Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Kira
My favorite parts of the trip so far have probably been seeing the drummers and dancers in Accra. Vollunteering at Martyrs of Uganda Jubillee School (a sister school to sma) and being in Akokoamong, painting the classrooms.
Being with the students at Matyrs was a little overwealming but really fun. I did a lot of different things from teaching classes, playing football (soccer), grading books, and just fooling around with the kids. Everytime I would pull out my camera the kids would rush over to me trying to get in that picture. They didn't really care where the other kids were... so they would be pushing and jumping up to try an get in the shot. I got some pretty funny pictures and vidoes. Every morning when I would come to school a lot of little kids would come running up to me and give me a hug or high five.
All of us were in Akokoamong for 3 days (four nights). We set up our misquito nets/ sleeping pads in one classroom and food went in the other classroom. For our community service we painted 2 classrooms with the alphabet. Kay drew pictures for that letter and Jennifer wrote the name of that thing underneath. Both of the classrooms looked really cool!
We arrived in Cape Coast yesterday after a 13 hour car ride! It was a long day.
Tomorrow we are going to Kakum National park where we are doing a canopy walk. I'm really excited.
We only have five more days! This trip has been really fun and has gone by so fast. I'm excited to head home but at the same time I am definatly going to miss Ghana. I guess that means I will just have to come back again soon. :)
Being with the students at Matyrs was a little overwealming but really fun. I did a lot of different things from teaching classes, playing football (soccer), grading books, and just fooling around with the kids. Everytime I would pull out my camera the kids would rush over to me trying to get in that picture. They didn't really care where the other kids were... so they would be pushing and jumping up to try an get in the shot. I got some pretty funny pictures and vidoes. Every morning when I would come to school a lot of little kids would come running up to me and give me a hug or high five.
All of us were in Akokoamong for 3 days (four nights). We set up our misquito nets/ sleeping pads in one classroom and food went in the other classroom. For our community service we painted 2 classrooms with the alphabet. Kay drew pictures for that letter and Jennifer wrote the name of that thing underneath. Both of the classrooms looked really cool!
We arrived in Cape Coast yesterday after a 13 hour car ride! It was a long day.
Tomorrow we are going to Kakum National park where we are doing a canopy walk. I'm really excited.
We only have five more days! This trip has been really fun and has gone by so fast. I'm excited to head home but at the same time I am definatly going to miss Ghana. I guess that means I will just have to come back again soon. :)
Updates from Jennifer
Below is a piece I wrote at the beginning of our days in Akokoamong, which was by far the best time we've had so far in Ghana. Sleeping on the floor of a classroom, making our own meals and even trying our own African drumming circle around a campfire the last night made this time a unique and powerful experience for everyone. Rural life was very different than city life in Kumasi, and the girls agreed that it was their favorite part so far. All are in good health and we're now in Cape Coast; this afternoon we'll go to Elmina Castle, one of the slave castles. I continue to encourage the girls to blog, but our very limited internet access (made worse by regular power outages) has made it difficult to keep you all up to date. I'm sure all the girls will post reflections after we return, and I'm hopeful that a few more will post in our last five days.
REFLECTIONS ON THE OUTSIDER EXPERIENCE
Katie and I enter the small Catholic church close to the end of Sunday mass and every head turns. Distracted from God and prayer, children and adults alike stare at us, the kids whispering and the women eyeing us with a sort of cool curiosity. Music resounds through the small, humble space, where the paint peels from the walls and people kneel with real reverence and hope, their heads bowed not because of the rules but because they are overcome with prayer. The air feels alive with resonant music and a kind of celebratory devotion I've rarely seen before, except perhaps in Black churches in the U.S. After the service ends, we're asked to come up front, to state our mission in Akokoamong and to introduce ourselves. No one speaks much English here in this rural village, and though obruni have come here before, we are still a curiosity. Our Ghanaian coordinator Wendy translates what we say, and they all cheer--especially when we share our Ghanaian names.
An old woman approaches me after the service ends--she keeps repeating my Ghanaian name, given to me by Sister Cecilia at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School: Adua meaning Monday born, and Nyamekye, meaning gift from God (she found it funny when I said I hoped my own mother would agree with the choice, surprised to hear me discribe myself as a difficult child). The old woman keeps saying something in Twi after my name, but all I can do is shrug and say I don't understand. Then Wendy appears to translate: the old woman has a daughter named Adua Nyamekye, she explains, and she's saying that means I'm her daughter, too. I can feel tears rising; her face is soft and kind, her smile wide. "Madasi," I say, "Thank you." And then I say "Madasi Mama," and everyone applauds and laughs as she embraces me.
I've almost always been able to blend as a traveler, I've been mistaken for a Spaniard across Latin America, I look like a local in the Middle East, and I take pride in my ability to adapt to the point that I can blend into almost any environment. But Ghana has been a different experience entirely. After a few days of feeling like a zoo animal here, I've given up and tried to embrace my role as the outsider, a serious challenge to my usual style. Ghanaians certainly seem willing to embrace us, to accept and welcome us in spite of how foreign I know we seem to them. Here in Akokoamong, the children follow us everywhere, peering in through classroom doorways to watch us paint alphabet murals for the nursery classrooms, watching our every move. There is always an audience here, almost as though we've traveled to be seen more than to see.
Two weeks ago, Amber and I were invited to a traditional engagement party in the far north, and we were the first whites ever to visit the small village. Part of the groom's entourage, we kept hearing "obruni" during the ceremony, which was essentially an extensive petition for the bride's father's permission--and then hers--to marry. Amber and I both felt like a distraction from the real point of the event; people kept standing up to take photos of us even more than of the bride and groom, one man even snapping
a photo of Amber during the receiving line as he shook her hand. Several people blocked everyone's view of the bride and groom to stand and photograph us. When we asked later, however, my brother Kojo insisted that we were far from a distraction, and were mentioned only because we increased the value of the groom's petition. The groom's spokesman had basically said that the bride was so special that the groom had even brought obruni in his party, and he claimed that our presence brought Obama's blessings for the couple, a very big deal in a society that sees him as a son of Africa and the next great hope of the world.
I guess sticking out has always felt like a bad thing before Africa. Unwilling to be associated with rude American tourists and disapoionting American values, I've tried always to make myself disappear into every new place I visit. Maybe the change in our administration has helped make it easier to admit I'm an American, but part of it has to be the inherently welcoming, communal nature of Ghanaians. This is about being different in a new way; this is Africa, and I'll never be the same for it.
The entire church community of Akokoamong insists on coming to welcome the rest of our group. With 50 men, women and children alongside us, we walk back to the FST/Loretto schoolhouse. With all our students gathered, the community begins to sing a song of welcome and friendship to us. My new Ghanaian mother smiles sweetly at me from the crowd, and still singing, they all file past to shake our hands and welcome us. "Akwaaba," they say, pressing our hands and joining their voices together to make us one of them, still white but no longer outsiders, invited into this simpler life and the warm embrace of Africa. And I do feel welcomed, and I am changed.
REFLECTIONS ON THE OUTSIDER EXPERIENCE
Katie and I enter the small Catholic church close to the end of Sunday mass and every head turns. Distracted from God and prayer, children and adults alike stare at us, the kids whispering and the women eyeing us with a sort of cool curiosity. Music resounds through the small, humble space, where the paint peels from the walls and people kneel with real reverence and hope, their heads bowed not because of the rules but because they are overcome with prayer. The air feels alive with resonant music and a kind of celebratory devotion I've rarely seen before, except perhaps in Black churches in the U.S. After the service ends, we're asked to come up front, to state our mission in Akokoamong and to introduce ourselves. No one speaks much English here in this rural village, and though obruni have come here before, we are still a curiosity. Our Ghanaian coordinator Wendy translates what we say, and they all cheer--especially when we share our Ghanaian names.
An old woman approaches me after the service ends--she keeps repeating my Ghanaian name, given to me by Sister Cecilia at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School: Adua meaning Monday born, and Nyamekye, meaning gift from God (she found it funny when I said I hoped my own mother would agree with the choice, surprised to hear me discribe myself as a difficult child). The old woman keeps saying something in Twi after my name, but all I can do is shrug and say I don't understand. Then Wendy appears to translate: the old woman has a daughter named Adua Nyamekye, she explains, and she's saying that means I'm her daughter, too. I can feel tears rising; her face is soft and kind, her smile wide. "Madasi," I say, "Thank you." And then I say "Madasi Mama," and everyone applauds and laughs as she embraces me.
I've almost always been able to blend as a traveler, I've been mistaken for a Spaniard across Latin America, I look like a local in the Middle East, and I take pride in my ability to adapt to the point that I can blend into almost any environment. But Ghana has been a different experience entirely. After a few days of feeling like a zoo animal here, I've given up and tried to embrace my role as the outsider, a serious challenge to my usual style. Ghanaians certainly seem willing to embrace us, to accept and welcome us in spite of how foreign I know we seem to them. Here in Akokoamong, the children follow us everywhere, peering in through classroom doorways to watch us paint alphabet murals for the nursery classrooms, watching our every move. There is always an audience here, almost as though we've traveled to be seen more than to see.
Two weeks ago, Amber and I were invited to a traditional engagement party in the far north, and we were the first whites ever to visit the small village. Part of the groom's entourage, we kept hearing "obruni" during the ceremony, which was essentially an extensive petition for the bride's father's permission--and then hers--to marry. Amber and I both felt like a distraction from the real point of the event; people kept standing up to take photos of us even more than of the bride and groom, one man even snapping
a photo of Amber during the receiving line as he shook her hand. Several people blocked everyone's view of the bride and groom to stand and photograph us. When we asked later, however, my brother Kojo insisted that we were far from a distraction, and were mentioned only because we increased the value of the groom's petition. The groom's spokesman had basically said that the bride was so special that the groom had even brought obruni in his party, and he claimed that our presence brought Obama's blessings for the couple, a very big deal in a society that sees him as a son of Africa and the next great hope of the world.I guess sticking out has always felt like a bad thing before Africa. Unwilling to be associated with rude American tourists and disapoionting American values, I've tried always to make myself disappear into every new place I visit. Maybe the change in our administration has helped make it easier to admit I'm an American, but part of it has to be the inherently welcoming, communal nature of Ghanaians. This is about being different in a new way; this is Africa, and I'll never be the same for it.
The entire church community of Akokoamong insists on coming to welcome the rest of our group. With 50 men, women and children alongside us, we walk back to the FST/Loretto schoolhouse. With all our students gathered, the community begins to sing a song of welcome and friendship to us. My new Ghanaian mother smiles sweetly at me from the crowd, and still singing, they all file past to shake our hands and welcome us. "Akwaaba," they say, pressing our hands and joining their voices together to make us one of them, still white but no longer outsiders, invited into this simpler life and the warm embrace of Africa. And I do feel welcomed, and I am changed.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Kay Again
Hello again! It's been quite a while since anything was posted, so I figured I'd write. We have concluded the last of our homestay in Kumasi with hesitant farewells and a feeling of incompleteness. The family stays were so brief in the course of things, and it seemed like we were all just getting settled when we have to move again. But good things always come in lumpy packages- many of us are now nurturing along hopes of returning to Ghana, or of bringing our Ghanaian families to the United States to visit. I, myself, am hoping to get my host brother to the U.S. to attend graduate school at CSU.
The homestay experience has not been an easy one- but it has been more valuable than any other kind of travel I have ever done. I think that the whole group has benefitted immensely from the experience, and I know that we all have a much more realistic and 'down home' understanding of Ghana now. You simply cannot get to know a culture without forcing yourself to become a part of it; to live as the citizens of that culture live. For two weeks we have lived as Ghanaians, with Ghanaians, and in doing so we have begun to understand the true pulse of Ghana.
Although it is a sad thing to leave those who we have come to care about, I know that everyone is also excited to explore new horizons, and that staying with the families here has prepared us well for what adventures may await.
As has been commented often on the trip, I do not think any of us will have a very clear understanding of how the experience has impacted us until we return home. For me, I simply feel the swelling of my entire being filling with new knowledge, new life, new perspectives. What those things actually end up meaning is still to be written. Travel is like writing a textbook, but not actually reading the writings until you have had the book for some time. When the students on this trip finally begin discovering the revelations from this experience it will surely be an amazing thing. I know I can't wait to understand everything.
We're off to Akokoamong (sp?) today. Four nights and three days working on the new school.
That's all for now!
-Kay
The homestay experience has not been an easy one- but it has been more valuable than any other kind of travel I have ever done. I think that the whole group has benefitted immensely from the experience, and I know that we all have a much more realistic and 'down home' understanding of Ghana now. You simply cannot get to know a culture without forcing yourself to become a part of it; to live as the citizens of that culture live. For two weeks we have lived as Ghanaians, with Ghanaians, and in doing so we have begun to understand the true pulse of Ghana.
Although it is a sad thing to leave those who we have come to care about, I know that everyone is also excited to explore new horizons, and that staying with the families here has prepared us well for what adventures may await.
As has been commented often on the trip, I do not think any of us will have a very clear understanding of how the experience has impacted us until we return home. For me, I simply feel the swelling of my entire being filling with new knowledge, new life, new perspectives. What those things actually end up meaning is still to be written. Travel is like writing a textbook, but not actually reading the writings until you have had the book for some time. When the students on this trip finally begin discovering the revelations from this experience it will surely be an amazing thing. I know I can't wait to understand everything.
We're off to Akokoamong (sp?) today. Four nights and three days working on the new school.
That's all for now!
-Kay
Friday, June 26, 2009
Kay's Thoughts
Hello! Kay here, writing from Kumasi, Ghana. We've been here for nine days so far, and it has been one of the most unique and different experiences I have ever had.
Some thoughts on race and being white in Ghana:
In Ghana whiteness is the exception not the rule. As my host brother Daniel said to me, "everyone in the united states is black-white-black-white. Here everyone is black. Everyone." Everywhere you go as a white person in Ghana you are stared at and treated with a kind of tenuous reverence. Many of the children have never seen a white person. Sometimes the very small children even cry and run away when they see us. Everyone here calls white people 'obruni', the Ghanaian term for white. Unlike similar epithets for races in the U.S., however, the term is not one of prejudice, but simply a statement of fact. As you walk down the street, everyone will shout 'obruni! bruni! white man!" to get your attention or solicit their wares. They mean no offense at all, which is a unique truth to get used to. I have come to value my difference here very much. The tables are turned on race in Ghana and being the minority race gives an amazing amount of perspective on racial differences everywhere in the world. In the United States, despite every integration effort, there are still evident rifts between blacks and whites- with whites being the overwhelming majority. Here, as in there, the stares of the people are more indicative of interest and curiosity than hostility. There are some people of an older generation who still mistrusst whites, but for the most part everyone is friendly and inviting- but curious.
That's all for now!
-Kay
Some thoughts on race and being white in Ghana:
In Ghana whiteness is the exception not the rule. As my host brother Daniel said to me, "everyone in the united states is black-white-black-white. Here everyone is black. Everyone." Everywhere you go as a white person in Ghana you are stared at and treated with a kind of tenuous reverence. Many of the children have never seen a white person. Sometimes the very small children even cry and run away when they see us. Everyone here calls white people 'obruni', the Ghanaian term for white. Unlike similar epithets for races in the U.S., however, the term is not one of prejudice, but simply a statement of fact. As you walk down the street, everyone will shout 'obruni! bruni! white man!" to get your attention or solicit their wares. They mean no offense at all, which is a unique truth to get used to. I have come to value my difference here very much. The tables are turned on race in Ghana and being the minority race gives an amazing amount of perspective on racial differences everywhere in the world. In the United States, despite every integration effort, there are still evident rifts between blacks and whites- with whites being the overwhelming majority. Here, as in there, the stares of the people are more indicative of interest and curiosity than hostility. There are some people of an older generation who still mistrusst whites, but for the most part everyone is friendly and inviting- but curious.
That's all for now!
-Kay
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Giving a Face to Ghana--from Jennifer
I've often felt that we fear only what we have yet to see and know. The world seems such a big, dangerous place, and a word like "Africa" brings so many misconceptions and unknowns to mind that we hardly know how to imagine how we could survive its challenges or learn to love its people. But now Ghana has a face, the face of children in the schools where we work, the face of host families which do their best to bring us into their lives as best they can, the face of our beloved coordinators who do all they can to make this a good experience for all of us.
I know the girls have been challenged in these first few days of home stay and service work, but it has been consistently moving to watch them navigate those challenges and learn to let Ghana and its people into their hearts. When we finally arrived in Kumasi, after a very long drive from Accra on Monday, the host families were anxiously awaiting us at the meeting point. Each family greeted their new daughter with hugs and warmth, and I found myself weeping a little on the sidelines as I watched. The girls had been so afraid of this part of the experience, the biggest challenge of an Experiment trip, yet here were these real, warm people leading them out to their cars, holding their hands and calling them "daughter" already.
The first night was hard for many in the group. Many homes here don't have running water all the time, so many of us took bucket showers that first night and had to pour water into the toilets to make them flush. Some families have more English speakers, some have fewer, and some girls have had to navigate significant communication barriers. We are all gaining weight rapidly from the big meals, and many girls are still learning to find polite ways to cut back the size of their meals so they don't overeat. The food is delicious, though, so it's tempting to eat everything we are served. Tonight I had my first experience with kenken, a corn dough eaten with fish and a chili pepper and tomato sauce that was so good I ate about twice as much as I should have.
Our work in the schools has brought us into the heart of Ghana. I have been with Katie, Abbey, Kira, Emily and Kay at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School, an elementary school run by the FST Sisters, while Amber has been with Jill, Beth, Berenice, Ximena and Allie at Prince of Peace, a high school for girls. While Amber's group worked in classrooms the first day, they were able to convince the school to let them do some "real" service work by painting the front of the school building. It has been hard to convince the sisters at Jubilee School to let us do the same, so we have been relieving teachers and working in the classrooms. It has been a beautiful experience--the children are lovely and curious about us, and every child seems to need to touch us (I had a boy spend several minutes rubbing my arm today, apparently fascinated by the smoothness of my white skin).
One of my favorite moments was when a crowd of 5-6 year olds gathered behind Abbey, staring at her blonde ponytail. I encouraged them to touch it, telling them it was just hair, but they all stepped back farther like they were scared. So I stepped forward and touched her hair myself, smiling and encouraging them--and seconds later there were 30 hands reaching out to stroke her hair and giggling at how smooth it was. Kira's flower fairies went over so well that she quickly ran out of supplies, and when she took a soccer ball onto the field at lunch, she was immediately swarmed by students--so many that a game became impossible. My biggest challenge today was being asked to sing the U.S. national anthem and accidentally launching into "America the Beautiful" because I couldn't remember which song was which with 50 eager faces staring at me and giggling at my every error.
The children crowd around to see photos of our families, telling me how beautiful my mother and sister are, laughing when I imitate the way my cat Pablo follows me around the house, talking to me constantly. They call me Adua, meaning Monday born, but they also seem to like pronouncing Jennifer. Hands reach out, children press in, curious. The color of skin becomes a fascination, and Emily and I agreed that it's really different to be in a place where race isn't a taboo to avoid but a basic reality it's ok to talk about and be curious about. Even my host sister and I compared our skin at dinner tonight, touching each other and trying to decide if my skin really was smoother than hers somehow. Everywhere we go they call us "obruni," or white person, but it's not even slightly derogatory--it's just a statement of fact.
This is the face of Ghana: the face of its children, its kind, warm people. And I am proud of how well the girls are letting themselves embrace this experience already, of how quickly they're becoming flexible travelers and are letting Ghana into their hearts.
I know the girls have been challenged in these first few days of home stay and service work, but it has been consistently moving to watch them navigate those challenges and learn to let Ghana and its people into their hearts. When we finally arrived in Kumasi, after a very long drive from Accra on Monday, the host families were anxiously awaiting us at the meeting point. Each family greeted their new daughter with hugs and warmth, and I found myself weeping a little on the sidelines as I watched. The girls had been so afraid of this part of the experience, the biggest challenge of an Experiment trip, yet here were these real, warm people leading them out to their cars, holding their hands and calling them "daughter" already.
The first night was hard for many in the group. Many homes here don't have running water all the time, so many of us took bucket showers that first night and had to pour water into the toilets to make them flush. Some families have more English speakers, some have fewer, and some girls have had to navigate significant communication barriers. We are all gaining weight rapidly from the big meals, and many girls are still learning to find polite ways to cut back the size of their meals so they don't overeat. The food is delicious, though, so it's tempting to eat everything we are served. Tonight I had my first experience with kenken, a corn dough eaten with fish and a chili pepper and tomato sauce that was so good I ate about twice as much as I should have.
Our work in the schools has brought us into the heart of Ghana. I have been with Katie, Abbey, Kira, Emily and Kay at Martyrs of Uganda Jubilee School, an elementary school run by the FST Sisters, while Amber has been with Jill, Beth, Berenice, Ximena and Allie at Prince of Peace, a high school for girls. While Amber's group worked in classrooms the first day, they were able to convince the school to let them do some "real" service work by painting the front of the school building. It has been hard to convince the sisters at Jubilee School to let us do the same, so we have been relieving teachers and working in the classrooms. It has been a beautiful experience--the children are lovely and curious about us, and every child seems to need to touch us (I had a boy spend several minutes rubbing my arm today, apparently fascinated by the smoothness of my white skin).
One of my favorite moments was when a crowd of 5-6 year olds gathered behind Abbey, staring at her blonde ponytail. I encouraged them to touch it, telling them it was just hair, but they all stepped back farther like they were scared. So I stepped forward and touched her hair myself, smiling and encouraging them--and seconds later there were 30 hands reaching out to stroke her hair and giggling at how smooth it was. Kira's flower fairies went over so well that she quickly ran out of supplies, and when she took a soccer ball onto the field at lunch, she was immediately swarmed by students--so many that a game became impossible. My biggest challenge today was being asked to sing the U.S. national anthem and accidentally launching into "America the Beautiful" because I couldn't remember which song was which with 50 eager faces staring at me and giggling at my every error.
The children crowd around to see photos of our families, telling me how beautiful my mother and sister are, laughing when I imitate the way my cat Pablo follows me around the house, talking to me constantly. They call me Adua, meaning Monday born, but they also seem to like pronouncing Jennifer. Hands reach out, children press in, curious. The color of skin becomes a fascination, and Emily and I agreed that it's really different to be in a place where race isn't a taboo to avoid but a basic reality it's ok to talk about and be curious about. Even my host sister and I compared our skin at dinner tonight, touching each other and trying to decide if my skin really was smoother than hers somehow. Everywhere we go they call us "obruni," or white person, but it's not even slightly derogatory--it's just a statement of fact.
This is the face of Ghana: the face of its children, its kind, warm people. And I am proud of how well the girls are letting themselves embrace this experience already, of how quickly they're becoming flexible travelers and are letting Ghana into their hearts.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Katie and Abbey - The First Days
Hey, everyone! It's Katie and Abbey. We have internet access for the first time, so we thought we'd share some of our experiences on the plane and in Accra so far.
The flight from JFK to London went well. The flight from London to Accra, however, was much more interesting. When we'd gotten on the airplane and sat down, we heard screaming and a big commotion in the back of the plane. At first we thought it was a child afraid to fly or something, but we turned around to find an adult man sitting between two white, official-looking men. When he tried to stand up, they restrained him, and we were shocked to notice that he had handcuffs on. The screaming continued, and every so often he stopped to yell things like "Help me!" and "Please, I don't want to fly! Please let me off the aeroplane!" Rumors started circulating like wildfire, but soon the flight attendants came around and told us the real story. As it turns out, this was an "immigration removal"--he was an illegal Ghanaian immigrant who was being returned by force to Ghana, and the two men with him were immigration officers. We were witnessing a deportation. The flight attendants explained that they didn't want to "let him win" by taking him off the plane, so we were just going to have to endure the screaming. We were all wondering what could have caused him to be so horrified at the thought of going back--was he a fugitive from the law or something of that nature? We later were told another possible explanation: when Ghanaian men have gotten an education (or even sometimes if they haven't), they are then expected by their families to go away and send money home if the family is struggling. This is particularly the case for the eldest son. Returning home without having succeeded often results in shunning by the family, and a deep sense of shame, as providing for one's family is seen as the most basic of obligations. We thought it was very likely that this was the case, as they probably wouldn't have transported a criminal with civilian passengers. As we waited (there was an hour-long departure delay), the screams became quieter and almost mindless. It must drive one mad, to know that you are going home to be ostracized and humiliated, and to not even be able to resist. Is there anything more spirit-breaking?
That night, we were picked up by our Ghanaian guide, Wendy, who took us to the International Hostel at the University of Ghana, where we'd be staying while we were in Accra. Wendy's a wonderful guide, and she will be with us for the duration of our trip. The next morning Kwame, the EIL director/coordinator in Ghana, gave us some basic lessons in Twi, the most prevalent local language in the Accra and Kumasi regions of Ghana. We learned such things as "Agoo," which means "Excuse me" or "Please shut up," and "Medasi," or "Thank you." Kwame wanted to take us to the market, so he also taught us things like "Aheh?" ("How much?") and "Me to bi" ("I want to buy some"). Then we split into three groups and each went to a different market in search of a certain local item Kwame had assigned us (he refused to tell us the names in English, because he said that would be cheating). The two of us were with Kira and Jennifer, and we were sent to get pepre. We rode a trotro (a van used for public transportation) to Makola, an open-air market. When we asked someone where to find pepre, she pointed us to an table where two women were selling small red and green peppers. We haggled with them, which was a novel experience for most of us, but one that was both exciting and necessary--we'd been warned that since we're obruni, or white people, everyone would try to overcharge us. We arrived at 80 pesewas (about 52 cents) for a small bag of red peppers. What we didn't realize until we got back, however, is that she and the sellers must have misunderstood us - turns out pepe is pepper, while pepre is a small black stick of spice often used in medicine. We all laughed about that one!
Anyway, more about the market... It was truly amazing. There were hundreds of people selling thousands of different items: whole fish, live crabs and gigantic snails, and pigs feet were mixed in with toothbrushes and toilet paper, bolts of cloth, shoes, jewelry, and what seemed like a billion other things. Yells of "Obruni!" and "Come" followed us through the market. We both bought handkerchiefs to carry around for drying our hands, and each of us bought a roll of toilet paper (the bathrooms have neither hand towels nor toilet paper). Jennifer treated us to coconut milk, which we drank straight from coconuts that the seller cut open with a machete. Delicious! Katie also bought an African dress for 3 cedis and 50 pesewas (the equivalent of about $2.50; there are 100 pesewas to a cedi and the exchange rate is currently 1.459 cedis to one US dollar). We were astonished at how inexpensive that and everything else was--even the price before haggling was much, much lower than the same item in the US. We were sad when we had to leave to meet the rest of the group, but luckily, there are plenty of markets in Kumasi that we plan to visit with our host families!
We'll leave some of our experiences since then for other girls to write about, but we wanted to put a quick update in (we started writing this a couple of days ago but then had to save it and weren't able to get on the Internet again until now). We got to Kumasi safely last night after a 5-6 hour bus ride, and we each went off with our respective host families, who are wonderful. Today was our first day of volunteering in the schools, which are also great--but we'll leave that for another day. Goodbye for now! We look forward to telling you about our experiences in person when we get back!
That night, we were picked up by our Ghanaian guide, Wendy, who took us to the International Hostel at the University of Ghana, where we'd be staying while we were in Accra. Wendy's a wonderful guide, and she will be with us for the duration of our trip. The next morning Kwame, the EIL director/coordinator in Ghana, gave us some basic lessons in Twi, the most prevalent local language in the Accra and Kumasi regions of Ghana. We learned such things as "Agoo," which means "Excuse me" or "Please shut up," and "Medasi," or "Thank you." Kwame wanted to take us to the market, so he also taught us things like "Aheh?" ("How much?") and "Me to bi" ("I want to buy some"). Then we split into three groups and each went to a different market in search of a certain local item Kwame had assigned us (he refused to tell us the names in English, because he said that would be cheating). The two of us were with Kira and Jennifer, and we were sent to get pepre. We rode a trotro (a van used for public transportation) to Makola, an open-air market. When we asked someone where to find pepre, she pointed us to an table where two women were selling small red and green peppers. We haggled with them, which was a novel experience for most of us, but one that was both exciting and necessary--we'd been warned that since we're obruni, or white people, everyone would try to overcharge us. We arrived at 80 pesewas (about 52 cents) for a small bag of red peppers. What we didn't realize until we got back, however, is that she and the sellers must have misunderstood us - turns out pepe is pepper, while pepre is a small black stick of spice often used in medicine. We all laughed about that one!
Anyway, more about the market... It was truly amazing. There were hundreds of people selling thousands of different items: whole fish, live crabs and gigantic snails, and pigs feet were mixed in with toothbrushes and toilet paper, bolts of cloth, shoes, jewelry, and what seemed like a billion other things. Yells of "Obruni!" and "Come" followed us through the market. We both bought handkerchiefs to carry around for drying our hands, and each of us bought a roll of toilet paper (the bathrooms have neither hand towels nor toilet paper). Jennifer treated us to coconut milk, which we drank straight from coconuts that the seller cut open with a machete. Delicious! Katie also bought an African dress for 3 cedis and 50 pesewas (the equivalent of about $2.50; there are 100 pesewas to a cedi and the exchange rate is currently 1.459 cedis to one US dollar). We were astonished at how inexpensive that and everything else was--even the price before haggling was much, much lower than the same item in the US. We were sad when we had to leave to meet the rest of the group, but luckily, there are plenty of markets in Kumasi that we plan to visit with our host families!
We'll leave some of our experiences since then for other girls to write about, but we wanted to put a quick update in (we started writing this a couple of days ago but then had to save it and weren't able to get on the Internet again until now). We got to Kumasi safely last night after a 5-6 hour bus ride, and we each went off with our respective host families, who are wonderful. Today was our first day of volunteering in the schools, which are also great--but we'll leave that for another day. Goodbye for now! We look forward to telling you about our experiences in person when we get back!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Departure Meeting, June 16
Sister Veronica and Sister Emily from Ghana, meeting with the group in Denver before departure.
Our out-of-town participants took part in the discussion via live video conference, and the Sisters handled the cameras, mic and spotlight like movie stars.
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