Jane, Boys Remand, Groundnut Soup, Shugga popcorn

I have neglected the blog for some time now and I do apologize. Things started to feel dangerously like home so it was harder for me to keep updating!

-Today is Tuesday. Tuesday is good for a couple things. Tuesday is the day that you can buy two for one pizza at Pizza Inn across from campus and Tuesday is also the day that Jane comes to Pentagon with her lovely dresses and seamstress skills. Jane sells pre-made dresses of her own design, and will make custom dresses with your personally selected fabric. This is how the whole dress-making thing works here...Find a fabric of your liking, buy a few yards, find a seamstress, get measurements taken, pick a design, and out comes a dress in a week or so. It really makes a lot of sense...its pretty much guaranteed to fit and its way cheaper than buying something at any store in the US. And it can be quite addicting. Ladies, you will have many a dress to choose from when I get home :)

-Wednesday is the day I get breakfast with my friend Britney before going to the boys remand that I started volunteering at with my friend Malka about seven weeks ago. Malka leads art workshops with boys in a juvenile delinquent center at home, so she wanted to do something similar here. The boys remand we work at is sort of like a juvenile delinquent center, but more like a half-way house. It is a pretty low (non?) security "home" where adolescent boys stay after they are arrested and before they go to court. They all sleep in one room, are given three meals a day, and have schooling and chores as well. Our time with them is basically a break during the day to do something out of the routine. We play games, read stories, make murals, have dance parties, make forts, paint pictures, draw faces, make paper mache...let them free-style....anything and everything art related. It is helping me understand Ghanaian culture a lot because both Malka and I know activities that work with American teenagers and have to constantly be aware and adapt to the cultural differences that make certain activities more or less relevant to Ghanaian teenagers. Its been really enjoyable as time goes on because the boys really do enjoy getting to do something that is out of the ordinary. Painting and drawing isn't really something they have the opportunity to do very often or at all, and its exciting to see them get excited! Its cool too because we can see different boys take on roles as leaders as time goes on and their community gets to be more cohesive.

-Although we have fun there are definitely struggles. The level to which Malka and I can relate to the boys is definitely limited...we don't know what it is like to grow up in poverty, we don't know what its like to grow up on the street, we don't know what its like to grow up in Ghana, and we surely don't know what its like to grow up as a boy. We have established effective ways to communicate with them, but its hard to answer questions like "I am having so much fun, but why are you spending your money on art supplies for us when you could buy us better food which is what we really want?"
...Its difficult, but we have to explain to them that our role in their lives isn't to feed them. We come in to have fun with them and share new ideas with them but not to give them better food. Of course it has made us think, "well shit, if that's what they really want, why don't we just give it to them?" But we know that trying to create a community in the setting they are currently forced to be in wouldn't happen with bringing fried rice twice a week.
...Discipline is very different in Ghana as well. Children and young people are expected to be well behaved and RESPECTFUL to elders and there is a LOT less tolerance for any divergence from this. So when Malka and I stepped in with our soft American "Okay class, please sit down while I count to three" routine..not much got done. This was definitely an area that needed adjusting.
^As harsh as all that seems, the amount of temper-tantrum and fit-throwing children I have witnessed on a day to day basis is drastically less than in the US.

-Sunday is groundnut soup and rice ball day. This is in an excellent day as groundnut soup and rice balls is probably my favorite Ghanaian dish. Groundnut soup is like a spicy peanut butter based soup with a big ball of rice in it. I always get a piece of chicken thrown in there, too.
...I learned how to make it as well so I won't have to leave it behind.

-Mondays are the days that promise a free box of sugar popcorn along with a twelve cedi movie ticket at the theater in the Accra Mall. It is unfortunate that one has to sit through an over-priced mediocre movie to indulge in the pure bliss of sugar popcorn, but if you've saved up, its more than worth it.

-As I said above, Ghana has started to feel so much like home that its a little scary to think of going back to the US. I WILL explain this in my next entry.

-People dress so FLY in this country. Especially on campus. I'm talking pressed shirts, nice pants and skirts, steezy sunglasses, shined shoes...you won't see a single person walking to class with the typical American "just rolled out of bed" college student look. I'm grateful Marissa gave me tips about this before I left!

-Five people asked me if I was Latino last week.

-Last night I was basically rocked to sleep by the rumbling of this thunderstorm. I really have absolutely no problem with it raining here. The anticipation isn't drawn out with a day of clouds like at home, either. A sudden cool breeze will chill your skin as the clouds roll in front of the sun and then the little drops come until the sky finally opens up, washing away the hot air and red dust hovering above the ground. The only bad thing about rain is that it makes the internet go down for a few hours and it could potentially re-drench your clothes on the clothes line if you don't take them down.

-I haven't slept under any covers in two months.

-I really love the hostel/dorm I live in. There are four floors with four flats per floor. Each flat has a center room area, two bathrooms, a kitchen , a porch, and 3 bedrooms (2 people per bedroom). Its all very open and airy so the only thing separating suites is a little hallway or a flight of stairs so its like we all live in one big house. There are only 14 Americans (all from my program of 50) in all of Pentagon so we have good opportunities to meet Ghanaians and Nigerians (its still an international hostel) while having the support of a few Americans as well. And we lucked out with the Americans here...I couldn't ask for better people to be living with.

-I went to Makola market in Accra on Friday to search for some Ghana gear...Saturday was independence day so we wanted to get some red, yellow, and green. I found plenty of course, but I also stumbled upon this stand where this woman just had a gigantic pile of scarves to sell. It was funny because they were only 50 pesewas each and I was so tempted to buy a bunch for people back home but they were just like anything you could find at a vintage shop in Boulder,
just a great deal cheaper.

-There's this Chinese restaurant by our hostel (on campus) that has the most fantastic fried noodles I have ever tasted. There's also a pool table and a wall that the owner is always projecting random fashion shows on. I've had some very interesting conversations with this Nigerian guy who I keep bumping into there about how different American and Nigerian (Ghanaian, too) conceptions of beauty are. They really go for the curves here so its funny to hear his comments on runway models in New York City.

Cape Coast continued/I could get used to this

I left the group early on Sunday morning to go visit the family I have been staying with sometimes in a town called Fadama. Its interesting because I’m pretty sure the departure times for most busses are pre-determined, but they won’t really leave until all the seats are filled, so we ended up waiting at the station in Cape Coast for an hour before leaving for Accra. Its funny because as much as I expected this, the whole not knowing when we were going to leave thing was a liiittle unsettling. It wasn’t that bad, but I still hadn’t completely internalized the patient “things happen when they happen” mindset, so I guess this was good practice. Anyways, I ended up having a really great conversation about Ghanaian and American culture with the man next to me (Eric). He was just as curious about the US as I was about Ghana so our discussion made the 2 hour trip pass by pretty fast.
Once we got to Accra, I had to catch a trotro to Fadama but wasn’t sure of exactly where to find one. The bus let us down at Nkrumah Circle, which is a common destination for lots of public transportation. It’s a pretty big area with a market, post office, and a bunch of other stuff I have yet to explore so finding the cars to Fadama would have been a project without Eric’s help. I was ready to go for it and just ask a million people like I usually do, but he insisted on showing me where they were. It turns out that we had to cross a bridge over the market, then walk through part of the market, and then do the asking around thing where the trotros were parked because there were probably close to 100 of them in the area. We found one really fast because people just pointed in the direction we needed go when we said "Fadama", but its just so amazing how people automatically wanted to help us out and went out of their way to do so simply because they wanted to. It's like how Eric walked around with me for ten minutes just to make sure I found my way. This wasn’t the first time someone took my hand and lead me in the right direction either…even taxi drivers…if you’re going to a restaurant or something and you don’t know exactly where it is, they’ll drive around and help you find it and not charge any more money. And people don’t treat it like some huge favor because its just what they do, they look out for each other simply because they exist and it’s the way things work. It was almost unbelievable when I first got here, but it’s becoming a very heartening reality.

cape coast

Two weekends ago we went to Cape Coast in the central region to visit the slave castles. I have difficulty finding words to describe this experience because what happened at the castle I visited (which is one out of many) is not just some terrible thing that happened to "Africa". The slave trade shaped the history and had lasting effects on the race relations of our country and many others. The effects won't disappear in time.


more to come

no wawa

-I wouldn't really say I'm a "clubbing" person, but I've been trying lots of new things here so why the hell not. Last night we went to this one called Aphrodisiac. Interesting place. I guess its kind of your typical club in some ways...music so loud it makes your blood shake, neon lights flashing and slicing through the clouds of artificial fog and cigarette smoke, expensive drinks, toilet paper in the bathrooms, you know. Its fun if you're in the mood though. Last night they played a lot of songs from Shaggy's first album, one that was dear to my heart from the ages of 10-12 probably. I didn't stay for long because I was really tired but people go until like 5am.

-When I got home I wanted to shower but there was no water and I hadn't filled my reserve bucket so I took a bunch of water sachets and had a sachet shower. Not the most economical, but it worked.

-Your basic needs can be met without water or electricity, its just harder. But when you get used to it, it doesn't seem hard anymore. I think that's why people are so resilient and resourceful here. I'm glad I have to pick up on it.

the gutters.

-I can’t believe I haven’t talked about the gutters yet. There are huge gutters, really more trench-like holes, that line pretty much every street. On campus, in town, in the city…all over. I have already accepted that I will fall victim to one of them at some point, but I’m still going strong. Pretty much everyone has a close call at this point.

-Its getting into that phase where everything isn’t so new and confusing…its still exciting and I have so much to learn but things are starting to feel more normal and habitual.

-Its funny how you have to work a little harder here to get things done that are so easy at home. For example, each professor has a set of readings for the class but they are only available at different copying stations throughout campus…the syllabus might be in one building and the readings in another. Then you go to where the teacher says the readings are, pay the copy man, and come back the next day to pick up your copies of the readings. Its quite the process (it feels like) because it involves a lot of walking around and searching.

-Other things…drinking water, showering, laundry, eating. Etc. The drinkable water here is sold in these things called sachets which are these little plastic bags of water with the amount equivalent to about one bottle of water. They are 5 pesewas each (less than a nickel) and if you buy them in bulk (these really big bags that have 30 sachets in each) its about one cedi (less than a dollar). You can either just rip off the corner of the sachet and drink it that way, or fill up your water bottle. So its things like that that take a little planning ahead because you can't really go without water duh.

-Laundry, too…there aren’t really washing machines available in mass so you can either pay someone to come pick up your laundry and do it by hand or do it by hand yourself. I don’t have laundry in my budget so I fill up a bucket of water, throw in my clothes and some detergent, scrub them, rinse them, hang them, and iron them. It’s more time consuming but it’s not a burden or strain…its just another thing you do. It has made me realize that having everything be so convenient all the time doesn’t make life that much better…Its fun to sit around and talk with your friends while doing laundry or walking around campus all day. Its slower…its less stressful.

Melting Moments

-On my little adventure into Osu the other day, I went to a restaurant called Melting Moments. It is a slightly over-priced and air conditioned cafe that sells the most american-ish food I've found since arriving. They have quite the assortment of salads, panninis, smoothies, pasta, cake, and the closest thing to coffee I've had since I got here. Today I went back with some friends and ordered a latte and salad that had cheese and avocado on it. It was beyond satisfying and quite the mix up from the usual rice, chicken, stew, and plantains.
...All of which are delivious by the way, just a little monotonous.