Hey everyone!! Sorry it took me so very long to write...they are keeping us crazily busy! I don't even know where to begin:

I moved in with my home-stay family a little over 2 weeks ago. It is my mother, father, 22 yr. old sister, my 21 yr. old brother (who I swear looks exactly like a cute version of Chris Rock!), my 16 yr. old brother and my 14 yr. old brother. We definately have a full house :) I have my own room though, with plenty of room to lounge (if I ever actually get the time to lounge). My fam is all very nice, but they worry A LOT about my well-being. "Are you sure you ate enough?" "What time will you be home?" "Where are you going?" I had no idea that for the first 2 months living in Ghana I would be 14 again. But I know they are only doing it out of concern, so it's ok. Plus my mother is such an amazing cook, I have to let the small things go. Seriously, the food is very good, foreign, but good. I have even grown to cherish fu-fu. I think my all time favorite is rice balls (exactly like they sound) and ground-nut soup (ground-nuts are just peanuts :) Oh, and my entire family has read "A light in the Attic" that I brought, and regularly come in my room to listen to Bob Marley on my ipod.

I began teaching last week, and will finish up this Friday. At first it was a bit stressful b/c I'm teaching to the youngest group of students. It is equivalent to 6th and 7th grade in the US, except they are actually a huge range of ages. I'd say the youngest is probably around 7 and the oldest is probably 16. And they are all at very different skill levels. The first 2 classes I taught did not go over very smoothly at all. I couldn't understand why they were all just staring at me when I asked a question, despite how easy it may be. For example "What color is the grass?" No response!! I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but it is no fun. I really wanted to run out of the room! But I later learned that they actually had no idea what the hell I was saying. Since then, I feel like I can say that I've pretty much mastered the Ghanaian English (or Ghanish for short). And I've also learned how to use examples that they understand, like for the food chain...the grass is eaten by a grass-cutter, and a grass-cutter is eaten by humans (by the way, none of you should ever hope to eat grass-cutters (they're like guinea pigs), but it's quite common here). So, in a nutshell, my classes are going very well now. I actually feel like I'm teaching these kids some practical stuff, and I'm doing my best to make it as fun as possible.

Speaking of fun, you know I have not been entirely consumed by just work here. That would just be too unlike me. So, for the 4th of July, we gathered every American in sight, and went to a "spot" (since there really are no bars here, thats what they call the places you can go to drink beer/gin and get some food.) Basically we just drank a bunch of beer and played cards all night. I must say that by all night, I mean until like 730 pm. It gets dark so very early here, like 6 or 630 so even though it is early, when you're walking down pitch black streets with no street lamps it feels like it's 2 am. Plus we are waking up at about 5 am, whether you actually need to get up or not, so by 10 pm everyone is completely exhausted. They actually have fire works here, but we couldnt find any in time for the forth..but we still had fun. Then on Saturday, they taught us some Ghanaian dances that we're going to perform at our swearing in ceremony in August. So, afterwards we went to another spot and this time made this crazy concoction (sp?) consisting of whisky, fan ice (this is like crazy sweet vanilla ice cream) and coke. It was actually quite good, and put us all in the mood for some African dancing. So, all night we had the spot put reggae music on and we dance. Then yesterday, we all got together for a game of ultimate frisbee. It was like 10 obrunis (white man) and about a village and a half of kids. At some point we had to part from the kids so that we could get a real game in. It was a blast, and I really needed the exercise b/c although I'm walking at least 3 miles a day, I haven't really had a chance to get my heart rate up. Unfortunately my frisbee somehow got broken in half while the kids were playing with it. It's still a mystery to me.

So, yeah, things overall are well. I'm trying to balance being serious, and teaching, with still finding time to relax and relieve stress. It looks like I only have 3 more minutes before this internet kickes me off, so I will have to get back to a computer very soon. I have many pictures I want to upload, and I still have many emails to respond to. So, don't worry, I will write again soon......Thanks for all your posts, I love hearing from you all. I love you. -D