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.