The Royal Palace

So Kumasi really has been great, I have totally enjoyed being here. I figured out why the house that I have been staying in is so nice.. turns out my host dad is the Chief of the city that we live. Its kinda a big deal. Chiefs are very respected, powerful people in their towns, and I have been living in his palace!! How cool! And I know that I already said this, but they are sooo nice. Today they gave me a new dress, and it is beautiful!! Its green and brown batik :) I love them! Oh and you what is the weirdest, they have two daughters who are living in Colorado... Small world.

Today was our last day of Twi classes! I have enjoyed taking the classes and learning the language but I am happy to see the classes go. lol. Twi is a very difficult language. It is tonal, so different pitch on the same word can have 3 or 4 different meanings. We had our last test today. It went alright.

Tomorrow we will be leaving for the village. I am really excited for it. I have been having a great time and have already learned so much, but I am looking forward to escaping city life for a while. Then we have a 5 week travel adventure where we will get to see some sweet wildlife and national parks!! I am finding it quite difficult to contain my excitement!

In the village we will be doing a mini ISP (research project) I am not sure what I want to do for this one, but I am thinking about studying traditional religion for my big paper.. They have so many traditional religions here which are quickly disappearing or being overlooked by westerners and other scholars and inadequate. But it is just a thought...

Any way, I think that is all for now. I don't know how much Internet I will have in the next few weeks, but I will try to keep you as up to date as possible. Sending my love!

Welcome to Kumasi

Sorry that I am really bad at keeping up with my blog, but oh my gosh, I think that I am in love with Kumasi!! Although it is still a big city it is so much more laid back than Accra. They have paved roads and stop lights!! Not to mention, my new home stay is basically a palace. I have a big room and my own bathroom with running water! WOW! Also I have some very attractive home stay brothers who are right around my age. My home stay mom is my Twi teacher at school and she is sooo nice! She is going out of her way to make me the most delicious vegetarian food! It is the best I have eaten since I have been in Ghana!

Oh and Shana Tova to all of my Jews out there! I hope you are all having a sweet start to the new year. I spent the holiday with a small Jewish community in the Western Region of Ghana in a city called New Ardmbrum. It was definitely an very cool and interesting experience. First of all, who even knew that they would have a Jewish community in Ghana! It was really awesome! We did shabbatt dinner with them, and it felt almost like being at home. (kinda). The next day we did services in the synagogue. It was all decorated in blue and white. It was really interesting because you could tell that they were striving to be like Western Jews, but you could still feel the Ghanaian influence in the service. We ate apples and honey and they were all so nice. My only complaint about the experience was that I got kinda sick and their bathroom facility was pretty much a wooden box with a cut out that goes into a big hole in the ground. Ahhh. Fun times.

One thing that I should have mentioned a long time ago, is how everywhere we go and people see you coming they start yelling Obruni (white person) at you. It was kinda funny at the beginning, and it was funny to get that sort of attention, but by now it is starting to get kinda annoying. It is like yes, I know that I am white, I dont need to be reminded of it again and again. But just giving people a little wave when obruni is being called seems to make some peoples days. And it is still really cute when little kids run up to you to give the obruni a hug! hehe.

Oh and my Twi is getting a lot better! I am able to have some basic conversations, which is exciting!

Dont think that I have much else for you... We will be in Kumasi for the rest of the week and then we to the village for a week.

laura is awesome! -by laura

Love and miss you all! Happy New Year!

Life in Accra

Ma Ha! Good Afternoon! I have been in Accra for about a week now. I am much more comfortable getting around the city and using the tro-tros, although it still always an adventure. We have been taking classes at the University of Ghana in Legon. We are working on out Twi- learning the most useful and basic terms and phrases. Honestly I am really bad at it. When I speak, I am either getting laughed at by the locals or just stared at blankly. Either way, not so good. People do get really excited though when they see a "stranger" trying to communicate in Twi.

My home stay family is really great! I have been having a great time getting to know them, and the life of a typical Ghanain family in Accra. I went to church with them this past Sunday which was definitely an interesting experience. (I know that was a long time ago by now). But, it was in a huge dilapidated, unfinished building. Yet, when you walked in the main space was decorated really nice. Flowers, carpet, lots of color! Sunday school classes were held upstairs in unfinished cement rooms. I went with my home stay sister to the teen class. They were taking about drawing Moses out the the water. It was cool being half way around the world, in a church, and knowing the story that they were discussing. One thing that really struck me as odd though was how they teach their kids not to say anything if they feel that they have been mistreated by a teacher, but instead to pray to G-d that everything will work out for them. Very different from the lessons that we teach our children in America. It is just a different value system.

The other day we were walking through a market with a group of people. Someone stopped at a stand to buy something, and I decided that a soda sounded really nice. I asked how much, agreed and the woman opened the bottle. I was reaching for it to leave and the lady told me to sit down. The whole group was waiting and I was confused. She told me here in Ghana you are not allowed to leave the store with a glass bottle. "Umm.. ok..." She asked me if I wanted it in a bag. "Umm, sure.." so into a plastic bag my soda got dumped. Learning experience :) It is just funny learning the small differences in culture and practice in new places.

Yesterday, we went to a workshop and got to make our own Batik cloth. It was sooo much fun!! You wax out areas that you do no want the dye to penetrate and then dye the rest, put on more wax and dye it again. Every one's turned out really well!! I am hoping that we get time to do a few more!

I think that is about it for now. We will be in Accra until Tuesday, and then we move on to Kumasi. The home of the Ashanti. Love and hugs!

Ghana 1

Hi all!! I have been in Ghana for almost 4 days now. And man is it a trip... I am in Accra, the capital city. It is a very big city and have not made it to the town center quite yet. When we got here the whole group stayed togeter in a hotel for the first 3 nights. It was a modest hotel, but it was clean and they went out of their way to make sure that we felt at home. The food was good, lots of rice, cabbage and this spicy red sauce that I really liked. They were good about putting meat in a separate dish since about half of my group is vegetarian. There was a neighborhood right right there that we went for some walks in. Lets just say that it is pretty clear that you are not in America. All the roads are red dirt. There will be a nice house with a big fence around it next to a metal shack. Almost all the people were cooking out in front of their houses by the street, and trying to sell the food to the people passing by. You will be walking along and then all of a sudden a heard of goats will cross in front of you. On one walk we walked past a lady with a baby on her back. She was so excited invited us into her home. We walked into the gate a it turns out that her husban is a paster and they have a huge church in thier back yard. They were so happy to talk with us and wanted us to come back for a service. I hope that we are able to make it back before we leave Accra. We went to a market that was about a 20 to 30 min ride in a tro-tro, which is pretty much a big van that packes in the people and has moveable seats. They are really really cheap. About 30 cents for a ride anywhere. The market was crazy, caos really. People everywere moving in every direction shoving things at you and trying to get you to buy thier products. They get really offended if you try to take a picuture of the market, and yell at you to pu your camera away. We went with a big group which was just not a good idea.

Last night I moved in with my first home stay family. They are very nice, but it was a little wierd just going into someone home. There is a mom with a little boy and then her mother and 4 neices and another boy live with her. Her husband came in later in the night, but he was not really interested in talking and went to bed. For dinner they cooked me some sort of fish stew with mushrooms and some sort of cabbage thing. It was really slimy and I had a really hard time eating it. I ended up mainly eating the yams that were on the side. They served me by myself, and I had to eat alone. I am not sure if it going to be that way the whole time. Then it was time for my shower. Turns out that they use the water that they collect in a bucket and use another small bucket to pour over themselves. It was my first bucket bath... and it was cold! Then when I had to use the bathroom I found out that there is no water in the toilet, and that you need to collect the water that falls from your shower to put into the toilet. Oh and no toilet paper. Good thing I brought a roll :)

All the people in my group are very nice. Lots of personality around! Keeps things interesting and entertaining. I think that most everyone had a similar shower and toilet experience. We have quickly discovered that it is a huge luxury to have a flushing toilet!

I think that is about it for now. We will be in Accra for another 10 days or so before we move to Kumassi and have village life experience.

Miss and love you all. Sending love and hugs!