The End is Nigh

It’s been awhile since we’ve updated! Unfortunately, we hadn’t been able to get onto the webpage, but now that we can access it again you have a nice long post to read.
Not too much happened after our dinner with Elvis, excepting that we were able to pick up a package that my parents sent. Fortunately, the trip to the post office was entirely uneventful, and we had lots of candy to devour afterwards, which we did in only a matter of days. There were some fruity flavored tea bags inside which we made iced tea out of; they were actually really good. I enjoyed the raspberry and peach, but there was an Orange Spice flavor that was delightfully cinnamony that the two of us liked the most.
A few days after this, Bill and I went out to dinner to celebrate our first anniversary as a couple. We went back to the Turkish restaurant we’d visited with Chris and Sunyoung a few weeks ago and had some really excellent food. Bill and I stuffed ourselves on pide bread with mincemeat and tomatoes, kofte kebab, and chicken izkender. Our waiter forgot a few times to bring us our Turkish Tea, so instead of the small glasses of it, he brought us out two huge, steaming mugs (on the house)! The kofte kebab came with cheese, and it was the first time we’d had cheese in ages, and the chicken izkender came with yogurt. Real dairy products are nigh impossible to find in Ghana; the heat is too much and everything spoils right away, on top of cows being rare, so everything is cream-based and tastes a little wrong, so this was a real treat.
The next days we spent preparing for our first final, which happened Sunday the 12th. We sat and studied with Ashley, a friend of ours from our history course, for a long time. As we studied, it grew dark, and we could hear what sounded like the trees blowing very hard outside of Bill’s window. Upon further investigation, we were delighted to discover that the rains had come again! This was really fantastic news, especially as it rained for two days, because our water had been out again for a week or so, and the other hostels nearby also had no water, so we were forced to fetch water and take our baths out of buckets.
Allow me to pause, for a moment, because I don’t know if I’ve explained the chronic water issues we’ve had in the hostel properly. Most of our stay, I’d estimate 65% of the time we’ve been here, we have not had any water running from the tap in our building. This is because after Ghana’s last president died, the new one started some policy called “Better Ghana” that is actually really detrimental to Ghana’s people. The water from Ghana Water, the only water company that exists (and is owned by the government) has not supplied water to the campus once yet this semester, though it is supposed to at all times. Because of this, we’ve been pumping our water out of bore holes in the ground and running that through the hostel taps. However, because so many people use the water for so many things (especially during the dry season, which we had been in for our first few months), the bore holes dried up, forcing us to rely on the water tanks that are for washing clothes with in the courtyard. Bill and I had been worried about this because these tanks have run out before, and with all the water on campus gone we were afraid these would empty and we would not be able to wash ourselves. Our concerns were furthered when we noticed that the woman who takes money from the students in exchange for laundry services started carrying twenty or so 15 liter buckets upstairs every time she wanted to run her washing machine. We were horrified! This woman was stealing our precious last-resort water so she could make a couple bucks! Fortunately, those two days of rain filled the bore holes again (for now), and the water tanks were refilled as well. Bill and I are still worried it will go away again, but with ten days left in our journey, we’re a little more at ease.
Our first exam passed without anything remarkable occurring, except that we were misled about the content of the test. However, we both think we did just fine on it. After we got back to the hostel from this test, we began studying for the next one, which fell on the following day (Monday the 13th).
This test, however, did not go quietly. A few minutes after we had started writing the exams, the group of gentlemen proctoring the test converged around a young woman and asked her something, which she brushed off, and they settled back down. Though I observed this with a bit of confusion, I let the incident slip from my mind and focused on my work. A good while later, I finished the exam and went outside to wait for Sir Takes-Forever Moore (his defense for taking years to do a test is: “What can I say? I’m a dreamer.” Scoff.) After 30 or so minutes of waiting, I hear violent screaming coming from back in our exam room and get as close I am legally allowed (which was not very close; I had to wait outside the building, but could still see into the room about 50 feet away) to the door and peer inside. The group of guys giving the test had re-converged on the girl I mentioned earlier. I couldn’t tell what was happening, but Bill bore witness to the entire show. Apparently, they had earlier questioned her as to whether she was cheating, which she denied, and they left her alone. However, she was lying to them, and they caught her a second time, indiscreetly looking at a packet she had slipped inside her test that contained all the answers to the exam. When they approached her, she tried to deny it again, but they insisted she give them her exam, which she vehemently refused to do, swatting at them to try to get them to leave. They wouldn’t budge, however, and grabbed both her and the exam, which she clamped onto, and she started punching and kicking at them to get them to leave her alone. The struggle went on and on, and the girl slammed herself into her desk, her desk and chair into the wall, and threw as many hits as she could at the examiners, all while screeching at the top of her violent little lungs. Finally, they called in the portly security guard and each of them grabbed one of her limbs (one per arm and leg), and the security guard tried to find a good place to grab around her torso, and they intended to carry her out of the room. Somehow, though, she had latched onto the desk and refused to budge, screaming and thrashing as hard as she could. They dropped her and backed off, grabbing her test instead, and she came after them to try to get it back and run away. She walked up to the men giving the test and started swatting at them to try to get her exam back, but one man, clearly tired of her crap, shoved her away. She ran out of the room at this point, and Bill is unsure if she actually grabbed the test or not, but the guard pursued her with a few of the examiners. Once things had settled down again, they cornered her in the hallway outside (which I was able to watch from my perch in the doorway) and started questioning her furiously. She stood there, leaning against the wall and slapping herself on the side of the head, denying everything, though they had her cheat sheet in their possession. They forced her down in a desk and handed her a huge stack of paperwork, which she wailed at and then dutifully started signing. As far as we know, this was the paperwork which signified her ejection from the University, which is the punishment for cheating on finals. I guess the violent fit she had didn’t help her cause all that much, after all.
After Bill and I reunited outside and he told me what had happened, we walked down the steps from the porch of the building to leave, where we crossed paths with our portly security pal, who gave Bill a huge, dopey grin, and gave him the signal an umpire would make in a baseball game to say the runner was safe. As Bill put it, “he gave us a look that really said, ‘Yeah, I got that bitch.’”
The next few days were also spent in the study-time doldrums as we prepared for our sociology final, which took place Thursday the 16th. (Bill: “Doldrums? That doesn’t sound good.” Delanie: “Well, no, not really, but it’s a good word.” Bill: “Yeah?” Delanie: “Do you even know what it means?” Bill: “Does it mean crappy things?” Oh, Bill. What am I going to do with you?) This final passed quietly, and this time I came prepared for my wait for Bill to finish his exam with a book. One of the guards outside of the exam rooms came up to me as I sat reading and said, “Ah, you’ve finished your test already?”
“Yes?” I replied, a little unsure about the conversation.
“That’s wonderful, really wonderful. What paper did you write?”
“I took my sociology exam. Social Structure of Modern Ghana.”
“Oh, excellent, excellent. It’s your best class, I am sure. I can tell you’ve done very well on it, it was your best class.”
“Oh,” I said, confused and uncomfortable. “Well, I found the material very interesting, yes. It might not be my best class, but I feel confident about the work I did on this exam.”
He grinned widely, nodded, and walked away. Confused and awkward, I settled back into my book, only to be interrupted again. “What are you reading?” I showed him the cover of my book, rather than responding out loud, which is my customary reaction when someone asks what I’m reading. “The Road by… Cor…mac McCarthy, eh? Have you read it before?” I responded in the affirmative. “Ah, excellent! Brief me on it.” I explained to him the general plot of the book, which he nodded at, before asking: “So, do you come from Los Angeles?”
I stared at him for a second, trying to comprehend the conversational twist (Bill: “Yeah, come on, dude. Lead ins!”), before saying that no, I come from the opposite side of the US.
“Oh, okay,” he nods. “Have you been to Brazil?”
And suddenly I knew where the conversation was going. This dude wanted me to either bring him to America, or, somehow, to Brazil. “No,” I said carefully. “Not yet, I haven’t been to Brazil.”
“Oh,” he says. “Will you take me there someday? I’d like to go to Brazil with you.”
Knew it. “Uh,” I said, eloquently. “Um.”
“Do you speak Spanish? Or do they speak Portuguese there? I don’t know.”
“No, I don’t speak either of those languages. And I don’t know if I’ll be going to Brazil any time soon, so I doubt we would meet there.” It’s really hard to outright “no” someone without causing a huge offense, so I really had to skirt around telling him that I never want to go to Brazil with him, at least until Bill finished his test and would be there for back-up.
“Ah, so it is impossible?”
I shrug. “Probably.” And he nods, bids me good day, and leaves. I sat there, dumbfounded, and couldn’t even return to my book, so I stared at the floor until Bill came out fifteen or so minutes later.
Since then, we’ve mostly just been studying. Friday night we went to dinner at the Turkish restaurant with Chris, Sunyoung, and their Nigerian friend Faith to celebrate Sunyoung’s last night in Ghana. She was happy to leave, but sad at the same time as she was able to live the way she wanted without worrying about terribly much. Her life in Korea and at school in Hong Kong is stressful, so Ghana was quite the escape for her. We also went to the art market earlier that day and then again this past Tuesday picking up fun things for the people back home and a few keepsakes for ourselves as well.
Bill certainly made a very good friend there; this guy named Isaac, who sold carvings, swords, machetes, knives, and many other knick-knacks continually forced little carved wieners into Bill’s possession, saying that they “are a joke between men,” followed by much furtive snickering directed at our friend Ashley, who came with us, and myself (not laughing at us meanly, just sort of like “ha-ha-ha, girls!”). He tried (and failed) to convince Bill that his carvings were done from Ebony. He wanted fifteen cedis for them, and Bill somehow managed to purchase several for five just by slapping him on the back and saying “Hey, God gave me one of these for free, I ain’t paying fifteen cedis for more!” Isaac loved this (and Bill) so much that he continually invited Bill to his home to partake in illicit activities, which Bill laughed at and immediately denied. He also tried to sell us a very moth-eaten hat, saying, “yeah, man! That’s air holes for your head! It’s ventilation!” Bill and I didn’t buy it, obviously, and neither did we buy the grossnasty hat. He gave me a very difficult time when I tried to bargain with him for things, only relenting to lower his price when Bill told him that if he didn’t, we wouldn’t buy from him. After this, Isaac decided “hey, I just want to be your friend. Alright, I’ll do 12 for that.” And much happiness was had.
We bought a 2 liter of ice cream a few days ago as well, partially as a reward for studying for our finals, and Bill bought it partially out of pity for me (I wasn’t feeling so well in the muscles). We savored it the last few days, eating it in small bits, until today we realized that our fridge is going away tomorrow and we still have most of this ice cream left. So, after we got back from our last final, we pounded the whole thing and it was gone in about 20 minutes, if that.
Today we took our very last final. It went suspiciously well, and we feel liberated. Now all we need to do is go on one final adventure with Elvis this weekend and finish a few papers, and we will be on our way home.

What a Journey it’s been.

Turkish Delights

Classes have ended, here at the ol’ University of Ghana. The week has been quiet, but with plenty of good moments.
Monday, Bill and I wrote a paper for the ever absent Dr. Adjaye and went out to DNR, a Turkish restaurant with Chris and Sunyoung. The food was cheap and delicious; Chris and I each tried the chicken doner, Bill had an adana kebab, and Sunyoung had an izkena special kebab, and we shared a pida bread covered in tomato and beef bits. The atmosphere was pretty nice, too. White lights (Christmas lights, I guess) were strung along the fences, and we sat outside on the veranda, nestled comfortably in leather couches while Turkish music played overhead, just loud enough to make us forget we were near the road. There was a pond that had a big waterwheel churning the water, and several people were smoking something that was pretty similar to a hookah. The food came out promptly and with a piping hot cup of Turkish tea, on the house. Even when we got a second round of tea, we weren’t charged for it, which was very exciting and nice. The conversation wasn’t much to write home about; we were mostly just repeating how delicious the food was and making plans to go back again sometime. Bill and I retreated to bed (we even got to shower in our own hostel!) with full stomachs and happy faces that night.
Tuesday we were forced to endure the worst sociology class. The lecturer made zero progress but droned on about corruption for nearly two hours. Most of the class was a big argument about whether tipping someone is bribery, and nobody could agree with each other, resulting in the generic “no, you’re stupid!” argument that all of our tutorials degenerate into. Bill and I often find ourselves wondering if we’ve been sent to a daycare rather than a university.
Wednesday we went to tutorial for Africa and the Global System, which was also pretty bad. Blaine, the TA, gave us the page numbers of what he wanted us to read for the test (which was nice), and then mysteriously disappeared for about half an hour before Bill and I mysteriously disappeared our way back to the hostel. During Blaine’s disappearance, Bill and I took the time to argue about which is better for telling direction: A compass or the sun. Bill’s argument: “I’d rather use the sun, because after a few days I’d know which way was east and which was west, and then I’d just go the way I think would have a road!” Oh, Bill.
Then, after ages in which we hadn’t seen him, we met with Elvis at the trotro stop Okponglo and caught a car to take us to Osu, where we had dinner. After window shopping for a little while, we decided to try a Chinese restaurant, and walked into the nearest one. We opened our menus and were pretty horrified at the prices, but Bill noticed the most horrifying thing of all; no matter what we bought, they were going to charge us a minimum of 30 cedis per person. Ridiculous! So, we mysteriously disappeared for a second time that day and made our way to Frankie’s next door, which served Lebanese food. We had originally been under the impression that Frankie’s was French or Italian, but were proven wrong (not that we minded; Lebanese food is pretty good). Elvis wanted pizza, of all things, but we were happy to split it with him, and Bill ordered hummus for us to split as well. The pizza was actually fantastic, and I burned my mouth no less than twice trying to scarf it down. It was the first pizza in Ghana that actually had sauce on it, but we were a little mislead by the title “Pepperoni Heatwave.” The ‘pepperoni’ turned out to be sliced up hotdog, which was confusing but still good, and very chuckle-worthy. When we started working on the hummus, Elvis tried his very first olive… and absolutely hated it. He hadn’t ever seen an olive before, but didn’t tell us until after he’d been thoroughly horrified by its gross-nastiness. We’ve made plans for all through the month of May with him, so we’ll be seeing more of Accra to report back home.
The rest of the week has passed in relative silence. I got a package slip and a letter yesterday, so Bill and I will be heading out to pick up our parcel shortly. We also did some laundry yesterday, which was good. We’ll do a little more this afternoon or tomorrow morning to catch up a bit more.
First thing I’m going to do when I get home is throw the entire contents of my suitcase into the washing machine and blast it with laundry detergent. The way we have to wash our clothes (in buckets), I feel like we’ve not been properly clean since we left home. Only 24 days to go!

A Classy Week

The lecturers returned from their two week strike this past Monday, so Bill and I had to gather up our wits and brush off the cobwebs and make the mile trek over to JQB, where our classes are held.  Our very first class of the week, naturally, still didn’t happen.  This is because, as many of you know, Dr. Adjaye, our Pitt representative and program advisor, abandoned us and returned to the US.  He was sick, so he had a good reason, but I’m still a little bitter about it.  I digress.  After we sat in his classroom and listened to the TAs ramble about how they’ll just see us next week (the last week classes are held), we were free for two hours until our next class began in the room across the hall.  For a while we sat there baking in the classroom heat, but Bill finally acquiesced to come to the little restaurant downstairs with me and get a couple of Cokes and BS until our class started. 

I don’t think we’ve ever properly described the classes, so we’ll do that now.  Students pack themselves into these really dirty rooms and squeeze onto benches where they mumble until the lecturer arrives and calls for their attention a few times.  The lecturer has a little stage upon which he/she stands and mumbles at the class.  The saving grace is that they mumble into a microphone, so while it’s hard to make out what they’re saying, they’re at least mostly audible.  The lecturer will talk for 1-2 hours, depending on how they’re feeling, and the students scribble down the things the lecturer says multiple times in a row, slowly, just to make sure they get it.  I’d like to take more notes than that, but often this is the only time I can figure out what they’re saying through the mumbling.  One of our classes, Conflict and Society (7:30 Friday mornings), has a lecturer called Braimah whose words are completely indistinguishable unless he’s talking slowly and repeating himself.  Whatever he says must be great, though, because the Ghanaian students understand him easily and are always laughing at his jokes.  Or what must be jokes, at least.  I haven’t really figured this particular batch of students out, though; one day Braimah was lecturing about why rape and sexual violence are so prevalent in African conflict, and the students were merrily laughing away, despite his insistences that “dis is not a joke!  Not a laughing matter!” 

Because our classes are worth 3 credits and are only 2 hours long, the University makes up for that final hour with “tutorials.”  These are almost completely worthless wastes of time, but we still attend every one (though I’m thinking that many of them aren’t as mandatory as we’d originally assumed).  Most of the time, students meet with their TAs at the department building for the subject in question.  Our history tutorials, therefore, are at the history department, and sociology at the sociology department, et cetera.  Generally we grab chairs and sit under a tree (typically full of red ants, but that’s part of its charm, right?) in a circle around the TA, who whispers at us and is only audible when asking if we understand.  The TA never gets to do much talking, though (except the PoliSci TAs, but I’ll get to that in a minute) because the students immediately start arguing with each other over whatever question they were just asked.  Once, during a history tutorial, I asked Divina (who is the only good TA for that class, and her tutorials are horrendous because of the kids) in what way she imagines Africa would have developed without the colonial problem.  This turned into a 45 minute argument between the kids, who had divided into two sides: those who thought Africans would still be living in their ‘tribal’ stage, and those who thought Africa would have been the most powerful continent on the planet.  It was interesting to listen to them, but generally their arguments are much less productive (i.e. what is a nation vs. what is a state, and are they the same thing?  Nobody could settle the matter, because everyone thought everyone else was wrong, and Divina failed to step in.).  The PoliSci tutorials are the most worthwhile, but Blaine (or is it Blake?  We can’t figure it out, and it isn’t written anywhere), the TA for Africa in the Global System, speaks completely unintelligibly.  The only things we can understand from him are “Are you getting it?”  and “However!”  (which he pronounces HAR-evah!).  Thank goodness for us, everything he says is written down in our textbook (which is a packet of photocopied pages from mix-matched sources), so we’re able to figure everything out in the end.  Harrison, the TA for Conflict and Society, is awesome as far as those things go.  He is very easy to understand, teases the Ghanaians (not meanly; he just likes to get them flustered by reminding them that they’re a cowardly people), and covers relevant information in a way that saves Bill and I a lot of time insofar as we don’t have to dig to find information.  He’s a little weird, though; he’s consistently 15 minutes late to the tutorial and always flirts with girls outside the tutorial room when the students are not paying attention.  Oddly, the PoliSci tutorials don’t happen outside the department building; we go into a disused, dirty little hole of a classroom that hasn’t been maintained since it was built in the 40s.  However, it has a mostly functioning fan, so we don’t roast too terribly.

I can’t say that classes went smoothly this week, unfortunately.   History didn’t happen, sociology was horrendous, truncated, and had very little substance in the lecture, Conflict and Society was equally anti-productive (Braimah just stood there and mumbled jokes before telling us not to come to class next week, just to use that time to study for our final exam a month away), and Africa and the Global System conscripted us to a very dry 3-day series of lectures by Thandika Mkandawire because the lecturer didn’t feel like teaching, and he decided these lectures would make up for the strike. 

We have a paper due to Adjaye Monday, so we spent our Friday evening completing that, even though we’re pretty sure he doesn’t even want it anymore, as our private course with him is finished because he left for the US a month ago. 

So, this morning we were grouchy and depressed.  After sitting in Bill’s room twiddling our thumbs and growling about how bored we are, Bill dragged me to the night market to investigate a stall he’d seen in the sector of the market we never visit.  He remembered seeing on its sign that they do wings, and he had a severe craving for them.  We wandered over in the blistering heat and spoke to the woman who owned the stall.  In fifteen minutes, Bill’s glorious wings would be ready, so we wandered into the convenience store (which is really only convenient because it has AC) and poked around in search of cookies and instant coffee powder.  Once we’d whiled away the fifteen minutes, we went back to the Wing Lady (whose stall is impressively large and clean) and picked up ten wings for 6 cedis.  They were awesome; however she cooks and seasons them is absolutely fantastic.  Bill and I were wishing his friend Zach were here to experience the wings.  The meat wasn’t greasy (Bill is dictating this part in a dreamy voice, so picture that while you read this part), and it wasn’t dry either; it had the perfect consistency and was so tender it was like eating butter. The seasoning gave the wings a perfect flavor and made them “a crunchy red… thing.”  Sometimes the seasoning would cluster up on the skin of the wing and it fried up to a nice reddish-brown, which would burst when you bit into it and appease your senses.  It reminded Bill of microwave pork rind seasoning; he will be going back to this stall for dinner tonight.  (I don’t know about you guys, but “microwave pork rinds” sounds atrocious to me.  Bill is insulted by this statement, but I’m leaving it in here anyway.  “I grew up with pork rinds!  This is something that goes deep!”  Deep into his arteries, maybe…)

 

                                                                                                                                                                      

A Three Hour Tour

Our weekend went quite smoothly this time around, with only minor hitches and frights!  Bill and I met with Chris and Sunyoung to begin our journey just before noon Saturday.  We left ISH with high hopes, and immediately got stuck in traffic for a dreadfully long time.  Upon arriving at the station at which we’d planned to catch a tro-tro, we were told that the tros to Asheman (where we’d planned on catching a connect to Adafoa) no longer ran through there, so we’d have to go to a nearby depot and look for them.  After wandering around Accra for a short time, unable to figure out where this mystery station was, we ran into a group of scruffy teenagers.  Christoph asked them for directions, and one led us to where we needed to be just in time for us to catch a car on the way to Asheman.  Upon our arrival there half an hour or so later, we climbed aboard another tro all the way up to Adafoa. 

This tro-tro held quite the group of characters, and they didn’t stop shouting at each other over 10 pesewa (roughly 5 US cents) for almost the entire 2-odd hour journey.  As we trucked through a small town near our destination, the tro-tro suddenly slammed on its brakes and everyone slid forward.  A small child had scampered across our path suddenly, and the driver had only barely avoided her.  Rather than reprimanding the small girl for running into the street in front of a vehicle, the mother screeched at the driver as if it had been his fault she’d nearly been turned into a pancake.  We got off the vehicle with great relief a short while later and had a light dinner of rice and fried chicken, during which we discussed video games, books, and the like.  From here we took a couple motorcycles to our island (we even drove through the sand and the water [though it was only maybe 8 inches deep]!) and trekked across a rickety bridge, at the end of which lay our destination.

Adafoa is a special island; on one side lies the Atlantic Ocean, and along the other runs the Volta River.  You can see where the two collide and fight each other, as I believe I have described in a previous blog when we made this same trip with Elvis.  After we got our room (a small hut made entirely of palm thatches), the four of us changed into our swimsuits and made a run for the Volta.  The water was quite warm and shallow where we played, only going to our necklines (though Chris swam out considerably further than this, as he is apt to do such things) and we stayed here until a good bit after dark.  I held onto Bill’s back like a sloth after a short while because, as I am prone to do, I got cold.  Chris kept swimming under the water and torpedoing Sunyoung, who squeaked “Chris!  Ah, no!” every time he picked her up and tossed her onto his shoulders, and then into the water.  He really didn’t relent until we dragged ourselves out of the water, dried off, and stood looking at the ocean crashing against our little island.  There were more stars than I’ve ever seen, and two small fishing crafts bobbed in the distant waves.  We sat under a small awning and talked until eleven PM before retreating to our hut, all thoroughly exhausted.

Unfortunately for Bill and I, the night did not go as planned.  Although Chris and Sunyoung fell asleep almost right away, the two of us were very uncomfortable on our slimy, lumpy beds, which were infested with sand.  There isn’t running water on the island, so Bill was quite miserable, as he is generally unable to sleep until he’s had a bath, and I heard him rustling around until around 3 AM, where he suddenly sat up and looked over at me.  Bear in mind that the hut was so dark it almost seemed brighter when we closed our eyes, and the rest of the island is just as bad (which is why all those stars were visible).  “Dude,” he whispered.  “I gotta get out of here.  I can’t even breathe in this stupid hut, it’s too hot.”  I sat up and agreed that it was terrible inside, but I didn’t want to leave because it was spooky out there.  Bill decided to leave anyway and disappeared.  I lay back down to wait for him, but realized he left his good flashlight inside with me and sat up, grabbing it with the intentions to bring it to him.  And then the door creaked, knocking against its frame slightly.  “Tck.”  It was dark, late, and a foreign environment, so my logic left me and I decided that rather than the wind causing this, there must be a ghost, and I froze.  The door knocked again, a little harder, and I lay back down and held terribly still.  The door knocked again several more times, in sharp staccato cracks.  “TckTckTckTck.”  As natural protection against the ghost, I turned on the flashlight and aimed it at the door. Silence.  More silence.  More silence.  After a minute or two with the light on and no knocking, I knew it must be a ghost, so I rolled out of the bed and crept forward towards the door, planning to find Bill and make him rescue me.  Just as I got to the door, it slowly (so, so slowly) swung inwards.  My eyes wide and my heart pounding, I thought, “this is it.  This is how I die.”  As the door opened ever wider, I stepped backwards once, twice, and it revealed to me…

Bill, standing there with his eyes wide, wondering what the hell I was doing, creeping in the doorway like that.  He stepped forward, leaning down to whisper in my ear that it was very creepy outside, and he had had an odd experience.  In my relief to see him, I interrupted his story with my own, and let him know that the hut was haunted and we were surely doomed.  He gave me his trade-marked (and patent pending) “what on earth is wrong with you” look and hushed me.  “I went out there to pee, but I stood in front of the door for a little while because I felt like there were people out there,” he whispered.  “When I looked down towards the river, these dark figures appeared out of the treeline and just kind of glided forward along the shore.  They were moving really, really fast, and when they disappeared into the darkness of the other trees, I came back in.”

Wanting to gather up the scraps of my dignity after being scared by a non-existent ghost, I offered to come with him this time, as long as we brought our knife and the light.  Together, this time, we stepped out of the doorway and headed slowly towards the bathroom.  I noticed a mound near our door and studied it for a moment before realizing it was one of the island dogs that I’d petted while the four of us had sat together earlier.  This was comforting, and we moved onward.  After a few steps east towards the latrine, I lost some of my earlier courage and held onto Bill’s arm.  It was very windy and dark, and it was so hard to see or hear anything.  We kept the flashlight off so as not to disturb any other guests (light can come in through the palm fronds that make up the huts), and so we didn’t attract any monsters, but we listened as hard as we could.  The howl of the wind and the rumble of the ocean were the only voices we could catch.  Once we made it to our destination, it became clear that the island had either lost its power or shut off every light, because the bathroom was completely dark.  “No.  No.  No.  Hell no.”  I dragged Bill back towards the hut, determined to get us away from the nightmare bathrooms.  “You can pee in the sand.”  He readily agreed, not thrilled at the idea of entering a dark cement hole that was probably coated in demonic bugs and pee, and we walked behind the huts, nearer to the ocean.  It was completely black, and the boats that had been fishing earlier seemed to have disappeared.  Bill later mentioned that he saw one light bobbing in the distance, but I failed to notice it.  As I always do when we’re by dark water, I thought of the time Bill told me “imagine what it must have been like to sail across the ocean 500 years ago.  Look how dark that is.  That’s terrifying.”  Sure enough, it scared me again, so I switched my focus to not stepping on anything undesirable.

When we arrived back at the hut after a short stumble (the way back seemed much faster than the walk there), I stood guard while Bill did what he needed to do (and politely buried it).  Once we were inside and laying down again, things were not much better (if at all).  We couldn’t sleep for a long time (though Chris and Sunyoung hadn’t stirred) and noticed light.  Someone was walking around somewhere, shining their light at the huts.  Bill kept thinking about the lame excuse for a lock our door had (a small slat of wood that rotated in front of the inward-swinging door so nobody could open it from the outside) and how anyone with a stick could poke it inside our hut between the door and its loose frame and knock the “lock” aside easily.  Just as things seemed to calm down, our watch dog barked a few times and fell silent.  We were back on edge, listening as hard as we could for people sounds, and heard a sound like someone coughing or clearing their throat not too far away.  Bill sat up and held completely still, knife in hand, and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  After a few minutes he settled back onto his pillow and set the knife aside, finally falling asleep shortly thereafter.

A few short hours later, we got up and dragged ourselves to breakfast, telling Chris and Sunyoung of our nighttime woes.  “Oh, but we were right there!  You should have woken us!”  Sunyoung jokingly reprimanded us.  After omelets, tea, and coffee, we went for a swim in the ocean.  The current was obscene, and the waves blasted us with rocks and trash, so we clambered out of the water and went back to the river, where we wiled away most of the morning.  When we got back out, it was lunch time, and I shared my sandwich with our guard dog in gratitude.  Chris and Sunyoung visited the hammocks for a nap and a read, and Bill and I stayed at the table, where I read and Bill slept for most of the rest of the afternoon.  At almost 5 we left, taking motorcycles to the tro-tro stop, and headed home to ISH.

We took showers the moment we got back, and went to bed before 10.

—

Upon waking Monday morning, the power went out.  I went down to Bill’s room and sat in his chair while he tried to sleep, attempting to ignore the steadily increasing temperature in the room.  Finally, around 1 or 2, we gave up and decided to go to the mall to watch a movie, just so we could escape the heat.  Boy was it our lucky day!  We went to the theater and got tickets, popcorn, and a drink for about 7USD a piece.  We saw GI Joe, which was horrendous and cheesy, but it had lots of explosions, which we liked.  When we left, the tro-tro station was insane, and rather than subject ourselves to the writhing mass of bodies, we talked to a taxi driver to see his prices for the return journey.  He actually gave us the right price on the first go-round, so we hopped in the car and Bill tipped him when we got out.  The taxi driver looked like his entire life had just been made, and tried to get Bill’s number so he could become his personal taxi driver.  Bill escaped this, stating we were leaving soon, while I negotiated an escape from Louisa the Tantalizer, who was waiting for us outside of the hostel.  And, much to our happy disbelief, the power was back on (and the water was flowing, too)! 

All in all, it was a good weekend.

Happenings

It’s been quiet ever since Easter break. As some of you know, the lecturers have been on strike since then, and we have therefore not had class. We’ve used this time wisely, though: we’ve caught up on sleep, read some of our class assignments, and played lots and lots of Donkey Kong. Bill has actually read two whole books in a matter of 5 days! I’m so impressed. Not too much has happened apart from that. We visited the Aburi Gardens with Elvis Thursday afternoon and have cooked dinner with Josh, Chris and Sunyoung a few times as well.
One evening, for lack of anything better to do, Bill and I talked about some of the crazy things we’ve seen in our day, and we discussed some of the gross things the people do in the showers here (like peeing/leaving their hair all over the place). Due to the theme of conversation, I mentioned that once, while attending and living at Robert Morris University, I went to the shower and found poop in the shower stall. We both laughed about it for a little while, chuckling that at least we haven’t seen that here yet, and changed topic. Shortly after, we decided to head to the bathroom for our showers, as it was getting late. We enter the room and look for the least gross stall. Imagine our shock and surprise (and a feeling that we were psychic) when there was a poo in the middle of the second stall. Wordlessly, we look at each other, mouths slightly agape. Bill is the first to speak. “Is… Is that… Is that what I think it is? That isn’t what I think it is, right?”
I stare at it for a moment. “Oh, no, I think it is.” Another few seconds go by.
“New bathroom?” Bill asks, a little horrified.
“Yep.”
—
Last Sunday evening we made a nice big dinner with Chris, Sunyoung, and Josh. It was really pleasant; Bill and I cooked pork and apples (with onions and sauced with cider) and made a brown sugar/banana concoction for dessert. We talked about the Bildeburg (I don’t know how to spell that, sorry) Group and the so-called “New World Order.” It’s so interesting to hear the ideas of non-Americans in relation to these things. Every time we talk with Chris and Sunyoung we eventually talk about things like this, or similar tracks. They actually have a lot of the same perspectives we do on things, which surprised us. We thought that a German and a South Korean would see things quite differently, but I guess that goes to show us that the world isn’t so big and we really do share a lot of things with a lot of people. Or perhaps it’s just that our age group is so connected through the internet and various other media that our ideas are similarly cultivated.
We cooked with Chris and Sunyoung again this evening and made a rice and beef stir-fry. We talked about subliminal advertising, and Bill and I were slightly horrified (but also delighted) to find out that they have TV shows in Germany that are very similar to Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. It was very funny to talk about it with Chris, but I have a hard time translating the humor into text. There’s just something very happy about finding similarities in our cultures when we expect certain things to be unique to us. I would have never guessed Springer to be in Germany, but was glad to hear it, probably in part because I was glad that that show isn’t a depravity unique to America. There’s just something very oddly comforting and exciting about the realization that we’re all terrible in just about the same ways.
They asked us what we’re doing this weekend, and we replied that we have no plans, but we would like to know if they would like to go to Ada (the beach we went to with Elvis, where the Volta river meets the ocean) with us sometime before we leave. Chris and Sunyoung looked happy but also slightly confused. They looked at each other and then Chris explained that they’d been planning on asking us the same thing! They’d talked about it last night, probably at the same time Bill and I were talking to each other about asking them if they’d like to go. Sunyoung looked very excited and said “oh, it must have been meant to happen, if we were both thinking about it!”
So, we depart tomorrow morning and will be staying the night in a hut on the island, leaving to return the following morning. It will be a really nice weekend, and a very good change from staying at the hostel and getting angry at the noisy neighbors and rude people in the corridors/kitchen.
Now, to go a bit farther back in time, we’ll tell you about the Aburi Gardens with Elvis yesterday. He had us meet him at Masalachi, one of the tro-tro stops, at 9 in the morning. We got there about ten after and called him to let him know we’d arrived, and he told us he would be there very shortly. Half an hour goes by, and he calls us to let us know something has come up, and he will be around in 45 minutes. Bill and I were frustrated and extremely hot, and the only shade around was just in front of what appeared to be a very sketchy community house. An older gentleman by the name of Eric approached us and told us all about his brother that lives in Ohio and how he himself is a horticulturalist. He talked to us for a very long time, deciding we were good friends, and then he suddenly disappeared. It was a strange encounter, but it killed an hour. Still waiting for Elvis, we sat down on a curb in the direct sunlight and got very uncomfortable. Someone on the balcony of the sketchy house called down to us. “Hey! Tss! It’s too hot in the sun, it’s too hot. Come in front of the house.” We obliged, and a moment later he came downstairs and put a bench in the shade for us, telling us to stay as long as we needed before he disappeared back inside. As Bill put it, “he was probably a drug dealer, but he was a nice drug dealer!” Elvis showed up shortly after this and walked us to a big tro-tro park inside the market. He held Bill’s hand for some reason, so Bill held my hand to make it less uncomfortable. I remembered when my parents would walk like this with me in the middle and would sometimes swing me forward, so I started swinging Bill’s hand. Elvis got very excited when he saw this and started to swing Bill’s other hand. Bill graciously put up with our antics and chuckled along.
Once we got to the actual gardens, we were impressed with the temperature difference. We weren’t nearly as hot because it was quite shady and breezy, and it helped that we were on top of a freakin’ mountain. There weren’t too many magical plants there, just a lot of different bamboos and palms, but we did find Kwame Nkrumah’s lost helicopter, and we played in its wreckage for a long time. As we wandered along, we stumbled across a group of Nigerian students and they all started taking pictures of us. Horrified, I went behind a tree, but Bill waved to them and accepted his rock-star status. Their teachers came up to us and said that they aren’t used to white people, so could we please take a group picture with the kids. We reluctantly assented, aware that it was going to happen no matter what, and we were swarmed by the teenagers. One girl pressed her entire body against mine, which was very uncomfortable. They took about a thousand photos, and lots of the kids tried to turn their phones around and self-photograph themselves with a couple of white kids. The rest of our tour of the garden was uneventful, and we visited a friend of Elvis, who is partially in charge of the local high school. We spent a good portion of the afternoon luncheoning with him and touring his school. We returned home around 5 feeling very tired but happy that we’d gotten out for an afternoon. Elvis was in good spirits, as we haven’t seen him for a long while because he’s on his annual break. He apparently gets a whole month off every year, which is pretty neat (but also explains a lot of why nothing ever gets done ever in these parts).
—
Something else that we’ve noticed is that a lot of women here look very grumpy and sour. Bill went to the kitchen this evening and was given a very mean look by some girl washing her dishes, though he wasn’t encroaching on the sink. Plenty of women seem to wear a crumpled “something smells like poo” look on their faces at all times. This isn’t very typical of the males, however, and it’s an actual facial expression, not just how their faces look. Is this sort of thing typical all over? Share your experiences with us, I’d really like to know about lots of “I didn’t think it would be like this in X country, but it is!” moments, such as the ones we’ve had with Chris, as well as a probable answer to the question of the sourpusses.

A Rant on Politics (inspired by an ‘as-seen-in-Ghana’ thought process)

Over the course of our stay here, Elvis has spoken extensively to Bill and I of “what it means to us that you are American.” There is a phrase here that goes something along the lines of “if you are on your way to church and you meet a white man, go home: you’ve already seen God today.” Elvis told us this one dim, dusty evening under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hostel lobby. He laced his fingers together and rested his chin on his knuckles, elbows on the table between us, and leaned forward with a conspiratorial look, clearly having let us in on a big secret. “Do you understand?” Bill and I exchanged a glance, trying to communicate whether or not we understood, and then nodded. He explained anyway. “It means that to us, white men are Gods on Earth. They are rich! And you Americans especially so,” he nods, seeing our bewilderment written plainly across our faces. “Americans are the most powerful, the most rich. And that’s why people try to make you pay more for things that are worth a tenth of what they’re charging you. They think ‘Oh, an American man, this is my lucky day. God has sent him to me so that I might finally reap my harvest.’ And he charges you 90 cedis for what’s only worth six, because you maybe probably have that money and don’t realize he’s fooling you. So you buy it, and the cycle continues.”

Elvis has also told us that Ghana tries to model itself politically after America, especially with Obama as President. American politics are worshipped and viewed as flawless machinery that does no wrong. Elvis was genuinely horrified when we explained that politics are a major divide between the people in our nation, and that politics do not go smoothly at all, but are filled with lots of angry people with an agenda. He couldn’t wrap his head around that. “You mean to tell me that this is everywhere? Government officials are corrupt in places that aren’t in Africa?” And we, in turn, were horrified that he thought only Africa had such issues. He then proceeded to tell us something that horrified me again: “we base a lot of what we talk about in the government on what America is doing. Right now, we’re trying to decide whether or not gay marriage should be legal, because Americans love gay people, and they’re doing fine there, so maybe probably it won’t do any harm in Ghana.” I’m unsure what was the most disturbing about this statement (and yes, disturbing is the word, because think of what is implied with that world-view). Is it that Ghana is ignoring its bigger problems (like developing, providing clean water, electricity, food, improving the literacy rate, et cetera) in favor of keeping up with what’s hot in American politics? Or is that they can’t be properly informed of what actually goes on with that debate? When we told him violence exists in America, he was floored once again. Everyone in Ghana thinks there is no such thing in America, and they actually, honestly, genuinely believe that you can pick money out of the gutters because there’s so much people throw it away.

He spent a good deal of time questioning us on the nastiness of American politics and continually wondered “how could it happen?” All of this gave me pause; how COULD it happen? And how could they be so uninformed about the reality of it all? In rural areas, I could understand the misconceptions, but even the people in major cities like Accra think this way. They have the internet, how have they not stumbled across these things?

And the fact that they’re ignoring societal needs to debate about gay marriage “just because America is” is disgusting, too. The country has no reliable electricity, no clean water that isn’t bottled, no housing or education for entirely too many people, and an illiteracy rate of 60 percent (don’t quote me on that rate, that’s just what Elvis said it was, and he seems fairly well-informed on what’s going on locally). Nobody goes to work when it rains, nobody gets in trouble for sleeping at work rather than working, teachers haven’t been paid in 8 months in some places, the police system is obscenely corrupt, and they’re worrying about gay marriage. Because America is. Which, that in and of itself makes me angry (because why is that a debate? Not religiously supported? Fine. But there’s separation of church and state, so legally recognizing a legal marriage and not a church marriage and giving everyone the same rights solves that problem, doesn’t it?). Not to mention that we have our own slew of problems that need a lot more cognitive thought than gay marriage.

When Elvis asked about why our political system is so divided, we were a little stumped as to how we ought to properly (and diplomatically) explain. Really, the only thing I could think of is “everyone is looking for an excuse to blame something on someone else, and everyone is looking for a reason to hate everyone else. And also, money corrupts everything, and politicians are pretty much all greedy bastards, so there’s that issue.” This is another one of those things that makes me really angry. If everyone would just shut up and take politics out of the equation and just do what’s right, things would go a lot more smoothly. Instead, we have to fight about everything, just because “the other side is evil and I hate them, and even if this idea is good, they proposed it, so I hate it too.”  It sickens me that when I think “but why can’t we just work together and do the right thing?” I sound like a six year old who can’t figure out why she can’t eat candy for every meal, because how could something so good be bad? I hate that it sounds naïve to want to work together. And I hate that the disease of political corruption is all over the world; it’s infected America, it’s infected Europe, it’s infected Asia, and it’s infected Africa.

Because really, why can’t we all just work together and do the right thing?

Peculiar things People Say and Do

Warning: None of the following paragraphs have any relation to each other, and are not following any sort of order.

 

Bill and I have experienced a torrent of unusual statements from strangers since we’ve gotten to Ghana.  The most common of these is actually a question, and it comes in one of two forms followed by an assumption:  “Are you twins?” or ”Are you brother and sister?”  and once we answer in the negative, chuckling:  “Oh, then you must be married.”  This always excites Elvis, who says, “Ah!  Nature is wonderful!”  His explanation for this is “people see you together, acting like a unit, and you must either be twins or married, because those are usually the only people who are so close!”  followed by another exclamation that “nature is wonderful!”

Another thing that happens to us involves everyone’s wonderful pal, Louisa the Tantalizer.  She waits for us, hoping to sell us her gross-nasty muffins (and other baking abominations) or her dinners (which are actually really good).  However, every time we consent to purchase her goods (or bads, depending on what we’re buying this time) she tells us to “go and tantalize your bodies with this delicious, tantalizing treat.”  And then she tells us how much fun we’ll have if we come to her house, and proceeds to say to me “I like your body.  I like the way you’re… structured.”  Which is always uncomfortable.  Not to mention that she insists on calling Bill my husband.  (Which also excites and pleases Elvis, but then he tells us she’s gone nuts, rather than saying that nature is wonderful.  “She had a disappointment, I suspect, with a boyfriend… or a girlfriend.”  This statement is always followed by a thousand-yard stare into the middle of nowhere.)

“Maybe probably” is another of Elvis’s favorite terms.  This always confuses Bill, especially when Elvis says things like “maybe probably the water doesn’t always flow in Ghana because the water is only offered by one company, and the company does a bad job.”  However, he usually uses this statement to express his world-view, or things like, “maybe probably I would work for one hour, and then I would never work again,” (in reference to how much money Mitt Romney used to make in an hour).

The other day, Bill was carrying two bags of water sachets back from the night market when a guy on his little motor-scooter pulled up to him and mumbled something in Twi.  After being prompted for English several times, the guy said to him, “you alone bring all,” in reference to the water.  He then proceeded to smile, giggle, and drive away. 

Last night I went to the bathroom around midnight.  I only needed to be there for thirty seconds, but “Ghana Party” (as Bill and I refer to the sudden influx of 2-6 Ghanaians to the bathroom at one time, accompanied by lots of chatter) happened.  Being as awkward as I am, I hoped the two girls that entered would pee and leave without me ever leaving the stall and seeing them.  Instead, they ignored the two other empty stalls to talk to each other about how they hoped the stall I was occupying would be vacant soon, because they wanted to use that one.   I was annoyed by this, because there were 11 other bathrooms they could go to, and two perfectly good empty stalls in this one.  So, rather than hurry along, I pulled an ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and set up camp by pulling out my phone and starting a nice game of Tetris while I waited for them to leave.  Many complaints followed before they gave up and used the other stalls (which really were no better or worse than the one I was in), brushed their teeth, washed their faces, and left.  After all this, I’d been in there for at least fifteen minutes, and it was worth every second.

Another weird bathroom thing is the conversations that the Ghanaian chicks (we have yet to hear the guys do this) have with each other while they are using the bathroom (or just visiting their friends in the bathroom). It usually consists of one of them mumbling something in Twi, and the other, rather than making an actual reply, will just grunt or snort. And not just once, but for every couple lines of conversation, there will be a loud grumble that maybe probably signifies agreement with a statement.  “Unnnnnnnnnh.”  Like Frankenstein. 

A lot of times we’ll be relaxing in Bill’s room, eating or playing games (and sometimes homework, when we can’t put it off any longer), and we’ll hear horrendous shrieking from somewhere else in the hostel.  It never seems to accompany anything, and nobody ever investigates.  “SCREEEEEECH.”  The end. 

We’ve probably repressed a lot of other strange things, but I’m sure there will be plenty more for us to report on later.  Not much has happened for awhile; it’s been a quiet and frustrating few weeks, and we are ready to come back to America.  Happy Easter, everyone!

 

Going Postal

Today, Bill, Elvis, and I trekked down to the Accra post office.  It’s about an hour away via tro-tro, and it is not a particularly pleasant trip.  Even at 9 in the morning, it was hot and sticky, and the poop smell that pervades Accra was running rampant.  This could be in part, of course, to the fact that we have to drive next to them slums to get to our destination.  I digress.  As we arrived at the Post Office, we noticed an unusually large amount of people thronging outside the building, but they weren’t trying to get in, which struck us as odd.  Elvis dragged us through the crowd, shoving people aside for his poor little white friends. 

As Bill and Elvis dealt with the paperwork involved for picking up the package, I watched the crowd shifting, and people started shouting angrily.  I was unable to tell what they were saying, obviously, but it was clear they weren’t happy.  Some of the crowd had spilled inside by this point (roughly 5 minutes has elapsed) and a few of the police officers that had been milling around (including one armed with an AK that was at least 50 years old) started pushing them back outside, shouting at them in return.  Elvis and Bill took no real notice, but I continued to observe as people in the throng began throwing punches at the cops.  I glanced over at Bill and Elvis, hoping they were nearly through (they weren’t), and heard a very alarming ZZZZT sound.   I felt a little sick, already aware of what I was about to see, and looked back at the crowd.  I was right; a police officer with a cattle prod was shocking people in the crowd.  The affected people slipped away, but more surged forward, and he continued his shocking.  I tugged on Bill’s shirt, trying to tell him we should probably leave, but he couldn’t quite hear me.  He did figure out what was going on, though.  Elvis, however, thought my alarm was a little funny (not out of maliciousness, just because I guess minor riots are a common thing here).  Bill leaned in to the postal worker and asked him what was going on with the huge crowd of furious people.  It turns out they were there to apply for military jobs, and they’d been camping out for the past 3 days.  The postal worker then asked for a photocopy of Bill’s school ID, and he pushed through the crowd with horror to have it copied.  Fortunately, nobody bothered us, maybe knowing that we had nothing to do with their problems.  (Or maybe they just knew the office that was brandishing his AK at the people likely would’ve shot them if they’d started attacking foreigners.)  As we forced our way back through the crowd, more police showed up and started slamming members of the crowd against the police trucks by the face and throwing them inside and taking them away.  We made it back in and were able to collect Bill’s package without harm, and the police looked like they were watching and making sure we weren’t hurt.  Because we’d brought Elvis with us, nobody even tried to steal from his package (or get him to bribe them), and we made it out alive.  Elvis dragged me through the crowd again (this time literally by hand) as the violence reignited (the police started zapping more people as they started to up the riot ante) and Bill brought up the rear.  When we finally burst out of the crowd, we walked to a place to get a tro-tro home.

Once we’d gotten a car, we stopped at a few other stations to pick up more people.  At 37 Station, I noticed the Nigerian dude who’d been picking pockets and had started a fight at that very same station a few weeks back when we’d gone to the Trade Fair with Elvis.  I leaned over to Bill and Elvis and pointed him out to them, and they laughed.  Of course, it seems like this man is a professional instigator and trouble maker, because another fist fight unfolded before our eyes.  Some dudes just started shouting and punching each other, and this guy threw himself into the mix.  The three of us actually started laughing because of how ridiculous the situation was.  As the tro-tro pulled away, Elvis chuckled about how I laughed at small fights but feared a big battle royale.  For some reason, this was very funny to him.

We made it back just in time to be a bit late for our tutorial, which ended very early because Divina was feeling very unwell.  She got up in the middle of tutorial and went into the department building.  Concerned, I followed her and made sure she was okay.  She felt very weak and had a bad headache, so I had her put her head down on the desk while I ran outside and bought her a bottle of water.  She went home after that, and should be alright.  I think she just had a migraine, but I’m going to call her tonight and make sure she’s okay.

It was an eventful day.  I’m glad the weekend abyss is almost here.

(Disclaimer:  Bill and I had no idea what was going on when we went into the Post Office, or we would have left.  But of course, in typical fashion, the action didn’t erupt until it was too late for us to escape; Bill had had to open his package in front of the Customs Official and sort through it to make sure we weren’t importing crack or something.   We made it away unharmed, however, and have a good story to tell people when we’re old.  Or now, really.)

(PS- Bill and I are really grateful for the package.  It made the riot worth it, and our stomachs happy.  The jerky was an awesome touch.)

Nigerian Beggar Children: A Clarification

I decided yesterday that something I mentioned in my last post needs better explanation before the readers can properly understand it.  The reason I behaved as described during my encounter with the beggar children on the street is not because I have no sympathy for them.  It’s because of this: These children aren’t the victims of such desperate poverty as you’d think.  Their father, as explained to me on two separate occasions by two unacquainted people, is a businessman, and while they aren’t especially wealthy, neither are they struggling.  Their mother is among the women who work hawking goods to people driving on the highways.  Rather than have the kids trail through traffic after them, they send them to beg in the lot in front of the mall as a way to make a few more pennies.  They encourage the kids to steal from unsuspecting people as well.  The children are clearly well fed: all of them are of roughly the same weight kids their age are back home, and one or two are a little bit chubby.  If this were not the case and they were struggling, Bill and I would probably bring them food whenever we were in the area.  However, they’re just being raised to be vultures, and there’s nothing we can do about that except refuse to let them take advantage of us.

 

Also, we’re always glad to read your comments, they really brighten the mood.  Keep em coming!

A (C)rusty Machete

This past week was, as per usual, fairly quiet. Sunday we ended up working on Bill’s paper, rather than visiting the fair with Elvis, and went for groceries Monday. We went in the afternoon, so we were actually able to beat all of the crowds, and we made it back to the hostel in an hour or so. Tuesday was spent finishing Bill’s paper, and Wednesday we had class all day and then just chilled out, until Bill got tantalized by Louisa (who forced him to buy cookies).
Thursday was obnoxious and annoying. Bill and I had to find a place to print our papers, and had been told we could print in the International Programs Office, so we walked out there and asked if this was the case. Of course, as we should have known, it wasn’t, and we had to head to another building nearby to print there. When we entered, we asked the man at the computer if he could print, and he said yes. Then he asked if we had a flash drive, which we did not, but the paper was stored in my email. Naturally, he told us we’d have to come back with it on a flash drive, because he won’t go into email accounts. Bill and I didn’t bring a flash drive, so we walked the mile (plus) back to our building and bought a 4 gig pen drive for more than we were happy about paying for it. 25 cedis only equates to about 13 bucks, but it was still money we didn’t think we should have had to spend. When we returned to Bill’s room to put the papers on the drive, Elvis caught us at the desk and told us that the other international hostel offered printing services, so we ought to check there. Glad not to have to walk all the way back out to JQB (the place with the printing service and some classrooms), we headed over to ISH1 and enquired. Their printer, of course, was broken, and they directed us to another hostel nearby. Finally, we were able to print our papers, but only after learning that we could have just hooked my laptop up to this guy’s printer, and he would have been able to print it that way. Agitated as we were, we still had to turn in our papers, so we walked another mile or so back up to the Political Science department and hand it in to our Prof. We then wandered home and I watched Bill play videogames on my laptop for the rest of the day.
Friday we needed to get cash, but all the ATMs on campus were out of order. As we wandered around in search of a working one, we stumbled across a nasty old machete in a pile of dust. We stared at it wordlessly for a few moments, pondering its origins and fate. Bill and I glanced at each other, then back at the machete. It was completely rusted along the blade, and the wooden handle was crumbling. Bill crouched down and flipped it over, and we continued to stare at it. After a while, Bill looked back at me and said, “Can we keep it?”
“How would we get that thing back into the hostel without getting caught? And then what would we do with it?”
A pause and a sigh. “You’re right. Oh well.”
We looked at it for a moment or two longer, hoping it would do something, and then we left it in its dusty grave.

We never did find that ATM, so Saturday we had to go up to the mall to use one of theirs, but this occurred much later in the afternoon, after we had attended Dr. Adjaye’s daughter’s traditional wedding/engagement. This, I think, was a combination of the two events, because his daughter and her fiancé had already made plans for a Christian wedding, but they needed to formalize their engagement with their families and have their traditional Ghanaian wedding before this could be recognized. So, the two families, actually excluding the engaged parties (they live in Philadelphia), gathered together at Prof’s house under two big tents and had a big ceremony. This involved a lot of joking and talking in languages we couldn’t understand, a lot of present exchanging, and a lot of teasing of the resident white people (namely, us). After all this, the two families started some sort of conga line, each of them holding a photo of their family member who was to be married. It was very strange, but I guess a lot of it had to be tweaked because the two weren’t even there. Prof’s daughter was on Skype, she accepted the marriage, and everyone rejoiced. Most everyone was dressed in white, but a few people were in other bright colors. One woman was wearing a huge purple (and reflective!) headdress. It was really elaborate, and I stared at it for a long time throughout the proceedings. After this, a feast was had. All types of rice, fish, and a few types of meat were served, along with any alcohol/soda you could imagine. Except Dr Pepper, which was disappointing. (Have we talked at all about the soda here? Remind me to explain this, if I forget to later on in this entry.) Prof then passed out party favors to the women, which included a junky little hand fan (like you’d see Geishas or Cleopatra or some such thing walking around with, except bright yellow and plastic&nylon), and a very nice bag made of some silky material (probably also some form of nylon), which contained a small cotton towel and two bars of soap, plus hand sanitizer. All in all, fairly useful, if a little strange.
After the wedding, Bill and I headed over to the mall and got our cash. We also decided to plunder the grocery store for snacks. We picked up a Brandy Ball (which was a cake pastry that had been baked in brandy), a bag of cheese puffs, a box of cookies, coconut tart pie, some hard candy, and a chocolate bar. The results were as follows: I thought the Brandy Ball was awesome, but Bill didn’t care for it. The cheese puffs were average but plentiful and cheap, so it was a success. The coconut tart pie was awesome, the hard candy was weird but good (Irish Coffee flavored; Bill swears there must be whiskey in them, but it isn’t on the ingredients list), and the chocolate bar was gross. Normally the chocolate is good, but there was white chocolate on top (it was called Ebony and Ivory; a tantalizing mix of white and dark chocolate), making it taste sort of like… um… butt. The cookies tasted like cardboard. We ate them anyway, though. It was sort of like a sugar binge, and we felt fat and happy after it was all over.
Oh, about the soda. It’s so much sweeter here, it’s almost hard to drink. The Mountain Dew has so much more sugar it’s a little crazy. The Coke, too, is like this, and it’s a little bit thicker, in a way that sticks to your teeth when you’re finished drinking. Fanta is very popular, and they’ve implemented two new flavors for it: black currant and lemon. The lemon, in my opinion, is gross, but Bill likes it. Vice versa, I like the black currant, but Bill is horrified by it.
Sunday we did nothing, except get a little bit sick on tuna fish sandwiches that we made. There’s too much vinegar in the mayonnaise, which makes it sour and gross.
Today, after our tutorials, we went back to the mall for real groceries. As we left, Nigerian beggar children started clinging to our arms, just like every other time we’re in the area. It was hard not to have sympathy for them, at first, until we learned that they will pick your pockets if you aren’t looking, so now we handle them properly. For example, one of them wrapped herself around my arm today, whimpering “my friend, my friend, please give small money.” I looked down, told her “I’m not your friend,” and yanked my arm away from her before attending to Bill’s predicament. Another little girl was wrapped around his elbow, begging for money, and I grabbed her hands and pulled them off of him before grabbing him and pulling him along a little faster. The swarm of children receded slightly, just out of arms reach, but they still called to us. Bill and I felt like this was a great victory.