Today, we woke up for breakfast and then went to class. Class was 5 hours today. Not okay. My brain was hurting so much by the end. The first 3 hours were deadly, but the last 2 were actually really fun. Ernest, our amazing tour guide, came to teach us Twi, which is a dialect spoken in Ghana. He taught us so many words! It was awesome to sit there and talk with him in his native language. He taught us words to use as the market as well, because the vendors will respect us more if we bargain with them in Twi. They will be surprised that we even took the time to learn the language! After class, we took a ride into Old Accra. Old Accra is the slum area of Accra. There is sewage and trash everywhere, goats and chickens running loose, naked children, you name it. There were lots of boys playing soccer too, the favorite sport of the country! We were driving by one particular area and saw a huge celebration with dancing and loud music. There were easily 200 people there. Ernest told us it was a wedding celebration. All of a sudden, he just tells us to get off the bus and go dance with them. I was so nervous my hands were shaking. I just felt like we were being thrown into shark infested waters. But, much to my surprise, they welcomed us with open arms! We danced with them to awesome African music. The women all danced so well and their butts were able to do things I have never seen before! They all threw money on us too! I guess that’s a way of showing that they like your dancing. They formed a huge circle in the middle of all of the people and each person got to dance and show their moves by themselves. It was so amazing. I got to take some pictures with the women and children. It was so nice to be welcomed like that. People in the US would probably never just invite you into their wedding celebration! A man shook my hand and told me congratulations when we came out! It was by far one of the most amazing moments of my life. While driving the bus away, we saw the vendors on the street. Ernest mentioned that the vendors don’t even put their goods away at night. They just trust that nobody will steal it, that’s how uncommon theft is here. The children all waved to us when we were on the bus, it was wonderful. Today was the first day that I felt welcomed and not that I was being stared at. Everyone stares at us a lot. I understand, but it just makes us feel uncomfortable at times. Today was a breakthrough! For dinner we went to a place called southern fried chicken. Our teacher told us it was pizza, hamburgers and chicken, and we didn’t want american crap food like that. But, thank goodness, when we got there they had Ghanaian food as well. I asked Ernest what he recommended, and he told me the Red Red is good. Red Red is a dish that contains a bean stew, plantains and chicken. It was delicious! I love the plantains, I dont know what I’ll do without them when I go home. The beans were interesting. Not my favorite, but I will try anything once! After dinner, we stopped at the Pharmacy on the way home. Kelly hasn’t been feeling well, so we stopped so she could get some medicine. AT the pharmacies here, you just tell them what you need and they give it to you! You don’t even need a prescription or anything! The traffic on the way home was terrible. Last night it took us an hour and a half to get home from somewhere that should have taken 20 minutes. We even saw people directing traffic because the lights go out a lot here, even the traffic lights and won’t come back on for a while, so locals will volunteer, for no money, to direct traffic certain nights when the lights go out. How awesome is that?! Anyway, tonight we all thought we were in for a long ride. But, out of nowhere, our bus driver takes us throught a back way! It felt like a wild animal was going to jump out at any moment. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. We then made it to a gate, and magically we were back at school. It was crazy! When we got back to GIMPA we went up to our rooms and myself, allison, alli, erin, matt and brittany went on a nice night walk. I need to get a good night’s sleep for tomorrow’s beach day! :)
My dinner- Red Red
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