Take Two

Wo ho te sen? (this is Twi for "how are you?" it literally means "how is your body?" the response is: Me ho ye. Or, "my body is fine" I can honestly say that this is one of very few phrases I can mutter with correct accent and one I can reply to with confidence. Anyway...my body is fine, and I hope yours is too.)

I have SO many stories! Most are general ridiculousness that would probably only happen to me. For instance: that time it was literally like 100 degrees (Fahrenheit, only like...35 degrees Celsius?) and I was in the hottest classroom in the world (where 3 of my 5 classes are...) and like 17 Ghanaian students all squeeze into MY row, even though there was really only room for about 8 of them, and I was wearing a 100% linen shirt, so I was IMMEDIATELY the really gross white girl with a total sweat band around my shirt and down my back. Gross. And also hilarious in about 10-12 months.

There are also the things like the fact that I might have a toe fungus (they take about a year to go away...too bad its flip flop season ALL THE TIME here,) How my Africa Under Colonial Rule professor hasn't shown up in 2 weeks, however has gone far enough to A.) give enormous reading assignments, and B.) Call the TA in the class after we have been waiting for him for nearly an hour, and tell us that he is on his way and is stuck in traffic, and no one is allowed to leave. This class is 2 hours long, so after an hour and 45 minutes, I decided I needed to leave. I mean seriously. There is also the time when I went into Accra to pick up the package my parents sent me (4 boxes of tampons!!!) and this ridiculous thugged-out Ghanaian guy who apparently thought that a white girl from Sweet Home Oregon would be impressed with his thuginess, (even though neither she nor he probably know anything about WHY "thugs" wear really baggy pants and "bling-bling") and decided to play this third grade game of tag with her (meaning he got up from the counter he was leaning against and tapped her on the shoulder as fast as he could, and then went back to leaning against his counter, maybe hoping she wouldn't see?) But she saw and was completely unimpressed with both the thuginess AND the game of tag she once played with boys on the playground at Oak Heights Elementary School. Sadly, this girl, ME, did not come to Ghana to act like she is 11. Crazy. I know.

Besides the ridiculous, which, let's face it follows me everywhere, things have been pretty tame around here. School has really started, and besides the pretty large amount of reading I have to do for both my Colonial Rule class and my Black Diaspora class, things are very mellow. I did decide to drop my African Literature class as it was both 3 hours long and also the most boring class I have ever taken in my life. I have replaced it with Gender Issues in Religion and Society. Which might turn out to be the most interesting class EVER. Why? You might ask. Well, this class is made up of about 50 people. About 15 are oboruni (white--spelled correctly this time) women, and the other 35 or so are Ghanaian men and women. (Apparently oboruni men know better?) Anyway, the oboruni women and Ghanaian men represent too very opposite sides of the gender spectrum. For example: at one point during the discussion, the scenario was raised that if a Ghanaian family had one boy and one girl, but only enough money to educate one, who would they logically choose? (Obviously they would choose the boy, as men are seen as the providers and women marry and leave the family, so it is the boy who will provide for the larger family unit, etc, etc.) These ideas were voiced in various ways, and then one man raised his hand to say "Well, it would be a waste of time to educate the female." WHAT!!! I could barely believe my ears! To be fair, in the context, and after the other before-mentioned ideas were expressed, this is a somewhat valid statement, however, WHO JUST SAYS THAT???? The answer: Apparently a lot of people. As was soon proven. when "power" was described as a man being able to provide for his family, financially stable women were described as being "disrespectful" to their husbands, and when someone (a guy) made the statement that every woman he knew with children had thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant. I think I am about to learn A LOT about gender culture in Ghana. I am so excited!

Today has been pretty decent thus-far. I took my friend (and by took, I mean accompanied her in a taxi--which she paid for) to the hospital to get her ankle looked at (she tore a ligament during a football game last week) then we went to lunch, talked a lot about ourselves--I learned Becky's mom died when she was 13, and about her religion, Baha'i. I told her about all my plans for the future (which are a forever fluid group of ideas that change intensity and priority almost daily) and later today I am going shopping for food and dishes to accompany my new HOT PLATE! This thing is going to change EVERYTHING! (I hope it will at least help me eat vegetables without getting sick--that would be a pretty big accomplishment.) In other news, I decided not to go forward with Cross Country, but I might be playing women's RUGBY soon. I'll keep you posted. I love you.