"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!

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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.