Monday, November 2, 2009

OK, back to current life....

This is a bunch of us at a local festival drinking some pito. The pic below is of one of the dancers at the festival.
School is back in session and as I am walking to class from my house, I am reminded of my first day of school last year. On my walk about 1 MILLION flies decided to fly onto my back. I couldn't get them to leave me alone, for the life of me, and I remember being so nervous that when I met my fellow teachers for the first time, they would think "oh, great, they sent us someone who doesn't bathe and that all the flies follow". So you can imagine how relieved I was when I got to school and EVERYONE had a million flies on their backs! I didnt know so many even existed. Anyway, I had forgotten about them because 3/4 of of the year they leave, along with the rains, but rainy season is upon us again in full force!





I was talking with a friend/fellow teacher and found out if a woman cheats on her husband, she has to be cleansed before she can sleep with her husband again. This involves stripping her naked in front of some women and some men and performing certain "rites" on her, involving fowl's blood and "performing some things to her private parts". It's a very embarrassing show, and is used to discourage other women from cheating on their husbands. I asked, "yeah, but what if the woman doesnt tell her husband that she cheated on him?" And was told that if a woman cheats without telling her husband she will come down with AIDS-like symptoms but the HIV test will have negative results. She will continue getting sicker and sicker unless she confesses to what she did and with whom. This "juju", as they call these spiritual curses put upon people, is believed so firmly that it is enough to prevent people from doing many things.

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This is me at the Amsterdam airport after far too many hours without sleep! I didn't realize quite how scary I look in the picture until I posted it...but I think it's funny.

This was one of the first meals I ate with my homestay family. I soon figured out that it was not customary for Ghanaians to eat together like this (they were just doing it as a sort of introduction to the family) and I ended up eating most of the meals over the next 10 weeks alone, which I was totally ok with. It also is not customary to talk while eating in Ghana (due to the abundant amount of spices used in the food, they are afraid they will choke if they try and talk while eating) so eating alone is virtually the same experience anyways.

Here is a pic of me and the girls at a spot. Check out the gigantic beers they serve here (for only 1 Ghana Cedi too!).

I took this picture while riding in a car on the way to Bote Waterfalls. At first I was like "shoot I think I accidently got those people that we were passing in the photo", but once I saw it I thought it was a really cool pic.

This is Kukurantumi, the town where I had training. It is right before the daily rain...

A kiss for you!