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.