It’s already the end of week three and I’m beginning to think that the remainder of these four months is going to go very quickly. These last couple weeks have been wonderful. Now that I am over my original sense of being overwhelmed with the drastically new culture, I’ve started to notice things that didn’t at first. I was told before I left that I would be called “auburine” (the Twi word for foreigner/white person) a lot and I would get really annoyed with it. During the first week or two there was so much new stuff going on that I didn’t even notice anyone call me that... until this one time I noticed a child calling me by that word and ever since then I have noticed people saying that word everywhere I go! Us white girls sure stick out a lot here!
I have started to get better at ignoring people trying to sell me things, taxi drivers, beggars, and men trying to get my number. Dealing with these things didn’t come very easily to me at first because I have never been around them in such great amounts, and the people here tend to be very persistent when they want something. A couple days ago a man in his 50s or 60s asked me for my number (what the heck was he thinking?!) some how I managed to strongly and effectively say NO without being totally mean, which I feel is quite the accomplishment! There have been other times in which I have not handled such occasions of saying no so smoothly, as you all know how bad I can be at lying. One time I said “No you can’t have my number... I don’t have a phone” right after talking on my cell phone - not the smoothest let down! But I am starting to form effective strategies of both ignoring, rejecting and just being friends with the male population, I might even start wearing my fake wedding ring ;) The aggressiveness of the men and the reservedness of the women are just part of the culture here.
I found out this week that I will be doing two internships while I am here. One will be at an orphanage and one at a clinic. I met all the people that work at the orphanage on Wednesday and will start work this afternoon. It is a very nice orphanage that helps children from 1 to 13 years old. All of the orphans have been physically abused and many have diseases such as HIV or hepatitis A. I am excited to help improve the lives of these children! I brought stickers, pins, and frisbees with me from the states and I think that the kids will have a lot of fun playing with them! I will probably work at the orphanage about eight hours a week and the clinic about 10 hours a week. I am also very excited to work at the clinic! I hope that I will be a lot of help to people there and that I will learn a lot to advance my learning to become a nurse.
Classes started last week. My roommates and I have all the same classes and we are the only people in them. I am taking Ghana Today, Sociology and Development of Ghana, and a Service Learning class. They are all only once a week so I don’t have any class on Monday, Tuesday, or Friday!
I have been starting to get accustomed to the weather. It is currently in the middle of Ghana's “rainy” season. The temperature has ranged from the 70s to the upper 90s. Accra is near the ocean,so it is always very humid here. When I first arrived I though it was much too hot (it was in the 90s) but recently I have found myself starting to dislike air conditioning because it is too cold! It has been cloudy here more often than it has been sunny, but often the sun will break through. I’m starting to get pretty tan already! The locals tend to laugh at me when I wear sunglasses, and they say that "it’s hardly sunny at all"... but it i really bright! I am nervous for the heat and intense sun that will come in the following months! It has only rained three times since I arrived here, but each time it was in extreme amounts, the biggest rain drops that I have ever seen!
When my roommates and I have spare time we often enjoy playing card games, cooking, going out to a club, or going to the beach. We have only been to the beach once so far but it was really nice and as it gets hotter I’m sure we will go very often!
Last week me and Emily went with Molly to meet with Lila, the person that she is interning with. Lila has some connections in the radio business and she interviewed us on the radio! It was awesome and I feel like a celebrity ;) Lila then took us to a place to get lunch. We got waakye (picture above), which is the favorite traditional meal I have had here so far. It was a huge bowl of food in which we all ate from. It contained noodles, beans, goat meat, fish, eggs, fried plantain, and some ground up spicy peppers. It was so much food that we couldn’t come close to finishing it, and it was super cheap. The other epic meals I have had recently include fufu with groundnut soup (one of the most popular and loved foods of Ghana), a meat pie (basically a calzone), and wonderful fried rice with chicken and cabbage that cost about $1.50. I liked all of these meals and they were super cheap!
Doing laundry by hand is quite the chore and I avoid doing it for long as possible. Not many people have washers here because they use too much water. Yesterday I did laundry for the second time since I arrived here. It was necessary because I was running out of wearable clothing, but it was dreaded. It took me almost two hours to wash rinse and hang it all up, but hopefully I will find ways to improve upon my techniques next time.
The house is very nice but we have some serious bug problems. There are little ants everywhere, if food is left unattended for twenty minutes I guarantee that there will be a thick trail of little black specks crawling onto to a plate fully covered by the little insects. There have also been three cockroaches spotted in the house. We managed to end one of their lives but the others live on, hopefully never entering my room!
So far I have been loving it here! The culture change is heavy but I have begun to make new friends and think that I will love every bit of my time spent here! I have so many things that I want to share but they will have to wait until another time. This weekend George will be taking us on an excursion to Cape Coast, I am very excited!