move over hokie-pokie, i've got food!

Zahava here. A little confused. A little stressed. A little frustrated. I’m trying to go with the flow.

By the way, I’m really glad they said it was REALLY IMPORTANT! to be here for orientation. Today is our one-week anniversary of being in Ghana, and we would not have missed a thing if we came today. Most of the Ghanaians aren’t even here yet. The third room in our suite is still empty. Yes, classes started today. No, neither of my professors showed up to class, nor did 90% of the students. Apparently, the first week of classes doesn’t really count. Classes are technically in session, but no one is expected to go. Except sometimes it’s important. But you can’t predict.
As classes have yet to start, yesterday we went to the beach. Fun fact: Before we left, I made sure to put on a lot of sun screen. To my demise, I did not do a very good job. I have burn patches on my collar, the back of my hands, and the back of my left arm. Okay, so here is a summary of the beach. A lot of impressive Ghanaians were playing Soccer. I wanted to join. So I went over to a guy standing on the side, and he said no. These guys are really intense. But he hurt his foot, so he can’t play, so I do want to toss the ball around a little on the side? Yes! We played for about an hour with a few different guys coming in and out. It was awesome and quite sweaty. When I couldn’t breathe anymore, I pulled Yamit into the water. We “swam” for also about an hour also. Men do not understand the concept of personal space to say the least. Guys will walk up to you, introduce themselves, shake your hand, and not let go for ten minutes while they try to have a whole conversation with you that ends in asking for your phone number. Literally, I have touched more guys in this past week that in my entire life before that.

Here are a few stories that sum up my beach experience.
1) Three guys proposed to me and Yamit at the same time. They all got down on one knee in the ocean.
2) When I asked one of them why he wanted to marry me, he said, “I want to marry a white girl so I can have white children.”
3) Yamit and I were holding hands for most of the time in the water because we were scared of being separated. They asked us why we were holding hands. “You know,” one of them said, “it’s illegal in this country for two girls to swim together in the sea.”
4) (And last but not least…) “Okay. Really, I have a serious question. I’ve had this question for a really long time. I’ve been waiting to meet a white person, so I can finally know the answer. Okay. So you know how our women are shaped like guitars? (He did a nice curved outline in the air with his hands.) You know how you girls are not? Is that because your mothers never caressed you when you were babies?” I died of laughter! I did not know what to do with myself. “You know,” he continued, “when you have a baby girl, you shape her a** (he made the air gesture again) and you shape her head. Don’t you guys do that?” Really?! My culture is the weird one here because we don’t shape our baby girls butts so they’re curvaceous?
Sunday night we also had this big dinner party thing with a live traditional African band and then performance. There was also this girl who is with us for three weeks who I met. She got this amazing scholarship from her school to do this on-site research project. She’s studying African dance in Africa versus in the Diaspora. She’s going to like 15 countries, each for three weeks. It’s all paid for with this scholarship! How amazing!


Now, on to today. I’m not going to write too much as to not bore you, but firstly, as I mentioned earlier, people have no respect for schedules. They make a schedule, tell people there is going to be class, and then the professor doesn’t show up. Not okay. This happened in both of my classes today. Secondly, Rivky and I were walking back from dance “class” today around noon, the hottest part of the day. I had been walking around all day, and I was dying of heat. We finally made it up to our rooms, collapsed on the chairs and each screamed, “I need to shower!” I go into the shower and THERE’S NO WATER ! Luckily, there was still a little in the faucet that comes out of the wall of the shower, despite there being none in the shower head. So I filled up a bucket and took a splash-shower. I have never felt more uncouth, but it felt so good.

After Twi (my only class today because it’s given by CIEE, not U of Ghana), I was seriously craving something sweet. I wanted a cookie or something. Oddly enough, we are fresh out of cookies. So baked some! Well, first I fried some. All we have is flour, sugar, eggs, and oil, but I decided that would be enough. I mixed them in a proportion that seemed appropriate and fried them. They were great! Then we went all out. Yamit sorted and cooked rice with onion soup mix. Yum! She also made scrambled eggs with garlic powder salt that we bought at Shoprite last week. After dinner I made another batch of cookies, but this time I baked them. Dee-Lih-shus! Basically, dinner was amazing. Tonight was the first time since I left America that I have been full, that there has been more left over that I was unwanting and unwilling to eat. It was a great feeling.

I do not yet have a schedule for the semester, but I have food. Life is good.


P.S. So far, there is really only one class that I am determined to take. Home Science 412 - Select Topics in Home Management. I am so excited!