I have been desperately trying to wrap up this recap of fall break so that I can move on with my life, but right now I am at a standstill in my summary of the trip. Sunday night, after we had escaped the harassment of our driver, eaten our dinner in darkness, and gotten into our mosquito-netted room, I found out that my grandmother had passed away, and I can say without a doubt that it was the hardest night of my life having to process this information while in a hotel in the middle of nowhere in West Africa.
I cannot even describe how important my grandmother was to me and to my family. She was kind, she was smart, she was witty, and she was incredibly sassy - she definitely gave all the women in my family a little (or a lot) of her attitude. She was the perfect grandmother to be at the center of our dysfunctional family. My childhood is chracterized by my 'coffee breaks' with her, where she would pick me up from school and bring me to her house to drink pepsi with a spoon and eat chocolate cake with my hands. My caffeine addiction in addition to my excessive sarcasm can be blamed on my grandmother. She was my nurse when I would hurt myself, my cheerleader when I graduated high school, got into college, and became her 'world traveler', my second mother whenever she felt the need to lecture me on my driving or about being nicer to my sister, and a friend I could go to anytime when I just needed someone to listen. She comforted me more times than I can count with her words, her promises that things would get better, and, of course, with chocolate. When my grandfather died, she wrote to me about my courage and how proud she was of me despite how much I knew she was hurting.
I feel incredibly lucky that I had Holley and Maggie with me on the trip and I'm so grateful that they were there to talk to me, to let me cry, and to read Little Women out loud to me when I was too sick to get out of bed. Just being around them gave me comfort when I was so far from home.
My grandmother always wanted to be known as 'crazy', and she was. She gave us zerbetts and always told us what good doobies we were. She baked angel food cake every Christmas and made us sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. She was fantastic, and no words can describe how much she will be missed and how difficult this loss has been and will be to handle.
Grammie, you told me that after Papa died you still talked to him every morning - that it brought you back to when you were together and when you would laugh and joke, and I've found myself doing the same thing with you. I love you. XOXO
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
je suis petite femme!
Fall Break, day two
Oh yes, we are only on day two. So far...we had gotten into Cotonou, Benin. The plan for our second day was to travel north up Benin right to the border of Niger and then cross over into Niger the next morning. The trip was only supposed to take twelve hours, and we were planning on taking a bus to get there. As would happen many times during the trip, this did not happen. It did not take twelve hours, and we did not take a bus. I had joked about how I wanted to take a variety of transportation this entire trip...dear goodness I also did not realize how far that would be taken as well. So in Benin, and to a lesser extent in Togo, the ONLY method of transportation is a motorcycle. Or moto-taxi. We realized this the night we arrived in Benin, but we had had Justin who was nice enough to give us a private tro-tro ride to our hotel. The next morning we were not as lucky, and although I was doubtful that Maggie with her enormous camping backpack could get on a motorcycle and not topple over, it looked like we didn't have a choice. So we got on the motorcycles and it was SO MUCH FUN. I have never been on one before and I loved it - it was so comfortable to ride on and so cheap (it's about fifty cents each time you take one) and I felt like I was straight out of The Lizzie McGuire Movie or a Mary-Kate and Ashley film. I really wanted the drivers to go side-by-side so we could coordinate some high-fiving while we drove, but sadly it didn't happen.
I thought they would be driving us to a bus station, but the man at our hotel and the motorcycles apparently decided or told us that there were no buses, but that we could take a car. As in, hire someone to drive us twelve hours up the entire country. It sounds sketchy, but it actually is normal and had a fixed price, so it worked otu well. The first part of the trip was from Cotonou to Parakou, about five hours away and a little less than halfway to where we were trying to get. It cost 12,000 CFAs for the entire trip, and the first car we were in Maggie, Holley and I had the entire backseat to ourselves with a comfy/disusting blanket to rest our heads on and a man and another woman in the front seat. The scenery was so green and so pretty - it was a lovely first half of the day.
And then it ended. When we got to Parakou we dropped off 'mama' as she was referenced, hung out with all of her children and ate icey fan ice that was NOT creamy and not very good, and then we got taken to the car station. We figured we would have to wait to get another passenger for the second half. I just need to stop and say that it was at this point in the trip that the temperatures started getting ridiculously hot. Like, you could not stand in the sun hot because you would melt. And it would only get worse once we got to Niger. Anyway, we were sitting in our comfy and spacious car in Parakou when all of a sudden our drive r tells us to get out because we're switching cars. Our bags got moved into a tiny two door car and there were some complaints that the three of us had to share such a small and cramped backseat, but we said to goodbye to our driver and moved into the new car. We had been sitting there for five minutes trying to get comfortable when our new driver and all his friends come to our window and start speaking in French - "Pusse! Otro passenger" or something like that in French. As in, they wanted to fit ANOTHER person in the back seat. All of us started screaming "NO! NO C"EST POSIBLE" or however you spell that in French, and then they just kept yelling and yelling and we were saying no no no and it became a problem. For about fifteen minutes it was all of us standing outside the car staring at each other, because we insisted that we could not fit another person and they insisted that we had to. Looking back, it probably would've been about five dollars for each of us to pay to take the entire backseat, but it was the principal of the situation.
We finally got back into the car with us three in the backseat and one man in the front seat, driving about one hundred feet before we stopped in frotn of a group of people. First a boy got in the middle front seat, and then the woman came, destined for our part of the car. This was not just any woman - this was a grown woman who had birthed many children. She was not small to say the least. So first they shove her in the back, slamming me against the wall and crushing Holley and Maggie who are in the middle. We now have seven people int eh car. And then they decide to add another man to the front seat, coming up for a grand total of EIGHT people. In a two door car. EIGHT.
It took about two minutes before I realized that I was getting short of breath from being crushed. When i lifted myself up to pivot my body in an attempt to get ome air, our fourth backseat passenger took it upon herself to claim the space as her own with her child bearing hips, meaning that I was out of room. I was literally holding myself up with no space to sit down in. And that's when I started sitting on Maggie's lap. We stayed in that position for the next seven hours of the trip. Me on Maggie's lap, me on Maggie and Holley's lap, me with my feet out the window and lying behind Holley with her leaning forward. It was glorious. Not really...it was absolutely terrible and almost like a mental test to get through so many hours of being uncomfortable, crushed, and slamming my head against the top of the car. By the time we got to Malanville, which we were trying to get to, it had been dark for a couple of hours and all we wanted to do was get to our hotel. Our driver passed our hotel and then offered to drop us off at our hotel afterwards, which we gladly accepted, until we got to the drop off area and he demanded that we pay a thousand CFAs to bring us back. We had passed it earlier, we could've gotten out and walked, but we kept going further from the hotel because he had offered to bring us back. So we were not happy. It was pitch black where we were dropped off, we were surrounded by lots of guys shouting to us in French, and we had just spent seven hours in a two door car with eight people in it.
We decided out of spite to not pay the driver 1000 CFAs and got on some motorcycles to get to our hotel - it turned out to be very nice and after another entire day of eating nothing, going to the bathroom once, and drinking almost no water, they fed us a huge plate of spaghetti and french bread. After jokingly harassing Holley and I about speaking Spanish and Russian and asking me if I was married. The room was not as fantastic as the night before, a trend which would continue for another night in Niger, but the plan was for giraffes the next day and we were ridiculously excited. Even the blackout that happened during dinner for about five minutes could not bring down our spirits - it actually united a wrist slam of our friendship bracelets and a declaration of "UNITY". If only we could have seen what would happen next...
Oh yes, we are only on day two. So far...we had gotten into Cotonou, Benin. The plan for our second day was to travel north up Benin right to the border of Niger and then cross over into Niger the next morning. The trip was only supposed to take twelve hours, and we were planning on taking a bus to get there. As would happen many times during the trip, this did not happen. It did not take twelve hours, and we did not take a bus. I had joked about how I wanted to take a variety of transportation this entire trip...dear goodness I also did not realize how far that would be taken as well. So in Benin, and to a lesser extent in Togo, the ONLY method of transportation is a motorcycle. Or moto-taxi. We realized this the night we arrived in Benin, but we had had Justin who was nice enough to give us a private tro-tro ride to our hotel. The next morning we were not as lucky, and although I was doubtful that Maggie with her enormous camping backpack could get on a motorcycle and not topple over, it looked like we didn't have a choice. So we got on the motorcycles and it was SO MUCH FUN. I have never been on one before and I loved it - it was so comfortable to ride on and so cheap (it's about fifty cents each time you take one) and I felt like I was straight out of The Lizzie McGuire Movie or a Mary-Kate and Ashley film. I really wanted the drivers to go side-by-side so we could coordinate some high-fiving while we drove, but sadly it didn't happen.
I thought they would be driving us to a bus station, but the man at our hotel and the motorcycles apparently decided or told us that there were no buses, but that we could take a car. As in, hire someone to drive us twelve hours up the entire country. It sounds sketchy, but it actually is normal and had a fixed price, so it worked otu well. The first part of the trip was from Cotonou to Parakou, about five hours away and a little less than halfway to where we were trying to get. It cost 12,000 CFAs for the entire trip, and the first car we were in Maggie, Holley and I had the entire backseat to ourselves with a comfy/disusting blanket to rest our heads on and a man and another woman in the front seat. The scenery was so green and so pretty - it was a lovely first half of the day.
And then it ended. When we got to Parakou we dropped off 'mama' as she was referenced, hung out with all of her children and ate icey fan ice that was NOT creamy and not very good, and then we got taken to the car station. We figured we would have to wait to get another passenger for the second half. I just need to stop and say that it was at this point in the trip that the temperatures started getting ridiculously hot. Like, you could not stand in the sun hot because you would melt. And it would only get worse once we got to Niger. Anyway, we were sitting in our comfy and spacious car in Parakou when all of a sudden our drive r tells us to get out because we're switching cars. Our bags got moved into a tiny two door car and there were some complaints that the three of us had to share such a small and cramped backseat, but we said to goodbye to our driver and moved into the new car. We had been sitting there for five minutes trying to get comfortable when our new driver and all his friends come to our window and start speaking in French - "Pusse! Otro passenger" or something like that in French. As in, they wanted to fit ANOTHER person in the back seat. All of us started screaming "NO! NO C"EST POSIBLE" or however you spell that in French, and then they just kept yelling and yelling and we were saying no no no and it became a problem. For about fifteen minutes it was all of us standing outside the car staring at each other, because we insisted that we could not fit another person and they insisted that we had to. Looking back, it probably would've been about five dollars for each of us to pay to take the entire backseat, but it was the principal of the situation.
We finally got back into the car with us three in the backseat and one man in the front seat, driving about one hundred feet before we stopped in frotn of a group of people. First a boy got in the middle front seat, and then the woman came, destined for our part of the car. This was not just any woman - this was a grown woman who had birthed many children. She was not small to say the least. So first they shove her in the back, slamming me against the wall and crushing Holley and Maggie who are in the middle. We now have seven people int eh car. And then they decide to add another man to the front seat, coming up for a grand total of EIGHT people. In a two door car. EIGHT.
It took about two minutes before I realized that I was getting short of breath from being crushed. When i lifted myself up to pivot my body in an attempt to get ome air, our fourth backseat passenger took it upon herself to claim the space as her own with her child bearing hips, meaning that I was out of room. I was literally holding myself up with no space to sit down in. And that's when I started sitting on Maggie's lap. We stayed in that position for the next seven hours of the trip. Me on Maggie's lap, me on Maggie and Holley's lap, me with my feet out the window and lying behind Holley with her leaning forward. It was glorious. Not really...it was absolutely terrible and almost like a mental test to get through so many hours of being uncomfortable, crushed, and slamming my head against the top of the car. By the time we got to Malanville, which we were trying to get to, it had been dark for a couple of hours and all we wanted to do was get to our hotel. Our driver passed our hotel and then offered to drop us off at our hotel afterwards, which we gladly accepted, until we got to the drop off area and he demanded that we pay a thousand CFAs to bring us back. We had passed it earlier, we could've gotten out and walked, but we kept going further from the hotel because he had offered to bring us back. So we were not happy. It was pitch black where we were dropped off, we were surrounded by lots of guys shouting to us in French, and we had just spent seven hours in a two door car with eight people in it.
We decided out of spite to not pay the driver 1000 CFAs and got on some motorcycles to get to our hotel - it turned out to be very nice and after another entire day of eating nothing, going to the bathroom once, and drinking almost no water, they fed us a huge plate of spaghetti and french bread. After jokingly harassing Holley and I about speaking Spanish and Russian and asking me if I was married. The room was not as fantastic as the night before, a trend which would continue for another night in Niger, but the plan was for giraffes the next day and we were ridiculously excited. Even the blackout that happened during dinner for about five minutes could not bring down our spirits - it actually united a wrist slam of our friendship bracelets and a declaration of "UNITY". If only we could have seen what would happen next...
Friday, October 23, 2009
i will need to learn the art of being succinct if i am going to get through the recap of fall break.
Fall Break. I honestly have no words...or I guess that I have too many. I think it is safe to say that in our NYU in Ghana group the three of us had the most ambitious fall break plans to start with - we joked before we left that we'd come stumbling home a week or two later, bruised and limping from some injury, or that we'd get stuck in some prison in Niger and have to be bailed out by NYU. WELL. HOW CLOSE WE CAME. Not really - there was only one incident with the police, but we did make two visits to hospitals and came home with a plethora of bruises. So it begins.
Day One.
So we had planned to leave Thursday afternoon, even though I did not believe this would happen because Holley and Maggie have class on Thursday, but they were all like 'oh yes we are so amped lets start this woohoo'. And then Holley got typhoid and was throwing up and being really grouchy and had to go to the hospital. So our departure was postponed to Saturday and on Friday, Maggie and I got to go hunting around Accra for bus tickets while Holley napped in bed all day. Quite the charmed life she leads. We left early Saturday morning, Holley not feeling so fantastic but poorly attempting to hide it. We were taking a bus from Accra to Aflao, which is where you cross the border between Ghana and Togo. I will say this about fall break - we did spend a majority of it traveling and sitting, but I am so grateful for those hours (and hours...) spent driving because we really got a fantastic idea of how a place LOOKS. The scenery, the colors...it all changed from one country to the next and we were able to see that as we went. The first bus ride was no exception - I have never seen more beautiful beaches than on that bus ride. The coast of Ghana and of Togo looks how a coast should look - the water is bright blue, the sky is slightly lighter, and the sand has a beautiful golden tint to it that you just cannot accurately capture in a picture. We were passes through little towns where people were able to live right on the beach - we saw groups of forty men pulling up the boats from the water, all in a line, and people working and cooking with this gorgeous background behind them.
When we were on the first bus, the man who was handling luggage and the tickets would only speak Ewe (common language in Ghana, and also Benin and Togo), so when he was making announcements to all of the other passengers the three of us were looking at each other hoping it was not vital information we were missing. At the end of his speech he added, for the foreigners in the group - "If you can't understand me, it's because you need to learn Ewe. LEARN THE LANGUAGE!" I didn't realize then how many times we would hear this phrase --> SOMETHING TO NOTE ABOUT OUR FALL BREAK: We traveled to four countries where they only spoke French (although Hausa and German were popular as well - we got asked so many times if we were from Germany or if we spoke German). If they spoke English, people would always say they could speak "small small English", and that was usually all they could say. They were also very French-like in that Holley and I were constantly asked WHY we would go to French-speaking countries if we couldn't speak French. They were not impressed when we offered up our knowledge of Russian and Spanish. So for the week Holley and I were struggling with the language barrier - past "Bonjour" and "Je suis American" I would just smile and laugh and wait for Maggie to translate (she did an excellent job, by the way and we would not have made it through the week without her).
Over the course of break we ended up crossing a border five times, and it was just as confusing the last time as it was the first. I'm used to getting off of a plane and being shuttled by airport workers through customs. This was quite different. Every time we took a bus we would have to get off at passport checkpoints and then at border crossing and literally walk across the border. The first time that we had to do this was in Aflao, crossing into Togo, and we were a little out of our element. And it showed. We got off the bus and literally stood for at least a couple of minutes looking around and trying to see what we should do. This is not an easy task, especially when you have people hounding you to get in their taxi or change your cedis to CFAs (the currency used in all of the countries we visited). After trying to cross into the country and being shushed away by Togolese officials we realized we first had to go to the Ghanaian office, get ourselves stamped out of the country, and then make our way over to the pathway where people were crossing. The officers looked at our passports, asked how Obama was doing (he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, so pretty good), and then we kept walking until we reached the next officer. I really believe we made a truly easy thing - walking a straight line that just happened to cross two countries - incredibly difficult for ourselves, because whenever we saw a police officer we would get all flustered and not know what to do with ourselves but hold out our passports when really, we probably could've just kept walking. So we ended up talking to a majority of the police officers working the border, including some women who wanted to know how long we were in Ghana, if we could speak Twi, and what we were doing going to Togo. Just chatting it up between Ghana and Togo. So we get to the end of this path and there's a big group of people being stopped by an official. Random people are being pulled through and everyone is pushing and we're just like wahh what do we do and then this drunk old man with bloodshot eye starts grabbing for us to come through - he's standing next to a police officer, I don't think he has any authority whatsoever but he kept motioning and reaching for us trying to pull us through...so we went. And the policeman ignored us and the drunk old man brought us into Togo. It was lovely.
We had read that when we got into Lome, the capital of Togo, we would immediately be bombarded with cab drivers wanting to drive us anywhere at a really exaggerated price, and that is exactly what we found when we got there. Although the books said that it was better to just walk a ways past the cabs and find one further away from the border area, we ignored this advice when a really attractive driver started talking to us. We were trying to get to the bus station, so we negotiated a price and got in his car. First clue that this was a bad idea - I sat in the drivers seat, and when the driver got in he got out the wires that he rubbed together to jump start the car, and then gave me a very heavy look with a extra wink thrown in. Charming. He also was in love with Maggie and kept telling me that he was going to marry my sister. Once again, Maggie gets all the boys.
As soon as we started driving he was asking us where we were going and offering us other ways to get there - 'friends' of his who would drive us there in their car for a ridiculously expensive price. We continued telling him we wanted to go to the bus station, but if we learned anything about this man it was that listening was not his strong suit. We had been driving maybe a mile or two before he pulled over the car for the first time, getting out of the car to negotiate a price for us because he thought it was a much better idea to charter a private car into Benin than take a bus like we wanted. Every time he got out we told him not to, that we were taking a bus, that it didn't matter how much it cost, we weren't going to take a car, and every time he ignored us. He kept stopping again and again despite all of us asking him to stop and threatening to get out - he though it was hilarious, and at one point he actually play-punched my shoulder and laughed like the two of us were best friends who just couldn't get over the crazy white girls in the back seat. When the moped gang of his friends showed up and surrounded our car, opening the truck and taking out Maggie's bag to move into another friend's car, we realized that it was time to leave - after repeating to him that if he did not go right now to the bus station we would leave without paying him, we just got out and walked away. This is when the joking stopped and cutie driver turned scary driver - he and his friends started following us on foot yelling at us to pay him the money he owed us, and after arguing for a few minutes with him that he didn't take us anywhere and we weren't paying we crossed the street. And then they followed us - the driver and one of his friends got in his car, pulled across the street and tried once again to get us to pay him, but we continued walking away from him. We thought that he had left when.......he showed up AGAIN, this time with a cop in the passenger seat! Amazing. It took us fifteen minutes in the country of Togo before we had our first encounter with the police.
The policeman got out and started speaking French to us, and when Maggie asked if he could speak English he yelled (I may have a limited understanding of French but it was pretty easy to figure out what he was saying) that he was in Togo and he speaks French so NO he was not speaking English. Already we were at a disadvantage in the he said/she said battle with our driver. We ended up having to pay him because apparently he had already taken us past the station without pointing it out or stopping the car, so obviously we were at fault. After we paid him the driver tried to take our bags and get us in the car again to take us to the station but we declined - once you call the police on me we are no longer friends or business acquaintances. And you will not be marrying my sister!
So it was midday in Togo, we had crossed the border and already had our first run-in with the cops, and we still had another country to get into. We had to keep it moving. The plan for the day was to get to Cotonou, Benin, to stay the night. But once in Lome, we had no clue how to go about getting a bus into the city. All we knew was that we wanted to get far far away from this cab driver and his plethora of intimidating friends. So we wandered until we found a bus sitting on the side of the road - we had no clue where it was going, but it was a vehicle. I had no clue where they were going - they were speaking French, so I wandered around looking for a bathroom and ending up meeting two Ghanaian men who told me that we needed to be careful because some people are good, but some are bad, and we needed to watch out for them. Hmm. The guys from the bus ended up being incredibly nice and walked us to the market where we could get a tro-tro to Cotonou. We ended up having to wait for at least an hour before the tro-tro left, and during that hour we met the man that we call Fred. Fred is a Nigerian who popped up outside our window and started talking to us. He made an impression, to stay the least. Holley gave us all Russian names to have, and then Fred and I fell in love. He started referring to me as his wife, even though I tolldddd him I have a husband, and then quickly made a bad impression on Maggie, ruining him forever. Holley he decided was snobby, Maggie was childish, but I was smiley. You can see Maggie's blog for explanation on that, but for the hour or so we were waiting Fred kept me company and kept referencing 'my eyes, oh those eyes' and talking about how I was 'thin like spaghetti'. All he wanted was an e-mail address or something to remember me by, but I believe in playing hard to get so I didn't give him anything.
The tro-tro we were on was completely full - Holley, Maggie, and I were in the back row, and once again, being tall comes SO in handy. The rows were so close together that I was not even able to face forward, meaning that we had to buy an extra seat so that the three of us could have our own row without having to squeeze another person in. There were also some voodoo women in front of me who really enjoyed turning around and screaming out the back window, a few inches from my face. The three hour ride ended up being about six hours which I spent turned sideways, which I'm sure Holley loved. We didn't have a Benin visa, so we had to hold up everyone while we got that taken care of - getting visas at the border actually turned out to be really easy and cost only about twenty dollars, and at times it was cheaper to get the visa at the border rather than at their embassies before hand. The tro-tro also kept stopping to buy food, or to go through police checkpoints, so ended up waiting around for a long time on the side of the road while people held plates of fish up to our window. I do need to add about the first couple days of the trip, when we were doing our most intense traveling - the first three days of the trip, none of us ate or went to the bathroom for at least twelve hours. We would go all day, from early in the morning until eight or nine at night, in the car or on the tro tro without eating, without going to the bathroom, and while drinking little to no water. I have no clue how we did it or how we did not pass out, but for the first three days we were only eating one meal a day. I never want to be called a spoiled American again. So we ended up getting into Cotonou around nine at night, when we had planned on arriving early afternoon. Te first of many times that our travel estimations would prove to be way, way off. We did get to see a beautiful sunset and absolutely gorgeous beaches, and given that it was the first day and that we had just traveled through three countries, we were all feeling pretty positive and impressed with what we had done.
It was quite dark by the time we got in, and we had no clue where we were and ntohign but an address for our hotel, so when we finally got off the tro-tro, the confused looks that we patented that week came back. Our driver, Justin, took pity on us and brought our guide book around to cab drivers, who jumped all over it and started screaming to each other "CONCORDE CONCORDE" (which was the name of our hotel). Quite an amusing sight to see twenty grown men huddled around a West African guide book. Justin ended up bringing us to the hotel in the empty tro-tro, which was pretty amazing. He gave us his number and told us to call him at any moment - he actually turned out to be super nice and helped us out a lot. Throughout the week it was amazing to see how nice people can be - we wouldn't have been able to get through itif it hadn't been for people offering to help us or bring us places or just talk to us and reassure us that we were doing the right thing attempting to see so much in so little time.
Looking over this....I cannot believe that this was day one. And that we endured seven more days that were just as, if not more, insane than this one was. There are pictures that you can find HERE, although they are from the entire fall break and it will ruin the surprise of what happened --> SPOILER: We saw giraffes.
Day One.
So we had planned to leave Thursday afternoon, even though I did not believe this would happen because Holley and Maggie have class on Thursday, but they were all like 'oh yes we are so amped lets start this woohoo'. And then Holley got typhoid and was throwing up and being really grouchy and had to go to the hospital. So our departure was postponed to Saturday and on Friday, Maggie and I got to go hunting around Accra for bus tickets while Holley napped in bed all day. Quite the charmed life she leads. We left early Saturday morning, Holley not feeling so fantastic but poorly attempting to hide it. We were taking a bus from Accra to Aflao, which is where you cross the border between Ghana and Togo. I will say this about fall break - we did spend a majority of it traveling and sitting, but I am so grateful for those hours (and hours...) spent driving because we really got a fantastic idea of how a place LOOKS. The scenery, the colors...it all changed from one country to the next and we were able to see that as we went. The first bus ride was no exception - I have never seen more beautiful beaches than on that bus ride. The coast of Ghana and of Togo looks how a coast should look - the water is bright blue, the sky is slightly lighter, and the sand has a beautiful golden tint to it that you just cannot accurately capture in a picture. We were passes through little towns where people were able to live right on the beach - we saw groups of forty men pulling up the boats from the water, all in a line, and people working and cooking with this gorgeous background behind them.
When we were on the first bus, the man who was handling luggage and the tickets would only speak Ewe (common language in Ghana, and also Benin and Togo), so when he was making announcements to all of the other passengers the three of us were looking at each other hoping it was not vital information we were missing. At the end of his speech he added, for the foreigners in the group - "If you can't understand me, it's because you need to learn Ewe. LEARN THE LANGUAGE!" I didn't realize then how many times we would hear this phrase --> SOMETHING TO NOTE ABOUT OUR FALL BREAK: We traveled to four countries where they only spoke French (although Hausa and German were popular as well - we got asked so many times if we were from Germany or if we spoke German). If they spoke English, people would always say they could speak "small small English", and that was usually all they could say. They were also very French-like in that Holley and I were constantly asked WHY we would go to French-speaking countries if we couldn't speak French. They were not impressed when we offered up our knowledge of Russian and Spanish. So for the week Holley and I were struggling with the language barrier - past "Bonjour" and "Je suis American" I would just smile and laugh and wait for Maggie to translate (she did an excellent job, by the way and we would not have made it through the week without her).
Over the course of break we ended up crossing a border five times, and it was just as confusing the last time as it was the first. I'm used to getting off of a plane and being shuttled by airport workers through customs. This was quite different. Every time we took a bus we would have to get off at passport checkpoints and then at border crossing and literally walk across the border. The first time that we had to do this was in Aflao, crossing into Togo, and we were a little out of our element. And it showed. We got off the bus and literally stood for at least a couple of minutes looking around and trying to see what we should do. This is not an easy task, especially when you have people hounding you to get in their taxi or change your cedis to CFAs (the currency used in all of the countries we visited). After trying to cross into the country and being shushed away by Togolese officials we realized we first had to go to the Ghanaian office, get ourselves stamped out of the country, and then make our way over to the pathway where people were crossing. The officers looked at our passports, asked how Obama was doing (he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, so pretty good), and then we kept walking until we reached the next officer. I really believe we made a truly easy thing - walking a straight line that just happened to cross two countries - incredibly difficult for ourselves, because whenever we saw a police officer we would get all flustered and not know what to do with ourselves but hold out our passports when really, we probably could've just kept walking. So we ended up talking to a majority of the police officers working the border, including some women who wanted to know how long we were in Ghana, if we could speak Twi, and what we were doing going to Togo. Just chatting it up between Ghana and Togo. So we get to the end of this path and there's a big group of people being stopped by an official. Random people are being pulled through and everyone is pushing and we're just like wahh what do we do and then this drunk old man with bloodshot eye starts grabbing for us to come through - he's standing next to a police officer, I don't think he has any authority whatsoever but he kept motioning and reaching for us trying to pull us through...so we went. And the policeman ignored us and the drunk old man brought us into Togo. It was lovely.
We had read that when we got into Lome, the capital of Togo, we would immediately be bombarded with cab drivers wanting to drive us anywhere at a really exaggerated price, and that is exactly what we found when we got there. Although the books said that it was better to just walk a ways past the cabs and find one further away from the border area, we ignored this advice when a really attractive driver started talking to us. We were trying to get to the bus station, so we negotiated a price and got in his car. First clue that this was a bad idea - I sat in the drivers seat, and when the driver got in he got out the wires that he rubbed together to jump start the car, and then gave me a very heavy look with a extra wink thrown in. Charming. He also was in love with Maggie and kept telling me that he was going to marry my sister. Once again, Maggie gets all the boys.
As soon as we started driving he was asking us where we were going and offering us other ways to get there - 'friends' of his who would drive us there in their car for a ridiculously expensive price. We continued telling him we wanted to go to the bus station, but if we learned anything about this man it was that listening was not his strong suit. We had been driving maybe a mile or two before he pulled over the car for the first time, getting out of the car to negotiate a price for us because he thought it was a much better idea to charter a private car into Benin than take a bus like we wanted. Every time he got out we told him not to, that we were taking a bus, that it didn't matter how much it cost, we weren't going to take a car, and every time he ignored us. He kept stopping again and again despite all of us asking him to stop and threatening to get out - he though it was hilarious, and at one point he actually play-punched my shoulder and laughed like the two of us were best friends who just couldn't get over the crazy white girls in the back seat. When the moped gang of his friends showed up and surrounded our car, opening the truck and taking out Maggie's bag to move into another friend's car, we realized that it was time to leave - after repeating to him that if he did not go right now to the bus station we would leave without paying him, we just got out and walked away. This is when the joking stopped and cutie driver turned scary driver - he and his friends started following us on foot yelling at us to pay him the money he owed us, and after arguing for a few minutes with him that he didn't take us anywhere and we weren't paying we crossed the street. And then they followed us - the driver and one of his friends got in his car, pulled across the street and tried once again to get us to pay him, but we continued walking away from him. We thought that he had left when.......he showed up AGAIN, this time with a cop in the passenger seat! Amazing. It took us fifteen minutes in the country of Togo before we had our first encounter with the police.
The policeman got out and started speaking French to us, and when Maggie asked if he could speak English he yelled (I may have a limited understanding of French but it was pretty easy to figure out what he was saying) that he was in Togo and he speaks French so NO he was not speaking English. Already we were at a disadvantage in the he said/she said battle with our driver. We ended up having to pay him because apparently he had already taken us past the station without pointing it out or stopping the car, so obviously we were at fault. After we paid him the driver tried to take our bags and get us in the car again to take us to the station but we declined - once you call the police on me we are no longer friends or business acquaintances. And you will not be marrying my sister!
So it was midday in Togo, we had crossed the border and already had our first run-in with the cops, and we still had another country to get into. We had to keep it moving. The plan for the day was to get to Cotonou, Benin, to stay the night. But once in Lome, we had no clue how to go about getting a bus into the city. All we knew was that we wanted to get far far away from this cab driver and his plethora of intimidating friends. So we wandered until we found a bus sitting on the side of the road - we had no clue where it was going, but it was a vehicle. I had no clue where they were going - they were speaking French, so I wandered around looking for a bathroom and ending up meeting two Ghanaian men who told me that we needed to be careful because some people are good, but some are bad, and we needed to watch out for them. Hmm. The guys from the bus ended up being incredibly nice and walked us to the market where we could get a tro-tro to Cotonou. We ended up having to wait for at least an hour before the tro-tro left, and during that hour we met the man that we call Fred. Fred is a Nigerian who popped up outside our window and started talking to us. He made an impression, to stay the least. Holley gave us all Russian names to have, and then Fred and I fell in love. He started referring to me as his wife, even though I tolldddd him I have a husband, and then quickly made a bad impression on Maggie, ruining him forever. Holley he decided was snobby, Maggie was childish, but I was smiley. You can see Maggie's blog for explanation on that, but for the hour or so we were waiting Fred kept me company and kept referencing 'my eyes, oh those eyes' and talking about how I was 'thin like spaghetti'. All he wanted was an e-mail address or something to remember me by, but I believe in playing hard to get so I didn't give him anything.
The tro-tro we were on was completely full - Holley, Maggie, and I were in the back row, and once again, being tall comes SO in handy. The rows were so close together that I was not even able to face forward, meaning that we had to buy an extra seat so that the three of us could have our own row without having to squeeze another person in. There were also some voodoo women in front of me who really enjoyed turning around and screaming out the back window, a few inches from my face. The three hour ride ended up being about six hours which I spent turned sideways, which I'm sure Holley loved. We didn't have a Benin visa, so we had to hold up everyone while we got that taken care of - getting visas at the border actually turned out to be really easy and cost only about twenty dollars, and at times it was cheaper to get the visa at the border rather than at their embassies before hand. The tro-tro also kept stopping to buy food, or to go through police checkpoints, so ended up waiting around for a long time on the side of the road while people held plates of fish up to our window. I do need to add about the first couple days of the trip, when we were doing our most intense traveling - the first three days of the trip, none of us ate or went to the bathroom for at least twelve hours. We would go all day, from early in the morning until eight or nine at night, in the car or on the tro tro without eating, without going to the bathroom, and while drinking little to no water. I have no clue how we did it or how we did not pass out, but for the first three days we were only eating one meal a day. I never want to be called a spoiled American again. So we ended up getting into Cotonou around nine at night, when we had planned on arriving early afternoon. Te first of many times that our travel estimations would prove to be way, way off. We did get to see a beautiful sunset and absolutely gorgeous beaches, and given that it was the first day and that we had just traveled through three countries, we were all feeling pretty positive and impressed with what we had done.
It was quite dark by the time we got in, and we had no clue where we were and ntohign but an address for our hotel, so when we finally got off the tro-tro, the confused looks that we patented that week came back. Our driver, Justin, took pity on us and brought our guide book around to cab drivers, who jumped all over it and started screaming to each other "CONCORDE CONCORDE" (which was the name of our hotel). Quite an amusing sight to see twenty grown men huddled around a West African guide book. Justin ended up bringing us to the hotel in the empty tro-tro, which was pretty amazing. He gave us his number and told us to call him at any moment - he actually turned out to be super nice and helped us out a lot. Throughout the week it was amazing to see how nice people can be - we wouldn't have been able to get through itif it hadn't been for people offering to help us or bring us places or just talk to us and reassure us that we were doing the right thing attempting to see so much in so little time.
Looking over this....I cannot believe that this was day one. And that we endured seven more days that were just as, if not more, insane than this one was. There are pictures that you can find HERE, although they are from the entire fall break and it will ruin the surprise of what happened --> SPOILER: We saw giraffes.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
this is a strong man. does he scare you?
This past weekend was our program's trip to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. It's about five hours away, so this glorious adventure was to start with a 5 am departure time on Saturday. Being the smart people that we are, Maggie and I decided that the best plan was to stay up all night. So while many NYU in Ghana people got a good night's sleep, our night consisted of a trip to Lizzy's (a nearby bar/block party), veggie burgers and pizza at three in the morning, and a very incoherent pair of girls on the bus two hours later. Good life decisions.
When we entered into the city after a few hours of sleep I got why they would want us to see other cities in Ghana - Kumasi is completely different than Accra in the way it looks and the way it's set up. There are lots of rolling hills in Kumasi and the buildings are a lot more European-like, meaning that aesthetics wise it is a lot nicer to look at than Accra - there were some churches and buildings that looked like they were taken out of Italy. There are a lot more paved roads as well and actual street signs - it was quite strange after being used to lots of dirt roads and nonexistent street markers.
After we checked into our hotel we went to the Ghana National Cultural Center, which was almost like a residential neighborhood. There were lots of roads and paths to walk on and the groups of shops were very spread out. In each of the shops would be different paintings or instruments or crafts - it was much more relaxing than the hounding that we get when we go shopping in Accra. After we ate lunch we moved on to the SOMETHING palace, which was the residence of the king...until he moved next door into another palace. The house was heavily decorated in the 70's style...although we were told that the refrigerator in the dining room was from the 50s and still working - as demonstrated by the presence of Voltic water bottles and lunch bags inside of it. We were led around on a tour by this hilarious guide who after every speech would say, "If you have any questions, you have everrrry right to ask them." There were also all these wax figures of old kings and their queen mothers, and he would point to one of us and ask, "You! Are you afraid of this man?" It was a ball, but it was also blazing hot in there and I was ready to go home and sleep. Until I was told that we were going to a stool village.
So the Asante people have a huge presence in Ghana and these stools have a ton of symbolic meaning - they're like a traditional representation of the chief's leadership and are supposed to be the 'seat' of the owner's soul. So when I heard 'stool village' I thought it would actually be a village. It was not. It was a street lined with craft shops that included stools and jewelry and bags and masks and fertility dolls. There actually was an area where a group of about thirty guys were sitting carving the stools that was really interesting to watch, and Holley ended up getting a GINORMOUS stool that I have no clue how she will take home but I'm sure it will look mighty fine in our apartment. But remember the calm and relaxing atmosphere of the Cultural Center? Not so in the stool village - it was like being back in Accra with every guy trying to get you in his shop to look at things. I've never heard the phrase "There's no charge to look!!" as much as I have here. I was able to buy somethings but the amount that we have to barter is just ridiculous - people were getting necklaces for three cedis when the original price was eighteen. I don't really blame them though - if I saw a tour bus full of young white people I would try to get as much money as possible out of them too. Even when we had gotten back on the bus and were waiting the men selling necklaces were coming into the bus to show things off and ask what we wanted. It was madness.
After the stool market and some relaxing a big group of us went for dinner at Vic Babboo's, a restaurant with a nearly twenty page menu that serves Indian, Italian, Chinese, Vegetarian, and burgers (not to mention a very, very strong margarita). Another difference between Kumasi and Accra - the streets of Kumasi are pretty much deserted at night, in a creepy way. In Accra you know that there's going to be three of four people to bother you where ever you go, but when we walked out of dinner it was like a ghost town. Spookyyy. Two of our CRAs had gone to Kumasi for school and one of them lived in Kumasi before he came to Accra so he had given us some ideas of where we could go out after dinner - he had told us about this big live music thing that was supposed to be great. We should've known it was going to be awful when we heard the name - Light FM. Turns out 'light' music is the same in Ghana as it is in America. Bad. It was like a family barbecue. So the nightlife in experience in Kumasi was not so fantastic but I'm going to stay on the positive side and say that we just had a bad suggestion (GEEZ DOUGLAS!)
So after ANOTHER wild night we had a relaxed Sunday - we went and toured KNUST, or Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where our CRAs went to school. It was really pretty even though the dorms are like these super tall and narrow buildings that are crazy but it was like a more spread out version of University of Ghana. After the tour we went to this shoemaker to see how shoes are made - they use a plaster model for each size and made a shoe in front of us, one of those gross man leather shoes that have pointy toes that I do not prefer but the process was pretty interesting. All of their shoes say "Made in Italy" or "Made in China" because they told us that if they say "Made in Ghana" no one will buy it - except for the tourist obrunis who want to show off their Ghana souvenirs!
After the shoe village we went to the Kejetia market - it's the second largest market in Africa and it was like twenty times bigger than Makola and I was positive we were going to get lost. Our CRA told us that we were supposed to leave the market at 12:30 but they've never left on time because someone always gets lost and they have to go try and find them. So with that in mind we set out to find kente cloth, which is a fabric that is made on a loom and is native to Ghana, and more fabric in general because we have been to Makola market so many times that we can recognize the patterns. After navigating through a very large and grabby crowd we moved into the more narrow paths and were able to find some very beautiful kente cloth. Alex had found regular fabric so we asked her to bring us there, and to get there we had to cross through the largest fish market I have ever seen in my entire life. Buckets and floors just of fried blackened fish. It was disgusting. There'd be spurts of other foods, like peppers or peanut butter, but then there'd always be the fish. And the paths were so small you would get run over and I was holding on for dear life to Alex to not get pushed back on top of all of this fish. MEH so gross. So we found fabric, which was also surrounded by fish, and it was all well and good and we were on time and then we had to figure out how to get back. Which turned out to be really easy, except the way people showed us involved walking through another meat market. Raw meat on platters and entire animals getting ready to be cut. It was awful. And disgusting. And just awful. I thought I was going to be sick. Not a great end to the market, but I still have lots of love for Kejetia Market.
After our fun day spending money it was finally time to go home, and the five hours actually turned out to be like seven, but the rides back was almost as good as the entire weekend. It was such a pretty ride and a great chance to see the countryside of Ghana. We were driving along dirt roads and then through cleared areas that were going to be made into roads and we would drive right through the middle of these villages. It even rained for a bit so we got to see a rainbow...so precious. When it became dark there was a huge orange moon leading us home and we would pass through these little towns were people were sitting outside talking, and even though I had a nine am midterm the next day, I was so relaxed and happy by the time we got home. Photos here. Lovely lovely lovely time. Other than that it's now midterms.
When we entered into the city after a few hours of sleep I got why they would want us to see other cities in Ghana - Kumasi is completely different than Accra in the way it looks and the way it's set up. There are lots of rolling hills in Kumasi and the buildings are a lot more European-like, meaning that aesthetics wise it is a lot nicer to look at than Accra - there were some churches and buildings that looked like they were taken out of Italy. There are a lot more paved roads as well and actual street signs - it was quite strange after being used to lots of dirt roads and nonexistent street markers.
After we checked into our hotel we went to the Ghana National Cultural Center, which was almost like a residential neighborhood. There were lots of roads and paths to walk on and the groups of shops were very spread out. In each of the shops would be different paintings or instruments or crafts - it was much more relaxing than the hounding that we get when we go shopping in Accra. After we ate lunch we moved on to the SOMETHING palace, which was the residence of the king...until he moved next door into another palace. The house was heavily decorated in the 70's style...although we were told that the refrigerator in the dining room was from the 50s and still working - as demonstrated by the presence of Voltic water bottles and lunch bags inside of it. We were led around on a tour by this hilarious guide who after every speech would say, "If you have any questions, you have everrrry right to ask them." There were also all these wax figures of old kings and their queen mothers, and he would point to one of us and ask, "You! Are you afraid of this man?" It was a ball, but it was also blazing hot in there and I was ready to go home and sleep. Until I was told that we were going to a stool village.
So the Asante people have a huge presence in Ghana and these stools have a ton of symbolic meaning - they're like a traditional representation of the chief's leadership and are supposed to be the 'seat' of the owner's soul. So when I heard 'stool village' I thought it would actually be a village. It was not. It was a street lined with craft shops that included stools and jewelry and bags and masks and fertility dolls. There actually was an area where a group of about thirty guys were sitting carving the stools that was really interesting to watch, and Holley ended up getting a GINORMOUS stool that I have no clue how she will take home but I'm sure it will look mighty fine in our apartment. But remember the calm and relaxing atmosphere of the Cultural Center? Not so in the stool village - it was like being back in Accra with every guy trying to get you in his shop to look at things. I've never heard the phrase "There's no charge to look!!" as much as I have here. I was able to buy somethings but the amount that we have to barter is just ridiculous - people were getting necklaces for three cedis when the original price was eighteen. I don't really blame them though - if I saw a tour bus full of young white people I would try to get as much money as possible out of them too. Even when we had gotten back on the bus and were waiting the men selling necklaces were coming into the bus to show things off and ask what we wanted. It was madness.
After the stool market and some relaxing a big group of us went for dinner at Vic Babboo's, a restaurant with a nearly twenty page menu that serves Indian, Italian, Chinese, Vegetarian, and burgers (not to mention a very, very strong margarita). Another difference between Kumasi and Accra - the streets of Kumasi are pretty much deserted at night, in a creepy way. In Accra you know that there's going to be three of four people to bother you where ever you go, but when we walked out of dinner it was like a ghost town. Spookyyy. Two of our CRAs had gone to Kumasi for school and one of them lived in Kumasi before he came to Accra so he had given us some ideas of where we could go out after dinner - he had told us about this big live music thing that was supposed to be great. We should've known it was going to be awful when we heard the name - Light FM. Turns out 'light' music is the same in Ghana as it is in America. Bad. It was like a family barbecue. So the nightlife in experience in Kumasi was not so fantastic but I'm going to stay on the positive side and say that we just had a bad suggestion (GEEZ DOUGLAS!)
So after ANOTHER wild night we had a relaxed Sunday - we went and toured KNUST, or Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where our CRAs went to school. It was really pretty even though the dorms are like these super tall and narrow buildings that are crazy but it was like a more spread out version of University of Ghana. After the tour we went to this shoemaker to see how shoes are made - they use a plaster model for each size and made a shoe in front of us, one of those gross man leather shoes that have pointy toes that I do not prefer but the process was pretty interesting. All of their shoes say "Made in Italy" or "Made in China" because they told us that if they say "Made in Ghana" no one will buy it - except for the tourist obrunis who want to show off their Ghana souvenirs!
After the shoe village we went to the Kejetia market - it's the second largest market in Africa and it was like twenty times bigger than Makola and I was positive we were going to get lost. Our CRA told us that we were supposed to leave the market at 12:30 but they've never left on time because someone always gets lost and they have to go try and find them. So with that in mind we set out to find kente cloth, which is a fabric that is made on a loom and is native to Ghana, and more fabric in general because we have been to Makola market so many times that we can recognize the patterns. After navigating through a very large and grabby crowd we moved into the more narrow paths and were able to find some very beautiful kente cloth. Alex had found regular fabric so we asked her to bring us there, and to get there we had to cross through the largest fish market I have ever seen in my entire life. Buckets and floors just of fried blackened fish. It was disgusting. There'd be spurts of other foods, like peppers or peanut butter, but then there'd always be the fish. And the paths were so small you would get run over and I was holding on for dear life to Alex to not get pushed back on top of all of this fish. MEH so gross. So we found fabric, which was also surrounded by fish, and it was all well and good and we were on time and then we had to figure out how to get back. Which turned out to be really easy, except the way people showed us involved walking through another meat market. Raw meat on platters and entire animals getting ready to be cut. It was awful. And disgusting. And just awful. I thought I was going to be sick. Not a great end to the market, but I still have lots of love for Kejetia Market.
After our fun day spending money it was finally time to go home, and the five hours actually turned out to be like seven, but the rides back was almost as good as the entire weekend. It was such a pretty ride and a great chance to see the countryside of Ghana. We were driving along dirt roads and then through cleared areas that were going to be made into roads and we would drive right through the middle of these villages. It even rained for a bit so we got to see a rainbow...so precious. When it became dark there was a huge orange moon leading us home and we would pass through these little towns were people were sitting outside talking, and even though I had a nine am midterm the next day, I was so relaxed and happy by the time we got home. Photos here. Lovely lovely lovely time. Other than that it's now midterms.
Friday, October 2, 2009
you guys, please stop watching the west wing.
So this week has been really boring - I guess that we're getting into our routine and actually getting COMFORTABLE? In Africa?! The only thing that spices up my days are the continually awkward experiences that I have because even though we have been here six weeks we still continue to stick out.
I was walking home from school this other way that one of the CRAs showed me and you have to walk down this little dirt path and lizards that are like five different colors run out in front of you so I always feel really legit and then this woman and a man were walking the other way towards me so they stepped aside to let me pass. I said hello and then the woman decides to quiz me and went "Ete sen? Ete sen?" (How are you?) And so I responded "Eye" (fine) and she literally APPLAUDED me. She started clapping and shrieked and went "Oh yes, show that you are in Accra!" And I was like, oh yes, I have so much Ghanaian pride. The random comments that I get from peeople make my day because they always make me laugh - even if it is a group of guys calling out "HEY TALL WHITE LADY!!!" or children calling out "Obruni!" and then running up to high five us or teenage schoolboys calling me "Madame" and then waving and blushing. Oooh la la.
So this week I rode in a tro tro for the first time - tro tros are like these big, old, rusty, emptied-of-any-inside vans that they cram sixteen seats into and for around 30 pesewas (like 20 cents) you can get around the city. For those family members reading, tro tros are exactly like Uncle Frank's big white van that everyone uses on the island, but with four rows of seating in it. NYU's policy is that they 'don't recommend students using them' probably because all of these vans look like they are about to break down at any second and they don't want to be liable. So when you go to a tro-tro station there's one guy sitting in the back of each of these vans who is leaning out and screaming out where the tro tro is going and it literally sounds like this: "Aguabahbahauga CIRC CIRC CIRC". And that means they're going to Circle. It is confusing and the men working on the street with the tro tros will grab you and try to get you away from other tro tros going to the same place but once you get on, it's not really that bad and it is so ridiculously cheap that it makes more sense to take them. The only negative experience I have had with tro tros in my three instances of taking them is that I am almost six feet tall, and some of these vans can be on the small side, and it can lead to feeling like I am in a clown car. It is not fun.
I have had an issue this semester, or I guess my entire life, of breaking things and or hurting myself through stupid ways - such as slicing my thumb open while defrosting a yogurt - and my clumsy ways have not gone unnoticed here. This semester the trend has been kitchen related accidents - we use a gas stove and have no potholders, only towels, so I've lit the towels on fire probably about ten times since I've been here, and when I say on fire, I mean that there are about five good sizes holes in each of the two towels in our house. My roommates really appreciate it. The other day I was making popcorn on the stove because it is the only thing I really know how to make, and I was so proud because I had gotten through cooking it without lighting myself or anything on fire. So I took the pot off the stove and put it on the table. The glass table in the living room. Then I heard a crack. And I picked up the pot and saw that the pot had made a huge crack in the table - not because it was heavy, as I originally thought, but because I had just put a gas heated metal pot on glass. So I pressed on the glass and, quite surprisingly, it fell through and crashed to the ground! So now our table has a big whole in it that some people think looks like North America. I thought the story was quite amusing, but the person who cleans our house, Emmanuel, did not. Now, Emmanuel loves Maggie to no end, but he knows that I am the one who lights things on fire so I think that he already has a chip on his shoulder towards me. Awkward confrontation as I'm walkign out of the house and Emmanuel has discovered the hole that I tried to hide under a book cover:
E: WHITNEY! What happened here!?!
W: Oh...it broke.
E: HOW?! WHO DID THIS?!
W: Oh...I had an accident.
E: YOU DID THIS?! HOW!?
W: Hmm..I put something on the table.
E: YOU PUT SOMETHING ON THE TABLE? WHAT?!
W: Oh...a pot.
E: A POT?! WHICH POT!?
And so it continued until Emmanuel got a vague idea of what had happened...that something had made the glass break arounnnnnd the time I put something on it.
Yesterday Brenda and I spent an hour and a half navigating tro tros to get to Beacon House, and I will once again reiterate that academics should really be the third priority behind 1) playing with children, and 2) getting tan. The latter of which I am slowly working towards as I've discovered the secret - don't use sunscreen and go lay outside for twenty minutes. Your skin will be flaming red and you'll be sweating to death when you come back in, but eventually, with time and hope, your skin will acquire a little tinge of brown. Anyways, we got to Beacon House and the kids were all like AH OBRUNI PICK ME UP. Most of them didn't remember my name which I expected but they did remember my name bracelet and then they were asking me where my sister was (Maggie - lots of people slash children think that we are sisters but Maggie has been sick ALL week and is being super boring so she didn't come to Beacon House with me yesterday). The girl who got angry with me last week was like "YOU SAID we were going to make bracelets!" And I was like, "Oh, we will, but Maggie isn't here so we can't!". And luckily she didn't cry today so I didn't feel like a terrible person again. Phew. Onto other children. There is this little girl Gifty who is always the first one to run up to people and ask to be picked up and she will never leave you alone and never want to walk again unless you make her. She's adorable in the "I really need someone to clean my nose" kind of way and is so outgoing and sassy. Yesterday I spent a lot of time with Gifty and then I decided to go in baby mode and cuddled with two of the babies for awhile - one of the babies, Veronica, is a year old and has been at Beacon House for almost all of her life but when she came was so undernourished and small that if I hadn't known, I would've guessed that she was maybe six months old. She's this tiny little thing who is always frowning and has an old man face but on the rare occasions that she smiles, she is absolutely adorable.
When I get sick of being peed on and thrown up on I really like talking to the older girls at Beacon House - there's a group of girls who are around 10-12 and they are so funny and love to talk about their lives. One of the girls told me about how she is from Liberia and how she wants to be a doctor so her mom told her that she has to keep going to school and doing well. And she told me all her grades (which are like all A's) and her best subject (math) and then asked what my best subject was and I was like...uh....and then she was asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I was like...uh..little girl do not compete with me just because you have your life figured out. But then I asked her what she suggested that I be and she said a lawyer so I'm considering it. I am still running into the same problem of people not being able to pronounce my name - one of the girls told me that she can remember any name, but not mine because mine is "really weird". So they were reading it off my name bracelet which has an "x" instead of a "t" because we were out of t's at the daycare so they were like "WHIXNEY WHIXNEY!" because apparently that is easier to say. tried I told them that they could call me Whit but then they started saying it like, "WHITE! WHITE" and I was like, ho ho ho, clever, but no. And then it got REALLY interesting when they started saying it as "Whi...whi...witch! WITCH?!" Dear god no. White is fine. One of the other girls also asked me if I was black or brown or white so I'm thinking that MAYBE my tanning strategy is paying off? Maybe?
Also, I used to be able to post pictures on my blogs but now I cannot for some reason that I cannot figure out so I've created a flickr account so you can see more pictures because I know that is more stimulating than my words - you can find it here and I'll try to update it as much as our super slow internet allows.
I was walking home from school this other way that one of the CRAs showed me and you have to walk down this little dirt path and lizards that are like five different colors run out in front of you so I always feel really legit and then this woman and a man were walking the other way towards me so they stepped aside to let me pass. I said hello and then the woman decides to quiz me and went "Ete sen? Ete sen?" (How are you?) And so I responded "Eye" (fine) and she literally APPLAUDED me. She started clapping and shrieked and went "Oh yes, show that you are in Accra!" And I was like, oh yes, I have so much Ghanaian pride. The random comments that I get from peeople make my day because they always make me laugh - even if it is a group of guys calling out "HEY TALL WHITE LADY!!!" or children calling out "Obruni!" and then running up to high five us or teenage schoolboys calling me "Madame" and then waving and blushing. Oooh la la.
So this week I rode in a tro tro for the first time - tro tros are like these big, old, rusty, emptied-of-any-inside vans that they cram sixteen seats into and for around 30 pesewas (like 20 cents) you can get around the city. For those family members reading, tro tros are exactly like Uncle Frank's big white van that everyone uses on the island, but with four rows of seating in it. NYU's policy is that they 'don't recommend students using them' probably because all of these vans look like they are about to break down at any second and they don't want to be liable. So when you go to a tro-tro station there's one guy sitting in the back of each of these vans who is leaning out and screaming out where the tro tro is going and it literally sounds like this: "Aguabahbahauga CIRC CIRC CIRC". And that means they're going to Circle. It is confusing and the men working on the street with the tro tros will grab you and try to get you away from other tro tros going to the same place but once you get on, it's not really that bad and it is so ridiculously cheap that it makes more sense to take them. The only negative experience I have had with tro tros in my three instances of taking them is that I am almost six feet tall, and some of these vans can be on the small side, and it can lead to feeling like I am in a clown car. It is not fun.
I have had an issue this semester, or I guess my entire life, of breaking things and or hurting myself through stupid ways - such as slicing my thumb open while defrosting a yogurt - and my clumsy ways have not gone unnoticed here. This semester the trend has been kitchen related accidents - we use a gas stove and have no potholders, only towels, so I've lit the towels on fire probably about ten times since I've been here, and when I say on fire, I mean that there are about five good sizes holes in each of the two towels in our house. My roommates really appreciate it. The other day I was making popcorn on the stove because it is the only thing I really know how to make, and I was so proud because I had gotten through cooking it without lighting myself or anything on fire. So I took the pot off the stove and put it on the table. The glass table in the living room. Then I heard a crack. And I picked up the pot and saw that the pot had made a huge crack in the table - not because it was heavy, as I originally thought, but because I had just put a gas heated metal pot on glass. So I pressed on the glass and, quite surprisingly, it fell through and crashed to the ground! So now our table has a big whole in it that some people think looks like North America. I thought the story was quite amusing, but the person who cleans our house, Emmanuel, did not. Now, Emmanuel loves Maggie to no end, but he knows that I am the one who lights things on fire so I think that he already has a chip on his shoulder towards me. Awkward confrontation as I'm walkign out of the house and Emmanuel has discovered the hole that I tried to hide under a book cover:
E: WHITNEY! What happened here!?!
W: Oh...it broke.
E: HOW?! WHO DID THIS?!
W: Oh...I had an accident.
E: YOU DID THIS?! HOW!?
W: Hmm..I put something on the table.
E: YOU PUT SOMETHING ON THE TABLE? WHAT?!
W: Oh...a pot.
E: A POT?! WHICH POT!?
And so it continued until Emmanuel got a vague idea of what had happened...that something had made the glass break arounnnnnd the time I put something on it.
Yesterday Brenda and I spent an hour and a half navigating tro tros to get to Beacon House, and I will once again reiterate that academics should really be the third priority behind 1) playing with children, and 2) getting tan. The latter of which I am slowly working towards as I've discovered the secret - don't use sunscreen and go lay outside for twenty minutes. Your skin will be flaming red and you'll be sweating to death when you come back in, but eventually, with time and hope, your skin will acquire a little tinge of brown. Anyways, we got to Beacon House and the kids were all like AH OBRUNI PICK ME UP. Most of them didn't remember my name which I expected but they did remember my name bracelet and then they were asking me where my sister was (Maggie - lots of people slash children think that we are sisters but Maggie has been sick ALL week and is being super boring so she didn't come to Beacon House with me yesterday). The girl who got angry with me last week was like "YOU SAID we were going to make bracelets!" And I was like, "Oh, we will, but Maggie isn't here so we can't!". And luckily she didn't cry today so I didn't feel like a terrible person again. Phew. Onto other children. There is this little girl Gifty who is always the first one to run up to people and ask to be picked up and she will never leave you alone and never want to walk again unless you make her. She's adorable in the "I really need someone to clean my nose" kind of way and is so outgoing and sassy. Yesterday I spent a lot of time with Gifty and then I decided to go in baby mode and cuddled with two of the babies for awhile - one of the babies, Veronica, is a year old and has been at Beacon House for almost all of her life but when she came was so undernourished and small that if I hadn't known, I would've guessed that she was maybe six months old. She's this tiny little thing who is always frowning and has an old man face but on the rare occasions that she smiles, she is absolutely adorable.
When I get sick of being peed on and thrown up on I really like talking to the older girls at Beacon House - there's a group of girls who are around 10-12 and they are so funny and love to talk about their lives. One of the girls told me about how she is from Liberia and how she wants to be a doctor so her mom told her that she has to keep going to school and doing well. And she told me all her grades (which are like all A's) and her best subject (math) and then asked what my best subject was and I was like...uh....and then she was asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I was like...uh..little girl do not compete with me just because you have your life figured out. But then I asked her what she suggested that I be and she said a lawyer so I'm considering it. I am still running into the same problem of people not being able to pronounce my name - one of the girls told me that she can remember any name, but not mine because mine is "really weird". So they were reading it off my name bracelet which has an "x" instead of a "t" because we were out of t's at the daycare so they were like "WHIXNEY WHIXNEY!" because apparently that is easier to say. tried I told them that they could call me Whit but then they started saying it like, "WHITE! WHITE" and I was like, ho ho ho, clever, but no. And then it got REALLY interesting when they started saying it as "Whi...whi...witch! WITCH?!" Dear god no. White is fine. One of the other girls also asked me if I was black or brown or white so I'm thinking that MAYBE my tanning strategy is paying off? Maybe?
Also, I used to be able to post pictures on my blogs but now I cannot for some reason that I cannot figure out so I've created a flickr account so you can see more pictures because I know that is more stimulating than my words - you can find it here and I'll try to update it as much as our super slow internet allows.
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