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!