One week later....

Hi everybody!!! Wow, it's amazing that only one week has passed since I first wrote. Everything has fallen into place so much now; I actually have a HOUSE now, a bed which is MY bed, I know my route to school, the routes to my friends' houses...I have swum in the ocean!!!!!!!!!! It certainly hasn't been all fun and games, though; the culture shock has been harder than it was when I went to Ecuador. I think there are definitely a few things that have contributed to that. One is that I came to Ghana with expectations of it being somewhat like my Ecuador experience - which it may still be, but not in the way I expected. I guess for me, the appeal in coming to Ghana was becoming temporarily part of a West African society, making lots of Ghanaian friends, "becoming Ghanaian" for a while...the whole AFS deal!!!! The theme "History and Cultures of the African Diaspora" was something I barely even thought about before leaving!!! And then I got here, and all of a sudden, realized that we have CLASSES every day, with our study abroad group, and that often times, we have classes in both the morning AND the afternoon...that we will be traveling around for almost half of the entire time we're living here, and that we really won't be given many ready-made opportunities to form a big Ghanaian friends circle. All of that is OK - it's just something that I hadn't really given much thought to before I came. So here I was, the first week, looking around and wondering why I didn't have lots of Ghanaian friends yet, and of course I didn't...I'm in classes most of every day!!!!!! So, I was struggling with that, and some other things...like being so CLEARLY a foreigner every time I step outside, something I really never experienced in Ecuador. I could, at least by the end of my exchange year there, manage to fool people into believing I was Ecuadorian, and my appearance didn't give me away nearly as quickly as it does here. So, that's new - being constantly on display, no matter where I go. Either way, though, being on display is something I can get used to, and I am getting used to it. It's just harder than I realized it would be.

The good news is that this weekend I DID make some friends. I was walking past this pick up soccer game in my neighborhood, thinking how great it would be if I had someone I could play soccer with, when suddenly I realized that I should just go up and play!!!! They were very welcoming and quickly put me on a team, and I even scored a goal! The same guys took me and a friend to see their club soccer game yesterday, which was pretty amazing...not the game itself, but the atmosphere! More little boys and girls than I've ever seen in my life, all kicking each other and toppling over each other on the sidelines, chasing each other around, throwing orange peels at each other...and then child vendors amonst them, balancing huge trays of oranges on their heads, selling chips, bananas, etc. Our team lost, but that was okay! The soccer quality wasn't amazing, but it was still a pretty cool experience. They told me that whenever I'm bored, I should just call them up...they all live right in my neighborhood. One of them is obsessed with country music, and told me his favorite singer is Dolly Parton, and his dream is to visit Nashville one day!!!!!!! I thought that was hilarious. Sure enough, when I went to sleep two nights ago, I heard country music wafting in through the window, so his house must be one of the ones right near mine, haha.

I really like the girls on my program, too; everyone's really considerate and we work well as a team. I've had some really good conversations with some of them that have helped me feel better about the cultural and other adjustments I've been going through! Also, my host family!!!! They're pretty cool! There's my host mom, Auntie Hettie. She's a dressmaker and spends all her time sewing in the house, and is always SO friendly when I come home every day, asks me all about my day, always wants to make sure everything's all right with me. And Georgina, her adopted 12 year old daughter, who is the most proficient homemaker I've ever met!!!! She washes all the clothes by hand (she taught me how on Saturday, and I can do it to suit MY standards, but not her's!!!), and cooks dinner almost every night...dinner being rice or pasta with fish or meat or chicken in a semi-spicy red sauce (they make it less spicy because, as Auntie Hettie says, all that pepper would at this point kill my stomach!) There's also a lot of fried plantains around. In the morning we eat bread with pineapple jam and drink hot tea (it's really hot, but still, everyone drinks hot tea). We usually eat lunch at the restaurant right near our classroom. A few days ago, I tried fufu, which has a texture similar to bread dough, and is a mix of cassava and plantains. You eat it in groundnut (peanut) soup, with a piece of chicken stuck in there as well.

I have NOT gotten sick, and may be at this point the only one who's still healthy!!! We'll see how long this lasts. I've been being careful to only eat homecooked meals and meals at the restaurant, so I guess if it hasn't gotten me sick so far, maybe it won't in the future? Next week we're going to be staying in Komenda, a small fishing village, so we'll see what the food's like there. By the way, next week while we're there I probably won't have internet access, so just know that's what's up if you write something urgent and I don't respond!!!!

Okay! Was that a sufficient blog entry? I've talked about what's been most present in my mind! I'm sure there's a lot more to tell, but hopefully I'll be able to update sometime soon. I hope everyone else is doing GREAT on their study abroads!!!!!!!! I miss you all.

Love,
Sara