A Day in the Life

It's time to for a special Christmas blogebration! Yayyyy!

A little background--my parents are always telling me that they like to visualize what I’m doing. And this doesn’t just apply to travelling. When I was in college my Dad would copy down my class schedule so he could visualize what class I was in at any given time. (Hey Dad..loooove you!) SO. To help them get a better sense of what my days here are like, I’ve compiled a series of short video clips taken at different points throughout my day!

I couldn't get the videos to upload directly to blogger, so I embedded links that will take you to the videos on youtube.

Disclaimer: Now before you watch these, I need to apologize for the awkward narration, and the random outbursts of song. I will not be offended if you watch these on mute...well…actually…I’ll never know the difference, will I? Do whatchoo gotta do.

ACTION:

Part 1-The Homestead

The first stop on our journey is a quick tour of my apartment, situated in a neighborhood called South Labadi. I’ve lived here for over a month now, but don’t judge me (mairo!) for its emptiness. I have made ZERO effort to decorate it, or make it homey. The reason for this is not entirely that I’m stingy and lazy, but because I am going to be moving in the next month or so to a different part of town. Well, I was actually supposed to move last week, but it’s been delayed, so who knows if I’ll actually move...maybe I should just suck it up and decorate, but I digress.

Back to the point. In Accra, you are supposed to pay rent for the entire amount of time you will be renting in full the day you move in (which I think is so so silly), but since I might be moving and don’t know how long I’m going to be here, they’re letting me pay monthly. The apartment is owned by the Aunt of one of my coworkers, so they have been especially tolerant of my noncommittal ways. Water and electricity are a little spotty, but all in all, it’s a decent place to live!

To watch part one CLICK HERE





Part 2-The Crossroads

The second video is taken on the main road that runs East-West up the coast of Accra, called Labadi Road. This is where I walk to pick up a tro-tro on the way to work, and where the tro-tro drops me off on the way home.

To watch part two CLICK HERE





Part 3-The Commute

Step three in my day takes place on the tro-tro to work! Now, not all tro-tros take the same route, so I usually have to wait a little for the one I need (which goes to Teshie-Nunguo, an area East of downtown Accra). Now this video is not the greatest quality, so sorry about that. It’s another example of me pretending I’m on the phone, while I’m actually taking a video.

To watch part three CLICK HERE





Part 4-The Junction

The fourth leg of this journey brings us to First Junction, which is the intersection in Teshie where I get off the tro-tro and switch to a flat-rate taxi that takes me to the office. It is a pretty commercial area—lots of little businesses, a huge filling station, and people selling things on the street. It’s also a major transit area where you can get a car/taxi to pretty much anywhere in Accra. There’s a great shot of my shoes in the beginning…I’m a fantastic cinematographer.

To watch part four CLICK HERE





Part 5-The Return

Fifth in this delightful journey, after fast forwarding through the work day, is taken from the tro-tro on the way home. The front seat of the tro-tro, which is the vantage point of this video, is coveted by most passengers because it provides a little extra room that is not afforded elsewhere in the tro-tro. A lot of time, as a white-girl, the tro-tro stewards, or mates as they’re called, like to have me sit in the front. This is nice in theory, but I also have visions of myself flying through the windshield, because as you can see in the video, the tro-tros stop and go pretty quickly..and there ain’t no seatbelts (yes, Nathan, I punch myself in the arm).

In this video, you can also here the mate yelling “Accra, Labadi,” which is telling people in the street where the tro-tro is heading. You can also see, when the tro-tro starts to stop, a couple of girls with containers of water on their heads approach the car. Whenever a car stops, especially outside of the city, it is bombarded with people selling things. These girls are way more passive than most.

To watch part five CLICK HERE





Part 6-The Bottleneck

This rather mundane video (of me...crossing the street…?) is just showing how ridiculous traffic can be in Accra. It’s taken at the stop where I get off the tro-tro from work.

To watch part six CLICK HERE





Part 7- The Hood

The seventh tier of our journey brings us back to my neighborhood, South La. You can see a bunch of little stores and things where I can get basics that I might need throughout the week. Larger grocery runs are made at the market. But the market is a whole different ballgame. Anyway, it’s a nice, fairly quiet neighborhood, right by the beach.

To watch part seven CLICK HERE





Part 8- Three Heel Clicks Later

The final leg of the trip was taken on the street where my apartment is located. The first shot you see is of a church, and I’m NOT going to go into detail about this church because that will turn into a ten page rant, but you can hear a guy start to yell at me in the background, trying to get me to come back and talk to him, which I have done before and regretted. The short version of this story is the people who run this church are convinced that it’s their mission to save my soul and bring me back to Jesus. (Yet after professing this, the dude asked me out…I’ll tell THAT whole story at a different time.)

To watch part eight CLICK HERE


And this is where our journey ends. Back at my apartment. Roll credits.

Monkey Business

Not to build suspense, or raise expectations, but this might be the coolest thing I’ve done so far.

It started with another business trip to the Volta region. Two of my colleagues and I were going to conduct a monitoring visit with the eight new peer educators we had hired back at the beginning of November. We left Accra on Thursday, and were planning on staying in Ho (capital of the Volta region) for two days. After the review meeting, we traveled to each of the eight project sites, to see where each of the peer educators works and to get a better understanding of the Volta region in general, since it is a new project site for us. And because, believe it or not, it was our accountant’s first time there!

Now, one of our peer educators works in Hohoe (pronounced, Ho-hoy), which is about two hours North from Ho, on the other side of the mountain. So, rather than travelling two hours there, and two hours back, we decided, (with a bit of pushing on my part), to stay the second night in Hohoe. My reasoning, if you remember from the last post about Volta, was that the monkey sanctuary is near Hohoe. And we were going to be there on a Friday :)

Hohoe, as a town, is much smaller than Ho, and as it is further North, the climate is much drier and dustier than Accra. Pretty reminiscent of the red dust in Niger that always manages to get on everything. So after finishing up our work in Hohoe, my coworkers and I went to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary! The sanctuary is about 30 mins away from Hohoe, pretty far into the bush. One of my coworkers knew some people in Hohoe, so we had a car to take us out there.

The sanctuary itself is in a teeny little village, in the middle of the jungle/forest/large grouping of trees and other vegetation…I’m not sure what the proper term is. I’m going to call it jungle. It sounds cooler. But anyway, you basically just grab a guide and a bunch of bananas and walk straight into the jungle. After about 10 minutes of walking, our guide started making loud kissing noises. And then. Just like in Jurassic Park, you hear a distant rustling of leaves that gets closer and closer and closer, encircling you, until (!), you are surrounded by monkeys!

This particular species of monkey is called the Mona monkey. According to our guide, the Mona monkeys live in groups of about 30-40, and there are at least three distinct herds/gangs/flocks/tribes (again, I don’t know what the correct word is…) that live in this particular jungle, each with its own male leader. The guide also told us that the monkeys are not afraid or shy, but they know when people don’t have any bananas, and won’t approach unless you do. (Or maybe they would if you had a big yellow hat).Bananas don’t grow in this particular part of the jungle, only plantains do, which is why they are such a treat. Usually, the Mona monkeys just eat berries, insects, and nuts. But fortunately, we had our banana offering for the monkey chief.

And now, brief tangent for my brother, who insists that I bring him a monkey as a souvenir:

In Southern Ghana, there are a lot of palm tree that produce a sticky white sap, that when fermented in the hot African sun, becomes a fairly alcoholic drink called palm wine. Now, palm wine to me is pretty nasty, its a little sour and a little pungent, but, because it's natural and comes from trees found in the monkey sanctuary jungle, I'm thinking a monkey would drink it. This was confirmed by my guide, who afterwards, watched me rather suspiciously.

But anyway, I'm thinking, silly brother of mine, that if you come visit me, we can go to the monkey sanctuary, get one of the monkeys drunk off of palm wine, and then sneak it back to my apartment. THEN we can train it sit on your back and look like one of those stupid animal backpacks that people seem to be wearing these days, so you can take it on the plane. Or we can just tranquilize it and stuff it in your suitcase. Either way, you can take it back to your apartment to be BFF with Bowser. Sound like a plan?

Ok. Tangent over.

To feed the monkeys, you are supposed to hold the banana firmly at the base, and then the monkey, or monkeys, peel the banana, and grab little fistfuls until the banana is gone. If you don’t hold the banana firmly enough, the monkey will take it from you and run away, to keep from having to share with any of his monkey friends.

After about 10 minutes, there were at least twenty monkeys surrounding us. Which meant you couldn’t keep an eye on all of them at once. Which lead to the following progression of pictures:

First, this little guy jumped on me from behind when I wasn’t looking. In the picture, I think I look scared, but really I was just surprised.

Second, the monkey crawled onto my shoulder and began eating the banana that I was holding.

And then, my vision was obscured by monkey fur. At one point, I had three monkeys on my shoulders, playfully squabbling over the banana. Now that’s what I call have a monkey on your back (ba dum chshhhhhh).

We only had one bunch of bananas, which is about 8, so after we ran out, the monkeys got bored and moved on. My coworkers, the guide, and I continued to walk through the jungle for a little while. In addition to monkey business, it turns out the guide also knew a lot about the different types of trees and stuff. He also kept telling us to look out for snakes, which made me nervous, but thankfully we didn’t come across any. (Ghana has a lot of scary snakes, including the black mamba, the largest venomous snake in Africa!)

After goofing around in the jungle for a while, we got back to the village, only to discover that our car engine had died. There’s not even a doctor in that village, let alone a mechanic. Our poor driver popped the hood and did his best to make the car run, but since it was getting late in the afternoon, and we figured it would be much trickier to get back to Hohoe in the dark, we decided to abandon the car for the time being.

Now this village, like I said, is very small and sort of out of the way, which means that there are no taxis, or trotros, at least not regularly. So, we had to hire three guys with motorcycles to transport us the 6km back to the nearest town, Logbe. It was a bumpy, dusty journey, but fun nonetheless. From Logbe, we were able to catch a trotro back to Hohoe.

And the sun set on another awesome day in Ghana. (a cheesy ending for a fruity story..who doesn't love corny wordplay?)

Happy Monday!

Clearly, we're all hard at work here...

Quick Updates

Since it’s been a little while, I thought I would give some updates on what I’ve been doing for the past three weeks...which is mainly just working. But I have been doing a few other things as well...

Updates:

1.Work stuff (Feel free to skip) -- My company just submitted a grant proposal to USAID that would give us about $400,000 over two years, to scale up programming in Ghana. And since I’m currently the only one on the ground here, a lot of the legwork fell to me. Right now, we are only partnered with one Ghanaian CBO (Community Based Organization) but we are trying to expand to work with five new ones. SO I’ve been running around meeting with potential local partners, and helping to write out the 40 page proposal. But we finished (yay!), and turned it in on Dec 1. Just in time for World AIDS Day! (more on that below).

2. My apartment – I’m still in the same place for now, but I’ve been told that I’m now going to be moving in Dec. But we’ll see. Other updates: There was something wrong with my water tank for a while, so I just recently got running water again. I’ve also recently developed an increased problem with roaches. It’s starting to feel like that scene in Men in Black (squish ..“Oops, was that your Auntie? Then that means, this must be your Uncle”.. .squish “You know all of y’all look alike to me.”) which would explain why I keep having nightmares about mammoth alien insects. I will say, though, that whoever said it’s hard to kill a cockroach clearly didn’t try just chopping the damn thing in half with a butcher’s knife (hassann-chop!). Or maybe they just didn’t have my ninja speed…

3. Exploration! -- Because Accra is such a huge city, I started by exploring the “bubble” around my apartment, and since then have slowly been increasing the radius of this “bubble” each week. This week’s “bubble” happened to extend to Independence Square, and the National Museum.

Independence Square is pretty self-explanatory. Constructed under Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah, it commemorates the independence of Ghana, March 6, 1957 (the first country in Sub Saharan Africa to achieve independence!) The square is right by the ocean, and is used for gatherings/demonstrations/parades on many different holidays. You can see in the picture that there are a bunch of tents and things being taken down—the tents were put up for Tabaski, so that Muslims could gather and pray without being liquefied by the hot African sun.

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The National Museum was constructed in 1960, and is mostly ethnographic exhibits of different cultural traditions in Ghana. It’s a little bit small and at the time, my friend and constituted half of the people there, but overall it was a pretty interesting visit. Some of the highlights—

Snake charmers hold the snakes between their teeth in a contest to show who has more spiritual power and superiority. (This will probably be the subject of my next series of nightmares.)

These papier-mâché mannequins are showing a traditional dance of the Ewe people. The point of the dance is literally to look as ridiculous as possible. Also please notice the posterior on that woman. You could use that thing as a shelf. Or maybe even an umbrella.

They had a really cool exhibit on the evolution of African music, where you could listen to clips of everything from traditional chants to modern hip-hop. I think I’m jamming to some sweet Jazz in this picture…

This is a necklace made entirely out of human teeth. I don’t know what the reasoning behind it was, but you have to admit it’s pretty badass. Anyone want to venture a guess as to how many mouths it took to make this?

4. World AIDS Day – In celebration of World AIDS Day, my company organized a night of interactive theater for some of the communities that we work it. The theater performance was called “HIV Demystified,” and that’s about all I understood, because the whole thing was performed in Ga. I asked my coworker sitting next me, “What’s happening?” His answer, “It’s about HIV.” Great, that’s so helpful. Because HIV ISN’T in the title. (sidenote: It was actually about myths and stigma, but I didn't learn that until later).

Apparently it was funny, because everyone was laughing, but I had no idea what was going on. Which made it all the more awesome when they pulled me on stage (and let’s face it, as soon as I said interactive, you knew this was coming). But the fact that I had no clue what was going on only made the show all the more entertaining for the rest of the audience. Yelling at me in Ga is everyone’s favorite pastime around the office, as I think I mentioned in an earlier post.

Anyway, after the show, there was food and drinks, loud music and mingling. It was a fun evening. As the event was coming to a close, I happened to turn around and notice that a bunch of neighborhood kids had gathered behind us and were dancing to the music. It was pretty hilarious. The video is dark, but you get the idea. The entire event turned into one big dance party at the end anyway. No, I’m not joking. I have picture proof. Gotta love Africa!

Apologies

I sincerely apologize for the recent lack of updates. I had an entire entry mapped out, showing video clips from daily life here. However, I severely underestimated how long it would take to upload eight different videos. (Stupid internet ruins everything..grumble grumble.) So stay tuned for that full entry at some point in the future.

Here is the only video I have managed to upload so far. Which was supposed to be last in the mini-series. Le sigh..0h wellll. If nothing else, living in a developing country teaches you how to be flexible.

But I hope everyone had a marvelous Thanksgiving!

Opulent Obsequy

Alright, I need to tell a story real quick. And I apologize in advance that there are no pictures to accompany this story, but this was one of those Africa-spur-of-the-moment situations, when I ended up kicking myself for not having my camera...much like the race track incident with my host father in Niger.

I was hanging out with one of my coworkers; we might have been watching the Miss World pageant, I don’t wanna talk about it. But his friend called to invite him to a “function,” and my coworker kindly invited me to go with him. So we hopped in a tro-tro and headed to Jamestown, one of the oldest districts in Accra, right on the coast, southwest from city center.

When we got there, ohhh let me tell you, it was absolute chaos. Everywhere. Live bands, huge speakers, tables and chairs in the middle of the road, portable canopies, street vendors, and more people than I thought could fit on a street corner. It was like a block party on steroids. Only it wasn’t a block party.

It was a funeral. A funeral for the brother of my coworker’s friend. My jaw definitely dropped when my he told me that. Apparently funerals are a huge social event, with tons of celebrating, dancing, food, and lots of drinking.

Note: the whole dancing in the streets thing is not exactly a Ghanaian tradition—it’s more of an Accra thing. Funerals in Ghana are very festive and lively, but in Accra it’s much, much more exaggerated.

And it’s not just one at a time, either. We walked through at least 4 different funerals going on that night. How do you tell them apart, you ask? They’re color coded. The family of the deceased decides on a color that people attending the funeral are supposed to wear to show which funeral they are at. The family of the deceased, on the other hand, wears black or white, depending on the natural of the death. The family wears white if the person who died lived a long happy life, or if they were suffering and death was relief for them. And like most other countries, if the person died too young or unexpectedly, the family wears black.

I happened to be at the “orange funeral”—I however, had no idea where I was going, and wasn’t dressed for a funeral in any country. (Ratty jeans and a tank top. Great. Thanks for the heads up, guys.) It really wasn’t a big deal though. The color-thing isn’t universally followed or anything. And it’s perfectly acceptable to bring friends; although I am convinced there were some funeral crashers there. Not in the style of Will Ferrell, but just enjoying the music and food. And booze.

The nice thing too, is that you don’t have to be wealthy to throw a funeral like this. My coworker told me that even if the family of the deceased doesn’t have money, everyone in the community pitches in to help throw the funeral celebration, which you can really see. People were all so friendly, just passing out drinks and plates of food, mostly in stick form. Like sausage on a stick, goat on a stick, fried gizzard on a stick, you know, the usual. It also led me to discover my new favorite Ghanaian dish, called Kelewele. It’s pretty simple, just plantains sautéed with ginger, but its soooooooooo yummy. And it too, can be eaten on a stick. Convenience.

After walking around for a while, so I could see everything going on, my friend and I sat down to enjoy the festivities. I ended up sitting at a table with a group of women, who ignored me at first, but ended up spending the rest of the night trying to get me drunk. And nearly succeeding. Fortunately I had five months of training in Europe to back me up. Well that, and Ghanaian beer is pretty weak.

But we drank, and talked, and danced for hours. Needless to say I think this is going down as my favorite night in Ghana thus far. Hmm. My favorite night in Ghana so far, was a funeral. Weird.

In other news I got bit on the shoulder by an 8 month old baby at the beach. Man those things are dangerous.

'Round to Volta and home again, that's the traveler's way!

I just got back from my first official business trip! I’m feeling strangely adult.

Two of my coworkers and I travelled to Ho, the capital of the Volta region of Ghana, about two hours Northeast of Accra. Well, two hours going there on a Sunday..five hours coming from there on a Thursday.

Damn traffic!

Because our program doesn’t have a car, we had to rely on public transportation to get us to and from Ho. And a little side note about travelling-- no one books tickets in advance, and the buses don't leave until they're full, which means its impossible to know when you're going to arrive (because you never know when the bus will leave), and travelling is alllllways crowded. But, hakuna matata...

But, the bus we took there was pretty nice—air-conditioned, and what not. But it also played a Ghanaian movie for everyone to watch on the way up. The movie was basically an extended soap opera episode, so delightfully dramatic that I think it deserves a short synopsis review:

The movie centered around three main characters: Shawn, Cheetah (yeah, her name was Cheetah!), and Naomi. In the beginning, Shawn and Naomi are happily dating, living together in Accra. Enter Cheetah--a long lost “friend” from Shawn’s past! Cheetah is hoping to move to Accra, but has no place to stay, so Naomi offers her the guest room in their house until Cheetah can find a place to live. BUT, low and behold, Shawn and Cheetah used to be lovers (gasp!) and Cheetah is still in love with Shawn! (Double gasp!).

The next half hour of the movie details Cheetah slowly seducing Shawn, while Naomi has no idea. Shawn resists her advances at first, but eventually breaks down and sleeps with Cheetah—the scoundrel! Afterwards, Shawn asks Cheetah to leave, but she swears she’ll tell Naomi not only about their affair, but also…wait for it…that Shawn was once imprisoned for murder (!), a secret from his past that he neglected to share with Naomi. (Ok, this is tuning out less entertaining than I had previously intended, so I’ll fast forward to the end. There is a point to this, I promise!)

Naomi finds out about the affair, slaps Cheetah around a little (giiiiiiiiirl fight!), and kicks Cheetah out of the house! There’s a great line during this fight, where Cheetah tells Naomi that “the dog will find its way back to its master no matter how far away he moves!” Fast-forward some more- Cheetah gets stabbed by an unidentified man who had broken into her hotel room while she is taking a bath. Dun dun dunnnn! Shawn suspects Naomi had something to do with it. But, Cheetah survives, and comes back to the house to confront everyone.

In one final gripping scene, Shawn, Naomi and Cheetah are all standing in the house. The girls are telling Shawn her has to choose once and for all who he wants to be with. Feel the tension! Just before Shawn is about to make his choice, the man who stabbed Cheetah comes bursting through the door…AND is revealed to be Shawn’s other ex-lover. (Whaaaaaaaaaat?! Who saw that coming?!) Shawn chooses his male lover, and the movie ends. Rolls credits…which literally only had the four previously mentioned characters in it…

Anyway, this movie was not only mildly entertaining and ridiculous, but also very interesting because homosexuality is technically illegal in Ghana. But here they are making a movie when the male lead ends up with his male lover without consequence. Interestingly applicable, because my company’s project targets homosexuals and promotes partner fidelity as part of their message…

Ok, movie tangent over.

The trip to Volta was very successful, and gave me the chance to get to know two of my coworkers better. The trip also introduced me to two new traditional dishes. The first was Wacce (pictured)—which is essentially rice and beans, but is served with spaghetti, spicy stew, and egg.

The second is called FuFu—which is Banku and meat (usually goat, or tilapia) served in a light, spicy soup. Banku, if you remember, is pounded corn and cassava made into a doughy ball.

It also led to a funny discussion of Little Bunny FooFoo, which I ended up teaching to my coworkers, hand motions and all J

Hmm…I’m not sure if Little Bunny FooFoo is universal… just in case it’s not—Little Bunny FooFoo is a children’s song involving Bunny FooFo, some field mice, and a fairy who, at the end of the song, turns bunny FooFoo into a GOON! If still confused, please contact my mother. I'm sure she'd be more than willing to sing it for you.

Anyway, as a city, Ho is much much much smaller than Accra. It’s situated in a little valley not too far from the Volta River. It’s very green and very hilly, and it rained a lot.

The Volta region also has the reputation for being more traditional and grounded in their culture. Whereas Accra is a big mixture of different people (different being several ethnic groups from within Ghana as well as people from other parts of Africa), Ho is inhabited predominantly by the Ewe people. Pronounced Eh-way, not like a female sheep.

And while most people do speak English, they prefer to speak Ewe, which was particularly great for me, because neither of my coworkers speak Ewe. Hmm I should probably give background to this comment—everyone in my office speaks Ga (another local language), and they speak it allllllllllllllllllll the time! I have to remind them to speak English. While I am learning Ga slowly, I still have no idea what they’re saying 99.9% of the time…so my coworkers not being able to speak the local language in Ho, and feeling frustrated because of it, was justice for me! (No, I’m not spiteful.)

As further background--My coworker and I have developed a very joking relationship, so they were not at all offended by me taking delight in their inability to understand people in Ho. They thought it was funny too, so no worries!

Although I was there for four days, I was trapped in the conference room of our hotel for most of the trip, so I didn’t really get to do much in Ho, which is a bummer. I’ll have to go back to do touristy stuff later. (DAVID, THEY HAVE A MONKEY SANCTUARY!)

One cool thing we did go see was a community center, called Village Exchange Ghana (VEG), started for teenage mothers, but now encompasses all types of youth. (My company just started a community center in Accra, so we were going to see how other centers operate.)

In their own words, “VEG operates at the intersection of health care, education, and economic opportunity to address multiple facets of poverty and provide meaningful support for the empowerment of women in rural Ghana.” That’s a mouthful.

But they have a really great center set up, with an afterschool program, a microfinance project, and they even have their own craft business, called Lady Volta, that makes bags, jewelry, pottery, and clothing, available online! Woooo go look! And for my IR friends, yes, they do take volunteers, but you have to get here yourself.

The trip back was pretty uneventful—but I can give a synopsis of THAT movie too for anyone interested! (j/k). It was equally as ridiculous as the first movie, but not as applicable.

I tried to take a video of crossing over the Volta River..it's a little wobbly, sorry. I'm still perfecting the, "don't mind me I'm just talking on my iphone, but I'm actually taking a video/picture" move. I'll master it soon.

Wow, this post is long. Sorry if it’s tedious. Is this stuff even interesting? If someone wants to ask a question or tell me what to write about, that would be much appreciated, otherwise I’m just going to ramble...I still don’t really know what I’m doing with this blog.

But it’s a three day weekend here. Yayyyyy Tabaski! Barka da Sallah! And this time, I won’t have to watch my host father slaughter sheep!

Labadi Beach

I can already see that I’m going to fall behind on posts...it is inevitable, (Mr.Anderson), but in an effort to put that off as long as possible, I wanted to make a quick post about my weekend. And. The BEACH!

Apparently Labadi Beach is the place to be on a Sunday afternoon, after five hours of church of course. So, when in Rome; I went to the beach this past Sunday! (But not church). I was meeting some friends of mine there, but I arrived early, so I was on my own for the first hour while I waited. This, of course, led to a couple funny situations.

First, I was swarmed by a group of girls from Nigeria, who all insisted on taking individual pictures with me. Why, you ask? That was my first question, but I still haven’t the faintest idea. (Nick/Jake-Am I finally getting recognized from my VinoDivino Ads?!). I was not, by any means, the only Obrueni on the beach. But, “Because we want to,” is the only answer I received. Anyway, after taking about a dozen pictures, they dragged me halfway across the beach to try and find seats, but the beach was packed! After a little while of searching, I excused myself to go wait for my friends up by the entrance. I was worried we would have trouble spotting each other.

On my way back, I was swarmed this time by a group of horseman. No, that’s not a typo. There were about six or seven young guys on horseback, riding up and down the beach, giving rides to people who paid 5 Ghanaian Cedi. The horses are pretty small, and the beach was very crowded, so I must have missed them in the beginning. Anyway, horses vs. having my picture taken? Anyone who’s met me knows there’s no contest…the horses were a much more welcomed distraction while I waited for my friends.

While they were mostly interested in trying to get me to ride, I did find out that the horses are imported from Sudan, and kept at a barn not too far from the beach. The horses are also drugged pretty heavily, to make sure that they are “safe” for tourists. (The animal lover in me cringed, but what can you do?) The riders got bored of my questions eventually, especially when they realized I wasn't interested in riding, and decided to race each other up and down the beach, in and around people walking to and from the water. Barrel-racing with people, I guess.

Still waiting for my friends, I started to feel a little awkward, as everyone in the vicinity was staring at me, standing on my own. So I ended up walking over to the girl selling water, and sat with her for a while. This might seem a little odd-- but from my experiences in Africa, strangers are viewed as friends you just haven’t met yet, and the girl selling water, whose name was Yauada (sp?), seemed happy to have some company. People kept asking her if she was only selling water, or selling “the Obrueni,” too. She finally answered that if you buy enough water, you get the Obrueni for free! I had a lot of fun talking to her.

But my friends finally showed up! Both of them are friends of mine from my semester in Niger. One is living in Accra now, the other was just visiting. We had a lovely afternoon walking up and down the beach.

Other lessons I've learned thus far:

- Jellyfish are way bigger in Africa.

-There is an exponential relationship between the time it takes you to wash your dishes, and the number of ants found on said dishes when you finally wash them.

-Contrary to popular belief, roosters do not crow at dawn, but rather, whenever they damn well please. (Or at least the bastard rooster by my apartment does.)

- Just like in Niger, the meaning of the word “now,” is always up for interpretation.

AND. There is GUINNESS in Ghana. Hallelujah, amen.

What's in a blog?

I don’t know of to kick this off, I've never kept a blog before; how do these things normally begin? A mission statement? A famous quote? A celebratory 5k?

I guess I could start by saying that I’m safe and healthy in Accra, Ghana. I’ve almost been here a full week, spending the first few days in a hotel while I looked for an apartment. And happily, I just moved into a one bedroom apartment yesterday morning! I don’t have pictures yet, but it's right by the beach, and modestly furnished—a bed, wardrobe, couch, coffee table, kitchen table, 3 chairs, fridge, hot plate, and small kitchen utensils, including a butcher’s knife that was first used to decapitate a cockroach in my kitchen. And no, I didn't eat it.

But what DO you eat?! That seems to always be the first question. I've been able to sample a few of the traditional dishes so far. First was Kinkey, a large doughy ball of corn paste that is dipped in spicy red-pepper tomato sauce. The Kinkey I had was served with whole fried mini-fish, also meant to be dipped in the spicy sauce. The phrase that comes to my mind when describing what it’s like to eat a whole fish in one bite, is like the sour patch kids commercial, but instead of, first its sour, the its sweet, I’d say, first its chewy (and salty), then it’s crunchy (and salty).

And fishy. Oh so fishy. Mind you, this was at 10 in the morning. One of my co-corkers told me that eating the fish brains improves his own brain. So move over Wheaties, this is the real breakfast of champions.

Another dish I’ve tried is Banku. Very similar to Kinkey, Banku is again a large doughy ball dipped in sauce, but it’s made with ground corn and cassava, making it a little smoother and sweeter. And there's plenty of West-African standard dishes—like rice and beans, rice and chicken, rice and fish, rice and goat, rice and rice…you know. But Ghana’s unique twist on those traditional dishes is in their spicy pepper sauces. Much spicier than a lot of the dishes I had in Niger.

The city itself is huge. Wayyy bigger than I was anticipating. And the most annoying part: NOTHING is walkable. As someone who very much enjoys walking, this is a nuisance because traffic here is unbelievable. Picture the beltway during rush hour, with only one lane open…and sheep running across said lane. Luckily, my commute is opposite of most people’s, as I live close to downtown Accra, in a neighborhood called South Labadi, and my office is East up the coast away from Accra in a neighborhood called Teshie. But trying to get to meetings downtown or to project sites has been a nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares, I had a friend suggest that I keep this blog as a dream diary—since the main side effect of the antimalarial I’m taking (mefloquine, as listed in my blog’s title), is intensely vivid dreams, which for me usually manifests itself as me “waking up” from a dream, but having another dream, and not be able to determine whether I’m really awake or not. But I have heard stories of people having severely violent or psychotic dreams while on this drug. Fortunately that’s not the case for me.

But anyway, dream tangent aside, because I can’t walk anywhere, I use the public transportation system, which is actually really fun. When going to work for example, I take a commuter “bus,” which is actually an old five-row construction van (very similar to bush taxis in Niger) called a tro-tro. There are several different tro-tros, each going to a different final destination. Every tro-tro driver has a helper, who collects money and yells out the final destination. There are also different hand gestures that represent each destination, since streets are often pretty loud. After getting off the tro-tro in Teshie, I then take what’s called a “last stop” taxi. This means that it’s a flat rate taxi that always runs the same route and drops passengers at different points along the way.

I’m finding that it’s much harder to go exploring when you’re by yourself, especially being a girl. So far I’ve been controlling my stubborn tendencies to go out on my own (you’re welcome, Dad), but it certainly makes learning where everything is a little slower. My coworkers have been very helpful in this regard. They’ve been really willing to show me where things are and take me places, and the first few days, my coworkers took turns babysitting me to and from the office (in the tro-tros and taxis), just to make sure I wouldn’t get lost.

The job itself is awesome, and they’ve had lots for me to do right away, which has made it much easier to get in the swing of things. First on the agenda: The organization I’m working with is trying to expand their programs North of Accra, into the Volta region of Ghana. Next week, I’m going on a trip to Volta to help finish the hiring process for eight new peer educators, and one outreach coordinator, and then help run the three day training workshop for those hired. This week, I’ve mostly been working with the Strategic Information Officer to revise the peer education training materials, and put together the program.

Other fun things about Ghana:

The word for white person is “obrueni,” which kind of sounds like jebroni, so it always makes me laugh.

There is a very heavy Christian influence, not only in the population but in the way stores and things are named too. My favorites thus far, are the “God is my provider Sewing Center,” the “By His Grace Plumbing Company,” and the “God is King Chop Bar.” (Chop bar is local slang for restaurant).

The beach. I love being a 2min walk from the beach. (Take THAT, Becky)

Alrighty, I think that’s sufficient for a first post. Lots of love to everyone from Ghana!

(Also, sorry the picture qualities are not so great. I've been using my ipod to take photos since it's so much easier to carry than my camera. But I'll take some real pictures soon)