(no subject)
This morning the combination of loud children, chickens, and heat woke me at 5:30am. By 7am. my upper lip was covered in beads of sweat and the back of my shirt was soaked through.
I waited on the side of the road outside the orphanage, for a car to take me in to town. Tro-tros (mini-vans that we would have considered unfit for the road 10 years ago, crammed with 5 or 6 rows of seats and filled with more people than you'd think could fit in one - the main transportation within Ghana) passed, flashing their lights at me signalling that they were at maxium capacity. Flailing my wrist at anything that passed, it was 2 hours before the bus finally pulled over. During my wait 2 women had walked by and stopped in front of where I was sitting on a concrete barricade. They proceeded to rattle off in Twi at me, with grand arm gestures and a tone in their voice that made me think they were scolding me for something. One of them continued to point at something beside or behind me, and I finally turned around to see a big fresh poo swarming with black flies, just behind me. My ignorance of the local language save for a few key sentances left me to wonder if they were accusing me of doing it, or telling me I should be sitting elsewhere...I'll never know. Shortly after that a man stopped to talk to me - inquiring my name, age and country of origin. Whenever I tell someone here that I'm 20 I get a strange look, then a look all up and down, and then a drawn out "ahhh!" and I'm never sure if they don't believe me, either thinking I look too old or too young, or I should look different than I do. The man introduced himself and then proposed that he loved me and we should be married at once, all the while grasping my left arm tightly and counting the mosquito bites along it. Though this is a common occurance (the marriage proposal) for any white woman in Ghana, and can usually be shrugged off with a laugh, I was not in the mood this morning, and was able to make him leave in a hurry by telling him that I didn't attend church. Most of the population are devout Christians and it is not only looked down upon to not go to church, it's almost not understood (as if, what DO you do then?) He took off and the bus pulled up shortly after, and I squished in, one more sardine in a can, managaing to stay standing up only because there wasn't a spare inch of room to give.
I am now in Maakro, the junction just before Kumasi, a convenient place to use the internet without having to go all the way in to the city. I will be stopping at a seamstress on the way back to the village, to pick up some clothes that I had made (about $10 for a traditional skirt/top set, 2 other skirts, and 2 pairs of capri pyjama pants) and then paying one last visit to the hospital for a final blood test. The rest of the afternoon will be spent with the kids, and then tonight I will pack and we'll have a sleepover. Tomorrow morning I have to say goodbye and make the long hot journey down to Accra. I'm flying to Johannesburg on Friday night and will be there until Monday - will try and update over the weekend, before Mary and I jet off to Mozambique, otherwise we will be back in Jo'burg around the 17th of June.
I waited on the side of the road outside the orphanage, for a car to take me in to town. Tro-tros (mini-vans that we would have considered unfit for the road 10 years ago, crammed with 5 or 6 rows of seats and filled with more people than you'd think could fit in one - the main transportation within Ghana) passed, flashing their lights at me signalling that they were at maxium capacity. Flailing my wrist at anything that passed, it was 2 hours before the bus finally pulled over. During my wait 2 women had walked by and stopped in front of where I was sitting on a concrete barricade. They proceeded to rattle off in Twi at me, with grand arm gestures and a tone in their voice that made me think they were scolding me for something. One of them continued to point at something beside or behind me, and I finally turned around to see a big fresh poo swarming with black flies, just behind me. My ignorance of the local language save for a few key sentances left me to wonder if they were accusing me of doing it, or telling me I should be sitting elsewhere...I'll never know. Shortly after that a man stopped to talk to me - inquiring my name, age and country of origin. Whenever I tell someone here that I'm 20 I get a strange look, then a look all up and down, and then a drawn out "ahhh!" and I'm never sure if they don't believe me, either thinking I look too old or too young, or I should look different than I do. The man introduced himself and then proposed that he loved me and we should be married at once, all the while grasping my left arm tightly and counting the mosquito bites along it. Though this is a common occurance (the marriage proposal) for any white woman in Ghana, and can usually be shrugged off with a laugh, I was not in the mood this morning, and was able to make him leave in a hurry by telling him that I didn't attend church. Most of the population are devout Christians and it is not only looked down upon to not go to church, it's almost not understood (as if, what DO you do then?) He took off and the bus pulled up shortly after, and I squished in, one more sardine in a can, managaing to stay standing up only because there wasn't a spare inch of room to give.
I am now in Maakro, the junction just before Kumasi, a convenient place to use the internet without having to go all the way in to the city. I will be stopping at a seamstress on the way back to the village, to pick up some clothes that I had made (about $10 for a traditional skirt/top set, 2 other skirts, and 2 pairs of capri pyjama pants) and then paying one last visit to the hospital for a final blood test. The rest of the afternoon will be spent with the kids, and then tonight I will pack and we'll have a sleepover. Tomorrow morning I have to say goodbye and make the long hot journey down to Accra. I'm flying to Johannesburg on Friday night and will be there until Monday - will try and update over the weekend, before Mary and I jet off to Mozambique, otherwise we will be back in Jo'burg around the 17th of June.