Hello from Ghana! After about 24 hours of travel yesterday, I finally made it to Accra at about 8:30PM local time (4:30 EST). I was met there by Ben and Anna, the two program coordinators over here, as well as Sir Dun, the headmaster of NAP Academy. (that makes him sound really scary, but he's actually only like 28 and really cool).
Anyway, you would think that after such a long day of travel, and not getting to my room until 10:30PM, I would go straight to bed, right? Apparently not. Call it FOMO or curiosity, but when Sir Dun asked if I wanted to go out and see Ghanaian night life, I told him that of course I wanted to go out. Who goes to bed at 10:30 on a Saturday anyway? So the two of us hopped in a cab and he took me to this club-like deal about 10 minutes from where I live called Monte Carlo. It was basically like an outdoors sports bar with an inner lounge. We sat in the lounge for a while but then both decided to go outside to watch the football game. (aka the soccer game, but I get laughed at if I say soccer here). He proceeded to order me a drink and when I asked what was in it, he told me he didn't really know. It was basically some fruity cocktail that the bar makes a ton of and then sells by the cup. The first thing I thought of was, "Good thing Charlotte Johnson isn't here." We stayed there until probably about 1AM just talking and eating some grilled shish-ke-bob thing that I realized today was chicken gizzard. Yum. As much fun as I was having though, I realized the second I got in bed just how exhausted I was and fell asleep almost immediately.
After going to bed around 1:30 after that long day, I expected to be asleep until at least 10 or so, especially since I didn't have anything going on until 1 today. Instead, I woke up to loud knocking on my door at about 7:30. When I opened the door, in walked this lady carrying a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, a container of hot chocolate mix and a jar of sugar. Any negative feelings I had about being woken up early immediately evaporated, especially after talking to her granddaughter, Sarah. The lady, it turns out, is Olivia and she is going to be making my meals for the entire duration of my stay here. Later in the day, she brought lunch and dinner to my door too. Everything was delicious. It also didn't hurt that she brought along a different cute child every time she brought food. The only downside is that, when I went to wash my hands before breakfast, I realized that there wasn't any running water. Apparently running water comes and goes. Currently, it is gone.
Speaking of cute children, have I mentioned that these kids are adorable?! Walking outside right after lunch, two little girls ran at me yelling some word I didn't recognize (more on that in a bit) and each one took hold of one my hands and led me on a brief tour of their yard. A bunch of other little kids came up to me to say hi too, as well as some adults here and there. Ghanaian people seem absolutely fascinated by people of a different race. Last time I saw anything like this was when the Cords went to Korea... only that time no one really cared about me because I looked just like them and there were a bunch of white people that were far more interesting. :) If the kids are already like this though, I can't even imagine what's going to happen tomorrow when there are 250 kids in school and just one of me. Wish me luck.
Alright, last couple things. In regard to the title of this post, "obruni" means white person or, more generally, foreigner, so that's what the kids were yelling at me earlier. I've been told that obruni is going to be like a second name to me for the duration of my trip. I look forward to it. Other words I've learned today: "Etesen" means how are you, "acuava" means welcome, and "yo" means something along the lines of yes. (the last one is by far the easiest). Apparently the kids speak some mixture of English and this Ghanaian dialect so I'm going to have to learn a lot of this language too. We'll see how that goes.
I visited the school today and met with a lady named Madam Gifty who greeted me by giving me a high five while yelling "ching ching chong ching chong". Even though that sounds like it's pretty racist, like I said, Ghanaian people seem super interested in people of other races and I was told to expect things like that. It's just their way of acknowledging the fact that they realize I am not Ghanaian. After that, though, she let me know that she was one of my two "Ghana mothers", the other being Madam Olivia (who I mentioned earlier). Barely 10 minutes into our conversation, she told me I had to invite her to my wedding someday because it wouldn't be right not to invite your parents to your own wedding. I guess she's taking this "Ghana mother" thing pretty seriously. She does seem very nice though and has three Ghanaian children (not including me) -- Fifi, a 6th grade boy, Izzy, a 3-year old girl, and another child in high school that I didn't meet tonight.
Anyway, I guess that's about it for now. Sorry for how long this post is, there's just so much to share! I'm almost positive I'm still forgetting stuff too. I'm unbelievably excited for the first day of school tomorrow. I'm just going to be observing and sitting in on classes , but I'm just pumped to finally meet all the teachers and students.
Check back tomorrow to find out how the first day of school at NAP was and I'll also try to start posting some pictures. (I got one today that I really like of an adorable baby goat!)
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