"The usual bypasser is a woman sauntering slowly down the road with bundles upon bundles balanced on her head. These women are pillars of wonder, defying gravity while wearing the ho-hum aspect of perfect tedium. They can sit, stand, talk, shake a stick at a drunk man, reach around their backs to fetch forth a baby to nurse, all without dropping their piled-high bundles upon bundles. They are like ballet dancers entirely unaware they are on stage. I cannot take my eyes from them." (from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver)

boubou shopping

Well, yesterday for about the eleventh time I tried to upload pictures to my blog. It has failed each and every time. I have also failed every time I've tried to attach pictures to emails. There is one internet cafe in which I was able to upload a picture once--but I don't go there anymore, because each time I go the guy that works there attempts to ask me out. It's really too bad. So, I guess everyone will just have to wait until I return to the States and be dazzled with all of my pictures at once!

Today I was shopping for boubous...a type of really loose, beautiful housedress...and I had a quintessential Ghanaian experience. I bought one piece from a lady, spoke and bargained with her in Twi, and then explained what sort of boubou I was specifically looking for. She said, "let me take you to the place." So she held my bag and walked me to another woman's shop. I took quite a while making my decision and asking prices, and the lady from the first shop stayed with me the whole time, making sure the seller understood what I wanted. Also, she continued to hold my bag for me the whole time. At one point I told her that I could take the bag--but I knew it would be futile. Ghanaians, when they want to help you, won't hear of anything otherwise. They do this funny thing where they go, "Oh! Oh! No!" as if you've physically hurt them by trying to do something for yourself when they've offered to help. But, yeah, this woman from the first shop just left her shop and spent about twenty minutes helping me make my other purchase. At times like that, I really love this country (and it definitely made up for the frustration yesterday of not being able to upload pictures!).

Next week I am going to be attending a week-long conference put on by the NGO that I will be doing my internship with. It is a conference on women's rights and domestic violence in Ghana. Also, I visited the domestic violence shelter where I'll be working later this semester and all of next semester...it's in a pleasant town about two and a half hours from Accra. I'm looking forward to a more rural lifestyle. Also, I will be living on the premises of the shelter, and I'm looking forward to that, too, as it is set up as traditional compound living. That means that everything is communal. The idea of a nuclear family isn't very Ghanaian, but this type of compound life is much more like a traditional Ghanaian setup.

That's all for today. Oh, except that I was heartbroken to find out about the Cardinals, and also about the crazy Iranian president who wants to wipe out Israel. Someone should tell the New York Times to start printing stories that I will be happy to read from over here!

Atenteben

I had my first lesson in the African flute this afternoon--in Twi the flute is called "Atenteben." It's made out of bamboo, and is held vertically, kind of like a clarinet.

On a different subject, in the past couple of weeks, I have really had time to reflect on the course of my life for the next couple of years (i.e. after graduation from IU). When you don't find yourself "busy" during every waking moment, it turns out that there is time to actually think about your life, and the direction you want it to go. Both my mom and my aunt have been talking to me about international law, so I've spent a lot of time toying with that as a future career possibility.

But, believe it or not, I've also become pretty convinced that I want my career to be focused on the U.S. Not that I don't want to be internationally-minded; it's just that local organizations seem to be so much more effective that foreign organizations that sweep into African countries, deciding who needs help and what sort of help they need. So, rather than trying to decide what Africans need as part of my career, I am thinking more along the lines of finding out what my own communities at home need the most--something like the DV organization that I volunteer at in Bloomington.

The other night when the electricity was out, my host family's kids started telling stories. It was neat to see how much storytelling is still part of the culture, even though I'm in a relatively urban area. They eventually asked me to tell a story, so I did my best to tell the story of Beauty and the Beast--they really seemed to enjoy it.

I've continued to really enjoy the culture here. One thing I really like is that people of the same sex hold hands and put their arms around each other's shoulder--and nothing about it is seen as strange. There is much more touching in general here, which I must say I don't really mind. Sometimes I smile to myself as I am squished up against an African while riding in a trotro :).

By the way, Ghana qualified for the World Cup this last Saturday--woo-hoo! I am pretty excited to be here during this time. Also, I can't help but mention that the Cardinals are doing well, too--so I'm happy for both Ghana and St. Louis :).

I'll leave you with a quote:
"I began to understand the futility of charity in Africa. It was generally fueled by the best of motives, but its worst aspect was that it was noninspirational. Aliens had been helping for so long and were so deeply entrenched that Africans lost interest--if indeed they ever had it--in doing the same sort of work themselves. Not only was there no spirit of volunteerism, there was no desire to replace aid workers in paying jobs. Yet many Africans were unemployed, doing nothing but sitting under trees." (from Dark Star Safari by Paul Thoreaux).

traditional engagement ceremony

I want to describe a really neat ceremony that I got to witness recently...it was a traditional engagement ceremony. Even though we think of "engagement" as preceding marriage, this ceremony acts as the final one in the process of marrying. The bride and groom each have their own entourage of people, represented first and foremost by a group of men who are either family members or close family friends. When I went, it was hard for me to tell who were "friends" and who were "family members," because the definition of "family" is much different here. For example, I didn't find out until the ceremony was almost over that the "father" of the groom wasn't the blood-father...rather, he was a close family friend standing in for the father. Interestingly, the groom himself wasn't even present for the ceremony...he was out of the country!

Each side has a spokesperson, and there is sort of set "script" that the spokespeople go through. First the bride's spokesperson asks why the groom's family has come. The groom's spokesperson replies that they have seen a beautiful flower and have come to look at her. Eventually the groom's family presents the bride's family with gifts, including minerals (soda), alcohol, cloth, jewelry, and more. The alcohol is later drunk by the representatives of the bride's family as a way of witnessing/officially recognizing the event.

Eventually the bride is fetched from inside the house and brought out...she is later moved from her side of the family to the groom's side, to show that she has become part of the groom's family. The whole ceremony has much more of an emphasis on the family than on the individuals.

It was really interesting to compare this traditional engagement ceremony with the more Westernized marriage ceremony that I saw in Kumasi during my second week here.

more "everyday" events...

"Traveling makes one modest--you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." (Flaubert)

This quote came up in the book I've been reading since I arrived in Ghana: Dark Star Safari, by Paul Thoreaux. He is a travel writer, and this book describes a trip in which he starts in Cairo and travels all the way to South Africa. It's been really interesting for me to read while living in Africa, because even though he doesn't go through West Africa where I am, a lot of the culture is similar.

Last week I was babysitting the kids one night, and they were just staring at the TV. I thought, enough of this, let's get their brains working. So I brought out a deck of cards, with the intention of teaching them how to play Go Fish. To begin, I shuffled the cards...and then we never got past that point! They were fascinated with the shuffling, so we spent the next hour just shuffling cards :).

I am growing really attached to my family here. I've been living with them for about one month now. My host mom has a really good sense of humor, and likes to laugh. Sometimes she will start telling me a story, and will start laughing so hard that she can hardly get the story out. And, of course, it's that contagious kind of laughter, so I always find myself laughing along with her.

I haven't described my room here--I have a room to myself, which is usually the kids' room. It's pretty nice--there are a lot of windows, so I get a little bit of breeze, but it's still pretty hot in there. I sleep the way Ghanaian women sleep, with just an African cloth covering me rather than a whole sheet.

I've also been dressing more nicely here than I ever do in the states. Each day I wear a skirt and blouse, and I still sometimes feel like I'm a bit too casual. But, yesterday while at the Batik-making place, I picked out two African cloths, so I'm going to have some outfits made.

Usually to buy cloth you go to the market--which is, I think, the most interesting place you can go in and around Accra. The market is absolutely filled with activity, and people, and smells, and you have to be able to bargain...but you can get things much cheaper there than anywhere else. Next week I'm planning on going to buy some Nigerian lace (another beautiful type of cloth you see a lot here). I'm getting much better with the bargaining, thanks to the Twi classes...speaking Twi has also allowed me to have some really interesting conversations with some of the market women.

Anyway, I think the only other piece of interesting news is that I bought an African flute, and I'm going to start taking lessons next week...finally I will have a musical outlet! (I really miss my violin, and my iPod :) )

details of everyday life

I've realized that there are a lot of details that I am starting to take for granted, that might be interesting to you guys back in the States. One of the biggest parts of my life here are the smells...wonderful smells mixed with rancid ones. Near my family's apartment, each afternoon there is the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread. I feel almost like I am eating the bread as I walk home each day, because the smell is so pungent.

The other smell that I smell every day, but don't enjoy, is the exhaust from trotros Trotros are those tiny "buses" that I described earlier--they are the most broken-down vehicles you can imagine, yet miraculously still run--and man do they put out some exhaust. There are definitely no regulations in Ghana about exhaust.

Speaking of trotros, unfortunately I was in a trotro accident last week. Really it was more of a "bump" than an accident, but it was definitely the most stressed-out I've felt since arriving in Africa. I was with my host mom and the kids in a trotro, on the way to an evening church service. We were in the worst traffic I've ever witnessed in my life, and everyone was trying to nudge in front of everyone else. Basically, neither my trotro driver nor the other driver was willing to give way, so their sides sort of scraped. Not a fun experience.

Traffic here is a whole different experience, because not only are you crowded on all sides by trotros and taxis, but your windows are crowded by people trying to sell things--water, plantain chips, tiger nuts, t-shirts, chewing gum...most people carry things on their head, or hold it in their hands, and crowd around the trotro window, getting right in your face and calling out what they're selling.

Ok, enough for today. I will share more details later...

a baobob tree and village kids

Recently I have been to a small village to see an archaeological excavation site. The site is an old Danish slave plantation. On our way to the site, a couple of interesting things happened...first, we passed a huge baobob tree that used to be the site of the slave village. On the Danish plantations here, the slaves lived in their own small villages on the plantations. The baobob tree was where the elders in the village met to discuss issues and make decisions.

Later, closer to the excavation site, we had to pass through a small village. It looked like not more than 20 people could have lived there, but as people started coming out of their homes, I realized that there were more than I first believed.

Because the excavation site is technically on this village's land, we got the opportunity to go and greet the village chief! We had to get his permission to go and view the ruins.

While we were walking up to the site, there were a bunch of little kids from the village who tagged along, trying to hold our hands and get our attention. I think I paid more attention to the village girl that held my hand the whole time than to the archaeologist telling us about the site!

I got sick earlier this week...my first sickness since arriving in Africa. But I quickly recovered, with the time tested cure of SLEEP. I have been surprisingly tired here, because I sweat so much every day and because simple tasks take so much patience and sometimes physical exertion.

Tomorrow I am going to learn how to make Batik cloth, an African traditional cloth. Watch out, I'm going to have the wardrobe of an African by the time I come back to the States!