Rural Asante Village

Okay, so FYI, I will not be posting for the next two weeks (at least), because we will be in a rural village (well, all of us are spread out over three rural villages) doing our mini independent study projects (small versions of the 5-week projects we will be doing at the end of the semester). After that we go to the north, where we may or may not have internet, but where we will definitely get to go to a national park with elephants and giraffes! I'm excited. I think they said we can camp out for one night there, too. So stoked.

We had our Twi exam today. They split us up into 4 or 5 different groups for class every day and then rotated the teachers through, so each of us learned slightly different things (but the hope was that it would kind of balance out...). When it came to tones, which are supposedly phonemic in Twi (I'm not convinced), we were told by the academic director not to ask any of the teachers to write down the tones for us because they don't know how to write them. They just know how to speak the language as fluent native speakers. So, we were just supposed to ask them to say it over and over again and then write down what we heard so we would remember and be able to say it back. Every group did this in their own way except the group that had Uncle Joe, who got his PhD in Linguistics  (and gave my a most-questionable etymology of the numerals in Twi, which are hardly even used anymore anyway... they just use the English numbers for almost everything), and apparently wrote down something that was supposed to be the tones for them.

For example, they would give us the words papa (low - high, "father"), papa (high - high, "good"), and papa (low - low, "a fan") and we would repeat them, try to write down what we thought the tones were, ask them to repeat it a few more times, consult each other, and try one last time to say it right. That's how class went for the Tone session, with a bunch of minimal (ish) pairs. Some were homophones (homotones?) with different meanings, and some were completely different categories (like, da "never," da "day," and da "to sleep"), but all were supposedly arguments for why tone is important in Twi (hah).

Rachel, Natalie and I decided to have a study sesh last night. Natalie and I had been in the same group, and Rachel had Uncle Joe.  As we started going through the flash cards Natalie had made, Rachel started to comment, "This isn't how we learned it..." So we pulled out our notes and compared... about 80% of what we'd written down was completely different from what Rachel had been told by Uncle Joe. Some of it made sense: we'd written mid - low where she had low - low, which makes sense since the second low would be lower than the first one with the cascading tone system... we just heard "sound - lower sound" and put it as mid - low. That's logical. But there were some where we had "high - high" and she had "low - mid" or other totally crazy things like that, which were clearly just inconsistent. We decided to trust  Uncle Joe, Ph.D. Linguistics and made up a fun learning game where we overly dramatized the tones, singing the English word with the same tones as its Twi counterpart. Thinking we were good, we parted ways and I went home to my Twi dictionary and looked up a few of the words.

This was about 10 pm. As I looked up the first word, I found that the tones in the dictionary were completely different from either what Nat and I had written or what Uncle Joe, Ph.D. Linguistics had told Rachel. Yikes. This went on and on... there were maybe two or three that were the same as what Nat and I had written, and one or two that were the same as what Rachel had from Uncle Joe, but most were something entirely different. Some weren't in there at all (small dictionary) and some were completely different words (not a very good dictionary).

I gave up and went to bed.

In the morning, we spent probably 45 minutes trying to convince our professors that it made no sense to test us on these tones when we had all been taught something different, and none of it was right anyway. They responded by trying to re-teach us all 30-40 of the words again, less than 10 minutes before our exam, with Yemi, the academic director (who got a Masters in Linguistics and actually is pretty confident in his ability to write the tones... so far he's been consistent with my dictionary at least, so I trust him), writing down the tones for us and over-riding Uncle Joe. We were all still pretty frustrated.

When it came to the test, I'm pretty sure I bombed most of it, because I had lost all confidence in my ability to say the tones correctly on the words we'd been taught, but the person testing me was the same person who had taught me the tones, so she was really lenient and helpful during the test, and when I got it back I'd only missed half a point for "hesitating"when saying the numbers 1-20... in fact I had completely messed up the word for four and had to correct myself, haha.

Anyway, tones really don't seem to be THAT important. We all mess things up terribly and people understand us just fine, which may be partially a cultural thing where they are very accepting of mistakes and eager to understand you anyway, but when I was trying to learn a few phrases of Mandarin, for example, and messed up the tones even a little bit, people had no clue what I was saying at all. So, I'm really not convinced that tones are all that important in Twi... most of it seems to be recoverable from context.

Okay, we have to go explore some botanical gardens now before we have our big danc/drumming performance tonight!

This might be slightly unethical...

The following is a series of e-mails between me and a guy who was at the very first internet cafe we went to in Ghana. My computer froze and he tried to help by restarting it, but instead he restarted the computer of Laura, who was sitting next to me and had just finished writing a long e-mail and hadn't quite sent it. Anyway, he decided he wanted to be my friend and asked me persistently for my e-mail address, so I finally gave him my really old hotmail address. About a week later I decided to check and see if he'd written to me yet, and lo and behold, there was an e-mail from "Charlie Innocence" (name has been changed for purposes of anonymity). Enjoy :)

From: Charlie Innocence
To: Lydia Green
Date: Thur 3 Sep, 2009
Subject: Hello dear lydia

Hello my dear Lydia , how are you doing for me ? i hope you are very fine for me and i am sure like my country Ghana . Anyway , i am Charles , the guy who is working at the internet cafe at XXXX and asked you to give him your Email address .

I just want to tank you for giving me your contact and i do appreciate it a lot.

I am very happy about you because i like you to be my friend , then we can know more about each other as well as we can also build life together as true friends .

well i will like to end here and i am looking forward to hear from you soon .

xxxxxxxxxxx From Charles xxxxxxxxxxx

_____________________
From: Lydia Green
To: Charlie Innocence
Date: Wed 9 Sep, 2009
Subject: RE: Hello dear lydia

Hi Charles,

Thank you for your friendship! I do not have access to internet often, because we are in class all day, but I am glad to be in Ghana and meet such nice people. I hope you are well. I am learning drumming, it is very interesting :)

Your friend,

Lydia

_____________________
From: Charlie Innocence
To: Lydia Green
Date: Wed 9 Sep, 2009
Subject: Hello dear Friend Lydia

Hi Dear friend Lydia ,

Many thanks for your lovely message to me .How are you doing for me ?

i am very happy to read from you and i am hoping that everything is okay with you as i prefer for you in my country .

Oh that is very good that you are always in class because you also need that ability to build up your life .

Wow Dear Lydia , i am really glad to hear that you like been here and you do also meet different people of culture.

Oh Lydia , it is very interesting that you are learning drumming , i like that . And I am a good drummer in some African music cultural group calling [XXXXX cultural and youth group] we do drumming ..Dancing ... singing..... We do always perform for schools....and Companies etc...

I have to tell you more about myself in my next message to you and please i am inviting you to come over to our music group praticing programme on Sunday .

Please Lydia , i want you to come then you can just call me on this number (XXXXXXXX) for me to come and pick you up at wherever .

Dear Lydia , i will like to end here and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon again.

 

Be Safe for me…..

xxxxxxxxx Charles xxxxxxx

_____________________
 
Anyway, I think it's very sweet. That's kind of the attitude of everybody here. They ask you to marry them, they want to be your friend, and they're all very eager and willing to help you catch a tro-tro to the right place (and occasionally even pay for it). Everybody is super impressed if you speak any Twi, and all the little children will run up to you with arms open shouting the non-derogatory  "obruni! obruni! (westerner! westerner!)".

It's cute.

Shaved Head Photo!

Me posing with my barber.

"You will be better"

Okay, so on Thursday I ate some bad plantains with dinner and spent the whole night in misery feeling completely nauseous until I finally threw up - happy picture, right? The next day I was still nauseous all day at school so I slept through Twi class and dancing/drumming. Then I went to the clinic, but the doctor wasn't in, so they told me to come back in the morning. My nausea finally went away and turned into a cold, so I spent the whole weekend sleeping and drinking liter after liter of water (other than a trip to the craft village with my friends, which was probably a bad idea, but when else do you get to go to a craft village in Ghana?). Today I'm much better :)

I learned something about Ghana that I really like, though. When you're sick, people come up to you and put their hand on your shoulder and say, "Oh, I am sorry that you are not feeling well. You will be better."

Today I learned a seemingly simple but for some reason ridiculously hard drum part for adowa, one of the dances we will be performing tomorrow for our homestay families. I thiiink maybe I've got it now. We'll see! We have a big Twi exam tomorrow, too. And then we don't take any more Twi classes at all! I'm really bummed about that.

Luckily, though, we will be going to a rural Asante village on Wednesday and staying there for 12 days. That means no internet, but fun times!

______________________________

I tried to post this on Thursday, but after an hour and forty-five minutes of waiting the internet just wouldn't work so here it is now:

Yesterday we went to a shrine and met a priestess. She basically does what she wants and gets paid for it. I asked her what the most interesting thing is that she’s done since becoming a priestess and she said, “Once a lady came to me because she was seeking her baby. I helped her get her baby and (pointing at nearby expensive car) I got that. That was pretty interesting.”

After that some of us went to the Cultural Center, which was really more the “rich-white-tourist trap center.” Everything was way overpriced, but we went and talked to some of the artists there including a kente weaver, a painter, some bead makers, etc. That was pretty cool. On our way back we tried to catch a Tro-Tro and people kept just pointing. One would point over that way, so we’d wander over in that direction for a while, then not find anything, so we’d ask again and they’d point to a new place, and on and on. Finally we made it to where there were actually a lot of Tro-Tros parked and found one with a sign on top saying “KNUST” – where we needed to go. Hurrah!

I thought it might be interesting to show you a typical day in the life of Lydia here in Ghana.

6:30 am Wake up, wash face, eat brekkie (which lately has been four slices of white bread with either margarine or an egg inside, sometimes an orange or banana, and black tea), pack up, and walk to the station where I catch a taxi to “the Junction.” I alight and catch a Tro-Tro or taxi to Amakom Roundabout (which is just a T-Junction now) and alight. Then I walk to KASS where we have our morning classes.

7:45 am We discuss things first, then break for Twi classes. We get a short break (we usually go and get bananas, popcorn, water, or whatever from the street vendors), then it’s back to Twi classes. After that it’s lunch, so we all catch a Tro-Tro to KNUST where our afternoon classes are. Today our Tro-Tro mate (the person who opens the door, collects the money, and calls out for more passengers to board) got pulled aside by some official looking people, possibly for trying to steal another Tro-Tro’s passengers, so our Tro-Tro didn’t have a mate. Rachel has always wanted to be a Tro-Tro mate, so she took over his job, and the driver was laughing the whole way to KNUST. When we got out, random people on the side of the road who had seen her calling out the next stop said, “Where is the mate?” We pointed to Rachel and they said, “Good job!” Haha. Probably the first female mate or white mate ever.

11:00 am We go to Sistah Ruth’s stand and I get 30-40 pesewas of beans with 30 pesewas of plantains, with cassava flour, palm oil, and hot pepper mixed in. I usually also buy some bananas and pineapple to eat.

12:00 pm Afternoon classes start. They’re either a lecture, a tour, or lately, drumming and dancing. Today we did a dance that involved pairing up and coming up with a solo dance with a few constraints. Natalie and I had fun with that, haha. Then the two of us switched back to drumming, then the whole class learned drumming and we learned the master part. So fun! My slaps need a lot of work, but it’s coming. They also traded sticks with me, so now I have straight sticks that are the same length instead of the crooked ones that were about an inch different, yay!

2:00 pm or 4:00 pm Class ends and we’re free to explore, use the internet (which is painfully slow most of the time, so if you have a really brief message to send to me, I’ll actually get it faster if you just make it the subject), hang out, do laundry, or whatever.

6:30 pm or 7:30 pm I usually go home, eat dinner (which is either kenke with cabbage/tomato stew or boiled cocoyams with the same – sometimes there is an egg mixed in, and sometimes I get an orange or some bananas… definitely not as much fruit and vegetables as my last homestay), study and do my homework, and take a cold shower (no hot water).

9:30 pm I’m usually in my mosquito tent, falling asleep.

Language Note: A few days ago, I interviewed my homestay brother about education in Ghana (as required by class), and learned that English is compulsory at all levels here. Aside from language classes (depending on where the school is, the class may be French, Twi, Ga, Hausa, or whatever), students are not allowed to use their local languages at any time. If they speak Twi in the hallway or on the playground they will be caned. On most of the schools here the words "SPEAK ENGLISH" are boldly painted in red. It makes my heart sad.

p.s. I have tried so hard to get a picture on here - I even have a compressed version on my flashdrive right now, but the internet won't allow me to add a photo for some reason.. I could go into details but it's kind of complicated. Sorry.

p.p.s. to my parents: they warned us to warn you that if you get any sort of phone call or letter saying something like, "Lydia is sick and needs you to send her $500," you should either ignore it, or if you're really convinced, you should call me or someone at SIT. Nobody from the program will ask you to send more money, so it's probably a scam. I'm trying to keep my contact information to myself, but it could happen (and apparently has in the past), so just an FYI.

My latest adventure....

I tried to post this yesterday, but our internet cafe was having some issues and it never did load. It is also a sauna in here... oi.

I shaved my head.

I wanted to get a cool design, but the barber said he didn't have tools for that. He also was quite resistant to my plan - "But your hair is beautiful as it is! Why you want to shave it? Only black men have that hair."

I persisted. Megan (Colorado) and Laura sat by and took photos and a swarm of little kids crowded outside the door to watch. He stopped with about 1/8th of an inch left. He said, "I think I should stop here. I said, "No no, keep going. I want it all gone!" Finally he agreed and off came the last of my hair.

It feels awesome.

One of our teachers saw me and said, "Wow! Do you like it?" I nodded. "Then it is very nice!"

When I came home, Auntie Mary seemed disappointed and just cried out, "WHY?"

Auntie Esther (SIT staff) was shocked at first and just kept saying, "I have no words. I liked your hair style before! Why did you do it? I have no words." But later on she came over to me and said, "Lydia, every time I look at you I cannot help but smile. You make me happy."  So I think it was worth it.

In other news, today is a national holiday - the centenary of Kwame Nkrumah (first president of Ghana). We weren't supposed to have class (Auntie Mary couldn't believe I was going when I left this morning) but apparently the syllabus was made "so long ago..." so we had class but then they decided to let us out a couple of hours early. We got to watch some of the celebrations in Accra on tv while we waited at the barber shop.

I wore my kente dress to church here in Kumasi this Saturday which was four hours long (ugh!) and entirely in Twi. Afterwards, I was driven home by six leaders of the church (two women and four men), who walked me up to my front door and had a chat with my Auntie (who, as I've mentioned, is Muslim). I'm not sure if it was friendly or intimidating since it was all in Twi, but they seemed nice enough. "Hi Auntie, these are my friends from church..."

I did my laundry on Sunday (by hand, of course). My brother, Mohammed, came by to chat with me and said, "It is strange that you do this."

"Why?"

"None of your colleagues (i.e. the previous SIT students who stayed with them) did their own laundry. They always had us do it."

"Oh. Well, I'm not particularly fast at it, but I can do it."

"That is good!"

He seemed pleased. He was here this weekend from Accra where he's going to school. I pulled out their homestay gift - the book of photographs of Walla Walla (thanks Mom - and Brent) and showed them my home. They think it's a beautiful place :)

The power went out yesterday for several hours, so I wrote a couple pages of my essay which was due today by candlelight, occasionally pulling out my flashlight to look up quotes from one of the three books I was writing about. Good times!

Grandma Green, thank you for the book (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). I loved it, and am now passing it around to the other students, who so far have also loved it!

To all of you, send me letters! Or just brief little e-mails saying what's up with you or any questions you want me to discuss in my blog. It makes me happy getting short messages from home (thanks, Aunt Cookie). Hope you're all well. I'm still kicking!

p.s. from today (the real today) We had drumming and dance class today - so much fun! Natalie and I played drums and the lead drummer promised to teach us the lead part soon. Part of the dance involves jumping after a specific drum call, and at one point I jumped a little early. The lead dancer came over and said, "Good good!" I said, "But I was off... ?" He said, "But you jumped well!"


Always positive :)


Our Twi classes are occasionally frustrating, because they aren't always consistent when trying to teach us paradigmatic things (like the tenses). Kind of like my Ga informant at the beach, who would outright lie to me over and over again, then have me repeat what he'd just taught me (and had me write down) and stop and say, "No. That is wrong. Start over." And finally he would tell me, "See. That thing that I told you, it is not right. It is like this. Start over." And he'd tell me what was actually right. "I make sure you pay attention."


And Mom, I'm taking some pictures. Kind of. Not really. I took a picture of me with my last homestay family, but the other students are taking lots of pictures. Don't worry! Laura got a shot of me with my barber (and my now bald head). Amos did not get in touch with me, but I'm not sure that his church is as close as the one I went to.

Kumasi

We made it! Five hours in the bus and we're not happily settled in the much more densely-populated city of Kumasi. Almost every building is 2-3 stories tall. There is one main road (the Accra-Kumasi  road) and people drive really fast on it. We take it to get from KASS (Kumasi Anglican Secondary School) where we have morning classes (Twi classes, and our "sharing experiences" discussion) to KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) where we have lunch and our afternoon lectures. Yesterday we were taken on a tour of the art workshops on campus (weaving/textiles, pottery, painting, sewing, metalworking, etc.). Today we learned about field methods of observation and about Adinkra cloth and authentic African art. We got to use some of the ink/paint made from badie bark with stamps of Adirkra symbols made from calabash gourds. So cool!

My new homestay family consists of Auntie Mary, my brother Prince, and my brother Richard. I have another brother studying in Accra who called to say that he hopes I enjoy my stay and feel at home, and he hopes to come visit this weekend. Very sweet. They are Muslim and I can hear the calls to prayer frequently (4 am is my favorite). My first night there, our neighbors (the Baptist church) decided to praise God loudly with their voices and tubas with plenty of mic. Good times!

Auntie Mary decided to introduce me to the Korean dramas she so enjoys. I'd actually never watched one before. I'm still not a fan of TV, I have to say.

Language note: I've observed that in church and on tv in advertisements when the majority of the service/ad is in English, certain points will be made in Twi. I assume it's to make them more personable (people definitely responded positively to it).

I'm really happy about the teaching methods our instructors use for our Twi lessons. It's very much about practicing in real (or imagined) situations. We learn some grammar and vocabulary and then enact situations where we would use it, over and over again, with each other. We don't use books at all. Today they took us out into the market, gave us each 2 Ghana cedis, and instructed us to go use our Twi to greet sellers, bargain with them for items, and discover the names of 5 new objects in Twi. Three or four of our instructors came with us to oversee and make sure that we didn't get stuck or get cheated. We mostly just dashed off and did it on our own, though - we've been doing this the whole time! Just with slightly less vocabulary and skill. Haha.

I'm wearing a shirt I had made here - it's green and orange. I also had a brown and flowy skirt made and one dress made from the batik fabric I dyed in class - purple and brown with a bit of white. I'm not terribly excited about any of them, but I think I'm figuring out how this all works and might get something made that I really like later on. I'm getting better at the asratoas!

Laura and I had a fun adventure trying to get home yesterday. I'm hoping she blogged about it because I'm out of time now (she says next blog). But, I have to say - everybody is friendly and tries to help, even if they have no idea where you're going.

Gotta run!

We leave for Kumasi tomorrow! I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't discover the amazing vegetarian "kiosk" lunch place that my classmates just took me to today earlier. So yummy! Pretty sure the only customers there were American girls, haha. People here aren't usually vegetarian. They had a homemade beverage called "red zinger" that's brewed from some kind of leaf with pineapple, ginger, and brown sugar. It has quite a ginger zing to it, but pretty good.

I went to church twice this weekend! Once on Saturday by myself, and once on Sunday with my homestay family, since I slept through last weekend's Sunday service that I said I would go to. Sabbath was nice. I'd called the pastor ahead of time to find out how to get there, but the helpful people on the Tro-Tro insisted I get off at a different stop than what he'd said... so I started wandering around until I came across a guy named Aaron whose dad is an elder, who informed me that the SDA church USED to be there, but had since moved elsewhere. He walked me to it (we were fairly far away) and I went in and met the pastor I'd talked to, who was very friendly. He sat me down next to Eric, who interpreted the service for me, since it was entirely in English except for a few songs and a couple sentences (he kindly interpreted those for me, too).

They dedicated "Onward Christian Soldiers" to me...aka the "student from Walla Walla University in California!" I'd said that I live in Washington, but go to school in California, then when they asked my what my home church was I said "Walla Walla University Church" and, well, it was confusing.

After the service they had all the visitors come meet the elders and they gave us crackers and juice boxes and had us all introduce ourselves/say why we were there that day, and mention what we liked/didn't like about the service. Very friendly people. Everyone who came up to meet me would start to introduce themselves/welcome me in English, and Eric would jump to my defense saying (in Twi), "She speaks (literally 'hears') Twi!" which was only true enough for me to have a basic explanation of who I am, where I'm from, what I do, etc. It worked out. They're working on building a second level of the church so the kids can go upstairs instead of having to be outside, because it's too small right now.

As Eric was walking me to the Tro-Tro stop afterwards I asked him if there were ever people at the church during the week. He said that there were a few groups that met during the evenings, including a women's ministry group, which meets "to talk about marriage and preparing for a successful life with a good husband." Oh, Ghana.

Sunday's service was a bit more interesting, but I'm not sure I would want to go back. My host family took me to the Charismatic Evangelistic Ministry church (or soemthing like that). They had six gigantic speakers on each side of the church, and were shouting into the microphone. I wish I'd brought earplugs, as horribly sacrilegous as that probably would have been - it HURT!

Sunday we went to a funeral, which was basically a big drumming/dance party. They wouldn't let us play anything more than the chekeres, which I failed at because my wrist got really sore. Haha, oh well... Isabel picked up some asratoas (also called "televi shakers") for me at the concert that a bunch of people in our group went to on Saturday (I missed it 'cause of church), so I'm happy with those. I've never been good at the chekere anyway.

Sunday was also Claire's birthday, so we went out to celebrate after the funeral. The taxi was ridiculously expensive (by Ghana standards), but we had fun - all 15 of us went.

Apparently, people can tell I'm SDA because of my ears. All Ghanaian women, and no Ghanaian men, pierce their ears, except SDAs. Auntie Nana (one of our teachers) knew instantly because of that. Some of the people who have a kiosk along the street I walk down on my way to and from the Tro-Tro Junction by my house every day are very friendly, but have very different ideas of how women should behave. The woman was quite frustrated that I wouldn't let her pierce my ears ("Come! I will do it for you.") and after I lugged home a suitcase (lugging luggage, again, Joe) from the market, after I discovered that BA allows you two not just one, she insisted that I hadn't bought it myself. I said, "No, really, I bought it. Why don't you believe me?" She said, "No. You lie!" which Yemi, our Academic Director, said is more like "Get out of here" than literally calling me a liar. "Your brother bought it for you. Didn't he?" "No. I bought it myself." "Oh, I see. Your husband bought it, then." "What?" "Yes, your husband bought it for you. You couldn't have bought that." I finally left, and asked Yemi about it the next day. He said that here, just like students are expected to have no independent economy (hence the "student discount card" which works all the time and only requires you to say, "I am a student!" in Twi, to get all kinds of price reductions), women are expected to not be in charge of finances, so even women who do earn their own income often just say, "Oh, my husband/brother bought it for me" when they make a new purchase. When I walked home that day, she harrassed me about it again. I just said, "Yes.. my brother" and she was satisfied. So, thanks for the suitcase, Harley.

We went to a really great dance performance today! They had amazing drummers (SO AWESOME) and dancers who performed dances from all over Africa - Senegal, northern Ghana, Kenya, and maybe some other places. There were lyrics to many of them in languages from wherever that particular dance was from. I loved it. I did not enjoy the squatting over a somewhat slanted piece of concrete which drained into the open sewer that runs throughout Accra and flows into a big river of grossness to pee, though. Fun times. I carry TP and hand sanitizer with me everywhere, and it's quite necessary.

On a more pleasant note, I looove papaya! I used to not like it, but I love it now. I ate a whole one the other day, even though I'd thought I was full from the rice and stew I'd just eaten. So good. Mangoes aren't in season yet, but they should be soon!

Almost out of internet. I'm still having lots of fun and learning lots of Twi! We had a big test on Friday which involved singing a Twi song, pretending to haggle at the market, and doing a group skit. Fun times.

Languages (sign language researchers, please comment)

There are so many languages spoken here! We learn Twi in class (just had an oral exam today, and also presented a "skit" in our groups, which was also a test). It's hard, but I try to use it as much as possible taking Tro-Tros, going to the market, just walking down the street and meeting people. I say as much as I can, and then they say more than I understand and I ask them to repeat it and sometimes I learn something new, other times I'm just confused.

The official language of Ghana is English, but there are (I've heard...) over 60 languages spoken here. As I've mentioned, my host family is from the Volta Region and speaks Ewe. The people we met at the beach were mainly speakers of Ga (but also know Twi and English). So, I learned a bit from them, and I learn a little bit of Ewe from my host family. On TV, the news is presented in English, but they often go out into the city and interview people, and often those interviews are in Twi (possibly in other languages, too, but I've only heard Twi so far). I've also noticed that they sometimes have a little box in the top right of the screen showing a simultaneous sign language interpreter with the news or sports clips or what have you. That's pretty cool. I can't tell which sign language it is because our tv is so small (so the small box is really hard to see) and I don't know much of any sign language so it could be American, British, Ghanaian or anything really. However, it's there!

I've also noticed significant multilingual code-switching. My host family would often have friends or relatives over. One night, my Auntie's brother, who lives in England now but speaks Ewe and Twi had some people over who spoke mainly Twi, but also knew English, and one of them seemed fairly comfortable in Ewe. They would talk in Twi, throw in a few Ewe phrases, toss in some English words (like "traffic" and "twenty kilos" and then quickly jump back into Twi. When they switched to Ewe, a couple of them were really confused and just pretended to follow, sort of. I had no idea what was going on, ever... I could only tell when they switched by their body language and by the lovely labial-velar plosives which Ewe has and Twi lacks.

Everyone I talk to tells me, "Oh, you are learning Twi? And you are trying to learn Ewe? Well, Ewe is hard. Twi is "soft." You can learn Twi in three months! Ewe, it will take you three years."

After looking at wikipedia's chart of Ewe's phonemes, I see why they say that.

I'm hoping to meet with a professor here who does endangered languages research and is planning a project on a language spoken up in the North. We'll see how that goes. We leave for Kumasi on Tuesday and apparently everything is closed this weekend for a national holiday.

p.s. WOW pollution. People burn garbage here all the time. It's disgusting. Worse than LA, sometimes, I think.

The Ritz

I live at the Ritz! Madina Ritz is the name of the area where my homestay family lives, and I take a Tro-Tro from Ritz Junction to school. My Auntie Abigail told me she has lived there 20 years, because it is very difficult to get a loan from the bank to buy a house, so once you have one, you just stay put.

Joe, you will appreciate this: last night my cousin Kester (13) asked me what kind of music I listen to, so I was playing some for him. After he left I decided I would listen to one song I like: Mango Tree played, and Joseph, I will have you know that I do in fact have a mango tree in my backyard, but I do not have you standing next to me. I also have a pawpaw (papaya) tree, several plaintains, and what I call a Monkey Puzzle tree... when I asked Auntie what she calls it she said, "That? That is a Christmas Tree!" and so that is what it is.

I learned how to wash my clothes by hand yesterday, and my knuckles seem not to have forgiven me for it! Kester helped me. He is Auntie's brother's son, and he grew up in London. He wishes he were back in London, but he's going to school here for a year because he got bad marks, he says. "They cane you here," he warned me. I have yet to be caned.

Aunt Cookie, I don't know if you're reading this, but I learned how to use a "chewing stick" to clean my teeth yesterday, too. It's just a piece of wood that you suck on until it gets soft and you chew on it a bit to make the end a bit bristly, then you scrub it around on your teeth until you can't stand the slightly bitter taste of it any longer.  A relative who dropped in said it was very good for your teeth, and if everybody did that and brushed, they would all be better off.

My Auntie and Uncle had four children, all grown up now, but one died within the last two years or so. I've met two of them, now (and one grandaughter, who was really shy). One just recently got married, and I met his wife and looked at their wedding photos and saw their wedding video.  It was interesting getting to see how weddings here are done, but it was definitely a very Christian wedding, with only slight differences from weddings I've seen here.

Every day I eat fresh papaya, pineapple, banana, and avocado. They feed me lots of vegetables in the sauce (carrots, green beans, onions, cabbage). They are happy that I like things spicy. Oh, I have to get back to class.. I will write more later if I can.

Out of internet time.. can't think of a good title. Just read it.

I took my first bucket shower this morning: one bucket of water (cold) and one cup to pour.

I also ate kenkey, plantains, beans, and red sauce with my hands today for lunch at the University of Ghana, Legon. My homestay family is from the Volta Region and they don't speak Twi, so while I learn Twi in class and use it all over Accra, I am now also learning Ewe to speak at home!

Oh, so some info about our group/program: there are 14 girls and 1 guy (I think there are 15 of us). We spent the first few days in a hotel, and now we are with individual homestay families in Accra, most of which are an hour or more away by Tro-Tro (the vans that drive around and cost less than a dollar a trip). We will be here for the next 10 days or so and then we go to Kumasi.

So, today ater class we went on our mini-group excursions - my group went to the SIT house, next to a big mango tree, and the nearby clinic. As we were walking by, we stopped to talk with shopkeepers. Since none of the washrooms on campus have toilet paper (and often none anywhere have running water - you use a bucket to flush) I stopped to buy a roll to carry with me. I spoke to her in Twi, and she got angry and told me "Don't use Twi! Use English!" I had no idea why..I thought I'd said something wrong and offended her. Mavis (who is from Kumasi and was the SIT staff member assigned to our group) argued with her for a bit in Twi, but she insisted that I speak in English to her. She also insisted that  Megan drink  her sprite (which was in a glass bottle) there, or else put the sprite into a plastic bag and drink it from  a straw. Bottles are apparently expensive, so the shopkeepers keep them. Mavis told me later that the reason she wouldn't let me speak Twi to her was because she wanted to prove that she could speak English and didn't want me to think that she couldn't.  The next group of shopkeepers we visited with were much nicer. They had a full on conversation with me in Twi and then said, "You have done well!"

Everything is really cheap. I bought 3 yards of kente cloth for less than $10. Lunch and transportation for today was less than $2, and I couldn't even finish all my food. There is a lot of noise all the time. Some people have said that I am not a morning person, but I will have all of you know that I was up at 5:15 am this morning! It's hard not to be, honestly. The sun goes down right around 6 pm and at 3:30 or 4 am the roosters start crowing, dogs start howling, TVs are on and loud, and if you're near a street the Tro-Tros start honking. It's great.

We all have to navigate our way to school and back from our homestay families, by ourselves. Papa Attah (SIT staffmember) told us, "You are full grown mosquitoes now!" We shall see. I haven't made it home yet...

I'm still healthy! But they say it takes two weeks for Malaria to actually manifest itself in symptoms, so who knows. No bug bites. I haven't even seen a mosquito yet, but I've seen several spiders (including a huge one that I got a picture of - not easy to post pictures, but maybe someday), so I am now calling my mosquito net my spider net.

In Ghana!

Today I drank coconut juice from a freshly hacked coconut, learned a bunch of Twi ("I like your outfit!" and "cat", for example), and ate beans with cassava flour.

On the flight over, when my vegetarian meal came, the Ghanaian man sitting next to me said, "Oh, you will have trouble in Ghana with that." But so far, aside from everyone telling me it's going to be hard, it's been pretty easy to get a decent meal that has no meat. Or fish. Sometimes you have to be specific.

The dirt is very red, and now my sandals are, too. I love the humidity, but I do miss how quickly things dried in Walla Walla and LA. Oh well.

The internet is slow, but only one cedi an hour (a cedi is less than a dollar). 13 minutes of my half hour were taken up with the computer freezing and then having to be restarted and them finally moving me to a new one, so I will keep this short.

I'm alive and well!