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