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