Snickers Bar

I am in an internet cafe and I am sweating so much. I can't stress hot it is here. I think it's hotter than any day I have ever experienced in Canada. I am getting used to it, but I am still amazed at how much sweat my body is even capable of producing.
I eat Snickers bars sometimes, I don't know why, I guess they remind me of home. They're the only Canadian thing I can find so I just deal with it. I have a feeling they will always remind me of Ghana.
The first month is finally done. I can't believe I survived it to be honest. I feel mildly invincible. Everyone in our group has lost weight and got a tan, we all look different already. When I come home you might not even recognize me!
At school we finally have a female professor - she is brilliant and intimidating, I love her. She is also the first prof who seems to know anything about development - she even uses words like 'development discourse' and 'elective affinity'. Don't get me wrong - the profs are all geniuses, just not all specializing in development.
I miss coffee and running water. That's all for now.

Twi

Akwaaba! Ya ena. Wo ho te sien? Me ho ye. Naon suway? Eye.

That means Welcome! Thank you. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Just fine. in Twi- which is the most common local language. My spelling sucks but I can say those things out loud. Right now my friends Emma and Julie are with me at an internet cafe (wireless!!) that we nearly acquired sunstroke trying to find.
I forgot to write about Boti falls. This past weekend we went to the Eastern Region of Ghana and I got to accomplish my life dream of walking behind a waterfall. It was so incredible. It also torrential downpoured which was strange because it hasn't rained since we got here.
Western shampoo is extremely pricey so I've been washing my hair with a bar of soap. Effective but not necessarily enjoyable. We went to this huge creepy western mall called Shoprite where we went to the movies (we were the only ones in the theatre) and bought things like Mars Bars and Mr. Noodles and all those gross Western things you can't get in Ghana. It was odd...it felt like home being in a pricey, stuck up, over commoditized atmosphere. I even bought an americano. I felt like a King, but also felt a lot of guilt and discomfort.
Powerouts happen on the regular, which is fine except that means we have no fan (guh) and it gets dark at six. Julie and I are pretty bored, and I almost cried when I spilt water on our playing cards. (Don't worry, they are tattered but salvageable.)
Our homestay family is hilarious. They're a bunch of wildcards, I swear. Our homestay mom (Auntie) is named Comfort and when I was showing her pictures from home she explained that my dad's brother (uncle Marty) is my other dad and my mom's sister (aunt Donna) is my other mom. This cleared up a lot of confusion what with all the kids in her house we though were hers (they are nieces and nephews). It's kind of nice though, Ghanain society seems to run on kinship ties more than anything, their loyalty is impressive.
In other news, the i button has fallen off my keyboard while I've been aggressively typing this blog (check back and see how many times an i was necessary and empathize with my struggle). So ...not sure what to do about that.
Also I am getting a head cold which seems unfair since it's about 35 degrees. School is hard, nothin' new there. Luckily I have nothing better to do other than lay around and read mounds of historical information on chieftancy in Ghana.

Sometimes when I'm feeling smothered by the religious and conservative atmosphere I wear mens underwear and feel that I'm secretly revolting. I know I've mentioned underwear twice now...but it's pertinent

So that's all for now. I'm probs gonna be at this cafe every weekend for the next 8 months because it's quiet and somewhat cool and they have legit coffee which is super scarce here.

I wish I could upload pics...but that is unlikely. Most of the stuff you can google anyway to get an idea.

Claire

Water Sachets

Water Sachets are bags of water we drink on the regular because bottled water $ can add up. They are like a ziploc bag with no zipper - you rip the corner with your teeth (sorry mom, I know you said to never do that 'cuz the braces) and then suck out the 500mL. It's pretty safe and gets the job done. School is extremely hard and consumes my life. We get up take the x2 tro tro ride from hell to school (although this is getting much easier) and then get schooled for 4 hours or sometimes 5 1/2 and then go home. I think you all should google tro tro because...I'm really not doing them justice. Last night we went out for PIZZA and it was AMAZING. The food here I find kind of hard, basically it's just a chore of not being hungry. I never know where to buy food that is safe, as I can't tell the difference between sketchy and reasonable. But I'm sure that will come with time.
The things I miss most are surprising:
- underwear (American Eagle size M if you're interested and feeling generous...)
- skinny jeans
- hipsters in general
- my guitar
- swearing
- regulated transportation
- running water
- chewing my food rather than just swallowing
- mint gum

That's pretty much it. All the rest of the stuff I can pretty much laugh at. Like only ever being 70% sure I'm in the right tro tro. Julie and I have a good time, we crack each other up. I am so so happy that we are super compatible roommates or else things would be just too hard. I play a lot cell phone games - suduko etc, and read a lot. I'm hoping I don't run out of books but it appears to be inevitable. I'm getting way better at washing my clothes but...my homestay fam still laughs at me trying to ring out my jean shorts.
Now that I've conquered ecoli in my first week in Ghana I feel like I can pretty much do everything. Life is good.
Oh also, I've upgraded my wedding ring since a guy chased me down the street pinching my bum until another dude ran after that guy and beat him into the street (isolated incident). It's pink with gigantic fake jewels...I flaunt it well I think. Although due to a huge lack of sodium and salt my fingers have become really skinny and sometimes it falls off.
September is going by fast....I can't believe it's the 16th already.
When Julie and I have bad days she reads out a quote from her quote book to calm us. We're getting back into pushups tonight hopefully as the sickness def slowed down our bicep growth.
I'm appreciating in a big big way all the love and support I'm receiving from Canada. It's making me sincerely appreciate my friends and family in ways that I never have before.
Love love love

Claire

Peeling Sunburns

Today I finally went back to school after a really brutal two day period of expelling fluids from my body because my whole goup got food poinsoning (strange considering...we don't all eat the same food at the same places). I went back to school and am learning African history and Ghanain history. Right now I'm typing this in my house! Which is amazing - somehow our homestay family has 5 Dell computers and we buy a little card that puts hours on the computer so we can use internet. We're super lucky - we're the only people that have internet or a plethora of computers at our house. Tomorrow some of my friends and I are venturing to the creepily huge and western mall, inside of which is a movie theatre. We're going to see Harry Potter...hopefully it won't be like the soccer game where I shared my seat with my friend, two men and a young child.
Things are looking up. Life doesn't seem to bad when you can finally go ten steps without needing a bathroom, especially in a city where bathrooms are very, very rare.
I'm rapidly applying sunscreen but I don't think I'm fast enough. I feel like if I spend more than 3 minutes in the Accra sun I instantly turn red. As if I don't turn enough heads as it is.
Send me lots of mundane details about your life please! Eveyone. I love hearing stories from home. I basically spend my time here reading my book (midnight's children), laying under a fan, sleeping, and riding tro tros. Well, other than being at school and studying of course. I'm excited because this saturday we are going on a day trip to the eastern region where we will see a cocoa farm (ghana is the world's....second largest exporter I believe?) and huge waterfalls. We have to leave super early because city traffic is like nothing you have ever seen.

Ta ta
Claire

Classes

Yesterday a bunch of us went to a gigantic soccer game (qualifying match for the 2010 world cup I think?) and it was totally ridiculous. I was sharing two seat with about 5 other people and everyone was screaming and blowing horns and hugging each other. This morning was our first day of classes and they seem interesting but extremely hard. Julie and I have finally figured out the tro tro system and get to school and back sans struggle (relative). Tonight we have a dinner with American students, which I'm not very impressed about because it's so late we probably won't get home in time to do our massive amount of homework. My homestay family tried to convince me to let them put my hair in braids/cornrows...I was like ummm....no thank you. I would look so ridiculous. So that's all for now!

Obruni!

Obruni is the Twi word for white person, and it follows me wherever I go. It's not offensive, more of an acknowledgment of difference. I have learned the Twi word for local person so i say that back to them and they laugh. Julie and I have moved into our homestay - our Auntie is named Comfort and she is really nice and layed back. This morning her daughter taught us how to handwash our laundry, it was hard but we will have ripped biceps by the time we get back. There is not much running water in Ghana, so all the bathrooms I have been in usually dont flush, dont have toilet paper, and there is not water coming out of the tap. I have learned to just hold it. We have to take two trotros to school and two back home. Trotros are terrifying. The roads in Accra are completely packed with reckless angry drivers at all time of the day. tro tros and big vans that seat12ish and they swing by, you jump in, and they peel out, kind of holding the door shut while ramming into bumps everywhere. At first it was absolutely scary, now I just nap for most of the way. Neither of us can pronounce where we live (or know how to get there) so you can imagine the big scary struggle it is getting home before dark (6pm all year round). It seems like nothing comes easy here. We drink water out of sealed plastic bags that are relatively safe, and I haven't been using my mosquito net because it keeps falling on my head in the night and scaring the crap out of me. But there don't seem to be any mosquitos...strange. Probably because we are inside when it gets dark out and we have screens on our windows. We have bucket baths, which is the Accra form of showering. You fill up a bucket with water and dump it on yourself and scrub your skin until you are clean. It is cold but it feels so good. I have to go to class now so I will talk to you all soon! Oh and yesterday I saw the ocean, I put my feet in. It was so incredible and breathtaking.
Love Claire