Hey everybody!

So, I'm sitting on a lorry waiting for it to fill up so I can go back to my village. I'm in my market town, Wa, the biggest city in the Upper West Region. All of a sudden a dozen teenagers come by making a ton of noise, carrying another boy. They slam him onto a cart and start wheeling him off, obviously againt his will, although he's not putting up much of a fight...he's majorly outnumbered. At first I thought "Oh, god, he's stolen something!". Here in Ghana, the people will beat you to a pulp, if not kill you over petty theft. But I soon learned that some of the boys have not been bathing up to Ghanaian standards (which is pretty high in my opinion. They take from 2-4 baths a day!), so the teenagers have taken it upon themselves to gather up these non-bathers and force a bath on them.



Still waiting on the lorry, I noticed the woman in front of me eating something that looks very non-edible. To my surprise, she's muching on a piece of dried clay! Apparently many of the pregnant women do this around here...I've heard of weird pregnant cravings...but...come on. But they say dont knock it till you tried it, so when it was offered to me, I popped some in my mouth. It tastes exactly like what you'd think chewing on clay would taste like. I think I'll pass. I wonder how the fetus liked it :)



I'm planning on drawing a huge world map on the side of one of our school buildings. I'm constantly mind-boggled by Ghanaians' lack of knowledge in the field of geography...they even make ME look good! This is my favorite one, and probably the most common as well: "Where are you from?" "I'm from the United States." "Oh, which part, Canada?" Sometimes just for fun, I say "No, England" just to see if there's a flicker of something begind their eyes. Ghana was ruled by the British up until 60 years ago, but nope, usually nothing.

I also think its quite amusing, if not annoying at times, when people see my skin color, find out where I'm from, then proceed to tell me "My brother has a friend from England. His name is Bryan, he...blah, blah, blah..." As if all white people enjoy hearing all about other white people.

Or sometimes they'll try and convince me to give them my phone number, or to go have a drink somewhere by saying "Oh, I used to have a white friend. We were very close. So you see, white people like me." WE ARE NOT ALL THE SAME, FOR GOD'S SAKE! Ok, glad i got that off my chest.

Its true, you get used to being dirty a lot here. Like if something edible falls on the dirt, you pick it up and eat it....no questions. I used to do this in the US, but there people think I'm gross. Here, if I dont do it, I'm crazy and wasteful and someone else will come and eat it. But I have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to hygiene. And here's where: the women here change their babies shitty/pissy diapers where ever they happen to be when it happens. That's fine. What's not fine is getting shit on your hands, which I've seen too many times, and then just casually wiping it on some cloth and going on with your day. That's just gross. I personally carry around a bar of soap because you never know when you're gonna have to go shit behind a bush and wipe with a leaf. Just call me OCD. Seriously.

The more integrated into my community here, the more apparent th eproblems become to me. It appears domestic violence is a very common issue.

Cussing, I dont really do it very often here because I realize I'm eventually going to be back in the States, where it is often frowned upon, but its not really taboo here. I'd say about 90% of the Ghanaians whom I've met who have traveled to America (which is like only 3 people, mind you, because its virtually impossible to get a visa out of this country) come back cussing like sailors. I wonder why that is. They especially like the word "fucking" "fucking this, fucking that". It makes me laugh everytime, I think just because I dont hear that language much anymore. They certainly dont teach it in Ghanaian english class.

Just switched to the blueberry cobbler after finishing the kiwi sorbet bodywash. Yum! Thanks again girls! The incredible book I read this week is "Running with Sissors" by Augusen Burroughs. I understand this has become a movie, so some of you may know the plot. Anyhow, its awesome, but not for the sensitive "Dont use that foul mouth" type, not many of which I know. I still cant believe its actually a memoir, what a crazy life!

Met these 2 cool rasta guys, one of which works at a radio station for the Upper West Region. He is going to help me get my HIV radio show underway. Sweet.

There's a fruit here that comes from the cashew tree. It makes my throat/mouth really dry and feel weird, not in a good way. But I'm addicted to them. I love them.

My roommate is a JICA volunteer. From Japan. She's a very introverted person. Often when our paths cross, she's very polite, but keeps her head low towards the ground, as if eye contact is not allowed. A bit socialy reserved, I'd say. Its her culture partly and partly someting distinctively hers. I walk around the house naked partly because it's Africa and hot as hell, but also because I like to imagine the shock on her face if she happened to wander out of her room and saw me there doing dishes in the kitchen, in the nude.

I all of a sudden like this blogging thing. I've never been much of a journaler, mostly cause I never read it again, and I would die if someone else had. But its fun since I know Im writing it for you. Its still my private thoughts only its out there for all my friends, family, and god knows how many weird strangers who stay up late reading people's, whom they've never met, blogs.

One of my good friends, a fellow teacher, is on the verge of a breakdown. Around town there is a rumor that he recorded (the sound of) a traditional ceremony/dance thing. Apparently that is a very big accusation. He swears that its not true (It really doesnt even make sense, why would you want it? and what for?) Anyways, his life has been threatened in the form of a stoning. Hes freaking out. I dont really know what to think. Its so culturealy distant from anything I know. From what I hear, stoning is a seriously realistic punishment for this crime. He is on the verge of tears everytime he speaks about it. Scary/sad!

Someone from the Inspectors Generals Office in the US just came to interview me about the program here. I had to really focus at first to understand what she was saying. I kept thinking "man, this chick talks fast!" Then, I realized, to my disbelief, that she wasnt talking fast, I was losing my ability to understand American English. And I was thinking "God, how will I ever be able to understand Brittany, the worlds fastest talker, again?" Ghanaian English is at a much, much, much slower pace. And I guess since we're all used to it, when us volunteers get together, we talk faster, but never at full capacity. Needless to say, by the end of the interview, I was able to understand her without straining myself. Shew,...at least I know it'll come back to me.

Oh my God, seriously, how am I possibly gonna make this ICT class interesting? With science it's easy, I love it and there's always cool experiments we can do. But this computer crap...blah! Application hardware and system hardware and the operating system controls the CPU...seriously, I dont know any of this stuff and I'm bored out of my mind learning it so I can teach it to a bunch of Junior High Schoolers who are going to be equally, if not more, bored out of their minds. Help!

I kind of have a pet spider here. I've named him Albert and he happens to be the biggest spider I've ever seen. Albert and I have a mutual understanding, or so I think. He likes me because I give him shelter and I tolerate him because I've never seen him move, so I dont have to worry about him freaking me out. In fact, I'm not even really sure he's alive, but Im too afraid to check. But you really learn to love spiders here. Without them we'd be (more) overrun by pesky, bastard little bugs. All of the books I've read have little bug blood stains, to attest to this fact.

Ok, first my watch broke. But I brought a back-up, so I dug it out form the bottom of my suitcase. Turns out the battery has died on that one. So no watch. Then the ONLY clock I have in my room just mysteriously stopped working. Think Gods trying to tell me something? I'm certainly not gonna fight with God. Its all for the best anyways. We have here what you call "Ghana maybe time". In other words, if someone says they'll be somewhere at 2, they may show up at 3, 4 or the next day. But there's one thing you CAN be sure of ... and that's that they wont be there at 2. Because they KNOW that if they show up at 2, they'll end up waiting all day for you. Its been 8 months now in country and I still cant entirely get used to it. Its that fast paced, time-aware Western World in me.

Yo, yo, yo :)

First, I want to apologize for the delay since my last entry. Life has been....well....life in Africa, I guess. Everytime in the past when I've sat down to write a blog I've had so very much that has gone on that I don't know where to start at all, so I draw a blank. So much happens just in one day here, I can't possibly figure out what to write. So, this week I decided I'm going to try and write like a paragraph a day in my journal, and then just copy it when I finally get around to an internet cafe. Anyways, I just started, so it's pretty short, but here goes....

I started my reading club today. I was expecting 10-15 or so students...but over 70 ended up showing up! I'm happy that so many are serious about learning to read and all...but I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle this many kids running around. Between this club and the TWO subjects (yeah, they have decided that I should teach even more classes), I seriously have my hands full.

I was just taking my "princess" bath (I put the water in the sun all day so its nice and warm...somtimes scalding hot actually) and I noticed that I have gotten my first Ghanaian illness. It seems a rash has spread all over my stomach and left hip. Its somehow minor, probably just heat rash or something. The weather here has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. The hot season has officially begun. You wouldn't believe how danm hot it is! If you dont carry around a rag to wipe your face with at all times, you're gonna be in serious trouble.

I have foregotten what it feels like NOT to sweat. Literally, day or night I'm either dripping wet, or at the very least glistening...and not the good "Oh, you're just glistening today" type of way. It seems that the hamatan was extremely short this year, compared with the previous ones. There was exactly one week where it was cold, and of course, not by the US standards of cold, but to my nicely adjusted body...it was freezing! The heat quickly picked up after that though and it seems the hottest months are yet to come.

It seems God answered the people of Sombo's prayer's today...at least in a small way. In the dead of the heat this afternoon, cumulus clouds began to form. And by dusk we got about 5 whole minutes of rain, the first time in so, so many months. It surprised my beyond belief how the ground/pavement was already dry less than a minute after the rain subsided...you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it.

Amazing books I've read: 'A thousand Splended Suns' is written by the same author as 'Kite Runner'. This one is better though in my opinion (even though I really enjoyed the latter); 'The Poisonwood Bible' scares me because of the crazy similarities between the Congolese people and Ghanaians. Good book, was like reading about my village. 'The Raw Shark Texts', dont know if I mentioned this one before, but it's completely awesome. Great fiction novel, you will not be able to put it donw till you've finished it, for sure.

Ok, love and miss you all!!!