Part One: Fire

This is a journal entry from Sunday, March 22:

Yesterday, was a FANTASTIC DAY. Two of my housemates and I woke up early and walked the 45 minute walk to the mall. I needed to buy a few more balls for soccer...

(sidenote: I started coaching a soccer club for the school. 6th through 12th graders, plus a few teachers come out to play. We've had two practices so far and I now have quadruple the respect for my coaches growing up because it is a LOT more planning time than I expected. Added challenges are sand instead of grass, ravines in the middle of the field, no assistant coaches, an age range of 12-25 year olds, skill range of beginners not knowing how to pass the ball to fast technical players who grew up playing the game, the African afternoon heat, every Ghanaian I tell, laughs in my face that I, a girl, am the coach of ANY team let alone a team with boys.)

We all needed to stock up on groceries, to purchase shelves for our rooms, and to get some exercise. We headed off on our walk, fully slathered in sunscreen. Amanda, Elyse and I have become so comfortable with each other that we enjoy just trekking in silence. Our first stop was the banana lady 10 minutes up the road. Elyse had one with no spots and told us how exciting that was for her. We joined in with the proper amount of enthusiasm. We continued while unpacking our change to tip the two civilians with red cloth who volunteer to stand at either end of the one-lane tunnel and direct traffic. We walked through at a quick pace just inches away from the cars that sped by as if we weren't there at all. On the other side of the tunnel a line of traffic waited for their turn to pass through. As we walked by, the common, "Obruni, mu koing?" questions were thrown at us. Where are we going? We're walking...LEAVE US ALONE FOR ONCE! is all we wanted to say, but ignoring and enjoying each others company seems to work just fine. A few hundred more yards and it's up the never ending hill. Good news though, up this hill, on either side, there are the shelves we've been looking for! Wicker baskets and chairs, entertainment units, intricately and uniquely African-carved bed frames, and the ever-present animal shaped wood carvings were all waiting on the side of the road with their respective creators and the promise of a "quick" polish before you take away this beautiful piece of craftsmanship. After a few stops, we found precisely what we were looking for and promised to come within the hour to pick up and pay for our items after our shopping mall trip had commenced.

Finally we were up the never ending hill. We had passed areas selling garden-needs, auto-accessories, home-made honey, stone pillars, a Kente-weaving spot (popular Ghanaian cloth=very expensive), more wood carving shops, an artist who sells painted portraits of celebrities, a parked truck with stickers of every Ghanaian gospel singer plastered to its sides and gigantic speakers in the bed, blasting the current favorite, a line of cars/semi-trucks/tro-tros building up as the mall and the round-about neared, plenty of roadside walkers with anything from plantain chips to hubcaps balanced on their head for sale, a line of stalls selling fruit, juices, spices, rice and beans and fixings, new and used footwear, rows and rows of football jerseys, anything else you might be in need of, and none of it with price tags, but just about everyone knowing exactly how much it all should cost.



We picked up a water sachet



that we finished in seconds and made our way up the stairs to the entrance. Our first stop was Game, which is a South African chain store and is basically like an overpriced Target without a lot of what Target has. We picked up some soccer balls, receiving plenty of laughs because of our gender, a few items on sale because they were about to expire, and headed to the check out. On our way there we spotted our administrator's wife, Joyce, and our school's project manager, Laurie (who is also the woman that provides me with incredible bran muffins on a monthly basis). Naturally, we threw a couple balls at them to get their attention, they turned around and laughed and consequently offered us a ride home!! BEST NEWS EVER!! (Getting a taxi home from the mall is quite frustrating, they have some sort of union that says no matter where you go, you pay a minimum of 5 cedis. FOr the distance to our house, we should pay just 2 cedis. We usually end up walking a quarter of a mile with all our groceries and our fingers falling off before we fetch a good price). With this news, we made a quick stop in another store, and went to load our stuff in the CAR! We were holding car keys in our hands for the first time in months! It felt good; we took turns. Although, we couldn't drive it, we felt VERY cool sitting inside it with the windows down while we waited for our ladies to finish their shopping.

On the way home we had to stop to pick up our freshly varnished shelves. The first one fit snugly when we took off the headrests to the back seat. Then came the packed clown-car feel when the second one was inserted. I had to move up and squish in the front while Elyse and Amanda sat where just half-a-person should have fit.



The new varnish emanated through the entire vehicle, burning our eyes and throats, adding to the slightly euphoric feeling we were currently experiencing.

After a few pictures and a lot of laughs, we released the girls from their captivity. All this great stuff had happened and it was only 12:00!!! The afternoon was full of rest, reading, and sleeping. Dinner was great because of our awesome Saturday-sale buys and then something great happened. Five of us were sitting at the dinner table, talking and laughing for about two hours! It was better than candy. A few evening plans had been canceled and we decided we would watch Diehard together instead. Before it began we were just having such a good time chatting. How do you explain fun like that? The kind of conversation that you know God is listening to because it's just so hilarious. The kind that demonstrates just why humans are so much cooler than animals. After the dishes were washed we all settled in comfortably to watch our movie.

We were basking in John McClane's awesomeness when with 20 minutes to go, Satan stepped in. He knew us Christians were just high on life over here, so he decided to stop it by cutting off our power. It's now 8am and after a sleepless, HOTTER-THAN-THE-CORE-OF-THE-EARTH night, the power is still off. When the three of us girls that lived downstairs found each other at 6am in the kitchen, we were on to Satan and really SHOWED HIM by having ourselves a good time! :) We decided to make pancakes because that involved the least ingredients from the slowly warming fridge. With quick ninja-like reflexes we were able to open the fridge only once for a total of 3 seconds, grabbing the butter, powdered sugar and fruit (syrup is too expensive). Our candlelit pancake breakfast was delicious after we re-discovered the gas side of our stove. During breakfast we put together a list of why we love Ghana to keep from dwelling on the negative. I will finish this extraordinarily long post with that list of things and an apology for the length of time it has been since my last post. Sorry all!

WHY WE LOVE GHANA:
-plantain chips
-Gari Fotor (yummy Ghanaian dish)
-Yam balls
-5 cent bags of water anywhere
-cheap beach travel
-weather for the pool year-round
-easy access to cheap jewelry
-BBC on radio 24/7
-no need to impress
-cheap material and seamstress work
-excitement when the rain cools everything down and brings wind
-meeting people from all over the world, constantly
-walking a lot
-Hamartan Season (cool dry weather)
-waterfalls
-good friends with similar passions
-bananas and peanuts
-oranges on the side of the road
-buying anything from a car window
-the cool students :)
-new yoga habits
-cheap wine
-value of dollar vs. cedi
-nice dark abs walking around all over the place
-Ghanaian smiles (huge teeth and laughter)
-we're tan
-FANICE
-FANYOGO
-FANCHOCO (these are three different types of bags of ice cream that are driven around on bicycles with horns and only cost 40 cents!)
-good testing ground for our beginner cooking
-INCREDIBLE, WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, AMAZING HOUSEMATES :)

With love,
Meg

P.S. Only 18 more days until we go to Europe
P.P.S. I have good friends of mine coming to visit in less than two weeks, please pray for their safe travel.
P.P.P.S. With the added time soccer will take, I am getting quite near my over-the-top level of stress. So also prayers for proactivity with my work and finding ways to de-stress myself. Thank you!
P.P.P.P.S. I miss you all SOOOOOOOOOOO much!