everyone loves pictures.

signboard preview... pretty nice huh! i was quite happy with the way it turned out!

some of the deaf kids. lovely crazy bunch.

spots have the best art work on their walls.

here is bobble... actually, i decided to name her lola. shes small, and crazy, and to be honest, i can't believe i still have her... everytime i come home, i'm like... why i do have a cat?! but at least no mouse anymore! like denise said, dogs fo lyph!

here is the amazing easter spread!! check out all that food!! not going to lie, i helped make some of it... haha, actually they only let me chop the onions (oh yea, i got to mash the potatoes, heh, god, i'm awesome ha)... i was dealing with pros, i didn't want to mess up the fabulousity!

some of the ugly kids that i have to live with.

Easter, Bobble, and Trash.

So whats happening in Ghana?

Ho Ho Ho Easter: So since PC administration does a pretty good job of “ruining” all the holidays that we’ve had in Ghana, we were finally happy that this holiday was PC ruining free! (I say “ruining” because the circumstances for them ruining our holidays couldn’t be helped, like they needed to help people set up bank accounts on thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Years we had standfast for our security in case there were any riots due to the election results.) So about 20 of us got together in the city of Ho, where my dear friend Ping is working. She is working with Village Exchange Ghana (look them up online!) and they have this beautiful house for volunteers that come to help, but since all of the volunteers were gone, we had the house to ourselves! The Easter dinner that was prepared was AMAZING! (and I’m not just saying that because all I have to eat at my site is the food I prepare, which is coming along, and Ghanaian food, but I don’t think I’ve eaten that good since… America?!) Although we slaved away in the kitchen for most of the day, it was so worth all the blood, sweat and tears because the spread consisted of baked chicken breasts (yes, they have this in ghana, expensive, but available), garlic mashed potatoes (with real potatoes, it was good but I think I need aunty jos recipe), salad, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry jam! Not to mention the yummy brownies we had for dessert. There was even skyy vodka. (: HEAVEN.


Bobble: So the tragedy that was Junji disappearing some how ended with me getting a kitten. /: So I’ve been having a mouse problem in my room for a while now, I bought a rat trap but somehow it disappeared (I think one of the boys took it) and I haven’t gotten around to buying another one. It hasn’t been so bad, but lately, the mouse has been waking me up in the middle of the night by making my dishes fall to the ground. It has also been eating my bread and bananas. (and for some reason I can’t seem to think its okay to eat bread/bananas that have been shared with a mouse… maybe I haven’t lived in Africa long enough. Bugs okay, mice somehow not okay yet.) So I decided to invest in something better than a mouse trap, a cat! I’m not a huge cat person at all, but this kitten is cute… so I think I can become a cat person. As long as I don’t end up like one of those cat spinster ladies, please don’t let me become one of those. Anyways, the name I gave this cat is Bobble. Well because I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy. (I’m like the worse person at naming things... one time I told chimmy what I would name my daughter if I had one and he told me that if I gave her that name she would hate me and be single for the rest of her life; I mean in middle school I seriously thought the name abcde was totally acceptable for my future daughter. Ha. But then again, you probably did too.) Jess who gave it to me (who also doesn’t know much about cats) think it’s a girl, but when I did some investigating I questioned her by saying “isn’t that a penis?” Either way, it has a huge head, like a bobble head. But it’s a pretty kitten somehow. Not sure if I’m really sold on this whole cat thing, but at least I won’t feel so bad when I leave the cat alone for a couple of days. (Don’t worry, I’m still secretly hoping deep down inside that junji will just appear back at the house one day.)
Sidenote: Cats make strange purring sounds, makes me nervous.
PS. If anyone can give me tips on cats, that would be lovely. I tried to make a litter box, but cat poop smells so bad!! How do I get rid of that smell? It also likes to rub against my leg/foot… can I create something so that it will use that instead of me? Please help.

Wastebins and Signboards: So Ntonso has been fortunate enough to get wastebins and signboards from NCRC through the European Union. The wastebins are 23 in total, and will be spread across the community… which will hopefully help with the abundance of litter on the street. Been going to the schools to educate the kiddies about the new waste baskets. Which reminds me how crazy sad that kids don’t know what tourist attraction is in their own town. So at the beginning when we are introducing ourselves, the assemblyman asked the children, so what textile is Ntonso known for? And then kids say, kente, pottery, wood carving, kente, everything but adinkra! Finally after like 5 minutes of guessing someone finally comes up with adinkra. I find that a bit sad because nearly everyone in the community is doing something dealing with adinkra and the streets are filled with shops selling cloth with adinkra on them. I guess I should give them a little leeway since kente is done in the community as well, but still kind of crazy. Anyways, there will be six signboards that will be placed in the city and roads that will help attract tourist to our community. We’ve been meeting with the artist, so I’m really excited to see how these signboards turn out… will be even more excited when I’m in a tro passing the signboards. (: There is going to be a meeting this week with the district assembly and director of Ghana tourist board, so this should be good! Especially since I’m hearing rumors that FM24 is pulling out of their contract. I just hope that they pay Mavis for the three months that they haven’t paid her for.

That’s about all. Exciting life huh. Okay, hope all is well and wonderful at wherever you maybe!

Twi Word of The Day: Dayie! (good night)

Adinkra Symbol of The Day:



Shoutout: Creator of bacon bits… it really is like magic fairy dust to any bad meal you prepare! (not that I prepare any bad meals anymore… but if I did, shazam! Bad meal no more!)

ps. internet won't let me upload pictures, so you'll have to wait. want to return home before it gets too dark... since someone stole my flashlight phone today. ): yep, that means that my super awesome number of 0241333333 now belongs to some retarded ghanaian that steals! UGH!

Anasi

this is the crazy huge ass spider that i have to deal with at times. /: its scary. harmless i believe, but scary!! especially when i'm searching for things in the dark and it just happens to be where i'm searching!!

Football vs. Football

So I had the opportunity of attending a football match here in Ghana. After the game I got to thinking about which football game I liked better... American or European. I guess I can’t really compare them that much because my knowledge/liking of football only happened in the past year, (thank you eastside and colt brennan? Ha) but I will anyways.


Although I know everyone thinks football (which I will now refer to as soccer because I’m getting confused as I type, which probably means you will get even more confused.) is the most boring sport to watch… but since I grew up play soccer, I didn’t find it all that boring at all. I have secretly dreamed about attending soccer matches in Europe or someplace where the fans are as crazy about soccer as Americas are about their football teams.

So how was the game? Well… like most of you are probably thinking… it was not a total disappointment, but it didn’t live up to the hype I created for it. The whole field was blocked off with a hockey shield about 10 feet high (so no rushing the field after victories or streaking across the field butt naked), there was no one selling rip off beer/margaritas, there was no roasted corn ): and no newspapers to rip and throw when a goal was scored (of course right, such a waste of good toilet paper!). But, the fans didn’t let me down. They were still as crazy as I remembered them being on television.

I guess I can blame the disappointment of my experience on the performance of team. They just didn’t seem into the game, thus making it boring. The Black Stars scored a goal in the first minute and eleven seconds of the game… so I thought it was going to be good… but it wasn’t. Even when I talked to my Ghanaian friends the next day about the game, they were disappointed with how the Black Stars played. But I guess, at the end of the day, a win is a win… and since it was a world cup qualifier match, we’ll take the win… boring or not.

In conclusion, I think I'll pick American football over Ghanaian football. I'm pretty sure I'm picking it because although American football has roasted corn, beer, and newspaper confetti, no matter how boring a game is... the people that you go to the game with are what make it fun. basically its because you guys aren't here. ):


Here is a picture of the cops trying to regulate a fight of some sort. So apparently, Ghanaians don’t like it when you stand… like when they are almost scoring a goal and you stand cause you are excited, yea, Ghanaians don’t like that. So when people were standing they had the bright idea of throwing water at them, which the people that got water thrown on them didn’t appreciate so of course they threw water back with water bottles. Anyways, the cops saw this and tried to step in.

Here is the Benin mascot? Maybe their juju mascot? I don’t know what he is… since they are the Benin squirrels. But he was interesting looking… danced the whole game, had a huge ass, and went home a humbly defeated man. I got a video of him dancing… maybe I’ll upload it sometime when I have fast internet.

here is the stadium. They just remodeled it... it was nice. see that glass protectant thing? but look, they have clappers!!

Twi Word of the Day: yente so! (I won't reduce the price)

which reminds me... so do you think i should feel bad when ghanaians try to rip me off and then don't really know their math too well so i end up ripping them off. sometimes i feel like saying something, cause i am a "business" volunteer, but then again... serves them right for trying to rip us off!

Adinkra Symbol of the Day:

(if the internet won't allow me to post, just picture the target logo and you got the adinkra hene!)

Adinkra Hene
"chief of adinkra symbols"

greatness, charisma, leadership

This symbol is said to have played an inspiring role in the designing of other symbols. it signifies the importance of playing a leadership role.

ATTENTION ATTENTION!!!

my really cool awesome friend in ghana named adam aka. ah-dumb! is doing a xylophone project in the upper west region in ghana. he has made a video to help promote the project, soooo be a kind kind person and take a looksie!

http://www.vimeo.com/3515667

just saw some britney videos... heck yes to her comeback!!! i knew she could do it!!!

sad sad.

junji has gone missing.

i'm lead to believe that he has been stolen by armed robbers.

who will probably eat him.

):

i'm sad sad sad.

[i guess this is bachi for laughing at my mom when kai was saying her last goodbyes. but i'm still sad sad sad, and hoping that he'll show up.]

maybe he just found a girlfriend? ):

other sad news.

my loving and faithful honda was sold.

if you see it on the road being driven by someone that isn't me, 

give it the three honk salute.

shoutout to: wade, hoping that big bang theory will kept my mind off of junji being missing. 

Magical African Remedies

So lately the TMT meetings have been unproductive. ): unproductive in terms of people not showing up, or all they do is argue about the same things. But as of late, its been unproductive in terms of people not showing up. I think its been a month now. The first week, there was a Black Stars game (football match), the next week it rained so no one showed, the week after I had training but I heard they didn’t meet because everyone was out of town, the week after, some people showed but they just argued, and then this week, only two people came… so we decided to talk instead about magical african remedies! (try at your own risk)

This is probably my favorite remedy of all…

Breast milk in eye to cure eye infections!

So apparently, if you have an eye infection, you can get someone (I guess it can’t just be anyone for given reasons) to drop some breast milk in your eye and that will cure your eye infection! When we had a session about HIV/AIDS during training we were asked to write any questions that we had about HIV/AIDS that we wanted answered… and this was one of the questions. If someone that has HIV drops breast milk in your eye, will you get HIV? Of course since breast milk is one of the ways of getting HIV it was a valid question, but since none of us knew about this magical African remedy, there were so many thoughts about this questions that were running through my mind.

Alata Samina prevents skin infections!

So there is a soap here called alata samina, I believe its Nigerian soap. But anyways, if you use it, it cures skin infections! Like if you have a pimple on your arm, then you rub some alata samina on it and it will magically disappear! I have a story about alata samina!

So here it goes… I decided to make some soap, okay, technically according to Julie I didn’t make soap, I just put them all together. So I haven’t used bar soap in a really long time thanks to bath and body works, but I figured (when packing) that it would be best space/usage wise to take it old school and use bar soaps. I used to be so jealous of the people here when they were bathing because their soap would lather up so much in the shower (and no, I don’t watch people showering, its just that little kids bathe out in the open courtyard or showers are low and outside so you can see from the shoulders up) like how my bath and body works used to… and I could never get my bar soap to do the same, no matter how much soap I applied. So I decided to ask Steven (host-brother) what he used and he showed me a smorgasbord soap concoction that he made. I was so intrigued that I knew I needed to make my own, so the next day, I went to a shop and bought a whole bunch of different soaps. All the while Julie was laughing at me because she didn’t understand what I wanted to do, I barely understood what I needed to do to make this happen, and Steven was very vague in his directions. So I basically went out and bought soap not knowing if I was doing the right thing, but I figured if anything I could use it to wash my clothes or hands. When I came back he told me that I needed to cut the soap into little pieces. So cut I did. Julie asked him why they use all different soaps and his answer was we use all the different soaps because they all have different qualities about them, so together they will protect our skin from diseases. Then we sent our little boy to buy some Nigerian soap called Alata samina and then we rolled the cut pieces with alata samina into balls. Then we placed it in a container. I was pretty excited to bathe that night, more than most nights… and I was not disappointed. I think bath and body works has a new competition. Also, Julie who was laughing at me the whole time I was on my mission to gather the soap and while we were cutting the pieces fantasizes about the smorgasbord soap every time she bathes. [not to mention that she was so inspired by this soap smorgasbord that she decided to make it as her secret santa gift.]

Purple ink instant fix to all your cuts!

So when I first got to site, I would walk around my town and see all these little kids with purple lips. I didn’t know what it was and since so many of them had it, I figured that they all ate some candy that dyed their lips purple. Then later it dawned on me that their lips were chapped/cracked and they put the purple ink on it to fix it. Their purple ink was our chap stick! But not only do they put it on their lips, if they have cuts on their hand, leg, face, arm, anywhere… purple ink is applied! One day a boy showed me a cut that he had on his arm and I was “oh damn” that looks horrible… but then I realized it wasn’t all that bad… the purple ink made it look worse (like it looked bruised as well as a big gash). Another story about purple ink (there is actually a name for it, but I can’t quite recall it) so anyways, I decided to castrate junji. The experience was rather pleasant from what I expected it to be like, junji pissed on the table, but I guess it’s a step up from shitting on the table right? Anyways, I got the fortunate opportunity to hold down his legs/tail while the vet castrated him. While he was doing it, the other lady that was holding junji’s head kept asking if I was going to be okay (ha, I guess I looked a little queasy.) well, the point of this story was that I told my lady friend that I castrated junji and lifted up junji’s leg so she could see… and she was like ohhh, you should put purple ink on it!

ALCOHOL cures everything!

So maybe this isn’t necessarily African, since I know Japanese practice this as well, but I’ll add it anyways. But I guess its different in a way because they add “sticks” (I call it sticks because that’s what it looks like, but its some sort of herbal stuff) to their akpeteshi that is suppose to keep them strong. But anways, there was a man in my town that died from hernia, and I was told that to try and get better he refused to go to the doctor but decided that it would be better for him to drink akpeteshi. Okay, so I guess this is a bad bad example because it didn’t cure anything. Maybe it just works for Japanese? Can’t sleep? drink beer! Can’t think? drink beer! Sick? drink beer!

So that’s all I got for now… I’m sure there will be more, and I’ll make sure to inform you all about them. Never know when these remedies might come in handy. [I was trying to think of magical remedies that we have but I kept drawing a blank… the only thing that kept popping in my head was that if you have the hiccups you stand on one foot, bounce around in a circle, while closing your eyes and singing journeys don’t stop believin. Oh and of course my cold sickness remedy, flaming hot cheetos, cup of noodles, and oj! It’s a miracle worker, no joke!]

Twi word of the day: meyare (I’m sick)

Adinkra symbol of the day: internet won't let me post a picture. and i'm hungry, so i'm leaving you with no picture. google it. (:

SANKOFA
"return and get it"
symbol of importance of learning from the past

JUNJI!!! He's adorable right?! haha, caught him at the right time!

talked some small boys into bathing junji for me... he was not having it at all! and there were three of them trying. was funny to watch!

shoutout to: aunty karen... sent me homemade cookies!