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.

My New Home

Mus and I have moved to the mountains. I'm sure many of you are aware that this would happen, since I talked about it nonstop before I left, but I wanted update you guys now that I"m here.

It's great to be here. At first, it took a little time to adjust my expectations, since Mus exaggerated the condition of our accomodations a little bit. (I was thinking of something well-maintained by American standards. Really, the apartment was more or less abandoned and really needed some cleaning.)

Still, we gave it a good cleaning, and we're a bit more settled now. It's actually the nicest accomodations I've had here for any extended period of time, and it's also the most settled I've felt here- I even decorated our room!



I'm happy to be here for many reasons:
a) The scenery is amazing. Our village of Obo is about 1 and a half times the popoulation of Montello, and it's settled in this little bowl up in the mountains. We're surrounded by low ridges on all sides and these ridges are covered in rainforest full of butterflies, birds, and monekys. Every night I fall asleep to the loudest hum of frogs and crickets I've ever heard. We've done some hikes- hopefully we'll do more soon. Em, I don't know how you ever climbed the Andes- these tiny little hills by comparision) are kicking my butt!

b) The weather is great. Temeperatures vary from high 60s to low 80s. The humidity is a little high right now, but will go down once the Harmattan arrives. The typical weather here: Sunrise- you don't actually see the sun rise. Instead, you watch the clouds roll down the mountains. by 9AM, the clouds clear and it's bright an sunny. Mid afternoon, it starts to cloud up again, and often you can hear thunder or get rain showers. Today is the first substantial rainfall since we arrived last Wednesday, and everyone's calling it "a drought" because it's been 6 days without much rain!

c) The lady we live with, Mus's cousin, is amazing. She reminds me of Loly Thiele. She's 60 and she's bubbly and energetic and kind and fun. She and I don't talk much due to the language barrier, but she makes me feel very welcome and we manage to joke arounda bit anyway. Oddly enough, she raises giant snails, but as they're quieter than chickens, I don't really mind.

This is actually a snail egg! It's like the size of a bird's egg.

This isn't even the biggest they get!

These are smaller ones eating leftover fruit.




d) The community has totally welcomed us. This is Mus's hometown- his great great great great grandfather founded the town, and his paternal grandfather was the former chief here. Mus's Dad is on the council of Elders still. He's literally related to almost everyone in the town.

e) The food is fresh and cheap *think pineapple and papaya or banana and peanut butter smoothies- YUM!* Transportation is readily available. We're saving so much money up here.
f) Our lifestyle is very relaxed up here. We spend our time reading, walking, cooking, cleaning, and watching TV.

g) We almost always have electricity (sometimes it goes out during the thunderstorms) and so far we always have running water. These are things I'm a big fan of.



h) Adam would love it here. It's full of old, abandoned houses (like the one across the street from us in the picture below). Many of these houses are rumoured to be haunted. WARNING: There is no way in Ghana to break into a house without the whole village knowing- even an old abandoned one. However, if you bring someone along who speaks Twi, the chances of you talking your way out of troubel are excellent, as most Ghanaians have the broad assumptions that "Obrunis" are good, honest people.









Still, there's a few things I'm not a fan of. I think the biggest one is the carpeting. Ghanaians rarely own vaccuum cleaners. Therefore, carpeting is a really, really bad idea. Our hallway skeezes me out a lot- it's carpeted and filthy, and I have no way to clean it. So I wear flip flops everywhere. (Why am I getting so prissy in my old age?)



Also, the whole neighborhood is full of roosters. Aaaaa!!! There has to be some way to humanely remove a rooster's larynx. Ideas, anyone?

This is the front of our house.

Here's our courtyard, complete with my drying underwear...

And lazing dog. This dog was terrified of me for along time. I would go to pet her, and she'd clamp hertail between her legs and crouch like she was certain that I was a savage abomination of nature and surely would eat her.

Now she's warmed up to me and we'refriends. Her name is Yennka, which means literally "We Don't Speak." The name is supposed to reference a proveb, I don't really get the proverb though...

This is what our apartment looks like right as you come up the stairs. The open door is our bedroom. There arelots of locked doors in the house that I don't know where they go. I think I counted 7 mystery doors the other day.

This is a nearby kiln that has been turned into a garbage incinerator.

Our Kitchen.

Here's our living room. We hardly use it... Mus and I are usedto sharing one small room, and so we get nervous if we spend too much time in seperate rooms, as if we've somehow misplaced the other person.

We mostly use the living room as a means to get to our balcony, where we sit in these chairs like an octogenerian couple.

Here's the view from our balcony.

Bathroom

Our Christmas tree in the bedroom (Complete with Gilmore Girls!)More bedroom pics to follow.

Lately we've been having a visitor over for dinner...

Here's the village of Obo later in the day, when the mist has burned off...

This picture of the rainforest was taken by Mus.