busy

so i've been busy with a lot of different activities lately. classes are starting to seem more like classes and the workload is increasing. My community service activities are also starting to get off the ground. I should hopefully start teaching AIDS prevention in schools soon, and I've already started a little trumpet class. I was planning on writing more last night, but my comp was being slow, and then I tried to write again before I left Saturday morning at like 5:30 am for Kumasi, but again the comp didn’t work, so now I’ll catch you all up on my various trips and stuff. Last weekend we drove to Kumasi, which is the second largest city in Ghana, and which should have been about 4 hours north of Accra, but with all the traffic, it took more like 7 hours both directions. I feel like we spent more time on the bus then we did actually visiting Kumasi. We saw one of the museums we were supposed to and had a couple hours to run around the cultural center and the market and some specifically wood shops, and so we killed a bunch of money there and all bought lots of gifts.

The weekend before was the homestay through AFS. It was an interesting experience. My family made me a lot of chicken and starch meals, and only wanted me to watch tv. I tried to be helpful, but they didn’t want help with dishes or anything. Their two older children are working in Canada as a doctor, and studying in Chicago through AFS. Their youngest came home from his private school for the weekend, but mainly played video games. There were 3 other kids in the house, but I never really did figure out how exactly they were related. It’s really complicated how everyone is your sister and brother and mother and whatnot, because they aren’t really related in that sense, and I get confused. But I had fun going to a naming ceremony on Saturday, and less fun sitting through four hours of church in a language I didn’t understand on Sunday, but my family has invited me back and since we’re always gone on weekends I’m going to go visit again this evening. When I was there last time, I watched a pair of birds build a nest in my window all day Saturday. It was actually pretty crazy because they started from very little when I noticed them, and had completed it and laid an egg by the next day…too bad when I told Abigail she wasn’t as intrigued and threw it away. I spent a lot of time with her- Abigail, the 7 year old- last time, helped with her English homework, and the father wanted me to teach her how to knit, because I had brought a project with me. I also tried to show her Sudoku, because she slept on a mat next to my bed for some reason, so I stayed up with her the second night while she mainly drew pictures, because I don’t think she understood the number game really. Communication was probably the strangest part of the experience, because they all communicate in Twi with one another, and it’s not like they’re talking about me, but it just felt very strange to either be excluded, or purposefully included in conversations. I will be doing another homestay this weekend, but in a village instead, and we're doing a Habitat for Humanity project working out houses that Saturday before we spend time with our family.

Let’s see…what else has been happening. I went to a dance class last week, where we learned to drum and dance, and then we walked back through one of the communities to the tro-tro station, and that was an interesting experience. I’ve also gotten sick of being charged a bunch for taxis, especially to the part of town that’s like the distance of a few blocks away where we go for groceries, so I’m doing a lot more walking even though all the taxis will honk at you a million times. One of the funniest times walking home though was a couple of weeks ago when we had a huge storm, I thought it would be fun to walk home in it and I got soaked, but all the Ghanaians huddling in their little shops looked at me like I was crazy. It was really refreshing though. I’ve also been running a bit in the mornings, but I have to do that really early or else I can’t breathe because of how thick the air is during the day. Last Friday was also fun, because at the school where I started teaching trumpet/ music, they had teacher appreciation day, which just sort of consisted of each class getting a chance to play football/ soccer, and we played one of the girls games. It’s crazy how differently the girls and boys play, because the girls were pretty terrible and they all just sort of attack the ball all at once, so there are constantly like 10 people around the ball just kicking madly, which helped me get a nasty bruise on my leg, but when the boys played, even the little boys, the ball spent most of its time in the air, because they were just superb at kicking it up and over each other. It was actually really fun to watch. Last week I just had a bunch of free time cuz one of my classes was canceled, so I actually went and sat in on one of my friends classes, and walked up and down Spintex Road, which I saw on the way to my ‘family’s’ house, and there were just a bunch of neat shops along there. I also stopped near there so I could go check out what the Accra Mall is like, because I just wanted to see how different/ similar it was to a mall feel, and it was strange how much like a mall it felt. They have this big store called Game that’s like a Kmart or Target, but based in South Africa. The mall is still being constructed, but the few stores that are open just have such a different feel from the market or street vendors. It kind of felt like walking into another world. It was just pretty strange. I also finally had a seamstress make some clothes out of some of the ridiculous amount of fabric I’ve bought. I had some really neat pants made, and now she’s working on a shirt and dress. It’s a fun process.

I really need to write more often so that this isn’t just a bunch of little one line stories, but a couple of other notes on life I guess are that I spend a bunch of my time after dinner watching the TV show Lost with a couple friends cuz someone bought all three seasons, and that’s fun. I should also hopefully have my Fall break Egypt plans finalized this afternoon…..i’m hoping. On another note, our water heater for the laundry room has been broken for a week, so I washed my clothes in the boys house this morning early when none of them would be awake anyway, and then because one of the boys is real smart, I learned where the lint filter is in the dryer, and cleaned ours and was able to dry my clothes a lot better than before. It used to take like 3 cycles to dry stuff, so we’d been air drying, cuz none of us realized the filter was inside the machine… Also, in an effort to save water and energy, I’m constantly turning off lights and air conditioners and water heaters, since we’ve been trained so well, and my roomies are getting better at doing that too. Mom and bill would be proud too, cuz I’ve trained my roomies to save water, by letting yellow mellow… which still grosses out some people in the program, but it really helps, cuz our house runs out of water after everyone elses every time. Go saving water. Haha. I also save money by boiling a lot of water, and then using kool-aid to flavor it!! Yea hydration! I’m a big dork and am going to stop now, except for-

The only other big news for now though is I took some pictures of my head, and so some pictures are finally up. I'll get pictures from my friends of when I actually cut the hair off later, but now you can at least see what it looks like. There are also pictures from my homestay visit in the second Ghana album

http://picasaweb.google.com/nicole.beall/GhanaPart2

I've also put up some of the pictures from the roadtrip that alicia, daniela, and I took this summer...so those of you who wanted to see some of that can, and I'll work on labeling them later. I’ve also not gotten all of them up, but it’s a sampling, and you can see some of them here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nicole.beall/Roadtrip
and
http://picasaweb.google.com/nicole.beall/OnTheRoadAgain

I’ll try to write again soon…or at least before fall break (which is oct 18-27) and I should be able to have internet while I’m there, but we’ll see… My phone should work there too probably, but I won’t use it much, as always. Talk to you all later~