Sunday, I played basketball again. The hoop they've built here takes a lot of getting used to. The hoop isn't set off from the backboard at all, so the bounce you get has to be even more accurate, and the wooden board makes the ball actually bounce more than the courts I'm used to. Plus, we're using a volleyball since we don't have a basketball. That makes it even harder to adjust to. Needless to say, I'm not terribly good. Not that I'd be great on an American court though - it's been what, four years since I've legitimately picked up a game of basketball. Yeah, but it was fun, and the boys have been working with me on my dunking. They actually think I can jump to the rim eventually. I'll keep trying, but I do not think that's going to happen. I got no hops kid. :P
I somehow got roped into drawing flashcards for the after school program, since we didn't have a full set of culturally relevant flashcards for the alphabet. (Really, I for Igloo? They don't have/have never seen an igloo). People who know me know I don't tend to draw very well or with a lot of enthusiasm. But, we got through most of them. There were a couple we didn't do very well, so we erased them and asked Henry to draw them. Henry is taking graphic design classes, and draws fairly well, so we thought it would be a good idea to ask him when he got back from wherever he was, probably church, since it's Sunday.
Anthony was playing music all day, trying to perfect a song on the guitar. He's pretty good, actually. Anyway, that meant I was swimming by myself, since he didn't want to go for our swimming lesson today. The waves were a lot calmer than yesterday, which made it less fun/exciting, but probably more beneficial to actually trying to swim. It was fun, and I've not gone out terribly far, since I want to be sure I've gotten the hang of how the ocean works first.
For lunch, we had these long, fried strips of something that looked and tasted like potato, so I thought they were fries. I hadn't actually seen a potato in Ghana, so I didn't think it was that. I've never tasted yam before, so, until Louis told me they were yam chips, I was just assuming that there were potatoes, and I just hadn't seen/recognized them yet. Yam tastes/feels like potato, in case you were wondering. We had them with this thick tomato paste sauce, so it felt like I'd just had fries for lunch. They were good, but rice is a lot more filling.
There was a new volunteer who came today also, Sierra. She's from Washington D.C., and has, like every other volunteer here, been to Africa before, just not Ghana. I am starting to feel a bit out of place and like a little kid who doesn't quite know what to do. They have all been through the travel bit before, so I feel like they're more comfortable than I am. But, Sierra seems cool, and it feels like she's here for the right reasons - to try to learn and help the kids. Unlike some of the volunteers who seem like they just want a vacation and don't care about helping in the after school or making sure they show up to News Hour. That annoys me. So does the fact that people leave lights and fans on and things plugged in when they're not there. They also are leaving the doors to the bedrooms open, which lets in mosquitoes. It's like they don't care that all this wastes electricity and makes it uncomfortable for everyone else in the room. I don't know why, but today was the first day I started to get very irked by this.
Henry, Torsten, and I went for a walk that evening after dinner. We just went along the beach, chatting about our respective countries. (Torsten is from Sweden, here killing time after his internship in Kumasi, a Ghanaian city). Then, we had a singing 'contest'. We each sang our respective national anthems, and a song of our choice before we got bored. We agreed none of us won, since we were all equally not good. One of our conversations dealt with social theory, and how a society can breed a specific way of thought based on how it's organized and what those in power can/want to advance. I'm not sure Henry fully grasped what the implications of these ideas are, but Torsten and I had a wonderful time trying to explain what little we know about it.
When we got back, it was dance party time. Anthony had his speakers going from the iPod, and all the kids were dancing, and trying to teach us volunteers how to dance. I think I've got pretty good rhythm, and a good feel for what fits the music, but they insisted I had to do their dance to their songs. That makes sense, I guess, but it frustrated me when they seemed to get mad when I tried to just dance what I felt with the song. About half of them were in an Akan (Twi/Fante) language, so I didn't know what they were saying, but I still got the groove of the music, which, to me, is whole point of dancing. Anyway, I did have fun, and I did enjoy learning the dances the kids showed me. So, I guess it was a productive evening. :)
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