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)