Funny The Way It Is

We have internet back at my house, so I'm hoping to start posting (somewhat) regularly.

In the meantime, just sharing some music. I've had this song stuck in my head for the longest time, and it seems very appropriate here. I hear it all the time.

Eid Mubarak!

Disclosure: I wrote this post almost a month ago but due to a combination of travelling and lack of internet access at my house, I am just now getting it out. It's a little less relevant now, but better late than never!

A few weeks ago, I rushed into a taxi, running late for the Eid Mubarak festivities that the U.S. Embassy had organized for the YES Abroad participants to observe. I had planned to take the tro tro and at first was annoyed with myself that my last minute rushing had forced me to take a more expensive private car.

As the ride went on though, my irritation drifted away, replaced by curiosity and appreciation. As we wove through the maze of streets and zoomed past the ocean, more and more Muslims crowded the sidewalks and the streets. As I watched their hijab or kufi covered heads walking, biking, or riding tro tros to the nearest mosque, just like me, I felt part of something bigger. It felt as though I was part of a great migration - towards Islam of course, but also towards more general reflection and renewal of faith. I itched to move from my position as a bystander in a taxi to a participant in the day's rituals and festivities.

I arrived at the AFS office and met the other exchange students, their heads already wrapped. Soon enough, Miriyam's painted hands twirled around and around my head, carrying fabric from my chin to my temple and back again. She tightly pinned the fabric with the efficiency and sureness of someone who had performed the same ritual many, many times before.

As we drove to the mosque, we witnessed the same migration that I had witnessed earlier. I felt honored to be a part of this group, if only for a day.

Once at the mosque, we took off our shoes and stepped (right foot first!) into the sacred space of worship. We joined the other women and children on the second floor in ritual bows and listened to the rolling sound of Arabic coming from an unseen Imam, who stood among the men down below. Staring at the backs of a hundred-plus hijab covered heads, I said my own prayers, to our God.

After the service we recollected our shoes and walked behind the mosque to witness the sacrifice of twelve cows. With strong stomachs, we watched as they were forced down to the ground, bound with rope, then cut into at the neck, one after the other. The strong cut of the knife sent blood squirting and exposed guts and bone. As the blood pooled in a pit that was dug into the Earth, the cows' breathing grew heavy and their eyes went blank. With one last shudder of the muscles and a final grunt, they each surrendered to their fate and fulfilled their purpose for the day.

The cows are representative of the story of Isaac and Ishmael. Muslims believe that God gave Abraham instructions to go to the top of a mountain and sacrifice his son, Ishmael. With a heavy heart, Abraham took his baby boy there and took out a knife. He placed it on the baby's neck and agonized, dreading the moment that he would sacrifice his own son, but knowing that it had to be done to please God. At the second that he had finally gathered the strength to do it, God spoke to him. He told Abraham to let his baby live. It had been a test of faith, and Abraham had passed. From then on, Ishmael was seen as the "chosen one" (not Isaac, as Christians believe). Every year on the Eid, millions of Muslims make the hajj to Mecca and animals are sacrificed all over the world to represent Abraham's devotion to God. 

For each animal that is sacrificed, it is said that it should be divided into three parts. One part goes to family, one to friends, and one to the needy. Here is a video of the ceremony (not for the faint of heart!)

After the sacrifices, we were joined by a leader in the Muslim community of Accra named Seth. We took the bus with him to another mosque, this one much smaller and painted bright turquoise. Before entering the mosque we performed ablutions. Using small teakettle shaped pitchers, we washed our legs, arms, hands, and feet three times each. We then washed our necks and the baby hairs that were tucked under fabric. We used dry fingers to cleanse behind our ears.

Refreshed, we entered the mosque for our second service of the day. I'm not ashamed to admit that I fell asleep for a little bit, because about 3/4 of the other women were sleeping too! Proof:

After the second service, there was another cow sacrifice and we got back on the bus to go to Seth's house. On the bus we had a long discussion with Seth about polygamy, jihad, the roles of men and women in Islam, the five pillars, gay marriage, the life of Mohammed, the reasons why mosques are separated by gender, and more. I'm not ready to convert yet, but the conversation was very interesting and we all learned a ton.

Seth's house was a small, humble home, filled with love. His son climbed on him like a jungle gym and, like any naughty boy, ignored his father's commands to go and say his prayers. His wife made us delicious groundnut soup and rice balls. We devoured the food while watching live footage of the hajj in Mecca. In a world defined by divisions and fighting, it was powerful to witness so many people from around the world coming together peacefully. I got that sense just through watching it on TV, so I can only imagine how powerful it is actually being there. Seth described his trip to Mecca a few years ago, and his strong desire to go back was clear in the emotion that shone through his words.

We left his house full and happy with lots to think about. His wife and a friend were outside handling the guts and meat from the cow and bagging them up to distribute. I realized that over the course of the day I saw that cow go from healthy and alive to preparation for consumption.

Back at the bus, Seth surprised us each with our own copy of the Qu'ran in English and we were instructed on how it should be kept.

I was still wearing my conservative dress and the hijab as I walked through the tro tro station on my way home. For the first time since I got to Ghana, people didn't really look twice at me and I was treated as their equal. My politically incorrect twelve year-old host brother says that it was because I looked like I was from Afghanistan or Pakistan and people were scared of me, but I think that they were just being respectful. I got a few "as-salamu alaykum"s (peace be upon you) to which I responded "alaykum as-salam." And I truly did feel that peace was upon me, and wish the same peace upon them.

An Election Reflection

Ghanaians love Americans, and therefore friends, and even strangers met on the tro tro or while walking, are open to talking to me for hours and hours about anything. Through these conversations I have observed a few things – first, that regardless of their social status or financial situation they are relentlessly positive and happy with their lives. Second, that they are generally well educated on current affairs and have their own opinions on different current events and political issues. Third, that though they have these opinions, they are also accepting of people who disagree. I think that right now especially, Americans could all take a cue from the Ghanaians and incorporate the third lesson into our lives a little more.

On the surface, people may seem drastically different from one another – skin color, life goals, language, education – but if we take the chance to dig deeper we are able to recognize our overwhelming similarities. Deep down we have the same disappointments, longings, desires, and troubles. On the eve of an election day I think that is especially important to remember. That's because this lesson holds true not only for people from different countries, where the surface differences may be glaring and hard to avoid. This lesson also holds true for the friend, neighbor, or in law who votes Republican while you vote Democratic (or vice versa). While it may be hard to admit, in most cases the people from the opposing party are just that – people – like you and me. They feel the same despair as we feel when they face a loss at school or at work and they want just as badly as we do that future generations have access to the things they need.

During an election year it can be easy to cannibalize each other and get into the “us” versus “them” mentality. That mentality has gotten America into trouble in the past four years as important policies and bills such as health care reform and the DREAM Act have been stalled due to political disagreement among our elected representatives. We elect these officials with the expectation that they will do their jobs with as much efficiency, integrity, and determination as each of us would if we were in their position. It is unfair then, to draw party lines so thick that they become like Iron Curtains.

No matter who wins the election tomorrow, millions of Americans are going to be very unhappy. They are going to be more determined to progress their party’s platform using any means possible, recognizing that they will have to fight even harder now that the president is from the opposing party. But what if we thought like Ghanaians and shifted the dialogue away from “fighting harder” and towards working together? I think that we might be amazed at how much more we could accomplish, for the good of all Americans. This country, and the history, values, and culture that come with it, is the tie that bind us all and will never change. The first step to compromise is recognizing the common humanity in the other side. It’s times like these when it is important to remember that before we are Republicans or Democrats or Independents, we are Americans . One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Week 6 Updates

So, I have been seriously procrastinating on writing this post, I think because I didn't know what exactly to include. I'm in a funny place now where most things here don't surprise me anymore, but that doesn't make them any less different and foreign and interesting. I realize that my new normal is still probably  hard to imagine for most of you in the US, so I've been wavering about including every little funny or strange thing that has happened to me or just skimming over the past couple of weeks with summary. I'll try to do a little bit of both.

Last week was my school's 15th anniversary week, and they went all out. We had no classes and instead had different activities everyday. Here was the schedule for the week:

• Monday - Clean up day (we weeded and picked up trash not just at school, but on all of the streets around school)
• Tuesday - A health talk and blood drive
• Wednesday - Gospel Rock Show
• Thursday - A health walk (we walked around town with our school marching band for four hours!) and exercise (mainly Azonto dancing)
• Friday - African traditional day. There were cultural presentations and everyone came to school dressed in the traditional clothing of their tribes or like different African leaders. 
• Saturday - The Anniversary ceremony and cadets parade

Because I am a cadet, a good chunk of each day was spent training for the parade that was Saturday morning. The parade went really well (I didn't make any mistakes!) and the highlight of my day was when the lieutenant from Accra Air Force Base looked me straight in the eye and whispered "congratulations" as he did his inspection of my flight (my marching group). Also, girls' soccer started practicing this week (turns out we're going to have a team after all!). It feels so good to get into the routine of playing again. The anniversary activities and cadets training and soccer practice combined to create a crazy week. I was at school basically from 6 am to 6 pm everyday and I fell into bed every night, but it was awesome.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I love my school here! The students are all so, so nice and patient with me, and I have made several good friends. I love that the teachers and coaches know how to joke around and connect with the students while still earning their respect. I think the other exchange students and my host family are shocked when I say I actually like going to school, but it is true, and it has really made living here a lot easier. 

Here are some other random things from the past couple of weeks (that really could each be entire posts themselves):

• I voted for the first time! I ended up having to take off two days from school because the first time we went to the embassy it was closed for Columbus Day (should have thought of that...) and then I had to go through a confusing process to register and submit a write-in ballot. But it's done now! 
• My host family is on the website couchsurfing.com, so they occasionally have guests from around the world staying with them. Right now we have a guy named Melvin from Sierra Leone (who is married to a woman from Finland) who is waiting in Ghana to get his Finnish citizenship documents from the consulate in Nigeria (I know, very confusing). He will be staying with us until December or whenever the documents are ready.
• One day my host brother Desmond randomly came home from work bearing treats - Honey Nut Cheerios, cheesecake mix, and macaroni and cheese. I seriously have the best host family ever!
• Last Saturday after Twi lessons I went with a couple other exchange students to a beach called Kokrobite, filled with a cool mix of Peace Corps volunteers and Rastafarians and European travelers  We met up with Desmond and Melvin and a couple of Desmond's friends and spent a  nice afternoon there. In a couple of weeks we're gonna go back for their reggae night.
• After the beach we came home and we were all tired so we decided to have a family movie night. In the middle of watching 21 Jump Street and eating ice cream with my host brothers we heard screaming outside and thought we were being robbed. Everyone ran outside with baseball bats and we found out that a crazy completely naked woman had opened our gate and walked right into the other house on our compound! (Thank goodness she chose their door and not ours...I would have screeeamed). Once she was out of our compound she danced and laid in the street for a while and some neighbors went and took her clothes and then she got irritated and started jumping in front of cars and yelling, so the neighbors chased her out of the road. The sad thing is that at one point a police officer came and he just tried to talk to her for about thirty seconds then got back on his motorcycle and went away.
• My host auntie Nancy bought me some Kente cloth and took me to the tailor to have an African dress made to wear to church and for traditional day at school. I'll try to post pictures later today.
• I spend a good chunk of the church service every Sunday just observing what the ladies are wearing. It reminds me of sitting on my front porch in D.C. on Sunday mornings and watching all of the old African-American ladies in their huge hats and pastel dresses going to the church around the corner. 
• Try to say Irish wristwatch really fast :) This (along with inappropriate jokes, skateboard tricks, and more) is just some of the many things I have been learning from my younger host brothers haha.
• Saturday night I went out with Pearl and Desmond and Melvin and while we were out we ran into the Miss Ghana competition. All I can say is...So. Much. Hair weave.
• Yesterday I was coming home from a trip to the family's clothing store and a stop at the mall with my Auntie Aba and host brother Kwesi and our tro tro and our taxi cab broke down and I got stuck next to a drunk guy on the second tro tro. Worst luck ever, but it's always an adventure in Ghana :)

Anyways, I know this was long but it was kind of a catch-up post. My life has quickly gone from looking for things to do to trying to find time to do everything I want to. When I was in Paraguay, at one and a half months the vast majority of my free time was spent with my host family. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it just took me a lot longer to make friends there than it has here. Also, one of the other Americans that I came here with went home last week, eight months early, and several of the other exchange students I've talked to are having a very hard time settling into Ghanaian life (due to host family problems, culture shock, boredom, etc.). With these things in mind, I don't take it for granted that I have lots to do here - I am thankful that I have made awesome friends (from school, other exchange students, and host siblings) and have fun things to do each weekend. 

Before we came, we learned over and over again about the roller coaster of emotions that exchange students generally go through. Our mood would supposedly go down in the first week or so in country, then go super high as we start to adjust to the country and meet new people. Then after a couple of months we would go back down as the surface adjustment high gives way to the realization that we are actually still "outsiders" and don't have as firm of a grasp on some of the major aspects of the culture as we thought we did. Right now I feel like I am on the tippy top of the roller coaster, hoping that I don't come down anytime soon. I am loving life here and am just trying to be proactive, keep trying new things, and show the same kindness that I have received (and that has made this experience so great so far) to every Ghanaian I meet.

Twi word of the day:

school - sukul

School Uniform!

I forgot to share this one with the other pictures:

Not the best photo quality, but I was rushing out the door, running late to school as usual (some things never change :) ). Gotta love those Catholic school uniforms! And yes, I do have to wear my hair up so tight that makes me look bald...because all of the other girls are bald!

In other news, we're painting my classroom today! My school is too cheap to hire professionals so they have each class buy the paint and paint their own room haha.

Shocking Questions

Questions I’ve gotten from my classmates over the past few weeks that have made me laugh, made me sad, or just made me think -

Why do you and Colleen have different colored eyes? Is it like everyone from Pennsylvania has green eyes and everyone from Washington, DC has blue eyes? Is your eye color based on the region where you were born? (Colleen is the other American, from Pennsylvania, who goes to my school)

Do they beat the children at your school in America too? (I tried to imagine the reaction if Mr. Trogisch or a teacher at Walls caned someone or made them kneel in the gravel for a few hours hahahaha)

But aren’t you scared that God will see you associating with a gay person and damn you? (I got this after I told them that many people in America support gay marriage and don’t think that it is impossible to be a gay Christian, unlike here. And that I actually know several.)

What is the difference between the UK and the US?

Is America in Africa? (Both of these questions are just sad. But then again many Americans know hardly anything about Ghana or African geography so I shouldn’t have that double standard I guess.)

Do you have to go to the hospital if you want to remove your nose ring?

But what if you had a boyfriend who broke up with you right before an exam at school? What would you do then? (Ummm just go ahead and take the exam? Colleen and I were trying to explain that dating in high school isn’t taboo in America like it is here and they were having trouble wrapping their heads around the concept.)

Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito?

Does it rain in the US?

Do you believe in science?

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth, Barack Obama, Obama, Jay-Z, and others are all part of a secret society and that they helped execute 9/11? (There is a popular conspiracy theory here about the free masons. A really incredible number of people believe it and they were shocked that most people in America haven’t heard about it. Scary!)

This isn’t a question, but it made me laugh: You’re not white, you’re red! (after I had just finished playing soccer)

It's official...I am in love with Ghana!

Hello!

This week flew by. It's crazy how fast time has been moving here recently. Here's what I've been up to:
Last weekend I spent a whole day at a park just outside of the city called Rufus Green with other exchange students, my friend Jeneni came over to my house and helped me do my laundry (whatta pal!) then we went to the Accra Mall. This weekend I had my first Twi lesson (so, so helpful!), got my cell phone fixed, had a hilarious conversation with a guy on the tro tro, went to a comedy show and out for pizza with my host brother and his friend (who was in the show and who I can unbiasedly say was the best act of the night). Today I'm going to the beach and then to a friend's house in Tema, which is a city just about thirty minutes outside of Accra. Otherwise I have been staying very busy with cadets practice and school stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to the U.S. Embassy to take care of my absentee ballot and later in the week we are having the first girls' soccer practice at school. Yay!

At home it was a week of change. My Auntie Hannah (who lives in the UK but was in Ghana for a few months and had been here since I came) went back home. My cousin Ekua, who I was really close to, left today  to start boarding school in her home village. I'm going to miss our walks at night to the market or in the morning to the bread stand, and her teaching me how to do basic things like washing my clothes. My 23 year old host brother Desmond just got back from a five week trip to Germany (where he was visiting an old exchange student), so I finally got to get to know him. This week we were without power most days (so many of the jokes at the comedy show were about how ridiculous and unresponsive Ghana Electrical Company is haha), and without running water until Friday. On Friday afternoon we were in the middle of cadets practice and we saw a huge gray cloud rolling in. We kept practicing and not more than two minutes later, it was suddenly POURING rain. Buckets of rain like I haven't seen since that huge storm in D.C. this summer. Everyone started screaming at the top of their lungs and frantically running back towards the school. It was total chaos and we all got drenched and it was hilarious. And that rain made us having running water again! It's the little things in life :)


Today marks exactly one month since I left DC. There are many times when this experience has been very challenging (you try hauling buckets of water in from the well outside every time you have to flush the toilet, even in the middle of the night!), but it is safe to say that I fall more in love with this country every day. On my walk home from school I go down a long road towards the sunset, and this is one of my favorite parts of life here. I know it sounds silly, but many times as I look around at the children playing soccer and the women pounding fufu and then look up at the red and orange sky, I am so happy that it brings tears to my eyes. I am absolutely in awe of this amazing country, and world, that I live in. All I can do to show my gratitude is to make the most of every single day. I am focusing on not taking a single one for granted.

Twi word of the day:
Medase (Meh-dah-seh) - Thank you

Pictures at last!

I realize this is heavy on people pictures with not too many pictures of day-to-day Ghana life. I'll try to balance it out in my next post! Click to make 'em bigger.

The awesome AFS Ghana group for 2012-2013 at our arrival orientation

Me and Ahmed at Cape Coast castle

With my friend Jeneni from Pittsburgh

With Lucie, from France, and Jeneni

Cool cactus tree at Rufus Green

Beach time!

Canopy walk - so high up!

Drinking coconut water with my amaaazing AFS liason, Sonny

Paradiiiise

Walking over the forest in Kakum National Park

Coconuts are just one of many yummy foods you can get on the street here.

Beach chillin

This is the view on my run in the mornings!

With Greet, from Belgium :)

Boats!

Ekua and Auntie Aba making dinner with no power

I get to eat a candlelit dinner every night. How romantic! (hahh)

Pounding fufu

My little host cousins, Kofi and Nanama. What an awesome smile!