christmas in march?!

So here is a picture of solider ants… they’re crazy scary. I’ve actually been fortunate to never get bitten by one or many before, but I’m pretty sure its not pleasant. Here is my little story regarding soldier ants… so Major used to call me lazy every Saturday because the family would go to farm, but I wouldn’t go with them because I had training. So one Saturday when I didn’t have training I decided to go with them to farm, and I kind of wished that I just sat around being that lazy American, because farm was farrrr, hot, and hard work. The trek to farm was a good two hour journey in the hot sun, passing the paths of several soldier ants and through a small stream. Then after I’m already beat from the trek, the actual work begins! They go to their farm and cut down plantains, weeds, gather contumere, and whatever else. (I think they actually felt bad for me because they could tell that I was tired and not used to the work, so they let me rest at their farm house while they finished the work) Then after all that work, they have to carry back a whole bunch of plantains, contumere, cassava, and whatever else that they needed from the farm. So I got to carry back the lightest bag of them all, but I was still dying on the trek back. I seriously don’t know how they do that every Saturday, but at least at the end of the day when we were back at the house, Major said I did well. (Ghanaians like to say “you’ve done well” or “you are trying”) Now she can no longer call me lazy, even if I didn’t do much at farm.


So you know, having electricity isn’t all that bad… somehow I’ve sort of adjusted to being in the dark. The only thing that I hate about not having electricity is when I come home and start searching for things in the dark and then somehow can’t find it so I have to use my flashlight (I have one on my phone, its awesome!) and then I find some huge spider by near where I’m searching. NOT COOL. The other day I found a scorpion near the shower room… my first scorpion ever! Now every time I got to the shower or walk outside at night, I’m so scared I’ll step on one. I really hope we’ll get some electricity soon.

This past week was basically the best week of my life here in Ghana. Who would’ve thought that a whole week of training would be fun, but it was awesome. It was like Christmas in March!! Minus the snow (which doesn’t even matter cause it doesn’t snow in Hawaii), carols, trees, lights, and everything… okay, so maybe it was like Packages Galore in March! So basically since a lot of people live far away from the Accra office where our packages get sent, they brought all our packages to the training we had this past week! It was like amazing goodness overload!! Someone got sent Joe Joes and they were pretty much the best thing that has been inside my mouth… well, besides bacon wrapped hot dogs. Joe Joes are like oreos with little candy cane pieces inside the filling… reminded me of Thin Mints! (I’m salivating right now thinking about how amazing those were.) Not only did we have all these snacks to munch on, but the catering that they have during training is pretty much awesome. During training in Kukurantumi I would look forward to Thursday and Friday lunch because it was catered. I think I must’ve gained at least ten pounds this week just gorging myself on all the tasty food.

So training was good, got a lot of useful information… got to talk with other pcvs and hear about their stories about their site and what else not. Everyone seems to be doing really well at site, so that awesome. It was also just nice to be away from my site, site can get a little overwhelming at times, so it was perfect timing. Because as much as I liked being away from site, now that I’m finally back its like ahhh relief. Kind of like that feeling when you finally get home after a trip. Only bad thing is that I got home and Junji was flea infested!! ): Not happy about that at all, and now for some reason he likes to roll around in dead things. ): My friend said that he is a hunter dog, so they roll around in dead things because it hides his scent? I don’t really understand, but hes so smelly now. ): I even gave him a bath this morning, and it lasted like an hour and hes a smelly Junji again.

But anyways, I’m going to continue talking about food, because well… I’m a fatty! So after training it was my friends birthday so we went up to this place called Sunyani, which is so out of place in Ghana because its like an American town. Went to this amazing hotel and ate sausage pizza. Mmmmm. It was amaaaazing. Then went to this bar and his friend in Sunyani had been marinating meat for the past two days, so they barbequed the meat… it like melted in my mouth. (okay, so it wasn’t a DKs/Ruth Chris or anything, but after eating shitty/questionable meat since coming to Ghana, it was basically like eating at one of those places.) It was actually kind of funny because we were like vultures around the meat stand, just waiting for the next piece of meat to be taken off the grill. I told my friend to go and check to see if the meat was ready, and then like five seconds later he texted me saying “Now…!” hahaha. I basically pushed everyone out of my way, kind of like that Seinfield episode where George pushes everyone out of the way to get out of the burning building. Joking.

two of my favorite people in peace corps. julie and i are in the same sector, and since we are asian they call us ping and pong. and they play that gong asian tune any time they see us. so culturally sensitive these peace corps people. anyways.

Then the eating frenzy continued when we decided to order double cheeseburgers with french fries the next night for dinner. But well, now I’m back at site, so its just Ghanaian food all day every day. Which is good, I think I must’ve ate a months worth of food in a week. But now the snacking frenzy will start because I got amazing packages filled with goodies. (: Pork grinds, cheez-its, arare, cheetos, oreos, bacon bits… Thank you!!!!

here is the picture that wasn't letting me post last time. intense huh the three rocks with the fire burning underneath!

Twi Word of the day: Mame! (I’m satisfied)

Adinkra Symbol of the day:

MATE MASIE
"What I hear, I keep"
symbol of wisdom, knowledge and prudence
The implied meaning of the phrase "mate masie" is "I understand". Understanding means wisdom and knowledge, but it also represents the prudence of taking into consideration what another person has said.

cooking update, marching, and junjiiiii. <3.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD?!

in case you are wondering... my cooking is becoming, uh... amazing! here i made some creamy italian disting. with potatoes! and meat! (okay, so the meat was already cooked from my kebab man, but i'm still quite impressed with myself! i also actually cooked meat one night, to add to my curry... but well... it looked gross, so i didn't actually eat it, it was a waste of money, but well, lesson learned.) even junji likes it!!! and i didn't get sick! whooohoooo. maybe i'll become a pro chef... the next rachel ray?

curious what african children do in their free time? well they cook. and they don't have those pretty little plastic play sets like in america, but they use like scrap food that their parents arent using and cook up something yummmmy! i told them i wanted to eat it, but they told me that i couldn't. booooo. ): i'm sure it couldn't be worse than my actual cooking.

photo to be added later... ): booooo internet.

they told me they were cooking potatoes! haha. it was pretty intense... do you notice the three stones holding up the tin can? well, theres a mini fire under those stones... they get small charcoal thats left over and use that, or they light fire to branches or small pieces of wood. can you imagine if when we were kids we started doing that in america... our parents would freak! i remember the time that we decided it was a good idea to empty out all the morning glory power and then start a huge fire. it was pretty awesome and then baba got her hose and put out our hard work. haha, it was amazingly fun though. i guess thats not really the same as a controlled fire like these kids are doing, but i thought it was fitting to this story.

so march 6th was ghana independence day. and what does that mean? picnics at the beach, fireworks, green yellow and red, hot dogs, hamburgers... mmm, god, i love africa. (: okay, so just kidding, basically it means... MARCHING!!! so kids, they march and march and march! these kids practice like a month before to march? i didn't quite know there was an art to marching, or that one needed so much practice, but well... i guess its true, practice makes perfect. or at least good enough. so i went to my teacher friends site and watched her students march. (btw, my teacher friend teaches art at a deaf school, super awesome but super crazy living situation since the kids are boarding and she lives on campus... so basically she lives with like 6464314 kids that are deaf... i guess my living situation ain't so bad?)

so this is her school marching. apparently they only have one deaf school per region. ive stayed at her house a few times, the kids are amazing... they always make the sign for short... because shes so tall. like when i leave they ask her where did your short friend go? so basically i can sign, hello, how are you, i'm fine, and short!

here is jess. she is super excited to be marching with the kids. so basically they all line up along the side of the football field and then each school takes their turn marching around the field. they stop infront of the tent in the center which is covering all the big men and important people. and when they stop, they salute to them. i wish i had one of those pictures on my flash drive to share, but well... i don't, so thats that.

since my mom keeps requesting the status of junji, here you gooooo!!! and junji is not africa, hes totally asian!! actually... he looks kind of scary, but well... hes not. hes adorable!

he totally likes to hump legs... especially with the brush in his mouth. doesn't my "house" actually look pretty decent?! i'm quite impressed... i moved things around and it feels so much bigger. yay! my landlord keeps asking if i'm going to castrate junji. that word castrate just sounds so horrible. /: he tells me that he knows people that live in zongo that castrate sheeps and goats, but i'm not quite sure thats the same as dogs... so i'm kinda scared. i also took junji to the "vet" and it was such a horrible experience. he pooped on the table and then screamed so much. i have to take him back... but i just keep putting it off.



Twi word of the day: fa mami bokiti. (go get me a bucket.)

adinkra symbol of the day: "no one should bite the other"
bi nka bi

symbol of peace and harmony

work?

So you’re probably wondering what the heck I’ve been doing here in Ghana; well, besides playing li hing mui tricks on Ghanaians, trying my best to not shit my pants, detoxing (although some how I had one beer in a remote area not even in my town with a friend, and some how every one knew, I guess this is what Britney Spears feels like), playing with junji, and perfecting my cooking skills... and I can say that I honestly haven’t done much yet to save the world, or at least Ghana.

I want to give you a little background so maybe you’ll understand why I haven’t done much yet… but I know I have lots of work ahead of me.

Okay, so the Ministry of Tourism came and funded the building of the visitor center in Ntonso. (this was about a little more than a year ago or so) People in this community have been doing Adinkra stamping for many many years, so tourist have been coming here way before this visitor center was built. There is one family here in Apatem that has been doing the demonstration for the tourist (the family does it the traditional way using carved calabash, while most people now days do screen printing) but apparently members of the TMT has had problems with this family. There is also a chieftaincy dispute in my community; there hasn’t been a chief for 19 years; so we have a queen mother. I have yet to meet the queen mother because she lives in Kumasi and doesn’t like to come to Ntonso that often because people here will “attack” her because they want a chief. So apparently, people that oppose the queen mother dominate the TMT and the family that does the traditional printing is on the side of the queen mother. (are you confused yet? It gets better.) So after the visitor center was built the TMT wasn’t functioning properly for the Ministry of Tourism/Ghana Tourist Board to feel comfortable handing over the management of this new facility to the community of Ntonso, so they hired a private company FM24 to run the visitor center for 2 years.

Then, the TMT was given a contract with FM24, but it was never signed because the TMT didn’t agree with what was stated on it. (so I thought that apparently means that the contract doesn’t exist?) It was given to them on March 2008, and it still sits at the desk unsigned in its envelope. But then again, I guess since the “real” contract is with the Ministry of Tourism it doesn’t really matter. Once the community found out that the visitor center was handed to a private company, it was no longer solely a community based project. Meaning, that money generated from tourist, will be split between the private company and the community. Personally, I wouldn’t have signed the contract either. The community would/is basically making no money off of tourist coming here, sometimes even losing money. There was a part in the contract that stated that if tourist didn’t buy any cloth from the demonstrators that the TMT was to pay the demonstrators, which I totally agree with since the demonstrators aren’t paid and they should somehow be compensated, but the TMT isn’t making much money off of the tourist so having the TMT pay would mean that they are losing money by having tourist come here. The TMT makes .30 peswa off every tourist, if they don’t buy cloth they pay the demonstrators .50 peswa. Tourist pay $4 cedi if they are foreign or $2.50 cedi if they are Ghanaian.

Visitors are suppose to report to the visitor center and register (pay fees) and then they will get a tour of our museum with introduction about adinkra and then get taken to the demonstration site (Apatem) to watch the process of adinkra stamping. But like I said, the family has been doing demonstrations long before people had to register, so most tours know just to go straight to the demonstration site. (the family is suppose to tell them to come here to register if they just go their first, but they don’t tell the tourist, and seriously why would a tourist want to come to register if they know that they will have to pay something when they could get away with it?) My counterpart and I have been visiting the regional manager of the Ghana Tourist Board to talk to him about this problem, but hes told all tour operators that they must come to the visitor center, but they still don’t come. It sucks because I do language lessons and I’m friends with the people at Apatem, so I’m usually there in the mornings, and I see many tourist that come, and then when I head to the visitor center to see Mavis and ask her if people came she always says no.

Even when tourist come to the visitor center first to register, things are still not functioning properly to be worth coming to register first. There are two tour guides (well, really only one because the other one refuses to give tours because of FM24, although if they just come without registering he gives tours… because he knows that he’ll get money from it, while if they register he doesn’t get any money) who are suppose to get called when there are tourist at the center. Mavis apparently doesn’t like to call them when there are tourists here, so she gives them the tour herself. She gives a very brief information about adinkra, and then walks them over to the demonstration center and sits while the people at Apatem take over the tour. Since Apatem doesn’t like the idea of FM24 getting the money from tourist, they somehow are able to charge tourist as well. They let tourist stamp their own adinkra on a piece of kente cloth for 5 cedis. When tourist come to the visitor center to register they pay 4 cedis. I know that 9 cedis doesn’t seem like a lot of money (it really isn’t for foreigners, but for people living here/volunteers, it’s a heck chunk of money), but its fricken expensive for a half hour tour. (I recently found this out because a PCV came to my site to do the tour and told me, she also told me that right as they are about to stamp the cloth they are told about the 5 cedi)

The TMT wants to build their own demonstration center on the side of the visitor center and create a mini market of adinkra and kente (excellent idea I think). The TMT hasn’t seen a penny off the money made off of tourist coming to Ntonso, so there is no capital to invest in an extension. (well, that’s what they tell me, they’re always like FM24 has all our money, we haven’t seen any of the profits.) The land that they want to build on is part of farming land for some people in the community and although they have been told to uproot their crops, none of that has been done. The one bonus of this all is that the people at Apatem are working outside of their house, which is on school property (I’m told that they were asked to move, but nothing has been done of yet) so hopefully it will be easy to convince them to move if this demonstration center is built.

Since no one is happy about FM24 running the center, we are working on a letter to the Ministry of Tourism asking for complete ownership of the running of this facility. But we also need to make sure that the TMT is capable of managing the center if it is handed over, and make sure that is what they want to do. The TMT just finished writing their constitution and will hopefully go sometime soon to the District Assembly to register the TMT as a CBO (community based organization), and then start working on a short term/long term plan for this project. Start looking for agencies interested in African textiles to write proposals to so hopefully we can make this demonstration center/market area a reality.

So that’s kind of the situation in Ntonso, I’m still trying to figure it all out… everyday I seem to get a bit more information from people, but I hope everything works out. I guess its good that I still have pretty much two years to get shit done.

Wanna know something funny, Mavis hasn’t gotten money from FM24 for three months to pay the electricity bill, but somehow we still have electricity! Gotta love Ghana sometimes. I would love it even more if they put up free electricity in my house!

So in addition to my Twi word of the day, I thought I would add adinkra symbol of the day. (: enjoy!

Twi word of the day: me ko eduwamah (i'm going to work)

Adinkra Symbol of the day: Onyankopon adom nti biribiara beye yie

“by gods grace all will be well”

Literal Meaning: hope, faith, providence

the reason for my shits?

And here comes the fooood! 

Okay, so I don’t really have everything, but you’ll get the gist. I basically don’t really care for any of the Ghanaian food here, but I need to survive, so I eat. I guess if anything my favorite food here is coco yams and contumere. Here is a picture of contumere. It is basically coco yam leaves that are boiled with gari (grinded cassava) and tomatoes and fish and some other stuff. Its kind of like spinach I guess in some sort of way, maybe like lau lau. I actually think its kind of funny that I like contumere of all things, because it’s a healthier dish and I don’t usually do healthy… I guess now I can brag to my grandma that I eat greens!


Then here is fufu. You can actually make fufu, I hear there is an online recipe for it… you should try it one night, its mighty delicious! But anyways, uh, so fufu is boiled coco yams and plantains that are pounded, almost like how we pound mochi. You usually eat it with light soup and fish or chicken or beef or snail or grass cutter or bush meat. Speaking of grasscutters, I don’t have a picture of one, but I’m sure you can google it and find out, but it looks like a huge rat, and it tastes sooo good. It reminds me of pipikaula (I think that’s the right name)… like a smoked chicken/fish taste. I actually ate the meat before I got to see what a grass cutter looked like… I think if it was the other way around I probably wouldn’t have tried it.

Here is me trying to pound fufu… I don’t know if you can tell, but the small boy Yao is laughing at me… it was my first time pounding and so they all were laughing at me. Pounding fufu is hard work, and most families here eat fufu almost every day.

Here is a little story about my sickness and how it relates to food:

So the other week I got sick and tried to go to the hospital (I say tried because we went to the hospital, but because it was lights out; meaning no electricity, so electricity here even if you have it is very unreliable) but since no one was there they just took me home… which was totally okay because I was feeling better. But isn’t that reassuring to know that if it was an emergency I would’ve been shit out of luck?! Haha, jk… theres another hospital in our district capital which isn’t too far away, but this hospital was closer. Maybe I shouldn’t call it a hospital, maybe a clinic is a better term for it? Anyways, so my neighbors/tenants that I live with kept telling me that I need to start making my own food since I chop (buy food from street vendors) every day for all my meals. And how its unhealthy to buy chop, or how its unhealthy for me to eat so much eggs (and I don’t even really like eggs!), blah blah blah. So since I want them to stop telling me what to do and since the gas stove is up and working I started to make food (okay, so I really only made food a few times, but I don’t like cooking in the dark and its difficult cooking for only one person and I think more expensive too and junji doesn’t like my cooking)… but well, you see, here in Ghana at the market all you can get is tomatoes, peppers, onions, okra (grosss!), garden eggs (not all that yummy either), and eggs! The starches here are fairly easy to make, like rice, yams, plantain… and I actually like eating them, but I can’t just eat starch! (where is taco bell when you need it!) So hmm, what delicious meals can I make with that?! Oh yea, not to mention that I my cooking back home consisted of making deli sandwiches (not possible here, but I do miss my ham and turkey sandwiches...mmm, subway!), heating up pizza in the microwave (no microwave pizza here ): I might attempt to make pizza though, maybe later in the year when I’m more confident with my cooking abilities), making saimin (possible, theres this brand called indomie its Indonesian, but its too hot to eat saimin here, plus no kamoboko! But on a plus side, well, actually I don’t know if it’s a plus really, I rediscovered how wonderful raw saimin is… if I close my eyes I almost think I’m eating chips. I bought some generic brand of Pringles at this expensive obroni store, but basically ate it all within five minutes, not a pretty site at all. I feel sorry for the first person I eat a meal with when I get to America, I will probably embarrass you by a.) eating with my hands b.) stuffing my face c.) eating all my food, even the things I didn’t like so fast while making pig noises.), and mmm, yea, that’s basically where it ends! So I made a new years resolution to learn how to cook. I’ve started with simple things, tomato sauce with pasta and garlic bread and fried eggs. I now think its safe to say that I’m a pro at making tomato sauce and frying eggs… but then again, I think even a 3 year old could make it… so I guess it doesn’t count for much, but it’s a start and it just may be the first new years resolution that I might accomplish!

So if any of you have great cooking receipes that you could tell me about, tell away! Just know that what I have to work with is limited. I could get meat/chicken, but its like straight after its been chopped alive, so I think for now I would rather stay away from meats and be okay with just buying them from the vendors. I befriended the meat kebab man because I buy from him at least a couple times a week, he usually dashes me a kebab so I’m happy. My Ghanaian friend is suppose to teach me how to make emotou and nkatekwan (rice balls and ground nut soup), so I’m really excited about that… its my favorite Ghanaian food (okay, so I guess I have two favorites) and junjis too, but that doesn’t really count because junji eats everything! Except peanut butter… weird dog. I went over to her house the other day and ate fufu and contumerekwan (kwan=soup) and it was actually delicious! I guess I’m sort of liking Ghanaian food… never thought I would see the day… and its even weirder that somedays I’ll actually crave bayere Empesi and adua (and I don’t even like beans!)


that is rice balls and contumere soup

Okay, back to food pictures. So here is red red, its fried plantains and beans. I used to hate this, but some how I’m starting to be okay with it. I usually get it with gari, which I think makes it taste better. I usually get it when I want to feel cheap because its only costs me 30 peswas and it usually fills me up (I even am able to share with junji and still be somewhat satisfied).



This is what I usually get for lunch, its fried yams and chicken with shito. Shito is super yummy… its like this spicy fish sauce. Usually I get the fried yams with pepe sauce which is kind of like salsa, but not. We have a pear tree (they call avacados pears here) outside our compound, so I’m really excited about that. Makes some guacamole and salsa! Yummy!

This is a picture from homestay, so the orange/red mixture is shito in the making. And then the green leaves are contumere leaves.



Here is another picture from homestay, this night we had a feast! Well, not really, but it did seem like we had a lot of food. So there is kenke, which is maize and its absolutely gross. Its like eating sour gross sticky stuff? I don’t even know how to explain it, but I don’t like it at all. In the corner is an egg sandwich (what I usually eat in the mornings for breakfast) and then we have some fried chicken (I eat this pretty often as well) and then some kind of soup with meat… I forget what it was we were eating that night.

(internet won't let me upload last picture of the feast, so next time.)


Twi word of the day: wo noa da ben? what are you cooking?

by the way, i don't live at homestay anymore... those are just old pictures from homestay. 

Shits, Junji, and Randomness.

in tribute to the shits that i just had to deal with last week, i decided to inform you all about the lovely bathroom facilities of ghana. (i guess its not really necessary for me to share with you that i had the shits, but i share almost everything else so i thought eh why not!)

I will start off with my personal toilet. Its not really personal because I have to share it with my compound, but I think only a the adults use it because the small girls in the compound just piss in our courtyard and I’m pretty sure they poop in the bush. So during training I was fortunate enough to have a regular toilet and although I had to bucket flush it, it was still a regular toilet. This right here is a style of latrine, they are many different styles… its actually a pretty nice latrine, I’ve visited a friend of mines during home stay and had to use her latrine and it was fricken nasty… I almost didn’t want to use it, but if I didn’t I would’ve peed my pants. So basically they just dig a super huge hole and then you piss and shit into the hole until it fills up… and then when it fills up you cover the hole and build another latrine.



Here is the public restroom the community of old tafo, where some of the volunteers were doing home stay. You have to pay .05 pesewa to use it, and they don’t give you toilet paper… I think they may give you newspapers, but I don’t remember seeing any newspapers with the lady that was collecting the money. This was the first public restroom that I saw and I didn’t think it was all that bad. It didn’t really smell, but I also didn’t really get that close and wasn’t really trying to smell so yea.

Then here is a nice public restroom in kukurantumi. I didn’t actually go to see what the toilets looked like, but it had a running shower and a mirror, so I just figured that the toilets would be nice.

There is also just like a little box, where you go and just piss. Nothing really special… and you only piss in the box, if you want to poop I think you go and find a bush.

And my personal favorite… the bush! So basically you just piss and poop wherever you feel like! When we are traveling on the tro or on a bus, you tell the driver or the mate that you have to urinate and he’ll stop the bus and then pull over and let you urinate or poop on the side of the road. Women here are awesome at poppin a squat! Also if you don’t have toilet paper, newspaper, or prescription paper (my friend went to the hospital in his community and had to use the bathroom but they didn’t have any toilet paper so they gave him prescription paper to wipe with) then you introduce your butt to your left hand. So basically your left hand is considered filthy so you never eat, shake, or give anything to anyone with your left hand. Your right hand is for eating food, I didn’t realize how good food taste with a fork… that may sound weird but let me try to explain. So when I used to eat fufu or rice balls I would normally use my hand because I didn’t have a fork, but the soup would be so hot that it was hard to enjoy the food when my hand was burning. Then when we were at the lodge, we were given forks to eat rice balls and gosh damn, it was so good to just enjoy the soup without having to worry about my fingers being burnt by the end of the meal. You probably still don’t really understand, but maybe you should try to eat beef stew with rice or chicken noodle soup with your hands one night and maybe you’ll get the picture.

(so i never actually took this picture, but i'm assuming that pooping/pissing with zebras would be an ideal situation that i may be lucky enought encounter during my two years here.)

JUNJIIIII!!!! Isn't he fricken adorable? This was taken when I first got him, so now hes a little bit bigger, but still adorable. Hes sort of learning where he can poop, but hes kind of slow.

we took a little vacation to the beach... wasn't quite as lovely as hawaii, but it was sure nice.

here is our group at our swearing in ceremony.

Okay, so I decided to share some of my food with my friends here in Ghana. I think the best thing that I have shared with them is lihi mui, and when I say best I mean that I got a kick out of their reaction, so it was best for me and not for them. I didn’t exactly give them a disclaimer before letting them eat it, so some of them decided to stick the whole thing in their mouth... something that even I'm not brave enough to do. Just watching their facials reactions was classic. One of them told me that I spoiled their dinner, I think that was the best response. Then some of them said that they needed to wash their tongue. Then one of them was like “Oh, Why!” and put it back in the wrapper… he then said that he was going to eat it after he finished washing it. Most of them tried it and then spit it on the ground. It was a waste of my lihi mui, but I think it was worth it… probably get them back for all the bad things they’ve said about me in Twi that I didn’t understand. Heh. (:

(don't worry aunty jo, it wasn't the lihimui candy you sent me, it was ones that i brought with me.)

here is a picture of my homestay family... a lot of people were missing because by the time the photographer came to take the picture all the kids went to school. so, there is major, sistah diana, nana, and papa yao. and destiny (the dog). do you like my ghanaian shirt? major made it for me... it came with some awesome matching pants, and she wanted me to wear them together... but even though i'm in ghana and i don't really care all that much what i look like, i just couldn't pull myself to wear them together.


here is a picture of some of the little kids that i live with (i actually only live with two of them in the picture, but more aren't pictured) the girl off to the side, is a fricken brat. mom and dad, if i was ever ever like that (which i'm sure i was), please forgive me... i'm soo sorry. she makes me want to move... okay, i can't fully blame her as the sole reason me of me wanting to move, but shes a big part.

xoxo.

Twi word of the day: me yam keka me (i have stomach pains)