The Council of my Underwear

On Wednesday, I did a TON of laundry (this is an accomplishment- you have no idea- it's like lifting weights for an hour...) Hours later, I go downstairs to collect my clean clothes (including lots of unmentionables) from the clothesline, only to find strangers sitting in chairs scattered around the courtyard, nestled in between my dangling clean clothes. Apparently a club had decided to hold a meeting in our courtyard, which is particularly strange seeing as how no one who actually lived in the house was present or aware of their usage of the space.

Apparently Sister Yaa, Mus's cousin, has quite a "Open Door' Policy...

And In Other News...

Apperently, I'm not the only white person who finds the nocturnal activities of certain Ghanaian Christian churches inappropriate. The news reported that in a nearby town, a white man set fire to the amplification system of a church after giving the church repeated warnings to keep the noise down. I guess he's looking at a fine, but I want to see the goevernment start fining these churches for noise pollution and disturbing the peace!

By the way, that's another great thing about our new place- no nearby churches to keep us up all night.

Anyway, Mus and I have settled in- we've cleaned everything, and even refilled the LP tank so we have a gas stove- which I can use to cook for myself! We have to run downstairs to go to the kitchen to cook, but that's ok. We have sink and a kitchen to prepare tea or smoothies or other non-cooked things.

The weather has been terrific. The humidity's gone done, because we're going into the cool and dry season here in Ghana (those terms of course are relative). Lately, Mus and I have been sleeping under a thick blanket without any fan or anything, and today I even wore pants all day. It's been a temperature where Adam could sit outside during the hottest part of the day in his shorts and be reasonably comfortable.

The lady we live with, Sister Yaa is great. She knows everyone- she's really involved in the ruling party here in Ghana, and has tons of connections in the town. She's great about letting us do our own thing- and she's really funny. She has a farm and a garden, so she's always bringing home fresh, tasty produce.

Today she took us to Farmer's Day Celebrations- it's a national holiday here. The celebration was like a scaled down version of a county fair. Everyone brought their best produce in and it was judged and prizes were given. I'm not a huge fan of such events, mainly because Ghanaians LOVE to give speeches, and some people at these events are not good at giving speeches, so there's lots of stammering and confusion (which is cleared up by having a discussion about a person's title during the introducation speech, while the mic is on, with the person behind you...) It goes on forever!

However, today's outing was good for several reasons, the first being that I discovered that they sell tofu in Ghana. Yes, I like tofu. No, I'm not a vegetarian. Yes, I know that's weird.

The other fun part of the day was the skit they had during the LONG presentation (seriously, we stayed there for an hour and a half, and that wasn't even HALF of the presentation). The skit was about fire safety. But before I describe it, I should give you a little background info:

1. As I mentioned before, it's approaching the dry season here.

2. This area is full of farms. Now farms here do not resemble American farms at all. They're more like beautiful little gardens nestled in the rainforest, miles away from the village.

3. Farmers who walk miles to get to their farms usually stay there most of the day and cook lunch there, using their fresh produce and tinder from the woods.

4. Hunters in the rainforest kill these large rodents called grasscutters (they're like the size of a muskrat). The grasscutters live in dens in the ground, like a mole. The hunters find the entrance to the tunnel, and smoke it out, catch it, and kill it for food.

Ok, so the skit was on fire safety, and how it's illegal to use fire in the rainforest this time of year. Picture this: Hundreds of people sitting around a field that's serving as a "stage." In the center of the field is a small grove of banana trees. These "hunters" in the skit start the trees on fire, and then run around after a REAL LIVE RAT through the field, trying to catch it, leaving the trees to burn. The volunteer fire brigade comes running out, holding palm fronds to put out the fire, and meanwhile women in the crowd start yelling and screaming and crying that their farms will be destroyed. A volunteer fireman gets hit by palm frond and falls over and must be carried offstage.

It was absolute pandemonium. And it totally tested my ability to discern between what was real and what was fake on stage. Were the women screaming as part of the skit? I think so, maybe. Did the guy really get hurt? I don't know.

Did those hunters catch their real dinner?

I think they probably did.