Jumping Ladders

So....apparently The Ladder Theory is something everyone knows about. I had never heard about it tonight, but I just think it's so great. Annnnddd I never blog, so maybe it's a good thing to blog about?

So the ladder theory is about how guys and girls are attracted to each other. Guys have one ladder, and girls have two ladders.

The girls' have a 'potential' ladder and a 'friend' ladder.

Guys have one ladder, simply put- a 'girls they would have sex with' ladder.

When a girl first meets a guy, they are immediately placed on either the 'friend' or 'potential' ladder. This sucks for most guys, because they don't know what ladder they're placed on. And girls are just as willing to invest time into their friend ladder as they are their potential ladder, so sometimes it's hard to figure out which ladder you're on.

Guys have one ladder, the higher a girl is on this ladder, the more they want to have a relationship with her and the more time they invest in her. The lower, the less attracted they are to her, and the less attention she gets.

Now when I heard this theory I thought it was so great a did a little research on it. Most of the sites I went to said guys can never switch from one ladder to the other, but I totally think they can they can. Way easily, even on a daily basis. I think girls are constantly changing which ladder they put guys on. I also think they can start out on the friend ladder and get so high the ladders eventually meet, or they can start out as the same ladder, and grow apart so they're just on the friend ladder.

Isn't that just so great?? I love that theory! Also, it explains why every girl in this video below says girls and guys can be just friends.

hate

I hate blogging. I suck at making stuff cute. The end.

Industrial Design (...or crafts)

So I've been majorly into crafts lately. But like, not just crafts with paper and stuff. Big, building type crafts. Me and Lauren Cole have been into Industrial Design lately. (Hopefully that is her new major!) It's soooo fun. I love doing stuff like this. We just moved in together and we've really transformed our apartment! Most of the things we've hung up have been made by us. Here are the things we've done so far, but we're not quite done yet!

These first five wood projects I made at the beginning of the summer. I just mod podged paper onto different things.

I gave this to my mama for Mother's Day. It was special because she's a little bit
 homeless right now, so she liked it.

This one and the duck frame are hanging above my kitchen sink in my apartment!

Obsessed with ducks :) Photography by Lance IsTough

These next ones are the crafts we've been doing to decorate our apartment! I'm so proud of them!

I bought 4 kitchen chairs from DI and mod podged the seats with fabric to make them cute!

Frame we built to staple fabric over it to make it look like canvas. 

Finished product of the wood frame fabric canvas we made! It's so beautiful!

This is a 4'x6' chalk board I MADE. I bought a thin board, primed it, and painted it several times with chalkboard paint. Sanded it a few times, and painted it again. And hung it up! So hardcore. 

Here is our kitchen with the chairs and fabric frame!

This is our skeeball machine Lauren's grandma is letting us use! I put it together :)

Lauren made these cute tissue paper flowers to go above our TV!

Our apartment is the cutest. Really. We're going to have lots of little food parties. I'm so excited for it! But we have one more project we're going to do. 

This flower is made out of toilet paper rolls! We have a big empty wall and we're going to make a HUGE one! It's going to be so awesome. I've started collecting the toilet paper rolls, but I need a lot. So start keeping yours for me!

I'm really so proud of our apartment. I absolutely love it. I also love living with Lauren. It's sooo much fun!

"Obruni, bye-bye"

Hello hello!!!

I have been LOVING this past week! Seriously so great.
So this last week was the sports competition all week. It was really fun. It was a REALLY big deal. The first day they had a big band and all these vendors came to sell food and there were SOO many people there! (mostly deaf kids). But it was really fun for the kids. You can tell it's their big event they look forward to all year long. The sports we were really to watch. They competed in tennis (ping-pong), netball (like basketball), volleyball, football (soccer), and track. I don't remember who took first in all the individual events, but Mampong (my school) took first overall. I was so proud of them and you could tell it was a really big self-esteem booster for the kids.

 The big set up. The field on the right is their soccer field and track.

We made signs to cheer on the students

Boys volley ball

 Girls netball

 All the athletes

One of the girls ran a marathon in this. All the athletes play in bare feet, flip flops, or some random pair or water shoes.

OKAY. I AM IN LOVE. with a student. He's only 18. I know...but it's okay. Seriously. His name is Kawbena and he has the MOST beautiful smile I've ever seen. I really haven't even talked to him that much because he's just so beautiful I don't even know what to say to him. I wish I could upload a picture of him on here. I really can act more normal around guys in America I like, but I really don't even know how to talk to him. All the younger kids think it's funny to run get him and say I'm calling him, and then he'll come over and be like "what?" and I'll just be like hahahaha and awkwardly smile because I don't know what to say and he's so beautifully intimidating. I'm just in love with him. That's all.

KWABENA!!!!!!

Friday, July 1st, was a holiday here called Republican Day. We didn't have school that day, so in the morning we played soccer at the school. It was the girls soccer team against all the obrunis (white people). It was really fun! It made me want to play soccer. I loved it. That night we went to this HUGE street party at this club call Level 400. There were SOOOOO many people there. It was so fun. Black people and dancing...right up my alley. That is my definition of fun, so you know I had a blast. That was probably one of my favorite days on the trip.

Soccer team picture

Level 400. This is barely any of the people there.

Our crew at Level 400

We went to church in Madina again, and had to interpret for Marco. Interpreting is sooo hard. I'm so bad at it. I had to interpret in Sunday school and they were talking about Peter and Judas and Gethsemane...and it was just so hard! It makes church long and frustrating. I'm excited to go back to America where I can just sit through church and listen, and not have to interpret. But Marco is the sweetest man alive. His wife Hannah made us pancakes on Saturday night and they were SOOO good. They were more like crepes, but soaked in grease. I am gaining so much weight here. I eat SO much food, and it's all deep fried, I swear. Anyways, the pancakes were delicious. BUT also, I go running at least 4 times a week. And I do some other workouts. And I haven't missed a day of scripture reading the entire time I've been here! My habits here are so good! I wish it would be this easy at home.

Church!

Marco!

BEST PANCAKES EVER

Today was the best day ever. We have these friends at the wood district named Sammuel and Nicholas that are brothers. Today we skipped school and they taught us how to make something out of wood. I made a little bowl. It was really fun to make, but it literally took me from 10-3 to make it. It's SOOO time consuming. And mine looks like crap compared to theirs. So I have a new appreciation for all the souvenirs I'm bringing everyone home.

My beautiful bowl!

Sammuel and Nicholas. Two of the buffest people I've ever met.

Celebrating my birthday Wood District style

It's been really rainy here lately, and no, I'm not getting very tan. I did the first couple weeks, but it's been super overcast. I do have a flip flop tan line and a NASTY farmers tan. Also, EVERYTHING is growing mold on it. I don't know why all the sudden it's happening, but EVERYTHING. Whatever, I'm in africa. I don't care.

Well I only have like 2 seconds left on my internet card! I'm coming home in 6 days!!! WOOOO
PS my birthday was really good.

PPS All the little kids always yell "obruni, bye bye!" when I'm running in the morning. So that's what I named this blog. I love you all!

Kids in the street

"Please, I am coming."

The title of this blog is what everyone says here in Ghana when they mean like "wait a second" or "hold on". I I've started to say it. think I might have already said that in my blog, but I thought it was appropriate for this blog because, I am soon coming home.

So, this week has been so fantastic! Well, just this weekend. BEST WEEKEND YET. Seriously. So, Katie went to high school with this girl who came to Ghana on a  humanitarian trip, fell in love with a Ghanaian and after a series of events, came back and married him. So now, while waiting for his visa to process, they are still living in Ghana. There are a lot more details to the story, but I don’t super feel like typing those right now, but really, it’s just as crazy as it sounds. ANYWAYS, Katie, Brittney, and I went and visited her this weekend. It was SOOOO fun. They live in a town called Hohoe, and it took us about 5 ½ hours to get there from Mampong. But that wasn’t just driving time, that was like…transferring cars, waiting for tro-tros, you know, the works..So it was probably like a 4 ½ hour drive. Anyways we left Friday morning, so we got there Friday afternoon. We haven’t been in a typical Ghanaian home yet, so we were pretty excited to see what kind of house they live in, but I don’t think Paul’s house was really ‘typical’. It’s really nice for Ghanaian standards. Annie and Paul live with his parents, and his parents are the NICEST human beings ever. So is Paul. Seriously, Paul and Annie’s relationship makes me want to marry a Ghanaian. She definitely chose the right Ghanaian to marry. 

Anyways, when we arrived Friday afternoon, they had and loaf of bread and apple juice for us. It was divine. Seriously. Then after getting acquainted with them, Paul drove us in his car to a deaf school in Hohoe (ho-hoy). We just talked to the Headmaster for a minute, then went and talked to the kids. It was pretty fun. Then we went to Annie’s orphanage. When she originally volunteered here two years ago, she came to this orphanage, and now because she’s living here, she goes there everyday. It was really fun just because I love kids, but it was also very sad. The conditions were pretty awful. It was very eye opening. At the orphanage there were 15 girls and 30 boys. All 15 girls share one room, and the boys have two rooms. All of their English was AMAZING. They have a ton of volunteers constantly coming and going, so they know English and not their local dialect (which is Ewe). Also, they are very malnourished, so you’ll see a baby who looks like she can’t be older than 2, and she’ll be 5. I took a video of this baby…seriously looks like he’s 2 years old, dribbling a basketball like a pro. He’s really 4 years old, which is still impressive. After the orphanage we went and ate dinner, which Paul’s mom, Mary, made. She is a really good cook. I didn’t love the dinner because it had fish in it, but it was good. Then we just chilled with Paul and Annie. We watched a movie on Annie’s macbook, which is was I have wanted to do this WHOLE time, so it was super fun! 

Saturday we woke up and they took us to the biggest waterfall in western Africa called Wli (Ve-lee) Waterfall. It was really cool. And huge. Paul bought us mangoes to eat; he really is just the sweetest guy ever. Also, Paul knows EVERYONE. And if they don’t know Paul, they know Paul’s dad. Annie told us they are pretty well-off. His dad is a regional accountant and owns some farms, and Paul owned a taxi business, but just sold it a couple weeks ago. Then we went back to the orphanage, called Eugemont, and played with the kids more. We tried to play cards with them, but it was just really chaotic. All the babies were crying. After the orphanage was the BEST part!!!!! We went to the monkey sanctuary!!!!!!! It was one of the coolest things EVER! So at a typical monkey sanctuary you go pay an entrance fee, then the park people will take you to wherever the monkeys are that day, and you can feed them. When we went there, we pulled up right next to the front office and the monkeys were right there!! There was a group of about 80 monkeys just jumping around EVERYWHERE. It was SO cool. So after we paid, the woman working there gave us a banana to feed the monkeys with. You hold it out and like 3 or 4 monkeys will climb up your body and on your arm to eat it out of your hand. They really are just jumping everywhere, on your head, on your arms, climbing up your legs. It was seriously so cool. We were afraid it would hurt, but they just have little paws, no nails, so it didn’t hurt at all, but they were really dirty. So afterward my arm was covered in dirt. I would drive the 5 hours again JUST to go to the monkey sanctuary. SO worth it. 

After that, Paul drove us back to Hohoe (the drive was about 45 minutes from Paul’s house) and we made homemade banana bread. It was SOOOO good. We went to the market where they have all the cooking supplies for sale. It’s really interesting how it is set up. Everything is in plastic bags. They have big bags for flour and sugar and stuff, and tiny little bags with only like a couple tablespoons for spices and baking powder and things you only need a little bit of. It was really cool. So we bought all the ingredients we need and went back to Annie’s house and just made it in a pot. We didn’t have measuring cups or anything; it was definitely cooking ‘African style’. But it was SOOOOO good. AMAZING. Also when we got home, there were FIVE PINEAPPLES, about 45 BANANAS, 3 APPLES, and 9 DRINKS in our room as a gift from Paul’s dad. What did I tell you…the NICEST people ever.  That night we just hung out, played cards and stuff. I really love them so much.

On Sunday we drove to Ho to go to church. It is almost 2 hours away from Hohoe, but it is the closest LDS church to Annie and Paul. Paul owns a car, and it was SO nice to have him drive us everywhere. It was so nice of them, and saved us TONS of money. Church was…interesting. At the other wards we’ve been to I’ve felt right at home, and the church building has been really similar to an American church building, but this ward was just renting out the building, so it wasn’t really a typical church building. And it was just really chaotic. Sacrament meeting was good, but I felt like no one took Sunday school or Relief Society seriously. In Relief Society the lesson was on the Law or Chastity, but basically the whole time they debated about whether you should bathe with kids over 6 years old or not. Just a really big tangent and not at all related the point. Then Paul and Annie drove us to the tro-tro station. It was really sad to say goodbye. I wish we could have stayed longer, or been able to visit them twice. I love Annie so much. She is so strong and independent. And Paul is just the greatest person ever.

This week at school is a sports tournament. School is cancelled Tues-Thurs and 2 other deaf schools come to our school to play sports. They are competing in soccer, volley ball, track, ping pong, and net ball. Today all day at school we just cleaned the grounds around the school. I’m super excited to watch them. Friday (July 1^st) is a holiday here, so school is cancelled. We’ve seen signs for tons of parties and celebrations going on, so it should be good. So basically since there is no school this week, we only have one more week with the kids. I’m getting really sad. I love these kids.

My birthday is in one week, and we get home in two weeks! Be sure to send me a text on my birthday so I can feel loved when I get home! I love you all!

"I love my life!"

Hello hello hello!!!

The name of this blog is a Ghanian song that is played SO much here.

Here I am…typing on a super slow computer with an even SLOWER internet connection in Mampong, Ghana. This week has been great. We took a weekend trip to Cape Coast this past weekend, it was great. It’s about 4 hours (give or take 30 minutes, depending on traffic). So kind of like driving to St. George.

The hotel we stayed at was in the middle of a lake/pond that had crocodiles in it. It was kind of scary! There was this little dirt hill that they would come up on, and we could go walk by them and take pictures. It was super scary. But it was a really cool set up. It even had a pool!!! When they put us in our room…it was LITERALLY a jail cell. White walls, with 3 twins beds with white sheets, concrete floors, and one small light in the corner of the room. The bathroom was a community bathroom, and it was outside around the corner. BUT our key broke (they only use the big old fashioned keys here) and they had to switch our rooms. Which was a freaking blessing from heaven, because our other room was 1000x better. It had carpet and real windows and decorations and drapes. And a small TV and fridge and a bathroom connected to it. So that changed the trip from bearable to enjoyable. If you compare anything here to American standards, it looks like crap, but for Ghana, it was really nice.

All Saturday we toured around and did different things. First we went to a rope bridge. It was pretty cool. There were 7 different bridges that were about 120 ft in the air. The set up was very similar to a zip line through the jungle you’d do in Hawaii or somewhere, except instead of zip lining you were walking on scary rope bridges. It wasn’t actually scary though. But it was fun! 

Then we went to a slave castle. That was a really cool experience. I’d honestly never really thought about like…where all the slaves came from and stuff. It was just really thought provoking. The chambers they kept them in were pretty small….maybe like smaller than the size of the family room in my Heber house. And they’d keep 200-250 slaves in each one. They were never allowed out, so they pooped, peed, threw up, and ate in there. They said each floor had about 3 ft of waste on the bottom of it. The only ventilation they had were 3 super small windows at the top of the chamber, where the rain was supposed to come in and wash away all the waste, but it never did. In the girls’ chambers there was a bigger window so that the English people running the castle could choose which women they wanted to rape. It was sickening to think about. There was a “Door of No Return” where the slaves would walk through it, and get put on boats so they could be sold to the Americas or Europe (recall the Triangle of Trade from your history classes). They said over 2 million slaves passed through that door. They was completely crazy to me, because that was just one slave castle, there are tons on the coast of west Africa. And that was just the slaves that didn’t die in the chamber (they said they kept them in the chamber for about 3 months.) Then the conditions on the boat were so terrible that 1 slave made it to America for every 4 that died. It made me think about how many of there names were probably lost/how many people’s temple work we’ve done. It was really…sad and interesting to learn about.

Then we went to the beach. We went to a resort on the beach, where we also used their pool and ate dinner there. It was really fun. It was pretty over cast, so I didn’t get in the ocean because I would have NEVER dried if that happened. But we sat in the pool for a minute, and then just laid by the pool. It was fun. Dinner was also nice. After dinner we ordered ice cream…which was SUPER expensive. They always only give us 2 spoons, but there’s 3 of us (Katie, me, and Brittney) so we have a nice system down where we take a bite and pass the spoon. It works like a charm because there are two spoons going around so by the time you’re finished swallowing, you have a spoon again! Don’t worry, we filmed it. Then we decided the ice cream was so good we had to buy another one. 

Today we just went back to the daily grind. When we went to school, three of the boys in our class were mad at me and Katie (I team teach with Katie) because we didn’t come to school Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. We had to write an apology on the board for them to even look at us. It was funny. I really do love these kids.

 Here's a fun fact about Ghana, there are NO public bathrooms anywhere here. Everyone just pees on the side of the road. It’s pretty funny. So you just have to hope ALL day while you're out, you won't have to go to the bathroom, or make the walk back to the hotel. Also if you happen to find a place with a public bathroom, it's usually so disgusting you can't even walk in it, and there's never toilet paper.

We only have 3 weeks left, we’ve been talking a lot about going home and just like…what time we need to leave for the airport and stuff. It’s weird it’s so close. Three weeks exactly! I seriously feel like I have only been here a week. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of what I’m going to feel like when I really have to leave the kids, and I’m so sad. It’s going to be so hard to leave them. 

So…I realize 2 months it no where near 2 years, but I feel like I’m serving a mission or something. Here are the similarities. Foreign country, email once a week, knee length dresses and modest shirts….which leads to severe farmers tans. That’s about it. But really, I’ve never had a farmers tan in my life, and I had one within the first 3 days of being here. It’s disgusting. That’s about all. After you get passed all the lifestyle differences here, my daily activities are pretty boring. I hope all is going well with you. I’m just as interested in your lives as you are mine. Send me an email!!!

28 down, 28 more to go!!

Well, tomorrow is the half way mark. I've been here for 28 days and it has gone by SOOO fast. It still seems like we have a while still, but thinking back to the first day, I can't believe it's already been a month! I love it here more and more everyday. There's still things that I miss, but I love it here. I think I could last here a lot longer than some of the other girls here. Have I already said that?? I really love it here.

We did laundry today, I have blisters on my hands from scrubbing and wringing. I have a new appreciation for washers and dryers. I think that's the appliance I miss most. Doing laundry here is seriously so hard. I can't
believe people do that here their whole lives. And I have all really light weight things. They wear jeans and suits and all these things that I could NEVER wash.

This week we went to the Accra mall and had American pizza, french fries, ice cream and brownies. It was SOOO good. Please appreciate the food you have available to you. I miss real meals. I feel like everything I eat is a snack...which is basically is...Breakfast we have bread with peanut butter and honey, for lunch we have the snacks we brought from home, and dinner is a real meal, but they definitely DON'T have a balanced diet here. We have almost all carbs, fruit if we're lucky, and some type of meat, but you know how I am with meat. I barely eat it at home, let alone when you know it was just slaughtered and skinned out back. I haven't had any dairy here, except the ice cream from the mall, and...no vegetables.

Then after we went to the mall we went and did baptisms for the dead in the Accra, Ghana temple.
It was really cool. Different from home, but at the same time very similar. Every temple does things differently though, so it's just like going to a different temple than you normally do. All the members here as SOOO accommodating. For example, after we finished, we were asking some of the temple workers the best way to get to a ward in Tema. In like two minutes people found the temple president to come talk to us, who got us another guy from Tema who was able to give us all the information we need. He was more than willing to give us his cell phone number, the bishop in Tema's number, the temple president's number. They're just willing to do anything for us. It's so great.

What else...I don't know. Life is good here in Ghana. That's all there is to it. Oh, I took out my braids last Thursday. I had them in for two weeks. I wanted to keep them in longer, but you can't get them wet and we were going to do baptisms, so I figured it was worth it. I don't know what else to write and I only have 10 minutes left on the internet.

Have such a lovely week. It's weird to me that it's summer at home now and everyone is out of school. I'm sad I'm missing all the partying, and baby Ellie, and everything else that comes with summer. I love you all!!!!!!

Black! Black! Black!

Ghana is as great as ever. Just going to the school everyday. I love the teacher I’m assigned to, Eunice, and the class I have. I know all the kids names, and I’m really growing to love them. I just understand them A LOT better than I could the first week. But I just LOVE those kids. They really are sooo cute, and they would do anything for me, and they are soooo nice and caring. Here is a list of the kids in my class:

Eric (he is my favorite, I want to adopt him)

Afaribe

Jamal

Solomon

Isaac

Ali

Enock

Aidg

Vanilla

Frimpong

Patrick

Patrick

Razak

Richmond

Jennifer

Yarly Fynn

Barnor

Ruth
Bismark
Tetteh

They all have an African name, and a more American name. Those are there more American names. Eric and Ali are my little managers. When I show up to school and to play with them at night, they take my backpack and flashlight and carry them for me. They just take care of everything. They push kids off me when I am getting mawled, they tell me where to sit, when to take out and put my camera away, and they are ALWAYS by my side. It’s so cute. Also Frimpong is everyone’s favorite person.  He has a deformed ear, and just has a little bit of a different look about him, so he’s really easy to remember. All the volunteers I’m with know who he is. And he’s hilarious. He acts so mature and just so…knowing. Like he’ll just look at me and nod, as if he knows and understands exactly what I’m thinking. It’s great. The kids I teach are 10-14 years old. At the school I’m constantly being hugged and touched and everyone just is fighting for my attention. It’s great.

Last Saturday we went to Accra (which is the capital of Ghana) and went shopping and stuff. And I accidentally went CRAZY. I spent a lot of money ...I only have $280 left for the whole trip. And I started with…$657. (that’s Ghana cedis, not US dollars). But don’t worry, I set a strict budget for myself for the rest of the trip. I’ll be fine. Food and transportation take up a lot more money than I expected it to. Well, that’s a lie. I didn’t even think about paying for food and transportation, so really it just takes up money I wasn’t expecting it to take up. But really, I’ve just spent money on a lot of souvenirs. 

Oh, there is a real live mall in Accra that we went to. It’s like, real live American. Air conditioning, American food, movie theater, and really nice stores. Some of the stores were like…designer names. More expensive than I would even buy in the states. It was cool to see. We went and ate there. We had pizza and ICE CREAM. That was the FIRST dairy I’ve had since I came here. We’ve been in a couple grocery stores and their “Wal-Mart” and NONE of them have a dairy section. No milk or cheese or yogurt, or anything of the sort. It’s kind of crazy. But also in the mall the power goes out like every 5 minutes, for just like…2 seconds. It’s weird. I don’t know why it does that, and why it comes back on so fast. But I guess that’s a little different than America. ALSO, the prices are SOOOO expensive in real stores and grocery stores. Like a normal pack of Crayola crayons is $10 cedi ($7 USD) and…a box of cereal is also $10. Crazy prices!!! I’m glad we can buy stuff off the street here. 

We went to the LDS ward in Madina this week, and we met a former teacher at the deaf school name Marco who is a member, but doesn’t have an interpreter for church. He usually just shows up to church, doesn’t hear a thing, then goes home. What amazing steadfast faith that man has to be able to go to church each week and never hear anything. He said the only time he has an interpreter is when Signs of Hope (the group I’m with) is here to interpret for him. There were 4 of us who went this week, and we all tried interpreting for him, and we all weren’t very good. I did better than I thought I would. It was a good experience. We are going to continue interpreting for him each week and see if we can do something about getting him an interpreter after we leave. He’s a really nice guy. 

I bought fabric to have some clothes custom made for me! I’m so excited. That’s what everyone does here. They have sewing shops on every corner. You just go pick out your fabric and then take it to a shop and tell them what you want, or they have designs you can choose from. And they take your measurements and it is really CUSTOM made for you. Fits perfectly. But I got fabric for a pencil skirt, and a vest in the same material. I probably won’t wear them together, but just so you get an idea of what kind of material it’s made out of. Like…gray pin stripe. And then I bought some material for another cute skirt. Then I bought some crazy African material to make some parachute pants out of!!! I drew all the sketches out of exactly what I wanted, and it reminded me of the days when I wanted to be a fashion designer. It was so fun. We took them to the seamstress today and  I’m so excited!!!!! I also want to buy some crazy African material to make a quilt when I get home. I think that’s be cool. Oh, so the prices are super cheap too. The fabric is about $5 cedi a yard (about $3 USD a yard). And for a skirt you need 2 yards. So that’s $10 cedi, (like $7 ish USD) Then the actually sewing is like…$6 cedi for a skirt, $8 cedi for pants…you get the idea. So altogether a skirt will cost me $16 cedi, or about…$12 USD. And It’s tailor made. Amazing isn’t it.?

Brittney, Katie, and I made a list of all the things we take for granted in America, and we’re still adding to the list. There are SOOOO many things that we have in America that we could completely do without, but they are there just to make our lives easier.

I love it here so much. It’s so fun. I also love Katie and Brittney so much. If you don’t remember, Brittney is my roommate and Katie is the girl I knew before I came out here. We are becoming REALLY good friends. I’m so glad I have people here I am friends with. It would be hard if I didn’t. Anyways, that is all for now.

WOOOO!!! GHANA!!!

Hello interested readers. Hahahahahaha. I am just writing this from an internet café in Mampong Ghana. NBD. So here’s a quick run down of what I’ve experienced so far.

Ghana is freaking hot, and freaking humid. It took a while to adjust, but I’m just approaching week 2, and I don’t mind the humidity anymore. My skin finally doesn’t feel sticky ALL the time anymore.

For our first week we didn’t have permission to go to the deaf schools yet, so we just kind of sight saw the close towns around us. EVERYONE here is SUPER friendly and wants to be your best friend because you’re white. All the little kids, and some adults yell “Obruni! Obruni!!” when we walk by. Which just means white person. Then we always yell back “Obibini!” which means black person. They get a kick out of it. Neither of them are offensive. But basically everyone comes up and talks to you. Everyone here is also SUPER nice. I feel more safe here than I do at home, and that’s the truth.

The water isn’t safe to drink out of the taps, so we have to buy purified drinking water. It comes in little 18 oz plastic bags that you just bite off a corner and drink out of. All the food is just sold on the side of the road, and it’s all safe to eat. They have the BEST bread. And we discovered this AMAZING thing call Ballfloat (pronounced bo fruit) which is kind of a mix between a donut and a scone, more like a scone. But they’re SOOOOOO good. Every night for dinner we eat rice or pasta with some type of spicy sauce, and some type of meat (fish, chicken, goat). And fruit. Their fruit here is the BEST. I’ve tried a lot of weird foods like Fufu and Banku, which are both just mush that you eat with your fingers. I’m gagging just thinking about it.  But really, I’m getting fat here. The food is so good, plus I have SO many snacks. We all joke that all we ever want to do is eat.

I got my hair braided in rasta braids, and I wish I could post a picture, because it’s freaking sweet. I love it so much. I want to grow dreads when I get back. Getting the braids was the MOST painful thing I have ever experienced and I would never do it again! It took 5 hours with 3 women working on my hair the whole time. First you choose the color of fake hair you want, then they start braiding it into your hair. It’s super long too. Then after they finish that (about 3 ½ hours) they snip up the edges of each braid and cut off any stray hairs (even if it’s your real hair). Then they take a TORCH and burn up the braid to burn off the rest of the stray hairs. Then they dip the ends in the STEAMING hot wax/water stuff. It’s quite the process, and SUPER painful. Not only that, the braids add about 6 pounds to your head. The first day I couldn’t hold up my head without the support of my hands. But eventually I got used to that. The biggest problem is that they’re SO itchy. You can’t get them wet, because they’ll never dry and then they’ll start to mold. So it’s really nice not to have to do my hair, but I’m definitely not going to do it again. It’s not worth it. I’ve had it in for a week tomorrow, and I think I’ll try and keep it in for another week, but my real hair is already sprigging out everywhere. But it looks so cool.

We started at the school a week ago and I LOVE those kids, so much. They’re the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I seriously want to take them home with me. It’s REALLY hard to understand them. The signs are more different than I expected them to be. I can understand older people fine, but I teach younger kids and it’s really hard understand them. That creates a problem with trying to teach. It gets really frustrating. It’s also pretty sad, because most the kids in my class are 10-14, but they have a reading level lower than my 5 year old niece Aubree. The last week I’ve been trying to teach them multiplication, but it’s really hard when they don’t even know the difference between adding, subtracting, and multiplication.

There are 11 people I’m here with, all girls. And I LOVE them all. 3 are deaf, and the rest are hearing.  My roommate’s name is Brittney Ruesh (you can facebook stalk her). She’s SOOO beautiful and she got engaged a week before we came here. I love her so much. We’re becoming really good friends. And then of course there’s Katie Pendleton that I knew before I came out here, basically us three just hang out a lot. I love them both so much.

When it rains here, it RAINS. It’s crazy!! There are ants everywhere; we can’t eat in our bed rooms because of the crumbs. It’s funny because in America if ants got in my food, I would throw it away.  Here I just pick them out and keep eating. Happens with almost every meal. There’s frogs, lizards, and chickens everywhere. And HUGE spiders…and that’s about all the exotic animals. I saw a pet monkey, but no wild ones.

We have to do our laundry by hand and that’s by FAR the worst thing I’ve ever done. Seriously, all who are reading this APPRECIATE your washers and dryers. It’s so hard to wash clothes by hand!! Especially in 85% humidity where you have to wring them out like CRAZY or else it won’t dry, and then get stinky and moldy. Our hotel worker Theophilus (Tio-fee-los, but we just call him Tio) is our good friend and I’m learning a lot about the culture from him. He asked us what we use to wash our clothes in America and explained how washers and dryers worked. It’s crazy to me that he’d never even heard of one.

Some other short facts…we take taxi’s everywhere….or walk. Or if you have more people than can fit in a taxi, you get a tro-tro which is like a 15-20 seater van. It’s Ghana’s ‘bus’. They cut the grass by hand…by machete. It’s super hard, I tried it. Everyone speaks at least a little bit of English, but they all speak Twi, which is a mix between English, French, and their own dialect. I’m learning a little bit of it. I can say Thank you, Come here, Good morning, Good afternoon, Good evening, and God bless you. Everyone greets each other with Good morning, afternoon, or evening. Instead of saying “I’ll be right back” or “just a minute” or whatever you say to excuse yourself for a minute they say, “I am coming”. It’s funny. Me and Katie like to practice our accents. A typical day for me is to wake up around 6:30, shower and get ready (showers are ICE cold. But everyone once in a while you get a warm one) and walk to the school by 8 (about a mile walk). Then we teach till 2. Then we can do whatever we want, sometimes we sleep or read, or go to town, go to the internet café, whatever. Dinner is at 5, then we go back to the school after dinner to play with the kids more. On weekends we have some sweet things planned. I’m excited.

Church is freaking awesome. I can’t wait to go every week and get to know the members better. The church is the same everywhere, people. It’s amazing. It’s about an 1 hour tro-tro ride to the closest LDS church, so be thankful for a church on every block in Utah.

I've rapped and dance with some pretty awesome people here. EVERYONE here is so great at dancing. It's great. 

I'm sure there's more I want to talk about, but that’s all I can think of right now.

Shawtie get lowwwww....

So....I have diabetes. And right now my blood sugar is low. It just occurred to me that most people probably don't know what I mean when I say that, or how I can even tell when my blood sugar is low. So here is a first hand description. First, everything just starts to feel tingly and weak. I get really tired and getting up to get food sounds like the worst thing in the world. (I apologize to all the people who I have made get me food in this time of need, but really, it is a time of need.) Anywho, so yeah, weak, shaky, tingly, but not so much shaky, mostly weak and tingly. And I can hardly keep my eyes open or my head up. Like right now, my head keeps flopping back on the couch and I just want to go to sleep. But at the same time, I could never fall asleep while I feel like this. I feel like I'm tired and have a lack of energy, but at the same time if someone were to take my heart rate, I think it'd be pretty high. Sometimes I say, and other diabetics say, it's kind of like you're  about to pass out, but in all reality, I don't feel at all like I'm going to pass out. It's more like I'm going to fall asleep at any moment. My feet are a little numb and my eye sight is blurry. Not super blurry, but if I try to focus on little things, like reading, it's hard. I also am really hot right now. But don't quote me on that, that might be just because I have 2 blankets on, not because my blood sugar is low. Also, when I get REALLY low (which is not right now), my mouth starts to go numb. I always say it feels like my teeth are going numb, which I know isn't possible, but that's what it feels like, okay? I wish I could liken it to something, but I'm not sure what. It's really different from anything I would experience if I didn't have diabetes (or when I used to not have diabetes), but also something that happens on such a regular basis it's hard to imagine other people don't know what I mean when I say "my blood sugar is low." It's hard to focus on anything else, which might explain the odd behavior when my blood sugar is low. Because I REALLY don't care about anything.

Also, I can tell how low my blood sugar is, so MOM, when I say, "my blood sugar is low" it really doesn't mean at any second I'm going to have a seizure, it just means I need a little food okay? I promise I'm completely conscious and rational, and in completely control of everything I do. (The only time you need to worry is when I DON'T say anything about my blood sugar, and just stare off into space and don't act like I'm all there.)

Mostly this is an apology letter for those who don't understand what I'm going through when I say I need food. Not that it's some DROP EVERYTHING, EARTH SHATTERING thing when my blood sugar is low. It's a condition that I can deal with for a while, but I do need food. (When I say a while, I mean like 30min or so, depending on how low it is) I just feel like sometimes I'd like if other people knew how I felt and understood why I acted that way I do. Okay? Okay. Anywho, I really need to get up and get some food, but I also wanted to give you a first hand experience.

Also, one more thing. I have a tendency (so does Jared) to eat and eat and eat until my blood sugar is back up to normal even though it isn't necessary. Really all I need to do is eat something then wait, but if I feel like my blood sugar is low, I eat. and it takes a minute for it to get back up to normal.

Wowo, that was WAY longer then expected, and I could still go on. Maybe my next paper for school should be about this. Anyways, that is all. I hope this gives you a little insight to what it means when someone says, "My blood sugar is low."