jingle bells

i'm listening to xmas music on my powerbk sitting in the decker's kitchen, enjoying the cleanliness and central heating. WOW to think that just a few days ago i was rinsing dishes out of a bucket while wearing shower sandals on the soot covered floor and trying not to lean on the cockroach/ant infested counters. some things i don't mind leaving, but it's sad to think that our six months is up. before we left, we tried to spend quality time with the students and vera. they were the best part and it's awkward to think that i won't see them everyday from now on. kind of hard to sum up things. pics do a better job...


AHH RECESS


glass molds of ghana


me and linda squared. two of the sweetest students. the one on the left can get DOWN. she has more rhythm than will ever dream of having. the one on the right is tall and quiet, a total mother figure to the rest of JSS3 (9th grade)


KG (kindergarten) girls


sarafina


baby girl we made friends with on tro


another cute little bugger


ernestina. she is a 20 year old in 8th grade. her parents kind of abandoned her when she was little. her grandmother took care of her but then passed away when she was in 3rd grade. then her aunties took her in but they couldn't or wouldn't pay school fees so she didn't go to school for several years. finally akuffo tom's owner mr. boafo decided to give her a scholarship. she is such a vibrant strong girl and wants to become a policewoman one day.


EUGENE! at the end of a letter he wrote to me before we left, he signed "your son, Eugene" i miss you buddy!


vera sporting my cap... it was "cold" that day.


this is her with liz's straw hat. oh vera!


baby goat checking out flops


bionic lizard! i captured him in mid-leap! this is my all time best action shot

i'm baaack

just landed in philly tonight. what's this? it's cold! i miss africa!
free wireless internet is sort of making up for it... and hot showers. wowsers.
okay i'm going to write a recap tomorrow when i'm not so pooped.

titles are hard

wow the internet has not worked this well in so long! i must make up for lost time and upload old photos and blabber random things in my brain. unfortunately my digital cam has been wack recently. i don't know what's wrong! boo! so i stole these from julie's snapfish.

jules, me, vera, and biz at dickson's daughter's wedding (dickson is our housemate. his daughter got married in cape coast, a raucas affair at a methodist church with the words KWAME weds MILLI spray painted up near the altar. and their university friends splashed water instead of rice at them after the ceremony. it was a sweltering hot day. at one point in the afternoon liz commented on my huge shades and said, "oo jane you look like a movie star" and i replied.. "i feel like a sweaty little girl.")

parade during the odwira festival. my favourite part were these MASSIVE velvet fringe umbrellas! they would wave them up and down and they looked like killer jellyfish.

local queen being paraded in a palaquin (these ostentatiously adorned gold seat contraptions that take 6 able bodied men to carry)


a family down the street set up this backdrop on the road... so we took a picture with them


olympic day: sally was ten times better running with a cup of water on her head than in her hand


edward going at the kenkey (corn mush wrapped in leaves) for the eating competition

HELLO KITTY: we gave out lots of prizes for olympic day winners, and besides pencils, pens, puzzles, notepads, and other goodies that the deckers generously brought over, i had about 50 or so Hello Kitty pins from taiwan (mostly thanks to my mom and tiff&girls at TPR- they were giving them out at 7-11 all last year). anyway, so now girls and BOYS of middle school age are sporting hello kitty pins on their uniforms. it's just a funny site. while in some ways african men really hold onto old school gender stereotypes, sometimes they act so un-homophobic. middle school boys and grown men alike hug each other and hold hands while walking. it's refreshing.

DWARVES: i might have mentioned before that whistling after dark is big faux-pas here. i used to just assume the reason was that it attracted vague evil spirits. but it's been cleared up that acutally the whistling attracts dwarves. yes. little people. they are serious about this superstition. i've been chastized. i hum and whistle a LOT here. i think it's the lack of radio/tv. so whenever i accidentally catch myself, i can't help but picture a dwarf walking through the front door waving HEY GUYS.

BOOK: totally forgot to rave about The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. lauren brought it over in august, and we ate it up, and then gave it to julie and she loved it. and i read it twice. this memoir is just the most uplifiting hilarious quirky read. it makes me feel like a glutton seeing as how she and her three siblings grew up poor skinny runts in arizona and w. virginia. they ate a can of beans for weeks. and butter sprinkled with sugar was a tasty treat. snot locker! you'll have to read it to know what i'm talking about.

HOLIDAYS: i've been trying to enlighten my students on american holidays/customs. halloween was interesting to explain (they probably think we are freaky pagans dressing up as ghosts and witches and forcing candy on kids). thanksgiving is not too hard a concept, though it makes me wonder why are buckles the major accessory of pilgrims that i can think of? christmas is hilarious though. a few of them have heard of santa but i had to give the breakdown of north pole and the flying reindeer. thank goodness that the Only song i know the lyrics too is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. so we sang it in class. they loved it! they know a lot of other songs.. feliz navida... joy to the world.. one girl knew all the words to the 12 days of christmas! i can barely get past "5 golden rings."

EUGENE: one of my favorite all time students is Eugene. he is so smart and has the brightest smile! he is also really skinny and sometimes has cute effeminite mannerisms and pretends to be shy. during a letter assignment he opened with "I hope you are swimming in the pool of health." he's just so original! one of my journal assignments was asking students what their number one superpower would be. many of them did the usual, flying, being super strong. two of them wanted to turn oil into water (confusing... water is really scarce here.. but i would say oil is even more?) but no one had a more original answer than Eugene:
"The superpower I have is that I can cry like a hen. This power was possessed to me by God. I have this power because at first I tried to cry like a donkey but I couldn't. I used this power to wake children up. I would wake children up because I would like them to go to school early."

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: another assignment i did was describing people. i had students in JSS1 (7th grade) describe each other but they had to leave out the name and we guessed the identity. these are two funny examples, mainly because of the not so subtley underlined part.
Collins wrote: "I have chosen a classmate to describe. She is a girl. She is 13 years old. She is six feet tall and dark in complexion. She has plain hair. She has teeth. She attends Akuffo Tom School."
Dorothy wrote: "I have chosen a classmate to describe. His favourite hobbies are eating and playing. The food he likes best is Banku and Okro stew and turkey. He likes beating and insulting people. He is a special person to me because he likes playing."

LIVE! with liz decker

Hello all you loyal JaneInAfrica blog readers! Jane has so graciously allowed me a guest spot on her blog, so I’m going to tell you some things we’ve been up to recently.

We’re really sad that Julie left us on Monday – she had been living in the house and volunteering at Akuffo Tom with us for two months. She totally kept us occupied with her stories of life in LA, her perpetual bug bite problems, and her overall hilariousness. (miss you Julie!)… While she was here, we had a good two months of the school life. Each of us have been teaching different grade levels (Julie with the youngest kids, I have the middle ages, and Jane has the middle schoolers), so between all of us, we’ve really gotten to know all the kids at school. They are so cool in so many ways. I think Jane and I have both found that teaching this second term as their primary English teacher is so much better than jumping into a semester, taking over for another teacher and not knowing any of the kids. I found that my students were quite confused about some of the basics, so being in charge, I’ve been doing fundamental parts of speech and writing review. It’s so amazing when you see the change in how much they know – I swear my students are better writers already!

It was also quite helpful that the three of us knew all the kids so well… because we planned OLYMPIC DAY on October 27th. It was fun to think back on all those years of Olympic Days in elementary school and figure out how to replicate our favorite games (such as obstacle course…a bit difficult without cones and hoola hoops!) But everything went really well (though us white girls got really burned from being outside all day!) – we had sack races, egg on spoon races, running races, dizzy bat (hilarious). The highlight of the day was definitely the eating contest… we made the older students eat this food called Kenkey (which is like a huge ball of doughy, dry maize mashed up… ), which they usually eat with sauce. We made them eat it alone and it was hilarious... some of them stuffed their faces and it took them forever to chew it all. Then they had to peel and eat an orange… they got creative and just stepped on the orange to “peel” it. We were cracking up the whole time. I think the most interesting event was the water bucket relay, where you have to carry water in a small cup from one bucket to another bucket to fill it up. Well, part of the way through the day, a couple kids started carrying the water cup on their heads instead of in their hands… so brilliant and so Africa!! Kids in the U.S. would drop it in a second, but our kids were AMAZING at it! I loved that…

So the end of Julie’s stint here actually coincided with a visit from my Dad and sister! It worked out perfectly so that we could travel a bit together. But before we left, we all spent a few days here in Akropong. My Dad and sister came to school to meet everyone (the students were so psyched to see my dad… “Madam, is that your father?” they’d ask totally appalled) AND to bring my classes (class 4, 5 and 6) penpal letters from the U.S.!!!! My mom’s 4th grade class and the other two 4th grade classes at her school wrote letters to my kids (and sent pictures, which were clearly ten times better than any letter). My students LOVED this, they were so excited to have “friends” in the U.S. and to learn about their lives there. I think the most interesting thing about letter writing here is how they generally begin letters: “I am very happy to write you this letter. I hope you are fine by the Grace of God...” Kinda formal, but really nice. I bet the kids in the U.S. will be surprised by that… All in all, penpals are a great invention! It’s so exciting!

Molly and Dad were also here for… HALLOWEEN! We didn’t have many resources for Halloween, so using Jane’s brilliant idea, we bought a watermelon that could stand on its own. So on the night before Halloween (we were traveling on Halloween, and really no one here knew the difference in dates), we cut the top off the watermelon, scooped out all the juicy insides and my Dad carved a super cute face into the melon. It worked SOOO well, I could hardly believe it! I think it may have even looked better than carving a pumpkin! We forced some passing children to come look at the pumpkin and to take some candy corn (that my mom sent over with my dad… they definitely don’t have candy corn here!) I found out a few days later that one of my students, Benedicta, saw us and the melon-o’-lantern from afar, but was so scared that she didn’t come near us! (I think they thought we were practicing some sort of witchcraft or something… I guess if you think about it, it is a bit strange!! But still amazing!)

So that week, we traveled again to the coast of Ghana, heading, of course, to our favorite place in this country: the Green Turtle Lodge. My dad and sister enjoyed the place as much as we did the first two times we were there. We sat on the beach, played beach games, ate good food, and visited our friend Emmanuel (who works there and essentially runs the place… he grew up in a neighboring village). It was blissful. We later stopped by a very nice beach resort (actually a bit of a non sequitor after driving through some poorer coastal towns) on our way back and had some nice pool/beautiful sunset time. We also were invited to our housemate’s (a 60 year old man who is the bank manager in our town) daughter’s wedding in Cape Coast. We were a little late, but it was a very lively wedding (they had a huge fluorescent sign in the front of the little church that said “Kwame weds Millie” and their friends danced for about 20 minutes in the front during the ceremony).

Having visitors is so great here – just to see familiar faces, but also so that they can see how we’ve been living and so we can see how they acclimate to being in Ghana. All of our visitors did a great job and really added a lot to our time here (when you get to teach others all you’ve learned, it feels like such an accomplishment. And it will be great when trying to explain how different things are here to have some who understand!).

Now Jane and I are busy explaining where all our obruni friends and family went … And we’re just enjoying our last month here. It will be a very sad thing to leave Akropong and all our friends and the students. But I am certainly looking forward to seeing everyone at home. And for a hot shower! However, we are trying not to think too hard about the shocking cold weather in December… We seriously can’t remember what cold feels like!

Well, that’s life here in Ghana! Hope all is well with everyone!

1. crazy obrunis lighting fruit on fire 2. a contumbre leaf, yes we eat them! 3. jules and i hiding out in our hole, a favorite beach pastime 4. enjoying the view

ba bam!

liz and julie posing with huge gourd-fruit-plant things called calabash (they make bowls out of them here). we were obviously in shock that the tree was able to handle such massive bowling-ball weight. i know dad will enjoy this interesting species!


a close high school friend of ours goes by the nickname BOFF! and here you are! as an african backpack brand!!! (shown here by 9th grader regina, btw pronounced RAGINA)


the state of taxis in this country are so shady it's hilarious. the speedometer, gas gauge, and other important life-or-death parts of the dashboard are normally covered with dust and not functioning. door handles and window roller-uppers are always missing. but the car pictured above has to be the best ride yet...mainly because of the random switch hanging from nowhere! what is it connected to? what does it turn on? an ejector seat? a strobe light? who knows!


the gender determination chart is here! (maximize photo if letters are too tiny)
read instructions (don't try to read the confusing paragraph above the chart unless you want to laugh REAL loud):
1. find the age of the mother at the time of the baby's birth on the top row
2. find the month that the baby was conceived on the left row (NOT the baby's birth month)
3. match up in the middle and BA BAM you will see the gender of the baby!

although we purchased this admittedly dubious looking information on the street in the life guide pamphlet for 50 cents, we have experienced a 100% success rate when checking our own and sibling's stats. let me know if it works for you! if it fails, let me know too....hmm...maybe...i don't know if i can face the bitter disappointment!

deep thoughts

i uploaded some photos a while back but never posted. click on 9/11/06 "leftover pics" to enjoy(specially if you're a liz relative/fan)!

jack handy moment
how much am i helping versus hindering the situation in africa? i'm assuming every volunteer contemplates this. i'm not a trained teacher, yet i am in charge of 80 odd students' entire middle school English education. it's not like i run a supplementary class in conjunction with something else. this is it! in asia, the students had a solid base and i helped with extra tutoring or conversational practice. africa is a completely different story. i totally lack the background in their culture, their methods of discipline (i'll get to that issue), British English grammatical standards (did you know they use "somehow" instead of "somewhat"? i forget to spell favorite with the u. and i call the dot at the end of a sentence a period instead of a full stop. these seem like petty details but are really noticeable when teaching a language!) and a plethora of other significant knowledge that would make me ten times more effective in the classroom. these kids are expected to pass rigorous tests in several subjects to enter secondary school and university. it's scary how much i have an impact on their future.

we met an expat working with the government in accra the last two years. she explained that ghana cuts a large portion of their education budget to train teachers because of their heavy reliance on foreign volunteers. basically, if they can get some obrunis to do it for free, why spend money on it? why help the next generation help themselves? what exactly would happen if all the volunteers just up and left the continent? i'm not discounting the importance of peace corps and other organizations, but what about a little self-sufficiency? i guess, at the very least i can be positive that i am learning a ton from my students. being here has opened my eyes and broken down many preconceptions. and any cultural exchange has to be good thing. last week i started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to my class and although some references went over their head, they totally got into the story when i explained words like "cooties" and "boo-boo." i am spreading my love for judy blume around the world!

the cane
we were warned that corporal punishment was a part of life in africa before we got here. it was shocking last semester, but then gradually teachers wielding canes stopped being a big deal. now with the new school year, the cane is coming back in full force. i totally flinch and don't like to look when i see them getting whipped on the hand or butt. the majority of teachers and parents we talk to see it as completely necessary. they grew up with it and know no other form of discipline. while in some ways, these students are more mature, understand more about love hardship and sacrifice than i did at their age. they really are crazy more physical and out of control. especially the little tykes. they run around, hit, kick, knock each other down, stand on the desks, bite, pick up things and hit each other, scream etc. i would balk if i saw this kind of behavior in a classroom in the states. i guess i would also balk if i saw these learning conditions in the states. no running water or electricity, rickety wooden benches too small for their tushes, nails and splintery boards sticking out of steps and doorways, 100 degree sweltering hot rooms.

think about punishments we get in the states... "no tv! no phone! go to your room!" well, they aren't really an option here. they don't have anything to take away. getting sent to your room instead of fetching water would probably be a dream. so if hitting is common at home, it is extremely problematic to keep the student's attention and seem serious in the classroom if you don't also follow the same form of harsh punishment. but on the other hand, how can hurting someone, physically and emotionally, impel them to learn? when they are flipping out and bawling about a bruise, it might stop them from acting out in class for five seconds, but for the long-term i highly doubt that they will be encourged to want to learn on their own or value learning.

when i try to enforce alternative punishments in the classroom they don't seem to work. what was the worst thing in elementary school? you take away recess. these kids have one break/snacktime at 10am before their lunch a 1pm. it's very possible this is the first time they eat all day. i don't really want to mess with that. food is sort of imperative. in liz's case when she tried to threaten her student's to stay during break with her, they rose their hand and said, "madam, i want to spend break with you". sort of confuses the punishment with the reward.

jules and YAM FEST

julie is here! my best friend from summer camp. i havn't seen her in two years, and what better way to catch up than living and volunteering with her for two months straight in a developing country. she arrived three weeks ago and is teaching with us at akuffo tom and rooming down the hall in our house. it's awesome. we have been rehashing camp memories up the wazoo, as well as anybody under the sun that we both know from NPHS. she's fit right into our daily routine.... such as memorizing the world capitals (i have become unhealthily obsessed with studying our student atlas! i have mnemonic devices for all the hard to remember middle eastern and asian countries! my best one might be for achgabat, turkmenistan. i'll let you know sometime. i am a capitals queen! if only i was back in elementary school i could win some sort of geography bee).

we also have found a strong love for cards and contemplating our futures. we have been playing Big Two (chinese cards) and rummy every night the past week, as well as different versions of MASH (remember the middle school girlie pastime where you predict everything from your future hubby, color of wedding dress, honeymoon locale and number of children?). so now we're attempting to combine our favourites into one super fortune-telling card game. i'm sure one day we'll make millions from it.

the first week jule got here we had black outs almost every night (damn akosumbo dam is not doing it's job!), so she's gotten handy with lighting the lanterns. we've also hooked her on the phenom of Timeless, the phillipino soap opera i live for. i havn't felt this way about a tv show since dawson's creek in ninth grade. probably because both then and now i have a total lack of social/love life. hmm. anyway, it was really hard during the black outs when we were in timeless withdrawal (ok so it was only like one night). but the storyline is getting really intense! the father who was in jail for 15 years died in a train accident, Ara is now living on a plantation and pretending to be getting married to a hot artist named Leo, while her mother is still catatonic (sp?) and hidden away, and then her true love Christian is becoming a raging alcholic and falling for an annoying singer named Maryann. sound confusing and ridonkulous? cause it i, and i havn't even explained half the other crazy side plots.

there are even pamphlets being sold on the street about Timeless. it has the lyrics to the theme song, play by play of each episode, the actors real names, etc. we were dying when we found out the guy who plays Leo is named Diether in real life. how the heck do you pronounce that? we've already bought ourselves some hilarious ghanaian reading material. these pamphlet/paperbacks are hugely popular among students and adults, obviously because they are so cheap, around 3000 cedis a pop (30 cents) and they can be about any topic under the sun. they aren't copyrighted and have embarrassing grammatical errors but extremely entertaining. i bought one called the Life Guide from a man before getting on a tro. it had helpful information such as the Gender Determination Chart. apparently if you use this chart created by a Chinese scientist you can foretell your baby's gender. it all depends on the mother's age and the month of conception. creepily enough... it has been ON TARGET for everyone we can think of. i might attempt to upload the chart next time so i can get a larger survey of its validity! another pamphlet that we have perused and need to purchase was the How to Find Your Life Partner the Right Way Part Two.

the Odwira festival was two weeks ago! my students as well as all the townspeople have been raving about this event forever and it arrived! it is a celebration of the new harvest, the new yam, and a cleansing of the town in general. day one they cleaned the path for ancestor's spirits to make their way back to the town. day two they introduced the new yam of the harvest by having a mock battle between men in the street grabbing over a humungo yam. i forget day three... but day four was posessed women walking through the street with their faces covered in white powder. day five they carried the local chiefs around in palanquins (those big wooden seats that five men carry one large royal man on). the night of day six there was a Miss Odwira (beauty pageant! obrunis were welcome but we never made it! oh well, missed my chance).

there were SO many people, foreigners, cityfolk, anybody and everybody from ghana walking the streets of our town. it was like walking down Broadway in NYC! all the bars and restaurants were packed and had huge sound systems pumping RandB and hip hop! 2pac, 50 cent, akon, rkelly are big hits here, thought not as big as Celine! we even went "clubbing" one night. more like, after enjoying some club beer (another ghanaian brand but not as good as STAR) with some teacher friends we squished into this bar/one-room shack space down the street where all these adolescents were grinding with each other. i saw my 8th grader Ruth getting down! and then my previous 9th grader andy kwame sporting a do-rag outside! he's the class assistant prefect! whoa! i'll try real hard to post photographic evidence of these shenanigans next time:)

random others:
1. we started teaching art to primary classes. it was AMAZING! instead of whining and hitting biting, they were sitting quietly with their one sheet of white paper and sharing the crayons like angels! and they were so creative! we are attempting to try a new art/craft every week. we've already collected like 200 plastic bags that we buy the water in. there's got to be something cool we can get them to create with them.
2. i got sick two weeks ago and had all the major symptoms of malaria: nausea, fever, aches, the runs... but then it went away after one and a half days! and then liz picked up the bug the next day (probably because she was a wonderful motherlike friend and lent me her pillow) so... it was just a tease! my pop-up mosquito bed net has aided me in dodging malaria so far!
3. we still have 7 bottles of sunblock left, 2 full bottles of saline solution, and like 4 ziplocs full of tampons. whoops
4. i know this is about a month late but HAPPY BDAY CARO! it's our year, the year of the dog!

leftover PICS

liz achieving life goal of carrying african child on her back!


soccer season is starting this fall. our kids are playing 30 other schools in the area. go tomsco!

one of liz's student's ENGHISH notebooks. we really have our work cut out for us.

biz buying BEADS

beach week

the five of us on our last day at green turtle lodge... smiling but sad to leave the menu.

adam and lauren came to visit for ten days (liz's brother and gf). anyone ever visiting ghana MUST stay at Green Turtle Lodge. this cutesy place is on a deserted strip of sand in the western region, about 8 hours from akropong. opened by a british couple, it's super eco-touristy. you stay in huts constructed from local materials, all employees are native ghanaians, solar panels run your lights and fan, outhouses use self-composting toilets, and shower water is recycled for plants that thrive on soap minerals, they serve delicious fresh ghanaian cuisine (the brkfast special was french toast with honey and bananas. i don't even like french toast or honey that much but now i'm a #1 fan!), a fun happening bar with fruity alcoholic beverages, there are board games (SCRABBLE!) and books to swap. i'm a walking-talking advertisement for the place. i can't help it!

my sister vanna-whiting the outdoor shower (i vow to build my own one day cause their is no better way to get clean than under palm leaves)

solar-paneled beach hut

adam (sporting my patriotic hankerchief) and lauren enjoying lunch of guac and plantain chips

liz and i went back for four more glorious nights this past week. we just had to milk our holiday for all it was worth (school start tuesday ahh!). highlights this time around include:
1. met two hilarious brothers who graduated upper dublin HS (small world! hi nick/burt!) and made a day trip with them to a stilted village near the border of cote d'ivore.
2. played an international game of mafia on night with a group including a swiss couple, two german girls, a british couple, four loud americans (that's us) and a lone romanian. we discovered that the jack is called "boober" in german, which liz accidentally called the "booby" , which proceeded with ten billion jokes about whoever got the "booby" was the killer.
3. most memorable: one day a group of us visited a small village down the beach. tons of kids come out to greet us as usual. as they take our hands and say things like "my friend, what is your name? give me a pen. where are you going?" i'm practicing the local tongue on them with quasi-success. suddenly the 15 or so small ones crowded around me start yelling "book-a-son-eee". really loud. i have no clue what it means and tried asking the adults in the village (who would either snicker or give me stone-cold faces). the kids just kept on yelling it enthusiastically, so i repeated it too! that really did it. everytime i yelled the phrase, shouting it and rose my hands up, they shouted it too and rose their hands up! i was so curious. what crazy things was i saying? i finally found a ghanian with better english and he explained, laughing, "oh, they think you look like/are bruce lee". HAHAHAHA! yes, for years to come the kids in the akwiidaa village on the coast of ghana will be reminiscing back on the day that bruce lee came to visit them... even though he/she was sort of a short, long haired, skinny feminine version? i have made my mark!

other noteworthies during adam/lauren's stay:
the rest of the week we gradually made our way back to our region by stopping at all the hotspots along the coast. Elmina Slave Castle had a really informative and interesting tour (the guides at other sites have been way less than knowledgable). but at the same time it was extremely emotionally disturbing as we walked through the dark/suffocating dungeons that thousands of slaves were imprisoned and tortured before they were crammed onto boats across the atlantic.

the view from the slave castle of the ridiculous fish market below

we stayed at Hans Cottage Botel near Kakum National Park. this old place wasn't really a boat-hotel, more like a bunch of moldy 70's style buildings over huge decrepit fish tanks. it had a run-down summer camp feel, but did boast many crocs in the man-made resevoir! their rates were kind of pricey and lauren's dinner of beans and plantains tasted like a basement. literally.. if you could make the musty smell of a cellar into edible food it would be these beans. we were disappointed after seeing No wildlife at Kakum besides a squirrel (though the canopy walkway was thrilling) so it was a crazy suprise that behind the botel was a farm with 7 foot tall really ugly but wierdly mesmerising ostriches! i've never seen them so close. they resembled part gross-turkey/part creepy dinosaur with their goose-pimply skin and humongous talons.
getting nutty at the botel (this is pre-basement beans and lots of star beer)

the canopy walkway at kakum (it was richety and riviting!)

the road to and from mole

1. us and our fully armed safari guide PK who's been working at mole for 20 years!
2. yours truly and ELEPHANT BEHINDS!

the elephants were worth it but wow, i am never going to northern ghana again! last tuesday morning liz, my sis and i woke at 5am to do some laundry and head off on our big adventure to the north. caught a 2-hour tro to accra and waited at the bus station for 3 hours (supposed to be 11am bus but it was delayed 2 hours for technical problems. didn't ask!). we sat on this non-AC overly stuffed bus from 2pm until 3am (yes! 13 hours of dusty bumpy grossness with pitstops at nasty urinals where i peed slightly on my pants and sandals a couple of times! i'm a pro at squat toilets in taiwan, but in africa, there aren't even holes, they are just...troughs with no stalls. it's hard going for girls!)

when we arrived in tamale it was creepy at 3am. we semi- slept for an hour on benches at the passenger waiting area and then walked to another bus station where crowds of people were already getting in line for the bus to mole. this ride was even sweeter: for 3-4 hours i sat on a metal bar, had to pee half the time going over even bumpier dirt roads, while a man sold crazy cure-all medicine in the front of the bus. he talked the entire time! i would fall asleep and wake up and he's still blabbering. his medicine could apparently heal blindness, baby's aches and pains, make your hair longer, make women's chests' bigger, as well as viagra-esqe effects for the men. the crazy thing is he made a killing on the bus! everyone was buying up the magic cream.

when we arrived at the town of larabanga there was no public transport to the national park. it was 10am. we had been traveling 24 hours ...and then decided to rent shoddy rusty bicycles from local boys for the 6km road to the park (it was either that or pay a LOT for them to take us on motorbikes). it was actually really nice! when you havn't slept properly and smell really bad, riding on a bike makes you feel light and breezy and delirious. shio's bike chain got detached of course but a nice man on the road fixed it. we took pictures as we biked and i fell from laughter in the process.

mole national park was wonderful! there was a platform over a high cliff where you could watch the animals congregate around two waterholes: antelope, elephants, warthogs, etc...like discovery channel LIVE next to your hotel! went swimming, ate yummy food by the pool, made friends with really nice british boys (we played cards and talked all night. taught them Da Er (big two) a chinese card game), and went on TWO safaris. the guided tours cost 14,000 cedis each time. that is not even 2 dollars to walk in big plastic booties through swamps and track large african mammals! the warthogs were hairy and hilarious. reminded me of pumba from lion king! liz and i decided we have to watch all the disney movies when we get home. the elephants as predicted were the prime attraction. they are larger than life and flap their ears making a fun "Thwack" sound and just so amazing! in the morning baboons were hopping around outside our window! it was a wildlife dream come true! we didn't want to leave. but...

the next morning we rode our bikes in pouring rain back to larabanga. got a quasi-tour of the oldest mosque in ghana (this random teenager spouted off facts in a hard to understand accent) the mosque was pretty. too bad we weren't allowed inside. we waited half an hour and a wonderful spanish woman with her ghanian bf let us ride in their taxi to a junction two hours away. without them...we might still be in larabanga. when they dropped us off at the junction it was late afternoon. we waited in the dry heat for over two hours (i showed the local girls how to shuffle cards and read a book).

GET READY FOR THE BEST PART OF OUR TRIP:
we were ridiculously happy when a tro finally arrived heading toward kumasi (8 hours away). when we crammed in the backseat (the tiniest seats ever, and i'm a small asian girl) we noticed that the window (a gaping 5 foot hole) had no glass. oh well, it was a nice breeze. about 30 minutes into the ride though, an enormous bucket full of liquid splashed in from the roof, hitting the old lady in front of us squarly in the face and splattering us. we were so confused. it wasn't raining. where did it come from? maybe it was just rain water. 20 minutes later, we hear baa-ing and hooves on the roof. omg there are live goats on the roof! they do this all the time up north, transport livestock on roofs of tros.

so.. from them on... the goats would pee and splash into the window like every 30 minutes for the next 8 hours!! we would go over really big bumps and they were BAAAA and then PEE! and it was sooo disgusting. thank god shio had her ugly EMS rain hat to cover her, but it was still spraying us and all over liz's pashmena. we wanted to cry and sleep! but ended up just laughing hysterically while keeping ourselves covered.

to top it off when we finally arrived in kumasi at 1 in the morning no one would get off the bus. we were so confused. weren't we at our destination? turns out that kumasi is full of robbers at night. women and able-bodied young men alike warned us not to leave the bus: the taxi drivers would rob us, who knows what might happen. so that's how all 40 passengers (crying babies too) ended up sleeping (on a slant cause the bus was parked on a slope) with the smell of goat pee on us, as well as really pungent urinal smell in the station, in tight upright tro seats for 3 more hours. finally at 4am when mosque chanting could be heard we were told it was safe to go. a nice ghanian named Isaac who slept on the bus next to us walked us to the market (which was bumpin at 5am!). another warm-hearted stranger we met on the street when we asked for directions told us it was still too dangerous for us to walk alone. he drove us in his vehicle to our hotel. thank god for the kindness of strangers. when we arrived to the hotel with working AC and shower it was heaven.

school's out!

holiday
school vacated last week so we've been traveling every other day. liz and i have a month to explore ghana with my sister! last week we went to boti falls. took a nice hike for an hour or two through jungle-y scenes, anonymous caves (im not sure what that means), climbed an umbrella rock, and a three-trunked palm (once again, dad would have been jealous). next day went with two of our teacher friends to the akusumbo dam (a good 2 hours away). it's helpful to travel with ghanaians. they know the language and get better deals. we obrunis get jipped by taxis and ticket offices all the time. anyway, the dam was built back in the 60's and is basically the reason why volta river is the largest man-made lake in the world. kind of a let down. they made us pay an exorbitant fee to walk around looking at a couple huge pipes on the side of the river but wouldn't let us take any pictures of it (maybe they were scared we'd blow it up with liquid bombs? i hate terrorists. impressed that i actually heard about the latest world news? things make there way to akropong.. slowly)

we finally did our first overnight trip to a town 4/5 hours away called Ho (yes there was a YMCA Ho Branch). and then stayed the night at a monkey sanctuary and fed them bananas in the morning during a nice forest tour. this morning we stopped by another town called Ho-Hoe (you say the second hoe like hoi). we attempted to find another volunteer that my sister made friends with on the plane. he's a californian college kid named aryan. sounded like a fun obruni to chill with. it didn't work though. cause.. we didn't know anything besides the fact that he was working on a medicaly-sort-of facility near ho-ho. oh well! if you ever read this aryan! we tried!

tomorrow we are leaving for the north! it's supposed to be hot and dry, and maybe more poor because it's further away from the bustling south and capital? not sure. will see soon enough! we got tickets for an 11 hour bus ride to the northern city of tamale. (african travel consists mainly of sitting in the back of stuffy, bumpy, dirty vehicles, moving either too fast or too slow.) btw. two memorable phrases we read on the back of taxis recently were "black chinese" and "chicken georgia". hmm no clue. oh yeah, and restaurants are called chop bars. two to note are "Don't Mind Your Wife Chop Bar" and "Sweet Mother Chop Bar" as well as "All Class Chop Bar" which is a dilapidated shack. i read that tamale has an abundance of bicycle riders (as many as china?) and the street kids sleep overnight at the bus station:( then we'll take a four hour tro ride to mole national park. elephants, crocodiles, "water monitors" (these 1 meter long lizard things). wooohoo! i'm excited! i like wildlife. i think. we tried booking a room at the Mole Motel too but their email isn't working so we're just going to wing it. if it doesn't work a nice guest house run by twin europeans is also suggested and you can sleep on the roof!

FOOTBALLS!
big time loving and thanks to ct and k for sending the soccer balls! (and stickers and jump rope and wonderful notes). i had to travel to the larger town of koforidua 45 minutes away because akropong post office couldn't handle such happening packages! wow! it was so hilarious to open them in front of the customs/post office lady and show em off! even though school is out, the other guy teachers and us will try to set up a friendly match in a week or so with the students. i know the boys will FLIP OUT! on a side note, just wanted to put this out there to anyone who is feeling especially philanthropic. what the kids really need next are jerseys. they borrow the primary school kids' jerseys. they are dirty and smaller and not enough. and when they sub they have to strip off and run onto the field half changed. if anyone is interested in funding a new set of jerseys let me know! i'm assuming we'd need 11 tops and bottoms (at least). they could be all the same size. boys medium? i don't know details right now. but it would be so crazy cool for them! their season starts in the fall and they play 30 other schools in the surrounding area.

!@#$%%
notice the increase in updates lately? the training college in akropong opened up a computer lab for the entire community to use as an internet cafe! wow! this really changes things! it's interesting living in this village/town as it slowly but steadily modernizes. but it is slightly bittersweet. having internet only a 20 minute walk away could be deadly. i'm going to try not to come back here TOO often. it's nice breathing real air and looking at real things instead of the computer screen.

books
life in africa involves a lot of time for hobbies i don't usually set aside enough time for for like drawing and reading. Freakonomics was great (props to sahil for the bday gift:) i was especially surprised to learn that someone actually named their child shithead. okay there were other freaky economic theories mentioned like how abortion is the reason for decrease in crime, but the names section really struck me. also i 100% recommend How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer. interesting random tid-bity book. i'm not even a soccer or history buff but i REALLY enjoyed it. honorable mention goes to Things Fall Apart (sahil i should always shop in B&N with you). i never read it for school. and thank goodness because i don't think i could have appreciated it At All back in the day. but it is perfect reading material for anyone who is experiencing africa. they talk about pounding fu-fu and village life and not whistling after dark because of evil spirits (which is a real superstition here) AND yams! it's all about yams! okay not all about but a lot about. my favorite line is "yam is king of crops, a man's crop." it sums up a major portion of my time here...eating!! it's like my second growth spurt. i can't not go for second helpings. not that i really grew taller the first time.

it's august

the cute kids who live down the street


HIV sign on the campus of local school


apparently crap rhymes with top?! (one of liz's student's homework)

finals
last week we experienced the joys of organizing final examinations for the school. it was... a process. liz and i volunteered our stellar typing skills and typed most of the questions for all 8 grade levels. there are a load of subjects: english, math, science, religious/moral, catering, pre-technical, social studies, french, twi. they use windows 97 msword. the computers turned out to be not too shoddy though the keyboards are sticky. but there is only one old-school printer. we print the tests onto special stencil paper that is then put into a manually cranked copy machine. kinda like a ditto machine. we have to squeeze black ink for every new set of 40 sheets, re-insert them to print on the backs, and crank away! it took forever! about 4-8 pages for each test, 6 subject tests for a grade level, maybe 40 students in some grades...you do the math. at one point they had to print out in larger font because the ink was smearing, doing this lead to using a lot more stencil paper, which they ran out of, and then we had to ask the students to donate more money (liz and i put in a nice amount) to buy a new box of stencil paper. whew! today we finally gave our last exam. we've been marking them, recording their grades and ranking the students. tomorrow is "our day" where all the students bring in food and have a little party!

side-note: the funniest exam question i came across was while typing Mr. Kassei's P3 (third grade) English exam. they are learning reflexive pronouns. dude, if they found this in an american test, and the student answered correctly, they would probably put him in counseling! or maybe the teacher.

Question: I want to kill _______.
a. ourselves
b. yourself
c. myself

malaria pregnancy and sheep
vera's friend's niece came to visit from the states a couple weeks ago. she's a 4th grader named barbara who was born in Ghana but has been growing up in the suburbs of Seattle. she came to school with us for a couple days while her mom went to visit other relatives. really mature little girl. we had interesting discussions about Harry Potter. but at one point she tells me she has a little brother and says, "yeah three years ago when my mom was visiting Ghana she got malaria and it made her pregnant." and i'm like, "umm, are you sure it was the malaria?" she assures me and replies "yeah, malaria can do crazy things." liz and i start grinning. barbara shares that she has also gotten malaria before. so i ask her if she is pregnant as well! and says "oh no.. it only does that to adults." thank goodness i havn't gotten malaria yet. pregnancy is not something i'm prepared for yet!

later on we take her to see waterfalls near school during lunch break. (how many elementary schools do you know are walking distance from waterfalls?) as we are going down this steep path we cross a big herd of sheep. they are sort of dirty and have lots of stringy thick wool. all of a sudden they start BAA-ing at us hardcore and walking toward us. so far all the sheep i've come across are scared of me or ignore me. but these were kind of belligerent and the BA's became really loud and persistent and souded more like BAA-UUUUUUUUUGHHH (like they wanted to throw up). barbara flipped out and started grabbed my arm really tight. i tried to stay cool but couldn't help laughing my head off. wow, my most memorable sheep attack!

willage people
couple weeks ago we met some austrian teens. there is an austrian woman who started an NGO called Help for Ghana many years ago. it sponsors local ghanian students as well as donates computers to schools. a few times a year she visits to check up on the students and brings interested austrian computer students from a technical highschool. we met them one day when they came to akuffo tom. they stayed in town for a couple weeks, getting computer facilities running at schools (i think they brought 180 pc's this trip) and setting up networks. they were staying at the house of the town nana (chief) so the teachers at our school were invited to a durbar (an event hosted by the chief where there is dancing, drums, official cermonial stuff). the last night they were here we visited the nana's house while they were getting their hair braided. it was pretty funny hanging out with 17 year old austrian boys who are into computers, horror movies, and punk music. we learned some austrian-german slang! "peepeefine" is "great" and "shizer" is "not great." the way they pronounced their v's as w's (example: willage instead of village) reminded me of my austrian friend in taiwan (Hi Kurt!) so i told liz and vera about it and one night vera jokes "are you visiting the willage people?" and she isn't even aware of the cultural reference to the disco era band.

shio in africa
my sister is here! we picked her up from Kotoka airport in Accra friday night safe and sound. since finals are still going on so we're sticking in akropong most of this week. saturday we did a little day trip to the Cedi Bead Factory (we are all about learning the bead-making craft) in a town not too far away called Somanya. it took a long walk after getting off the tro-tro so by the time we went through the tour, bought a couple nice beaded items and some fried sweet potato on the side of the street, we were pooped and came home. yesterday, vera's newly wed sister jane invited us to the methodist church in dawu (another town close by) so she got to experience an african church service with much singing, dancing and hankerchief waving. we brought her to school to meet the kiddies. we had to spell the difference between J-E-A-N and J-A-N-E several times when introducing her. today the three of us organized a scavenger hunt for the kids. big success! later this week we plan to travel a couple hours to nearby Boti Falls, a trip into the capital (mainly to go to the ATM for some cash), Akusumbo Dam (which is part of Lake Volta the largest man made reservoir in the world), a town called Ho-Hoe (where there is also supposedly a really great Kente cloth market) and a monkey sanctuary. Apparently there used to be an abudance of this species of mona monkeys. traditional religious believers protected the monkeys because they were thought to be the translators of tortoises. but then, monkey numbers dropped dramatically in 1980s as Christianity became popular. ha! churches killed monkeys!


"bead factory" more like huts behind a family's house where they fire crushed glass in kilns to make into pretty pretty beads

shout out to my lovely coworkers at TPR who sent me like 12 postcards! wo ai ni! thank you so much! i will make a collage of the scenic taiwan cards on my wall:) i miss the good ole' teacher-lounge-guffawing-at-random-stuff times:) oh gmail isn't working but i will see about setting up a taiwan-ghana pen pal exchange for the TL classes. that would kick butt!

jane's engagement

no, my mom's biggest fear of me finding a native and getting married here is not coming true. today i went to another jane's engagement party! it's vera's bestfriend/calls her sister. (everyone here calls close friends "my sister my brother" it's nice). it was in this brand new house in Accra. the groom and bride's side all gathers together and there is an MC who introduces all the relatives. the groom's family presents the dowry. back in the day they used to offer goats and apparently a bottle of schapps? (im not sure why it's the preferred alcohol.) more modern gifts which we saw today consist mostly of money but there was also a huge suitcase full of.. underwear and clothing for the bride! next week we are attending the actual wedding ceremony at a church three towns away called TuTu. WOW! i'm excited.

school
so some noteworthy names of students i teach are... Blessed (he's a cool 7th grader/hardworking student so he gets the job of ringing the bell between subjects.) Comfort is a tall 8th grader who can't stop talking and raising her hand and cleaning the board and doing teacher pet things. kind of overwhelming. instead of "teacher teacher" which is what the kids called me in Taiwan. they all call me Madam Jane. so it's this really loud repititive call of "Madam Madam" pretty funny. Regena is popular too (but you pronounce it like RA-GI-NA and it make me laugh the first time. yeah i'm sad). you also pronounce Racheal like RA-HELL. Prince (the Mentor winner- ghana's american idol) is a pretty popular name too. i have an 8th grader who's really smooth with the girls and likes to hold my hand. well, lots of the boys like to do that. by the way, i havn't had as many marriage proposals as people have warned from normal aged men. most of them are from boys in my class who are around 14. right now liz and i are writing the questions for the final exam. school ends in about two weeks. so i just typed up all these subject/verb agreement and passive/active voice questions. i hope they get good scores!! we are goign to start review soon. yes, the computer labs at school work... When there isn't a black out. which happened the other day. all the kids are kinda antsy cause summer vacation is almost here for them! i'm antsy too because my sister is going to arrive august 4th!! woohoo!

excursions
a couple weekends ago we visited botanical gardens! yes, only like 45 minutes away. there were some amazing trees and species of plants (dad would have been Really jealous... my favorite was this humongous tree called Ficus Elasticoidus. the inside was all open and you could have totally created a swiss family robsinson house in it). while we were there these people were filming a children's documentary. since they were white we talked to them. (basically anytime we have the opportunity to see/meet a foreigner we do!) they were filming this Barney-like character called Shockamooney (an elephant character from India) who travels the world. so if you see this in Blockbuster.. check it out!

last weekend liz and i took a tro tro (it's the crazy vans that they squeeze 15-22 people into to get around from towns or to the city) to visit vera's mom's house in a far off village. we passed this bridge that crosses the Volta River at a town called Kpong (say PONG) very cool. Vera's mom lives really far out in this cute little village. in front of her house is a lawn full of mango trees and plantain trees. baby lambs and ducks and hens walk around you while you cook in the outdoor kitchen. you had to brush your teeth with a cup of water outside but it was fine. even their outhouse was so clean and didn't stink! it was just a dream to be walking around meeting the village children and relaxing there. akropong seems so urban in comparison, almost wish i had picked an even smaller/more local setting.

a past volunteer named lindsay that stayed with vera in 2003 and 2004 came back to visit for a night. she was here for work. she works for an NGO called Bridge for Africa (visit the website and buy something cool from them! they are legit and awesome!). her job is basically to get in contact with local craft businesses and set up a relationship to ship their products to the US for people to buy hand-made genuine african crafts. we went with her to a nearby town to check out a bead-making family. we saw how beads were crushed from different colored glass and then burned in a kiln to make beautiful necklaces and bracelets and all different types of things. i really wanted to stay longer and be an apprentice bead-maker. then we went with them to the market to buy some of their products (psst some friends will be recieving some nice african beaded jewelry this xmas!)

money
so we buy water from mama aku across the street in plastic bags of 500ml. there are like 30 bags in a bunch and total it costs 7,000 cedis (which is like 75 cents). a ride on the tro tro to Accra for two hours is 10,000 cd (little over a dollar). right now the hour i'm using for the internet cafe is pretty cheap about 7,000 cd (some more frou frou places charge 12,000 cd). the teachers at akuffo tom school get paid pittance. i think 420,000 a month (what is that? like 50 dollars?) it might seem comparable. but it isn't. they still have rent and babies and real bills. yeah basically.. the exchange rate rocks for me!!!

cooking
liz and i have started to cook full meals since last week! vera is taking night classes in Accra for hotel management (one day we will return and stay at some amazing resort she'll run). so we are on our own for dinner. which it's turning out to be no problem because she recently purchased a gas stove (we pitched in for the cylinder of gas). it's like i'm on little house on the praire cause we are so grateful for a stove! no more fanning the charcoal for half an hour!

chinese
wo hao jiu mei you yong zhong wen. bao qian wo de tai wan han ri ben peng you!
i notice chinese everday! mama aku's daughter's name is a-mei (yes like the taiwan pop star) and i call her mei mei for short. lots of products randomly are from china and have only chinese written on them.. or arabic... or italian. for instance our toilet rolls have the brand huo ri (like live days). and the chocolate we sell during break at school say "cha ke li...hao bang!" (chocolate how great!) and then there is this candy makeup we sell and it says "xiao yang ren" (small lamb person? but the lamb character has san-dian swei on the side). i don't really understand it. my mom is going to send me a chinese dictionary! thank god! i don't want to forget everything i learned last year!

sorry no pictures! the upload function didn't work on here. GRR. i will try soon! i have many many more! they won't fit on my flash drive!

been four weeks

it's july! here's the scoop on the past month:

home:
we share the kitchen, bathroom, rest of house with: vera (another teacher who takes care of us/cooks us amazing food. she's unmarried, 35, teaches catering--sorta home ec/nutrition-- is hilarious and sings and shouts and taught us our most useful word: "ta" which means fart in trui. we act like a bunch of adolescent boys making jokes about ta-ing), dickson(a 50 some year old dad who works at ghana national bank in town. he visits his wife and three kids who live near cape coast every other weekend), and koffi (30 some year old guy who drives a taxi and teaches us the native tongue by just refusing to talk to us in english mostly. he tried to enlist my help mowing the lawn last week but the pulley thing for the string broke. and yes, we store the lawn mower in the dining room). there aren't any humongoid bugs so far, but lots of lizards. they climb in and out of our window. pretty much harmless bc they are eating the nasty bugs and do a funny dance with their heads . speaking of wildlife.. everyday on the 20 minute walk to school i pass by possibly 20 gazillion chickens and baby chics and just as many sheep. i used to always think to myself "i never have to worry about bird flu cause i'm never near wild fowl.. hmm take that back!). i've gotten good at impersonating the "baaa" of a sheep. we've been teaching the kindergarten classes "Old MacDonald" (along with "Miss Mary Mac" and "Five little Monkeys jumping on the bed") and now a bunch of the kids "baa" at me when they see me. Nice.
liz's bed and our world map!
main hallway
our lovely bathroom
vera and christy (one of her past students that was stayng with us for a while are pounding fufu)
vera and i on a walk to the Teacher's Training College. site of the first school in all of Ghana (1840's).

religion:
christianity's influence is everywhere. i've been to church three past sundays- longest consecutive stretch for me. i don't know if i will go this sunday (maybe the junior service for 17 year olds and under) since i don't really know what is going on with the sermons spoken all in trui. but it is so entertaining! the women wear beautiful/elaborate tailored dresses of colorful fabric. and the older men wear toga-esque versions in bright colors. they have drums.. right up near the choir. and there is probably more than 30 minutes dedicated to LOUD singing (aided by ear-splitting stereosystem) and dancing and waviing of hankerchiefs in the air. wow! plus, god is in the language and everyday life. people are always explaining getting over sickness, or good luck, or reasoning because "of the grace of god". the back windshield of taxis have humorous sayings .. like yesterday i saw one with "SHAME" in big words. best so far was "God is God". top four store names are "Shower of Blessing Mini Supermarket," "Thank U Jesus Business and Comm Center," "Jesus is Able Auto Parts" and "By His Grace Beauty Salon."

food:
so the kitchen in our house is really more like a big room with a table. since.. there is no stove (we use small "coal pots" like little grills on the floor) and the sink is busted (we use water from buckets we fill up somewhere else). we've been watching vera closely and started to help cook, and even prepared a full meal! most difficult might be getting the charcoal hot enough in the beginning. btw... as predicted i love yams! i might, yes i definitely do, love them more than potatoes!! uncooked they are gigantic brown roots that could be used as a deadly bludgeon. we usually cut them up and boil them, or mash them, or fried? i don't if we've doen that method. we fry plantains though YUM, and pound fufu (mashed cassava and plantains), or banku (mashed cassava and corn) or just have rice or spaghetti. dinner is the biggest yummiest meal. for breakfast we usually have oatmeal, sometimes porridge (it's JUST LIKE SHEE-FANG! but they told me to add sugar and i said i'd rather have soy sauce..too bad havn't seen that around these parts). at school for lunch the teachers dont really eat much. we usually have a coke/or fanta with digestives (yeah man, digestivse are big stuff here! good thing i love them from london).

Republic Day
last weekend was Ghana 1st (ghana's independence day) and Mr. Boafo (the proprieter of the school, really jovial large man with like 6 children) took us and Vera out to celebrate. we went to Palm Hill, nicest hotel/restaurant in akropong to get drinks (the liquor tasted like rubbing alcohol) but we did get a whole story on his life and how he started the school 12 years ago to give something back to the community and how they have had volunteers coming for 10 years and their plans for acquiring a grant from America to do more construction of the school. we spent the rest of the night at a local pub drinking red wine and watching the French/Brazil match. wow what a good game!
drinks at palm hill

Black Stars
it's been beyond amazing being here for the world cup. both of the last two games ghana played we ended school early at 2pm so everyone could go home and support. there were a bunch of people down the street gathered outside watching the first one vs. US. it was hard not to cheer with them when ghana kicked our butts! people (young and old, men and women) were yelling, running down the street and taxis and tro tros passing through town were blaring their horns! it's so cool to see an entire country show their national pride in this way. i wish football was bigger in the states (and i wish i could actually play but i have the poorest foot coordination at sports). but you can tell that a championship means a lot more to them here. i read a hilarious newspaper op-ed about the game and it said something like "everyone came out to watch the sweet game of soccer ...even vendors and mentally challenged people came into the strees... they jubilated all night". it was so sad when ghana lost to brazil! hey if you want to send anything-- mail soccer balls! liz and i only brought one and the boys at school already have kicked the heck out of it. we need to buy a pump. of course, they are ridiculously talented for the lack of organization or formal practice. they run around barefoot on this steep slope with barely any grass and huge piles of stones and they are SO Happy!
crowd watching the match down the street

cute quirks:
- in public when you want to get someone's attention you don't say hey you go "SSSSSSSS". it's disconcerting when you first hear people hissing like snakes but you get used to it.
- when you don't want to spent money on units for your cell but you want to let someone know you are thinking about them you "flash" them. no not that flash. you just call them but hang up after one ring. it's like a "hey i'm thinking bout you ring". we flash all the time. our teacher friend joe flashes us every other second.
- when you want to carry a heavy load (say like the mornign we ran out of water and had to go to a nearby spring to bucket it back). just just carry it on your head. the women, and men, carry EVERYTHING on their heads. not just little baskets... large bundles of fire wood, huge bags of flour, gigantic tupperware containers of rice, beans, bread, anything. once in accra a girl not much bigger than me carried probably 100 lbs worth of produce and a gas tank on her head for like half a mile. no sweat. they are amazing!
- if you have a baby, no doubt strap him on your back, while you are carrying huge buckets on yoru head or doing housework or doing anything. babies on backs are everywhere.
- two tv shows are the big to-do right now. we go across the street to mama aku's house (she is a a large lovely woman who is the town seamstress and has made liz and i two dresses already though they fit funny...) to watch "Timeless" on weekend nights (a super corny phillipino soap opera badly dubbed and in poor sound and reception quality. but it's so addictive!) as well as "Mentor" (ghana American-Idol. Prince-- a 23 year old chubby guy won and his winning song was "Let it Burn" by Usher).

liz at the markola market in accra
two cute boys in accra while we are waiting out a storm
liz and i sporting our new dresses before church in front of our house gate
me and some 6th graders
lady carrying excessive amount on her head in accra