Monday, we went out to visit Beacon House. Not even 10
minutes away, it’s super easy to get to via taxi and a little walking. The kids were napping when we visited, but a
few were awake. When we walked by, one
of them was smiling real big, finger in mouth, kind of rocking back and forth.
Probably 4 years old. One of the girls
finally coaxed him across the room and whispered to him a little bit. He never
stopped smiling. A second boy of about
the same age unblinkingly stared at Sarah as she put her blonde hair up in a
pony tail. I leaned over and said, “He’s watching you.” “He’s probably not seen
it before,” she responded with a half smile.
The third little boy, maybe 3 years, we’d seen earlier and he just waved
good bye. Kids are the best. They’re the same everywhere. I went to the night market to get food the
other evening. As I was leaving, a 3-4
year old girl walked in front of me. She
walked over to the stalls with her little teddy bear strapped to her back just
like a mama with a baby. Seeing her
reminded me of my sister and me when we were little with our baby dolls,
slings, and strollers. They’re just the
same.
Water was off for about 36 hours last week; electricity out
for another day. For two days, we lived
as the students in all the dorms on campus do: bucket showers, flushing the
toilet with a small bucket of water, carrying water upstairs from the courtyard
cistern for cooking and cleaning. I
assumed that because this was a university and ISH had running water, everyone
did. But they don’t. Now, I’ve learned
to take advantage of and appreciate showers and to keep a bucket of water handy
in the room, especially with living on the top/fourth floor.
Though I came to Ghana with the intention of learning about
and experiencing Ghanaian culture, and I am, the evenings sometimes seem like a
double immersion. Recently, the evenings
have been spent learning just as much about black culture in America from some
of the ISEP girls and our pseudo-sister program,
Missouri-Africa. The discussions are far from dull, and
opinions loud and proud.
Cooking has become a daily activity. Last night, I talked to a girl about how to
keep rice from sticking to the pot and about her bread. I saw her place it in the pot and asked her
about it. “I’m toasting the bread. You
just heat the pot and put the slices in since there isn’t a toaster,” she
said. I pointed to a white tube on the
counter. “What is that? Butter?” “Oh,
this is chocolate spread,” she said squeezing some of the brown goo out. I have to find some of that. Maybe it’s cheaper than nutella.
Some of the cooking projects that have come up are: cookie/dough
(something like Pillsbury in our minds) over the hot plates and dipping it in
butter, sugar, and cinnamon; frying thin potato slices to make chips.
I just had my first real conversation with my roommate. And
you know what? She’s pretty cool! "I don't talk very much. If you say something, I'll respond, but otherwise I don't say much," Esi said. Turns out we
aren’t that different after all. :)
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