and when we told him, he said he would “take care of it.” So, we went with him, and he told the bouncer “it's me” and he let us in with him, but then we had to go through more security. The manager of the club came to us to turn us away, but the guy we were with told him that he “had the stuff in his trunk.” so he better let us in, or else he wasn't getting any! So, we basically got into a club by a drug dealer. However, when we got in, there was no one there, so we started dancing by ourselves. Then when people started coming, no one was dancing, so eventually we were the “entertainment” of the club. This led to us dancing around crazily, while over 50 people sat around, not having fun, and wondering what drug we were on. It was crazy to be in such extreme poverty in the morning, and then within the richest that night.
Today I went to my dance class, and then was asked to go to the US embassy with a Ghanaian student to submit a form to try to get someone to come and speak to the campus. He thought it would be better if some students from America came with him, so Paula and Judith went with me. Unfortunately the man to speak to was not there, but I did get to buy a wood carving out of the cab's window. People sell things like carvings, food, water sachets, super glue/anything imaginable to people traveling in cars every day. It is cool to see them with things on their heads, and then running to the tro tros with them, not dropping anything. The tro tros/cabs won't stop when they are transferring the items/money, so sometimes they have to run really fast to catch up to traffic. When we got back, I hung out with Taylor and her Ghanaian friend Max, along with some other people with our program, and we talked about the differences in marriage. I used a water boiler to boil water for it to be safe to drink, and then put it in empty water bottles for a couple days worth of water. It is definitely a lot cheaper than buying bottled water! My roommate, Doreen went home and brought me back a mango, but I have to wait for it to be ripened.
We got to go down into the basement and saw where the slaves were kept during the slave trade. It was really hot down there, and that was after they had cut holes in the stone to see better and for more air for tours.
