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.