Please Excuse the Power Outages...

So the power has been going out at very inconvenient times resulting in no blogs for the past two days. So to catch up:

Thursday we went to Accra to go to the bank. We were to the trotro by 5:30am so when we got back to Asamankese, we were both beat from the heat and the long bumpy ride. It was our first time trotroing to Accra, so it will take adjustment. They pack 15-18 people in the car (do NOT leave until they are 100% full) and all those bumps I talked about before? We hit them more than we swayed around them. Remember sitting at the back of the school bus on purpose so that all the bumps seemed bigger and you would bounce higher off of your seat? Ya, that wasn’t so smart on our part when there are bumps every 2 seconds, our ride was 3 hours long and all that is coming through the window is hot sticky air instead of a breeze. It was fun though; Belinda went with us since it was our first time. Now we know where we are going and can do it on our own...we hope...

        Interesting things that happened on the trotro:

        -a fight almost broke out in the street behind it before we even left      Asamankese in the morning (sorry about the tab...won't move)

-a lady came to the door of the trotro begging for money, and a man pushed (literally pushed) her aside

-a lady was preaching into the trotro before we left and had her eyes closed and was just praying super loud. I think this is normal here because cars have huge speakers on top of them that preach to people as well...

-we took a “shortcut” on our way...literally climbed a tiny mountain of rocks. Petra and I just looked at each other wide eyed and all I was thinking was, “Wow, I am GLAD I am not on here alone, because I would definitely be afraid of where this driver is taking me...”

-while we were waiting to leave Accra on the trotro, people come up with their food on their heads and in their hands ready to sell to you. It’s awesome. It’s like a little restaurant, but you don’t have to get out of the car. They come to your window. We had FanMilk. Obviously.

-if anyone buys a lot in Accra that they need to take back with them to Asamankese, they put them in big sacks, and the driver just launches them all on the roof and ties them down. There was  a TON on our roof; I think if it had been to heavy on one side that the whole trotro would have tipped over...

Yesterday (Friday), Belinda taught us to do laundry. No, we don’t have washing machines here. So basically, here is how it goes:

-you take multiple big buckets of water. We used two big basins for “washing”...we would put all our whites into the basin that had some crystallized soap dissolving it in, and then scrub them with a special bar of soap that they sell here. There is a special way to scrub them with your hands. The women here are SO good at it! We have to make sure we scrub the armpits and necklines the best, Belinda says, because that is where you sweat. Gross. Petra and I both refused to let her scrub our underwear and did that ourselves thinking it was kinda weird...

After you have scrubbed an article of clothing in the first basin, you ring it out completely, and put it in the second basin that has crystallized soap in it as well. You rescrub the clothes in there, but just without the bar of soap this time. After that, you ring the article of clothing out again, and plop it into a bucket of clean water to soak. After some time, you ring it out and plop it into another bucket of clean water once more to soak. From there, you hang it on the line.

-you do this for every “colour”/”dark”/”light” stuff that you have.

We have a lot of clothes. My knuckles are raw. I definitely realized how many clothes that I have and will be doing my best to wear the exact same thing, every.single.day. That way, as fun as this learning experience was....I don’t have to do much laundry ever again haha....

Doing laundry. I'm REAL good.

That afternoon, we invited Vida to come over (one of the ladies interested in business classes), and we met her two children as well. Her husband works all day and she works from home as a seamstress, so I will definitely have to visit her!

We walked to the market later on and saw Uncle Ernest sitting outside a shop. It’s nice to walk into town and see a familiar face!

We saw a man who had a shirt with Dwight’s face on it that said “Dwight is my sensei.” I don’t think he watches the office, or realized why we laughed and complimented him on his shirt haha.

We went to find Cynthia at the market and watch her at work. We figured it would be impossible to find a black woman carrying fruit on her head amongst all the others, but we soon realized that we don’t have to find anyone. We standout, 100% and everyone who knows us makes a point to see us and say hi. People who don’t know us do the same.

So, in no time we had found Cynthia with a big platter of “pawpaw” on her head which were stacked in a pyramid so perfect, it would make my boss at the St. Jacob’s Market proud! She showed us where she kept her supply hidden, and we now we have an “inside” group of people at the market. Her hideout is through a corridor between two shops and in behind.

We were looking for an English to Twi translation book and must have looked lost, because a women asked us if we needed her help. She asked us our names, and thought that she and I had the same name. Her name is “Caring” so not quite the same; no one ever understands my name here. She asked us why we were in Ghana, and ended up deciding to come to literacy classes after hearing we were there to teach!! So exciting!!!

We never ended up finding the translation book, but it really didn’t matter anymore.

When we walked home, we stopped at a little shop where the children inside were calling us over. There were 2 girls and 2 boys, and a baby, all under the age of 10. They were manning the shop because their mother was gone! Crazy!

The baby was scared of us because we had white skin...he cried everytime he saw us, and stopped when he turned away...we taught them our names and they could say them really clearly which was exciting!

HAPPY

I have rounded up 3 women for my business class now; all women who have graduated from Melissa’s level 2 literacy classes. Cynthia, Vida and Anita. They have all agreed to come over on Sunday afternoon after church to discuss how the class will work and come up with a schedule. I am very excited now that I know how excited they are. I just hope I am capable of providing them with the knowledge they need. This definitely has to be relevant to them, so it will take a lot of observation, questions and feeling out where they are at at first. It’s a little scary, but I’m definitely looking forward  to the challenge!

The power went out and we went outside to end this very hot day with a FanMilk. Mmm.