After Ben took my bags up the stairs (he wouldn't let me carry any of them), Tina showed me the room in which I'll be staying. I'm in the top bunk, which worried me at first. See, at night, when I have to go to the bathroom, I generally don't give myself a lot of time, if you catch my drift, so I was a little scared I'd wet the bed or hurt myself getting in/out of bed. I practiced getting in and out a couple times and got the hang of it so I'd be okay.
Tina came back with a plate of rice with this tomato, pepper, and onion sauce on top that was quite spicy. I like spicy foods for the most part, and I enjoyed this too. They knew the six of us would be getting back, so they saved some lunch for us. It was my first Ghanaian meal, since all I'd had that morning was a granola bar. This, in minor variations, was to be my lunch and dinner for the next five weeks. I wasn't sure what to do when I got full, so I ate the rest of it, then felt a bit sick because there was way too much food in my belly. Rice is very filling, by the way. When Tina came back to take my plate and show me where the kitchen was, she smiled and told me it was good I ate it all, since none of the volunteers usually do.
There's no way to get to the kitchen without going outside and down the stairs, which everyone complains about when it's raining, but I sort of like it. It was sunny out the day I got there. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I met the other volunteers: Kathryn, Jeff, Torsten, and the three professors (Shannon, Richard, and I don't remember the other), and we sat and chatted for a little while. Torsten had been working in Kumasi, a city to the north, but his internship/job ended, so he came to TOB. The professors were just checking out the program to see if they could create a class around the program and have all the students come to volunteer as part of the class. Jeff was there for the whole summer doing his study abroad/research for his major - something about international relations or politics or something. And Kathryn was just there for a few weeks because she heard about the program and wanted to try it. She'd been to Tanzania with her parents before, teaching, so she wanted to try this by herself. All of them were intriguing to talk to, and I enjoyed hearing their impressions of Ghana, the kids, and the program itself.
Kathryn and I went out to the backyard/beach because we saw some of Kathryn's favorite kids playing in the sand. She started building a sand castle with them, and I got roped into playing a couple different hand clapping games. It seemed like, once I got the hang of one of them, they switched to a different one to try to teach me. After like a half hour, they seemed to get bored, so I tried to teach them the first children's song I thought of - Ring Around the Rosie. They understood the circle part, and eventually got the fall down part, but the movement of the circle didn't seem to make sense to the kids. This girl came up with her mother, and she spoke very good English, unlike the other kids I'd been playing with. She helped us all get organized into a sort of game. This consisted of me either being a jungle gym or picking each child up and spinning around, dropping them in the sand.
At one point, one kid decided he liked my hair, and tried to take my ponytail. As most of you realize, ponytails are attached. This child didn't, and got frustrated when he couldn't just take it with him. He started to pull, and another kid tried to help me by pulling it back toward me. Unfortunately, that just meant my hair was being pulled in two different directions and it hurt. I kept saying stop, but these two kids didn't understand English. Kathryn finally noticed what was going on and yelled, "Dabi, dabi, dabi". (Pronounced dahbee, it means no). They let go, and I said I had to go inside.
I was right, I did have to be going inside. I rinsed off the sand in the ocean first, which semi-worked. The ocean is very active, so there's a lot of sand in the water in the first place, so a lot of it just stayed stuck to me. Plus, my feet were wet then, so the sand on the beach covered my feet and ankles by the time I got to the house. I had to learn to get used to sand everywhere, and I'm pretty sure I ended up bringing about a pound home with me anyway.
By the time I got inside, it was time for News Hour, which we do every night the power is on. In Ghana, they say "light on" or "light off".We watch Aljazeera, which has usually British newscasters. That first night, I could barely understand what they were saying. British accents aren't terribly easy to understand, especially when you're still trying to take in all the new things you've been experiencing the last not even 24 hours. During the discussion, one comment really sticks out. Henry said, about the US and some difficulties California was having economically, "If it's the United States, shouldn't the other states step in and help California?" For Ghanaian people, community is extremely important, so the idea that the rest of the US would let CA struggle is hard to think about. Whereas the Americans tended to say, CA got itself into this mess, let them get themselves out.
Discussion usually consisted of either small groups of 4-5 or one whole big group, depending on the number of people. For the most part, discussion was a short recap of the news stories, and then everyone's opinions on how the story was presented or what it means or how the people involved could be thinking/what they could be doing better/worse. Sometimes, it got a bit one-sided as outspoken individuals tried to make others see their point of view, but it was mostly open dialogue. Volunteers tried to keep the Ghanaian students in charge of the discussion since the major point of News Hour, aside from understanding the greater world community, is practicing English. In order to do that, the students have to be able to synthesize what they heard and express it. I had an easy time keeping my mouth shut since I didn't really understand what was going on, but I wanted to be able to contribute better in the future.
Then, it was time for dinner. More rice with more spicy tomato and onion sauce. Still good, still too filling. I ate it all because I was still too afraid of offending the cook or the kids in the house. But I knew I couldn't keep eating everything they gave me. I would explode! After dinner, we had a birthday celebration for Ben in the backyard. There was a bonfire, mostly of bamboo, I think. I stuck around to see the fire lit, but my head was pounding and I was feeling terribly overwhelmed, so I went in and went to bed. The windows in the room, though, are just screens with some wooden slates to help support them, so the music and talking/singing from the backyard floated right into the bedroom. Plus, the place next door had music blasting. At first, I thought they were having a party too, but then I realized they do that every night. It's a restaurant, and music is part of their atmosphere. It's usually American pop, rap, r&b, or older rock. Mostly good music, actually. I enjoyed falling asleep to it, even though I felt bad missing the party.
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