africa is amazing! however the internet connection in this cafe is not. so we'll see how much i can write. conditions are far exceeding my expectations! huge house, running water and electricity (though there was a black out yesterday and the pipe isn't working in the kitchen so we are washing dishes with a bucket). we even have a cell phone! 024 656 4006 (no clue what the country code is sorry). but liz and i keep on forgetting to bring it around. we are at school from 7:30-4:30 basically everyday. the kids are SO CUTE. the best part by far. extremely enthusiastic. i teach 7th and 8th grade english. and lots of them want to learn chinese! about 40 of my 7th graders can all say NI HAO MA now. haha. after school we walk home with them. bout 30 minutes through town. (paved roads, phone lines, and really friendly locals who get a kick out of us. the little kids on the street call us "OBRUNI" which means white person. yes, i'm apparently caucasian now. sometimes they say chinese! or ching-chong which is nice i guess they can differentiate. it's contagious. now whenever i see a foreigner i call out obruni!). for dinner we eat a huge meal of some sort of rice/corn/yam product and some sauce with some meat. everything is super yummy. i'm getting used to eating with just my right hand, it gets messy but hey you don't have to wash a utensil. vera, the lady of the house who cooks our meals and takes care of us is like our mother, she makes us finish all the food, which are in huge portions! i think contrary to popular belief i'm going to gain weight africa! it's so cool that this is the first year ghana is in the world cup. they are thrilled about it. the team is called ghana's "black stars". so liz and i shout that out a lot. the weather is hot and humid but definitely bearable cause our town has quasi-mountains near it. the other day it poured crazy amounts (it's rainy season) so it was downright breezy and cool! my taiwanese mosquito net is coming in real handy. i've been spraying bug repellent non-stop, so knock on wood, havn't gotten bitten yet. though majority of our students have had malaria and say it's just like the flu. i have a ton more to talk about, but i gotta go! try to keep you'all posted next weekend? or maybe the one after that? not sure next time i'll come into the capital. oh yeah this is our address if you want to try to send things. i'll let you know if it works!
Jane Hsu
c/o Mr. Boafo
PO Box 183
Akropong-Akuapem
Ghana, West Africa
here are some pics! 1. liz walking down the dirt road toward school. it's set in a beautiful valley 2. some fellow ghanian teachers at akuffo tom school being silly/cool 3. me with extremely cute primary school students 4. an ordinary classroom
zhong wen: zhen bao qian bu neng xie zhong wen! fei zhou HEN BANG! hen hao wan! xiao hai hao ke ai! wo hen xiang taiwan peng you!
1 comment:
Hey Hsiang. Glad you haven't been eaten by a lion yet. Hope the locals don't turn on you if the US beats Ghana on Thursday. On the other hand, make sure to tell us how crazy everyone gets if Ghana makes it into the second round.
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