Becoming freeeeee

This week was more or less pretty up and down. I was terribly sad to take Hailey to the airport; but I had a hamburger and French fries in Accra so it wasn't a total let down. But her leaving is sucky, and I'm starting to feel the effects of it now. I've been in Ghana 9 weeks today and that's crazy. People here always tell me, "you're so free...you're so free" and I guess looking back its true I am pretty free here. Though sometimes it still gets annoying when random guys hiss or hit on me from a distance I am in pretty control of my environment and happy about where I am at with it! I met another American this week named Star, and my goodness am I thankful more than ever about my choice in two weeks with ProWorld in Cape Coast first because it taught me the basics I needed for my internship program in Jasikan after and just overall safety here in Ghana. She went through a pretty sketchy program but it was dirt cheap so why not give it a try. Well safety for one. Her orphanage kids have tried to steal the money she has several times right out of her bag and in the middle of the night in her room; plus the corrupt care takers are the ones sending them in the first place. She doesn't want them to receiving beatings so she doesn't tattle on them, and I completely understand where she's coming from. Besides that she's has a few safety concerns in other respects and sometimes feels uncomfortable overall. I understand that too, sometimes it's not easy being here. The things you would think get to you the most such as limited power, humidity or heat, no air conditioning, no easy tap drinking water, no running water period, no public bathrooms, no personal bathrooms (outhouses are big in the villages), no hot water, limited foods, being the small small minority, or even the fact that everything is so far away from each other maybe could get to you...but no, those are some of the easiest things to adjust to here. The difficulties can be the way some people make you feel for not understanding something, the insecure feeling you get when every one is laughing at you when you are just trying to fit in by attempting to learn the language, or when you dance with the kids everyone makes fun of you, or when they point and stare at you on the streets, or very loudly say white lady white lady to call to you, or sometimes when they do the "brah" hand jester to come and they look like you need to come right now or else. No matter what country you're in, when people single you out on the streets, it makes anyone uncomfortable, Ghana isn't any different in that respect. But being a foreigner anywhere must be so daunting for some, especially if they are more introverted like Star and I. Because in Ghana, they thrive on survival of the fittest. You either speak up or get out. A tro tro won't stop at your stop, unless you tell it to because usually they are going to certain destinations and don't know where people are ultimately going. A taxi wont know where you want to go even if you've said "market" because there are so many parts of the market so you just have to say "driver right here," when you want to get you. Nothing is free, everything is a haggle unless it's at an actual storefront where prices are already labeled, and everyone will grab for you to take their taxi or their tro tro to your destination. 

My randomly favorite occurrence happened this week when I was dropped off from Ho at Ho Hoe and I was waiting for the usual share taxi to Jasikan. Well the market ladies know me well by now and even some of the taxi drivers too, but Friday a man who I hadn't seen before came up and grabbed my arm and said JASIKAN LET'S GO! And I asked how much, and all the women laughed because they know I've been here for some time now and have to fight with someone almost everyday to tell them I'm not paying over 2 cedis and 50 pesewas to get home. And usually when I say that the guys know I'm not ignorant to their game and let it go, but this guy grabbed me and said don't worry, its drop, lets go. But I replied no drop, I'll wait and took his hand off my arm and walked away. Then he repeatedly tried to come in front of me and tell me that he wanted to take me. I almost had a throw down with him in the station because he wouldn't give until a guy who always sees me at the station pushed the guy away and said leave it alone. Oh how the knights with shining armor come out of the woodworks when an obruni is in trouble. I got in my little clay corner by the Jasikan spot and waited for the next driver. It's amazing how in 9 weeks you can go from having a similar situation and being scared out of your wits to the next one and you're ready to duke it out to get them off of you. Haha it's crazy the empowerment you feel after that. But no matter what the attention we get in Ghana as women is always more than we'd like; everyone wants to touch our hair, touch our skin, hold our hand, and since they think we have boatloads of money they ALWAYS want us to buy them something. Every time one of the elders sits at the site I live on, she asks if I've brought her something. The funny thing is last time she asked me to buy chocolate I did, as a gift to say thank you for being so welcoming; but to hear it every time now, I just get frustrated with myself. 

But onto way better and more important things about here in Ghana: THE AMAZING FOOD!! Well as I wrote you all a longer version of the food here, there's a few more things I've tried here that I just have to mention! One: fufu- its a very doughy Ghanaian dish that they have for breakfast, lunch or dinner and it can be prepared with a light soup, groundnut soup, pound soup, and well just more soups haha. It's mixed with pounded cassava (or yams) and plantains. It's yummy because the soups are usually spicy, but I'll admit because they use a fufu stick (a thick cylinder staff that's about 3 feet long, which has a soft bottom with small small little sticks sticking out from the staff) some of the pieces of stick get into the fufu all the time and when you see it you get a little freaked out haha. But it's sooooo good. Not as good as banku but it's up there for sure. Next is watchet: a rice and beans mixture that is nothing like the standard Hispanic rice and beans and I'm all the more happier because of it haha. It's good and spicy but since it has rice so I try to avoid eating it lol. Then there's kenke, which is pounded maize and a spicy little sauce with it. Yummy too!! Then there's a sweet pounded maize treat with sugar called Albico or something like that. It's not my favorite thing because of the texture but almost everyone loves it. Of course there's the little street foods that I love such as hard boiled eggs with peppe (they slit the egg in half for you and add this onion and spicy mix to make probably one of my favorite things here!!) then there are these very standard meat pies that are 95% bread but they're actually really warm and good. In addition there's these sweet bread doughnut type items that are seriously perfect when you want something sweet or even fanice which is just like vanilla ice cream but comes in many favors like chocolate, yogurt strawberry, or even a more tropical ice choice. All pretty good, but everyone always has a favorite. The bread here is really sweet and an acquired taste to some foreigners but I absolutely love it and it's my favorite thing to have with my Milo in the morning. Women are often selling bread cookies everywhere that sometimes look great but just too much for me. It's funny though how at tro tro stations, women will even have "take-away" boxes of traditional Ghanaian food. It's usually white rice and some type of protein but it always makes me laugh; it gives fast food a whole new meaning because the women come up to the tro tro instead of you driving to them. There's a few other things I haven't tried that look yummy like the meat ka-bobs, or the seafood ka-bobs which Hailey thought might me muscle. Then there's these weird pieces of meat dipped in a red sauce on a stick that look pretty interesting too. Popcorn is everywhere and so are toffees and mentos but I'm not a fan of any of that so I keep away. 

And I'm excited because this week sfter 13 hours of travel I finished my class and my Peace Corps invitation should be here any day now so soon I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get things faxed and sent etc but all in good time. Just going with the flow as much as possible. If there's one thing you learn here, its that time means nothing; even though the taxis and tro tros drive crazy fast, they still take time to fill up, they take time to actually start driving, and they take even more time to try and find a parking spot in the rush hour traffic haha. No ones ever really in a rush, nothing leaves in the time you think it will, everything has its own clock and you get used to waiting or you don't survive haha. I sometimes think I was born for Ghana because of how well I adjusted to the more patient slow life here. I'm interested to see how I adjust to Fiji; I still can't believe I'll be there in 8 weeks. So much to do in that time, so many things I'm going to need to get! As soon as I get my invitation I'm going to send out a packing list to see if anyone can donate some items so I don't break my families bank trying to buy everything. Well like I said my week has been pretty uneventful, but I did hang out with some of my teacher friends the other night which was cool. It was only the guys though and I felt a little self conscious at first but I was with my friend Kofi Boyo so I felt a little safer knowing he was there. Then I did have an encounter with the king of cockroaches that has been terrorizing Hailey and I since we got here, oommg. I screamed bloody murder and had my next door neighbors come and  kill it for me! Though the mosquitos aren't as bad here as they are in Cape Coast THE ants are 10x worse because their bites actually hurt instead of just itching. If you're interested I'm some Ghanaian music there's really good tunes out there such as: waist and power by 4X4, be with you by Akon, chop my money and roll with it by p-square, swagger by ruff-n-smooth, Azonto by fuse dog feat tiffany, sorkode by keche, plus everyone here LOVES Shakira's Waka Waka song haha. Can't believe I'm here for another 6 weeks, feels like time is flying by!! I miss everyone back home so much and love all the Facebook posts and emails y'all write to me!! Please keep them coming <3 see you soon!! 

Happy reading!