Monday, January 28, 2013

Akwaba (Welcome) to Ghana Obroni (White man)!


After 30+ hours on a plane, and sleeping about 3 hours, meeting lots of new people, I stepped out of the plane and hello humidity, hello Ghana! 

The road to Asunafo!
We arrived in Abomosu the following day, a village, and I love it here!  We live “in the bush” as they say.  So if anyone ever offers you “bush meat”, you may want to think twice.  All the children shout “Obroni, Obroni” 24/7 because we are white and we say “Obebini” (Black man).  For the first couple of days, the noise at night was very different between the roosters, crickets, goats, birds, and who knows what else.  Nothing sleeps here as far as I can tell except maybe between 2am and 4am!  But now I can sleep no problem, especially after walking for 10 miles a day.  We are staying with the Abu’s, and only Stephen is here right now and Hannah and George cook for us.  They are the most charitable people, and our family. 

After about 1 week!
We have gotten the classes all set up and we taught last week even!  Our classes are about 1-1.5 hours away by walk and my Chaco lines are looking pretty good.  Sweat has taken on a whole new definition!  Except one time we took the “tro tro” (basically imagine a hippie bus jam packed with people cruising through a road with potholes everywhere…and me in the back seat of the 3 benches between 3 farmers) since Stephen was in and stopped even though I said "No ride, no ride" because I didn't know he was in there.  He got out and said, "Rachel, are you scared"?  When I saw him we said "Oh it is you!"  One village we are setting up the program for the first time so we met with the chiefs, elders, and all the people in the town hall last week.  I am pretty excited to teach them.  The only downside to the classes is Ghana time…2pm class to them means 3pm, 4pm, 5pm….but they are getting better. 

We are also teaching at the World Joy RC school to the kids.  I am teaching level four in the primary school, and after arriving I was told to teach so I asked for a book and 2 hours later…!  It was pretty good though because me and the teacher taught together so the kids could understand.  The teachers have a very good relationship with the interns though and so they came last week to invite us to the traditional wedding for the engagement of one of the teachers.  Next weekend we will travel with them to attend, I am excited! 

Visiting a school in one of the villages we teach business classes.  I will have to get a picture of the class we teach soon!
Yesterday we went to two funerals with Stephen.  When you come in you have to shake everyone’s hands, even if there is 100 people.  At one, we even danced!  Country swing.  They all went wild to say the LEAST and everyone dances because it is a celebration.  That was quite the experience, I had no idea what we were signing up for going to a funeral.  There are tons of funerals here as far as I can tell and everyone wears their black and red dresses so maybe we will get one of those. 

The church here is growing so fast and the members are very humble.  Usually half is in English so that makes it easier to understand.  The singing this week with the piano sounded much better than acapella last week, but some do not know English so we are just happy for them to sing!  We just help wherever they need each week for the most part, the primary kids are big fans of Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam even though we sing and they just jump and say BEAM!

So I am an African Woman!  Akosua is my name since I was born on Sunday, my hair is African (after 6 hours of braiding) and weighs about 10 pounds more, I drank my first coconut, drink oranges, eat plenty pineapple, Red Red, Fufu (even with our hands), dream the way they speak, and say Medasi (Thank you)! 
After 6 hours, apparently to finish they put some sort of wax or oil and then torch your hair!







Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Life of Laughter

Everyone has moments of humiliation, exposing weaknesses and  the funny and weird quirks.  After receiving a great Christmas present from my dear roommate Jacy, highlighting just a portion of these moments, I got thinking about my never ending list of humiliating moments...

1.  Missing the Halloween Party because I stole Bath and Body Works lotion and had to go pay for it...

2.  In 2nd grade I got playing "Concentration 64" with Jon Morey and we both got in trouble and I had to move my clip!  I almost broke down in tears and never moved a clip again.

3.  Throwing rocks at the neighbors house outside until the neighbor yelled at us, coming in looking guilty and our parents found out and we had to go apologize.  I don't know how I didn't wet my pants walking to the door.

4.  In 3rd grade I thought the two 5th grade boys coming out of the creek at recess were going to kidnap all the kids at recess because they scared me so much so I ran to the principals office and told them that some boys were coming to kidnap us.  It seemed heroic at the moment, but after being sent back to class and the Vice Principal coming to talk to me to see if I was alright I was completely embarrassed.  I never told anyone until just a few years ago!

5.  Also in 3rd grade getting in a food fight, throwing croutons at the lunch monitor...lucky for me the other guy got caught and I didn't have to tell my mom.

6.  In 5th grade I brought a lunch box with a special juice that day.  I didn't finish it but also left the cap undone so it leaked all over while we were playing.  When we brought the lunch crate in that day, my lunch box was full of ants and they went all over the classroom corner.  I volunteered to go clean it out and then my friend and I flooded the janitors closet in the hallway.  Nothing like opening the janiors closet to two 5th grade girls playing on the ladder and water and soap everywhere.

7.  In 6th grade because I did homework during the very important class movie Robin Hood I had to pass out papers for a couple of months.  MONTHS.

8.  Learning to drive and learning stick all at the same time...without a starter...in old blue.  Nothing like killing the truck at an intersection, getting out, pushing the truck until it fires up again, in the city!

9.  Singing in front of the class a song I made up for a presentation in English at about 2am.  "Just a spoonful of sugar" was the tune...But hey, I got an A I guess...
Also in the same English class, after putting together a video presentation, and presenting it, my teacher put her head down for a few minutes without clapping.  (Thats how bad it was I guess)

10.  First semester of college getting a paper back that usually would have one page of comments but instead says, "Dear Rachel, I think you can write a better paper than this.  Dr. Shapiro".

11.  Working at the bike shop the first few weeks was quite humiliating because I didn't know anything it seemed!

12.  Getting a concussion the week before I go to Africa on my sisters bunk bed after hitting a board and nail...really REALLY hard in the middle of the night.  Good news is because I didn't fall asleep and read the WSJ instead, apparently that helped!

This is just a portion of these moments, but it makes me laugh just looking back (except maybe the concussion...maybe when I recover...).  Afterall, "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter" -EE Cummings