Being an Obroni, and Teaching.

"Obroni."

Want to guess what that means? Anyone? Bueler? It means “white skin. That has practically become my new name here. Kids run around and follow you and wave to you from their school grounds all while yelling “OBRONI!!! HI OBRONI!” At first I thought maybe it was a racist term, like “wtf white people? Get out of my country!” but that’s not the case. The kids love us and are so excited to see “white skin” people. Now whenever I heard the word, I turn around and wave to wherever it came from.

Also, I started my job last week and have been going 4 days a week (with the exception of one day where there was a rainstorm and no cab in sight, so they told me to just stay home because a 15 minute walk in that weather is no fun). I LOVE teaching English. Not to boast but giiiiirrrrrrllllllllll I am so good at it! Lorita, the English teacher, is my fav. She’s a great teacher and she tells me the info for the day and we sketch out a plan (I always go to work early, even just to hang out with Lorita) and then she lets me teach by myself (she sits in the classroom for assistance). The first day it was a bit hard to get kids to volunteer, but now they are pretty good about trying. This one boy was incorrect in his answers but kept raising his hand and trying over and over. I was super proud of him. There are a few kids in class who definitely should go to college. There are, of course, some lazy kids and some who never want to talk. Also, since they run on the British system, there is a class prefect (HEY HARRY POTTER WUUUTTTT), and the one I have for Form 1 classes (it’s a junior high…so these are like 6^th/7^th grade, but a bit behind so they are 13-15) is the best kid ever. He lets me know when it’s break or who is who and helps me with what I need. Plus he’s a great reader and always participates. I need to buy him cookies or something.

I also teach ICT, which is computers. I don’t like it as much. The school only has 1 computer (soon to be more, as I am giving them my mom’s mini, my mini and my grandma’s…though I might give one of those to another school that I like a lot, not sure). It’s very hard to teach a class of 25 (avg class size) how to do computer stuff and word formatting on ONE computer. And the other one the school has, they never bring. The ICT teacher, Esther, is cool. We have our off moments, I think, but we get along and yesterday she bought me a Fanta!

Bowel Excitement.

All the girls are pretty much not afraid to talk about bowel movements and about the conditions of the toilet. Whenever someone comes back from the toilet we all say, “how was it?!” both asking if there were bugs and also if anyone was able to poop. Cause no one poops here. Ever.  When someone does, it’s very, very exciting.

And that's all I have to say about that. 

Food of Ghana

I changed my mind about the street food. Most of it is not so legit after all. Also, the two times I’ve had chicken now….it’s HORRIBLE. Who taught these people to make chicken? The devil??? Like I said, the first night and first morning I had great food. After that it’s all downhill.

On the street, they sell roasted corn, which I was super excited about despite the fact that I no longer eat corn. Anyway, I bought one and it was super hot so I took it home…well I went to eat it and it was hard as a rock! …or harder. I literally could not bite off a single kernel. It was cray.

Also, they eat way too much rice here. 2 nights ago I had rice and when we got home I threw up (prolly not related) and now, as if it didn’t already, the thought of rice makes me want to barf. Another day I got this rice/beans mixture and it was so gross I literally spit it out and tossed it.

The biggest thing they eat here is yams…but not like our yams in the US, at least not what I’ve seen. I actually like the yams as long as they’re not undercooked and dry. One night we had them with SUPER spicy sauce so they were basically ruined for me…unless I wanted to be an unhappy fire-breathing dragon lady for the rest of the night. Then a few nights later we had the yams cooked with like…a tomato and onion sauce of some sort and I LOVED it. Filled my tummy good.

Ramen…..ohhhhhhhh Ramen noodles. Am I back in friggin’ college again? I practically eat ramen every day. There’s no other filling food. 

As far as fruit and veggies…there’s lots of fruit and I eat it daily. Mango, bananas, apples, avocados, pineapple, watermelon, tomatoes, etc. I saw Guava today on the way to Kumasi but I haven’t tried it from the street vendors. Vegetables, though...THEY DON’T EXIST. This apparently is the Motherland of No Veggies Ever. I have seen onions and carrots. And garlic. But those are basically cooking ingredients, not part of a meal. I heard through the grapevine at the school I’m working at that spinach actually exists here, but since I haven’t seen it I’m going to assume they were lying just to mess with my veggie desiring heart. :(

I did, however, recently acquire a taste for a street food called a "meat pie." I like it. I guess it will keep me from starving to death, so that's good that I found something that costs $0.25 and will keep me alive. Anyway, it's like a pastry...corn maybe? With some meat in it. It's not filled...and it's almost like a meat paste or jelly inside. Foster said it's those tiny fishes, but I am pretty sure it's goat. To be quite honest, I don't care.

THIS IS AFRICA.

So yeah, if I have to eat goat in order to not starve, I'm gonna eat some goat. 

Praise the lord and pass the Cedi

 Today (Sunday) was crazzzzzzzzzzzzy. This morning, we went to church with Foster at 9am. He told us church is usually 4-6 hours, but we convinced him to take us home after two, and he said he would. Cause 4 hours is forever. Anyway, he lied and I was starving and pissed cause it had been like 3.5hrs, and we all know how bitchy I get when I’m starving (thanks, brain chemicals). Janelle gave me a meal replacement bar so I felt  bit better after that.

Anyway, church was cool for like the first 30 mins…there was fun dancing and drums and bongo-type drums and everyone was happy happy. The problem after that was most of the service was in Twi (the language spoken here) and so it got kind of boring because we didn’t know what they were talking about or singing about. Plus, like I said, we were there at the church for forever. Here's a few pics I took:

After that was his friends’ twin babies’ naming ceremony. It’s something they do here, when they are baptized they get their first names. They are now named Princess and Princela. Haha.

THEN, crazy time. We went to the twins’ father’s house, and PARTIED. It was so hot I almost passed out, but we actually got lucky cause the whole day was overcast and a lot less hot than it’s usually been. They sang songs and danced and I met this cool older woman who kept making me dance. The funniest part was when guys would try to dance with me, I would move away, a) cause I don’t want to dance with them and b) I’m a faithful person and see dancing with some random dude as being unfaithful, so I wasn’t having it. Anyway, the older crazy woman and I were dancing with everyone and this guy came up to try to dance with me and she SHOVED him away! Really hard! It was hysterical. She did it a few times after that. I think she got my vibe that I wasn’t interested. But the first guy, she practically knocked him over she shoved him away so hard. It was amazing. Apparently Janelle got video of me and some pictures of me dancing but those will have to wait a bit.

Also, the kids were obsessed with me taking pictures of them. They were totally willing to smile and pose and all this stuff. It was great. Most people do not smile for pics in Ghana so it was good to see.

Anyway, then we walked all the way home, exhausted! Crazy, fun day. Also a few people were like "you can dance!!!" And I was like, "UH DUH!" haha. I need to play these people some American music and show 'em what's up.

Beginning of week 1

Well, I’ve been here 3 days and this trip is already crazy. The first day, we went to the bus depot and there were so many people I was a bit anxious. Then we got on a bus by ourselves (my friend Janelle, and I – she is from AIESEC San Francisco), for a ride which was supposed to be 3 hours and ended up being at least 4. Then, our NGO contact, Foster, was not there to pick us up. Taxi drivers and many men in general here are very aggressive (not physically), and when our bus stopped, they crowded the door and tried to take our bags and get us in their cabs. Luckily, we had the BEST BUS DRIVER EVER, and he let us stay for an hour in his air conditioned bus and looked out for us until Foster finally arrived. His name was Nanabopo, but he said to just call him Nana. And Nana means grandma in Italian, so I figured this was a good sign.

That evening we stayed at Foster’s home in his village (New Abrim)  and had the best Ramen-style dish EVER. I forget the name. But it was super cool cause this woman had a table outside her house with a gas cooker and supplies and made it for us there on the street. We met his lovely wife and his baby girl Chris-Love (people here have very original names).  (see below)

Despite the EXHAUSTING humidity, I slept very well until 4am when someone was blasting music and then 5am on, when the roosters would not shut the heck up. I HATE ROOSTERS.  The next morning I had this porridge cooked in a giant black cauldron by a woman on the street . Street food here is pretty legit. It was AMAZING. 

Obviously she used her witchcraft on her giant black cauldron to make porridge actually taste good! …Just kidding. 

Aside from those dishes, I'm practically starved. I realized I brought a pasta thing from home that you don’t have to heat, so I ate that one day when I was dizzy from hunger. I can’t cook any food I brought if there’s no power. It’s a bit frustrating, because I was scared that I would have problems with food and it seems like I do already.

 The house:

 Outhouse:

 The toilet, sans the usual bugs.

Our house is…I don’t know what to say about it really. 4 girls (myself, Janelle, Winnie from Hong Kong and Joyce from Hong Kong) share a room. Lan (from Vietnam/Singapore) shares a room with Deborah (from Ghana, works for the NGO) and the two boys, Kazou (from Japan) and David (from Ghana) share the other room. Deborah is leaving soon, and we are getting two more girls from the UK (I think...maybe not now).The power is unreliable, and as I type, we don’t have power. It went out this morning around 8:30am, and it is now 4:15pm. There is no A/C, though when the power is on we have a fan for our room. Imagine trying to sleep in 90 degree heat with 75% humidity.  In addition, there is no running water. Our toilet is an outhouse thing, and to use it I have to shove toilet paper up my nostrils because the smell is so horrendous. We shower using a bucket and the water is FREEZING, but sometimes it’s nice because it’s SO HOT HERE. The humidity is not treating me well, and I am having a bit of a hard time adjusting. I feel bad because it makes me complain and I probably sound rude. =/ Anyway, Kazou is going to Accra (the capitol) this weekend to see if he can buy Janelle and me a modem, so that I’ll be able to post this to the blog!

The toilet, we have learned, is really only available for use during certain hours. "But why?" you ask? Roaches and flys and spiders, OH MY! So, we can use the toilet from about 4am-7am, then from around 4pm to 630pm. If you have to pee in-between those times, you better be damn crafty to figure out what else to do. I usually just try to shower when I have to pee so I can just go in there and wash it away. Haha.

The economy here is quite curious. Everything is so cheap, even gas, and rides on the bus and Trotros (like a small bus/van with no A/C…they are not very enjoyable but we take them somewhere every day) are so cheap I don’t even know how the people afford gas or make money off of it. For example, that bus ride which was 4 hours on an air-conditioned bus was 9 Cedis (that’s the money here)…that’s about $4.50. For FOUR HOURS! The Trotros, even for 1 hour or so, only cost 2 Cedis, which is like $1. We bought 90 of these square bags of water (water generally comes in little bags here, probably 4x6x2”) for $1. ONE DOLLAR. Crazy. And a truck drove by and delivered them, so that was cool.

About my work…I start tomorrow at a junior high near our house (in Ofoase). It’s about a 20-30 minute walk, sometimes in the HOT HUMID sun, so it’s not easy. However, it is the closest school to our house so I got a good deal there. Janelle works in the school next to me and the other girls work a bit further away but they are in schools adjacent to each other as well. I will be teaching English and ICT, which is like technology. However, the school only has one computer, so I will be bringing the one my mom lent me, and giving it to them at the end. They definitely need it. I wish I had space to bring fun stuff for the kids but I didn’t. 

All in all, it’s really neat here. We are going to travel on the weekends, hopefully to Kumasi, Cape Coast and Accra, and then to a waterfall somewhere. Also, our last week we might be able to go to the very northwest of Ghana and go on a safari type thing. It’s 12 hours by bus…which probably means 13-15, so we shall see. It’s also like a 5-day trip. But hey, I WANT TO SEE ELEPHANTS!

Oh, one more cool thing. So chickens, stupid roosters, goats and sheep run amok here. I asked how people know whose is whose, and Foster said every night, the chickens and other animals RETURN to their homes where the owners are. Crazy!

Stereotypes

I saw this video today and decided it was worth a share. A lot of people have been jokingly (or perhaps somewhat seriously) telling me to not get shot or kidnapped or get my head chopped off. When you think about it, despite the fact that they are kidding (and I am not innocent of jokes, here), all of these ideas come from stereotypes that people have about African people. Thus, I think this video is a great and funny reminder that we might want to watch how we think. :)