As usual, some reflections ;)

Greetings family and friends!

These things which you hopefully see at the top of this post are my boubou/patapata African dress that I got in Takoradi and a FanYogo Maxi, which will be commented upon later in this post :) The "maxi" only implies that it's the bigger of two sizes. It's frozen yogurt in a packet :)

I have now completed two exams, and they both went well! (Rel 430: Jesus in the African Context & Rel 329: Muslim Ethics). I’ve enjoyed both of these classes for different reasons, and learned much in each. Woot!

However, while my time in Ghana has significantly altered my perspective(s) in many ways (yay for thinking more deeply and broadly!) in some unfortunate ways I haven’t changed a bit ;) For example: I have been “preparing for my exams” for about a week now, maybe longer depending on how you look at it. Instead of finishing the paper I am working on this today, I spent a good fraction of that time reading two novels and a memoir on growing up on welfare. In its own way, it was awesome. Now I just have to finish a paper ;)

To be fair, though I’d really like to finish this paper today, it’s not due until Monday. Also, Ghana has at least temporarily convinced me that assignments need to be printed two days before they’re due, rather than two minutes, as has occasionally happened at Guilford. Furthermore, this time I learned something without ever even coming close to having a connected bad experience with it… in other words, in Ghana I have never been dangerously close to my deadline. Bizarre ;) This may perhaps also be blamed on a significant decrease in my volume of work, not that I’m complaining. Even here, time seems to evaporate just when you need it.

Another lesson I was actually hoping to learn was: how to reach some sort of compromise with my skin. Now, I don’t mean compromising the status of my skin – I mean reasoning with my skin as if it could independently bargain with me. The bargain I wished to strike was this: if I put on copious amounts of sunblock for all major outings and otherwise jumped from shadow to shadow without sunblock on schooldays, the least my skin could do in Ghana is maintain that rosy color that on other people would be blinding white but on me is a tan. But no, this was not to be. My skin reminded me that I am about the fourth palest person I have ever met, and that therefore it does not work like a normal person’s. Some stories:

After about a month here, I stopped wearing sunblock to school for a while. A dangerous idea, I know, but I was getting tired of feeling so sticky and dirty, so I stopped. One day, I went to class, as usual, and during my free time sat in deep shade, as usual. And do you know what? I got sunburned. It’s amazing what the ambient light from equator sunshine can do. This was when I *thought* I had established a “base tan”.

Then, on my most recent trip to Takoradi, I had no idea what I would be doing on the day I traveled there beyond the tro-tro (minibus) trip, so I put sunblock on my face and neck. Smart, right? I thought so. We ended up spending the afternoon driving around Takoradi with Mr. Cromwell, the Laryea’s family friend. We made various stops and visits, but anyway, I was apparently in the front passenger seat (with the window down but my arm *inside* the door) long enough for my right arm, and only my right arm, to get sunburned. Amazing.

My most recent story involves our trip to Winneba this past weekend, which I’m not sure I mentioned beforehand. We went to see the Aboakyir (pronounced ah-boAH-cheer) festival there. During this festival, usually two sets of hunters go out to try to catch a deer (/antelope?) for the sacrifice. These deer are little – roughly the size of a newborn fawn of US deer. And also, I do mean “catch”. They have to bring in a live one, which, granted, is not usually how they’re hunted.

So, usually the two teams race to see who can bring in a deer first. This year only the white group went, owing to some political tensions the red group was having with the chief. They leave for the forest at dawn, and so our group was slightly nervous that we would get there at 8:30 or 9:00am, though it turns out we didn’t miss anything. In fact, the deer did not come until about 10:15 or so. There were many preliminary rituals (along with much rejoicing and running about), and then the president spoke along with some other folks. This is technically the second time I’ve seen the President of Ghana, John A. Kufour, but the first time at Independence Square for the 50^th Anniversary celebration didn’t really count, because he was much too far away. This time he passed within 20 feet of me, which I thought was neat. During his speech, though, I finally started getting antsy from standing in a small crowd for hours, and therefore had to break away. He was speaking in a Ghanaian language (probably Akan), so I wasn’t understanding him anyway, except for occasional murmurs of “50^th Anniversary” and such. Ah, presidents all do the same thing ;)

But anyway, the funny part of this story is that I had put on my SPF 45 ultra-sweatproof-and-waterproof sunblock at 7am. Then, at 9am, I reapplied. By 11am, my face was sunburned. Go figure. I did not, however, get further sunburned that day, which was just as well since it was stressful ;)

Katie, Chantal and I spent lunch in the shade in a place with music that was too loud, so we didn’t talk. There was a moment of discomfort and then enlivening argument as a boy came to our table at the end of it all. He was trying to pick up a date for the afternoon, but in doing so woke my mind up from its siesta. I found myself good-naturedly arguing with him over the cultural relatively and general subjectivity of the response “I’m fine” until he left. After that I felt ready to encounter the world until I met completely incongruous people begging for water and then saw multiple block-length lines of people dancing with their hips locked on the person in front of them. Joining this procession without joining the lines added a whole new dimension to the issue, and by the evening I was really tired. Also, I forgot my camera this day, but Katie and Chantal got lots of good pictures, and all of Katie’s end up on my computer, so at the very least you can see them when I get back ;)

Speaking of which, I have a slight fear which may be irrational. Certainly there’s a logical side of my brain which says “surely not”, but my eyes keep feeding me contrary information: I’m slightly afraid that small ants now live in my laptop. They’re always crawling in and around it, even just a minute after I open it. Of course, there are ants everywhere in Ghana, and particularly in my house. Hopefully I won’t import them to the United States, but as far as I can tell they’re just annoying ants. I hope they aren’t one of the things that occasionally bites me. I’m not convinced that all of my bites are mosquitos, but I never see anything that bites me, so I don’t know.

Anyway, on to some Ghanaian culture for the week. It’s time to talk about getting people’s attention. If you’re in the house with your family, this can be a trifle strange… my family tends to yell “Rachel! …Rachel! …Rachel!” no matter how much I say “I’m coming!” in the middle ;) But outside of the house, people will only call your name if you’re close. If you’re far away and they’re trying to get your attention, they won’t raise their voices. Instead they’ll “hiss”. Phonetically, it’s “Tssssss”. There’s tons of hissing going on at the University of Cape Coast all day, and whenever you hear it you just have to turn around and see if someone’s trying to catch your eye. They just don’t yell.

Hissing is also occasionally useful for getting a taxi driver’s attention in town, where it’s crowded, or just across the classroom to get someone to pass along a sign-in sheet. In that sense it’s like “hey”.

Sometimes you’ll hear people hissing in the street to call your attention to what they’re selling, especially if they’re a hawker of some sort. Some people instead use this sucking/kissing sound which apparently has no negative connotations for people. It’s just to alert you to their presence and call your attention. I hear men do it more often, but that might just be coincidental.

The one other common attention-grabbing sound is the honk of the Fan Milk horns. Fan Milk is sold in some stores that have refrigeration/freezers, but it’s mostly sold from specially equipped bicycles and carts with coolers. They're all over the place, and if you're really craving yogurt there are a few places where they tend to rest, or otherwise you can be patient for a few minutes and wait for a bike to pass you by. Hawkers also sell it out of these insanely huge boxes that they carry on their heads... so you know, almost all hawkers carry things on their heads. Everything the sell is meant to be sold frozen: “yogurt”, ice cream, chocolate milk, and tampico, which is this awesome citris drink which doesn’t have to be refrigerated at all. The yogurt is in quotes because it tastes like no yogurt I’ve ever had, but I’m ok with it. Sometimes I even crave it. The chocolate milk is very chocolately and not so sweet, as opposed to the vanilla ice cream which is awesome but rarely very solid. They all come in little plastic packets as shown above, roughly the size of a Ghanaian bill (I’ve recently realized that dollars feel so small in comparison. It’s weird). So, as with sachet water, you simply tear a corner with your teeth, and then eat/suck it out. Unlike most things sold on the street, it’s definitely standardized, and always yummy.

This is not at all to say that I disapprove of street food (not to be confused with chop bar food. Chop bars are cheap places that only serve one kind of local food). I get street food often, because it’s tasty and cheap. I still need to get some corn on the cob, but that will happen one day soon. But anyway, in Abura for instance, if you look around you can get: Accra (Ga) kenkey (Nkran dokon), Fante kenkey (dokon?), banku, various other preparations of corn meal, fish, pepper, boiled eggs, bananas, pineapple, mango (in the peak of its season a few weeks ago), roasted plantain, peanuts (aka, groundnuts), meat pies, and spring rolls, of all things.

*Ahem* ;) Apologies in advance to Candace and Mommy and any other vegans/vegetarians in advance for the next two paragraphs. They talk a lot about eating meat. Feel free to skip them.

I actually like most of these quite a bit, but I have reservations about meat pies. The crust is generally a bit too thick and dry for me to handle, and the “meat” is usually beef pate, which I find gross. Sometimes, though, they also have cooked cabbage inside, which is yummy, and sometimes they have a different kind of crust which is much better. Also, once in a blue moon you can find pigs in a blanket here, which are also called meat pies. But anyway, I unfortunately trust them even less. Exposed meat just doesn’t inspire my confidence ;)

Speaking of meat, though, most of what I eat here is fish and chicken. Occasionally there’s beef, and I think I’ve once or twice had goat and pork. Beef, goat and pork are sometimes all referred to as “meat”, whereas fish and chicken are always specified. But anyway, I can’t remember whether I’ve commented upon this before, but sometimes I love the fish here… it’s yummy, and scrumptious, apart from the bone issue. But sometimes, even mid-fish, I suddenly feel like a Horak, my mother’s side of the family that doesn’t like fish, and then I don’t want to eat it anymore. It simply tastes too fishy ;) Also, it’s somewhat disconcerting for people to say “hey, here’s your fish”. And I know that this is really no different from killing another animal, except that this entire fish had to die to feed only me, and so we have this strange, very personal relationship in which I go off to eat my fish.

Anyway, one day there will be a more complete report on food in Ghana ;) it’s coming. I know I only have four weeks or so left… it’s a tricky time. So far there are plans to visit Takoradi again this weekend and maybe Praaso next weekend to stay with some of my family's family. But anyway, I’ll do my best to keep you posted. So far, I’m doing ok. I know I’ll miss Ghana, but I am still looking forward to coming home.

Thanks for continuing to think of me, for all the nice emails and comments :) Overall, thanks for caring. Be well!

lots of love,

Rachel Rose