Fingerpainting

When I try to think about how I can describe life here, its all a crazy jumbled mush mess of a million things. So I’ll model this blog entry after my state of mind.

People here are VERY religious. Many girls ask if I’m a Catholic, and when I say no, they get this look on their face that makes me feel like I just insulted their mother. People also don’t see closed doors as an indication that you want to be left alone – if your door’s unlocked they’ll just walk in. Which can lead to interesting situations, especially on Sunday mornings. Coming back from the bathroom I found three Ghanaian girls just standing in my room who asked me if they could tell me about Jesus. Which really wasn’t a question at all, and they proceeded to preach to Kelly and me for about 15 minutes, and my hot chocolate got cold. We lock our door now. From time to time a guy with a megaphone preaches outside our window. The first time I heard him it was about 10:30 pm. Kelly and I heard the sound of a siren and went out to the balcony, thinking there was some sort of emergency. But no, it was the preacher, and the wailing of the siren was followed up by “Jesus our savior…” Maybe the siren’s the new church bell.

Kids are not coddled. African babies hang out bundled straddling their mother’s backs with their little fuzzy heads flopping around. I always want to grab their feet – when you see a mother from the front, all you can see of their baby is their little pudgy feet sticking out around their mother’s waist. I’ve yet to see an African baby cry. Children get slapped around, and at a festival, there were men with whips keeping the crowd back. This isn’t seen as abusive, but as a game – the kids played chicken with the guy with the whip. Good fun? They make them tougher here. Kelly was walking with a 5 year old girl once, and the girl stepped on a rusty nail sticking out of a board. It went through her sandal and into her foot, and the girl simply stopped, pulled it out, said nothing, and kept going. Like I said, they make them tough.

9:30 am class is late. I joined the cross-country team for my Hall (like intermural sports at home) and they practice at 4:30 am. (Go Volta girls! Our motto is “Ladies with Vision and Style”, which I feel is outstanding, as mottos go). I’ve mostly been doing training on my own. I do late runs at 7 am. And napping.

Eating is an adventure. I’m pretty sure my friend was served soup containing sheep testicles. There’s essentially no cheese in the country. Last night I dreamed about cheesy rice. My friend bought $30 worth of American cheese to make grilled cheese sandwiches for her birthday and it was the event of the month. The Ghanaian girls were not fans. I felt pretty Ghanaian in that eating cheese made me feel funky – I think my body’s starting to adapt to my diet of beans and rice and PALM OIL. Palm oil is in most everything. It’s added to beans and cassava to make gari, it seems to be the base of all soups and stews, its used to make palava sauce with yams. People pretty much drink the stuff. Actually, on a hike once our guide told us to chew the palm nuts to taste the oil. Yum? I’m pretty sure my insides are now permanently orange and oily. Fufu, Banku and Kenkey (various forms of a doughy like dishes dipped in soup and eaten with your fingers) are wonderfully delicious once you get used to them. Eating raw dough + using your fingers = fulfillment of childhood dream. Ever since I arrived, I’ve been on a (futile) quest for milk. I first tired soymilk. Not only was it freakishly sweet, I looked at the ingredients and realized that it contained vegetable oil (palm oil?). The idea alone was just too much. So I figured I’d give powdered milk a try. Just something to add to my tea. Again, I made the mistake of reading the nutrition facts. Never again will I complain about 1% versus non-fat. Because this stuff is 30%. “Nonfat?” “No thanks, I do 30% now. Really, lard will probably do”. What’s good for starving children has got to be good for me too. The directions on the back instruct you to boil the water to kill the bacteria before you add the powder. Which gives me the feeling that I’m not the target market.

So that’s what I’ve got to say about 6 weeks in. I did some finger painting the other night, and made an amazing painting that looks like the work of a kindergartener. I call it “6 weeks in” because it represents how I feel 6 weeks in. Like an explosion of everything all colorful and crazy.

Really, I'm still alive

Hello all!

So I've finally got my act together - I'll be posting as often as possible on this blog.

So I've been here three weeks today, but it feels like its been so much longer. These last few weeks have been so amazing and overwhelming and busy and exciting. We had an extensive orientation - there's about 60 of us Americans, mostly from the UC's. About five Ghanaian students basically showed us around the area for the first two weeks. It was a great opportunity to get used to life here, and get shown around by Ghanaians. Our orientation leaders are all very sweet, and most of them will be living in the dorms with us this year so I've already got some connections. This last week has been devoted to registration for classes. Registration is truly an adventure here. Instead of registering online, you have to go to each department, and sign up in person. The really fun part is the the classes offered rarely match up with the classes in the course book - but really I've just learned to go with it all. It's new and it's different, but that's why I'm here, right?

So I'm living in the the Volta dorm with Kelly (my suitemate from last year!). The American students are all rooming with one another, but there are also Ghanaian students living in the dorms. Not all of them have moved in yet, so I really haven't met that many Ghanaians in my dorm (besides my friends from orientation). I'm ready for classes to start on Monday, and for everyone to move in. Dorm life is a bit different here - the power and electricity are intermittent. Sometimes we have to take bucket showers or work by candlelight. There are no meal plans here, and the food that you can buy around campus is pretty exclusively Ghanaian. Ghanaian food is lot of rice and beans with spicy sauces. Now that I'm finally used to the food, I'm loving it. I think fried plantanes are my new favorite food. It's also easy to get fresh fruit at the markets. For some reason there's also a fair amount of Chinese food, but I find that when Ghanaians cook it, it all ends up being pretty much the same. The best part is the prices - usually a meal costs about a dollar, and if that's too much for your budget it's not to hard to find something for less.

I've been trying to squeeze as much as possible into these last few weeks - between the end of orientation and registration, me and 7 of my American friends went off for a weekend trip. I felt very independent figuring out the bus and trotro (taxi van) system, and basically just following my nose. We stayed at an awesome hotel that had a restaurnt on stilts above a crocodile pond, so we could watch the crocs cruising around while we ate! We also visited Kakum national park and did a canopy walk, which was one of the most beautiful experiences. The next night we found ourselves in a small village with no running water or electricity. It felt like a completely surreal experience and I couldn't believe that I was truly there. Our presence was the event of the month - we were constantly surrounded by kids yelling "obruni" (which means white person/traveller), and we were introduced to the chief of the village and the elders, which was a huge honor. This village's attraction was a rock shrine, which we took a tour of. We even got to climb up to the top of it... using jungle vines!! It was truly and unbelievable weekend.

Hope you all are well and enjoying your summer! I think I'm starting to figure out my schedule, and what computer labs to use, so I'll try to stay in contact on a more regular basis. I miss you all!