A Random Blog for a Random Day

The sounds of African instruments waft through my room to the beat of African hip-hop through blown up speakers. My head nods to the beat, my heart praises with the congregation “to God be the glory” and my arms wearily type the expression of my thoughts.  I thought a lot today.  Jamie and I headed to the school and wrote out our lesson plans for the fifteen kids we will be tutoring over the next two weeks. Jamie designed a beautiful place-value sign, and I created individualized worksheets for the kids.  We pondered over how to best display and teach the concept of one million. We sang silly songs because our heads hurt from writing about math.  We lost track of time and came to the house to eat dinner. 

I ate rice and pehpeh paste. Fresh pehpeh is hot peppers crushed with onions and a little salt.  Pehpeh paste is fresh pehpeh plus tomato paste. love pehpeh. I really love hot pehpeh. This was a hot pehpeh day. I love how my sentences are still following, albeit loosely, the format of extended form. This is why I minored in English, not math. Not that anyone can tell because my grammar is currently horrible. Nyame N’adom, I should have been raised on Twi.

Together Jamie and I prepared for our trip to Accra tomorrow. We are planning which souvenirs to bring home and are hoping to stop at Mama Mia’s for some pizza. I also read about a place that gives a $12 mani/pedi. It’s risky, and I’ve seen the lovely flith of the typical street pedicure. But my feet are absolutely disgusting. I’ve lost four toenails while here. As in, they have completely broken off (one even snapped up, so that when I bent it back down blood squirted everywhere, and I was greatly intrigued.)  Prince likes to step on my toes a lot, too, so even the ones that are still in tact are often bruised. Which is why I often wake up and thank God for nail polish.

Sister Lillian, Jamie, and myself completed Day 12 of the 30 Day Shred. My neck and upper back are sore after the second day of the second level. If we complete all 30 days of this workout in Ghanaian heat and humidity, then I am convinced that I am invincible.  Despite the soreness, tonight was a lovely workout. We moved our laptop to the roof and worked out as lightening lit up the clouded sky and thunder rumbled lightly in the background as if God’s stomach was empathizing with my own.  I complain, but I look forward to those workouts more than anything of the day (even my morning cup of coffee!) Really, I just love the excellent company of Sister Lillian and Jamie, and whoever else occasionally joins us.

Picture to Come? Perhaps....

Ghana celebrated her Independence Day last Tuesday.  Our students celebrated by participating in an all-school marching competition on Monday.  I woke up on Tuesday, planning on celebrating our day off of school by drinking some coffee on the veranda.  Jamie walked out and saw me looking a little disgruntled.

Why, you ask?  Because in my peaceful corner of the world, next to the goat pen, our friend Peter was butchering a sheep.

So when Sister Lillian and Monica suggested we celebrate by going to Tills’ Beach, Jamie and I eagerly agreed. Way more exciting than watching Peter pull the skin off of one of my beloved friends.

Together the four of us headed into Kasoa, and found a tro-tro. The tro-tro wasn’t overly crowded, and the only worry was when an almost passenger threatened to kill the driver with his bottle of Malta. Oh well! The driver keep going. Good call, Sir.

Tills’ Beach was slightly more crowded than last time, but the weather was excellent and you couldn’t beat the amazing people we went with!

Monica and Lizziey at Tills

When our day was over we took a taxi to Agoti junction. Unfortunately, our taxi driver had been cheated by his previous clients, and then our taxi broke down! But with some magic spray and some prayers, the taxi was back in service and we soon found ourselves at the junction where we hopped on a tro-tro back to Kasoa.

On the tro-tro, a fellow decided to ask me why I wanted to blow up Israel.  Luckily, I read the NY Times headlines just enough to know that the Israeli prime minister had recently been in the US, that he was concerned about nuclear weapons in Iran and I was 99% confident the US was not planning on going to war with Israel anytime in the near future. Next time, I’m telling people I’m from Luxembourg.

I deflected the best I could, but in twenty minutes time we discussed nuclear warfare, GOD (he meant gold, oil and drugs: not the Creator of the universe), racism, and agriculture. Jamie put her head down to keep from laughing. Monica and Lillian shot each other looks. I did my best to give out my mere opinions, but I really had to keep it in check when he made some racist comments and when he said, “I don’t understand why people plant things like grass and flowers. On my farm we plant only things you can eat.”  After a quick briefing on how the eco-system works, the man said he’d come by sometime and show me some documentaries.

He hasn’t stopped by yet, and I seriously doubt he will.  But hey, I’m all for a good documentary every once in a while.

From the butchering of the sheep, to traveling to the beach with great friends, to random slightly misinformed political conversations in the back of the tro-tro, I am thankful for Ghana’s independence. More importantly, I look at our days, typically crazy and typically exhausting and am glad to be a part of something more.

Dirty Dancing.

Jamie and I decided to play ballerina using an electrical pole in our "back yard."