Churchie Church, Church.

Happy Easter. I think it’s holidays like this that really make me miss being home. I miss being able to go to my home church, sing songs in English, hear the traditional brass instruments...

Ghanaians don’t do “family” things for Easter. They just go to church for an extra hour and a half...

This blog may make me seem SUPER frustrated with life here, but I do really like it here. I have just had an exhausting and frustrating day. Blogging has helped unleash some of that frustration.

We got up this morning and I had to iron my dress...I wasn’t going to, but Auntie Joe said that I should. I’m just glad she couldn’t see the ketchup stain from last week and the spot where I spilt tea on it this morning...yup. I am SUPER clean. Blah.

We got to church around 9:30am. They were singing praises and playing music and there was a little boy in a John Deere t-shirt playing the drums. He couldn’t have been more than 4 years old, he was pretty talented!

The choir director was all decked out with his little plastic keyboard that had a tube attached to it which he blew into to keep it running...strange? He also had sunglasses on...inside...he looked like Kanye...

The women’s group had traded their white tops and black skirts from Good Friday to all white wear with white cloth on their heads as well, for Easter.

The congregation was LOVING the music this morning so dance time went a little longer. We had to dance at the front for a good 20 minutes.  A little intimidating at first, but you definitely get into it. Besides, if you don’t dance, you have Auntie Joe dancing towards you and saying, “are you feeling shy? Come and dance. Follow me,” and off she dances to the front. Might as well follow.

Doris was there, Felix and Smart were there. The Minister of Education was there.  It was nice to see familiar faces.

After that came the rough part. As soon as praises are done, comes the 3 hours of talking in Twi. Today, that meant 4 hours. It was a challenge.

First they called the Harvest Committee up...we didn’t know that this was happening until I started looking around and reading a little pamphlet that a man was holding from far away. Of course, Auntie Joe and Auntie Julie were on it...so were about 40 other members of the congregation, who they called up one by one, stating their name and what group of the church they were leaders for. They all sat in chairs on the left side of the stage for the rest of the service.

Then came the half an hour long prayer.

Next was the sermon. That wasn’t so bad...I people watched and journalled through the whole thing anyway. The pastor said, “Petra” in the middle of his sermon and we thought we better pay attention. I don’t think he was actually talking about Petra, but it caught our attention. Halfway through, we looked at the clock and Petra whispered, “this is NOT going to be done before 1pm.” We were getting ansy.

Next came the offering. There were about  7 of them while a man SCREAMED some stuff into the microphone while trying to get more money in the bowls. It was at this point that I bailed. It was super hard to breath in that church and I was not able to sit still for any longer listening to Twi. I think my little heart issue was acting up again because I was NOT okay during that church service. I just got up and left for a bit to sit outside.

When I came back in after about 20 minutes, it was announcement time. For an hour. I know this sounds bitter, but Petra and I were exhausted and just tired of not being able to understand what was going on. I realized how hard it is to sit like a lady and definitely was sitting in a dress with my knees up on the pew in front of me. If I did this in church at home my dad would have smacked my legs down...you just TRY and get me from here, Dad. Hehe.

I looked around and noticed many people in the congregation had their eyes closed and looked like they were sleeping, so I decided to join them. Of course, they just had their eyes closed and were listening as I was slowly falling asleep...but they didn’t know that...

This evening I had class. It was supposed to start at 2pm, but all the churches in the town closed pretty late (ours closed at 1:30pm...blah) and I welcomed a later start when the women didn’t show up. For some reason, church services just WIPE us out and make us exhausted for like 2 hours afterwards. I am so looking forward to church services back home!

We learned about financial statements in class and they are working on making their own income statements and balance sheets with as much information as they could gather. They have been collecting information on their revenues and expenses since near the start of when I arrived, so we are working on it. They are definitely adjusting well and that makes me excited!

26 DAYS TIL HOME! THIS IS NUTSSSS!

The countdown!