One month later...

Hello, all! Here is a (sorry, but, I don't have time on the computer)
generic update on my activities in Africa:

I've been in Ghana for about six weeks now, and in my community for
about five. I live in a cement "compound" (a house with a courtyard)
with my immediate family of five and my older host-sister, who does
not live with us but visits a lot. She just had a baby yesterday! So
now I have a new host-niece. Her other daughter is absolutely
adorable, two years old, and prefers shrieking high-pitched sounds to
talking.
On a typical day, I get up between 5:30 and 6 AM (with an internal
alarm clock-- the ones I've bought have stopped working!) and then go
to school after a breakfast of bread with scrambled egg. The kids have
"silence hour" where they sweep the school, and then classes begin.
Teaching is HARD, but my kids are starting to understand things more
and more. This is decidedly a good thing, as I have three more classes
with them before exams. The school schedule in Ghana is very much
different from what we had all thought it would be...
After school, I go over to my partner's house, and we eat the papaya
his mom always cuts up for us. We play with the boy who might as well
be my nephew by this point, practically my partner's son, and then I
go home. If I am unlucky, I go home to gare, which is essentially cold
shreds of wheat with far too much sugar and cream. If I am lucky,
there is bread. I wash the bowls, prepare for the next schoolday, take
a nap, go on a walk, and eventually sit down to a dinner of rice with
pepper stew, fufu with groundnut soup, or banku. (Fufu and banku are
mashed-up starches in balls which are dipped in spicy stew to give
flavor.) My family and I sit and listen to their new radio before I go
out for the evening, to a friend's house or to read Shakespeare with
some teenagers at the "market." The market is like a dirt town square
with a light pole in the middle of it. Anybody who wants to hang out
goes there, to the "learning light" in my suburb, or to the "dame
light" (pronounced Dahm-Eh) up the road. Dame is a game they have here
that's a lot like checkers.
In other news, my host-sister's baby is a girl named Akwia (because
she was born on a Thursday). She is currently getting a blood
transfusion here in Cape Coast, so we are all hoping everything goes
smoothly until she returns home this weekend.
In my family, there are some pretty strict gender roles; the girls do
the cooking and my dad might sweep, but his sons fetch water. My
family works SO hard. My mother leaves the house before five-thirty AM
on Tuesdays and Fridays to sell produce at the market, and will not
return until late at night. My father is always at the farm or selling
palm nuts. My host-siblings are very often doing extra work to help
themselves learn.
Graham (my village partner) and I have a friend named Naomi who speaks
excellent English, and sometimes we will go to the nearest small
town's market with her to buy Fan Ice (cake ice cream), a Fanta, or
clothes for church. The market is an incredibly colorful and noisy
experience-- quintessential Ghana.

Sorry for the briefness of the update-- I have less time than I
thought I'd have!
Cheers,
Samantha