Junie's Online Thoughts
Friday, February 07, 2003
Argh. I just lost what I wrote. Dammit! Okay, Kaneshie was a big bust. The seamstress who did Nina and Stacey's dresses either didnt listen or understand their directions. Both wanted delicate embroidery around the top and hems. The seamstress, I think, tried to jazz it up a bit, and added twenty pounds of embroidery and lots of gold piping. Hello, Vegas. Neither liked it, and besides, Stacey's pants were horribly out of shape...a foot too long, pockets where there werent supposed to be, a crotch that hung down to the knee. Disappionted, neither wanted to help me shop and didnt really pay that much attention to me. I have a hard time visualizing how the fabric will translate from the rack to my body, so I really need a second opinion when buying material. I finally gave up, and decided to bring Erin or Jeremy later to shop for me.
We made it home, ate Jeremys supper (yum!) and went to find Ross. He finked out totally and was M.I.A. (thats what we get for listening to him when he's all drunk and high) so there was no Lord of the Rings extravaganza. Big bummer. Instead, we walked to Frankies for ice cream and then played Go until about midnight. (Thats a card game.)
This morning I woke up late, raced to Providence to meet Erin and STacey for lunch (fried fish...thank god another Wisconsinite is here to share my Friday fish cravings) and then caught a taxi to Vicki's class. Today I was attempting to make finger puppets out of paper. I got there in time for their break, and chatted with another teacher while sipping a local drink made from corn. (Emeajo? A dark brown, sweet, corny drink....pretty good and I didnt get sick!) Then when they were ready, we laid out the papers and supplies. I held up my three examples and showed them how to roll and glue the paper, draw on faces, create folded or drawn limbs and hair/hats. They seemed neither impressed or amused by me and my project. In fact, they didnt seem to emote anything at all. Not confusion, boredom, happiness, sadness. Nothing. Dead silence. I think I could hear crickets in the back...... So Vicki ordered them up to collect their paper and proceeded to bark at them (Dont take that glue! Cover those markers! Where is the scissors? What are you doing? This is not for fun! This is for you---to translate into the real world. Yeesh...actually thats all I was hoping for, was that it WOULD be fun....what was I thinking??) They, as always, were really creative amidst any language barriers, and I was surprised at how inventive they were given the limited supplies. Some made purses, drew great faces, funky hair, caps and hats out of egg cartons, acrobatic limbs. By the end, I think the room was split. Half seemed to have an okay time, the other half finished early and looked bored as hell. I dont blame them...by now, its Friday, Im the last "subject" before they leave for the day, theyre hungry and tired and want to go home. And when they get half assed instructions from some white girl who obviously doesnt have a clue what she's doing, the day doesnt get any better. At about 2:10, Vicki ordered them to bring their "poppets" to the front and clean up. She put the best in a bag to keep and gave the rest back to the class (I felt bad for those 7 or 8 kids who didnt make the cut....)
Vicki walked me to the taxi street. I tried to get some feedback in terms of the project, if the kids probably liked it, some ideas to improve and bounced my other art ideas off her. She seemed confused by the origami frogs (think I will ditch that one...I feel like the kids just wont see the point), happy about the paper mache and suggested maybe next time we do the project with them so they can see how its done. I told her I wouldnt be there next week (Jeremy is presenting his early research ideas at Legon, and we are leaving for the beach next Friday) so we will probably do paper mache in two weeks. I fear it will be a huge messy disaster, but oh well. Will the kids really gain anything from me? Will I really gain anything from this? Who knows.....I wonder a lot of things. Every week, Vicki pays for my return taxi despite my protests....a teacher's salary is pretty meager...I brought her a gift back from Kumasi that she put on a big display for, but I feel like I need to keep bringing presents or supplies to repay her. And the kids....its not like we can do anything big and fun...I would love to teach them clay or painting or quilting, but any supply I might need, I would have to provide for the whole class. Plus they dont really have a lot of room to store things.....Its very stunting and frustrating because my ideas are always complicated and much bigger than my budget. Everything at the class needs to be really product oriented. Either something they can consider "life skills" or something they could make to sell. Nothing can be just for the fun of it....those are truly ideals for the middle to upper class who have time to waste. Seriously. These kids probably go home and work their butts off at home--cooking, cleaning, some help their families sell in the market....there aint no time to doodle.
So Im tired, and my head hurts, and I feel sort of okay and sort of like a failure, but I cant really go home and sit. Theres a funeral happening in the compound and there wont be a moment's peace all weekend. See, funerals are weekend affairs---from what I gather, most folks lay in wake at their house in their beds. After the body is buried (or before, I forget which), theres this big get-together at the house of a relative. It begins Friday night, with tons of chairs and tents and loud music and food. People leave, then come back Saturday and Sunday and whoop it up all night long. There are lots of other customs with funerals---close family members wear red and black funeral cloth, others wear all black, while others wear the blue and white celebration cloth. (If someone dies and theyre old, the funeral should be a celebration because theyve had a good long life. If someone dies a taboo death--freak accidents, AIDS, leperasy, something that could reflect poorly on the family, most relatives dont even mark the death or celebrate it.) The clothing changes as the time goes on, as does the other aspects of the funeral. I will get Jeremy to write a blogger about it, since he knows way more than I do.
So we're planning activities to get us out of the house this weekend. It wouldnt be bad if the back doors were open and we could walk through the back of the complex. BUt its locked--and the only way in is through the front---past 200 chairs filled with people nearly blocking the entire walkway around the big house..........
Tomorrow we are going on a gallery tour, then for a massage, then something...then dancing all night. Sunday is a day trip to a park or butterfly reserve. Anything to get out of the way....
Thursday, February 06, 2003
I guess when I have no job and no real time commitments, I turn into little Susie Homemaker. In the past two weeks, Ive made a keylime pie from scratch, last night I made chocolate chip cookies and today I made peanut butter cookies. There arent quite right...I think the ultra imitation vanilla is giving it a strange aftertaste. I will keep trying....
Today we're at slow slow Towers on email, then Jeremy is off to Legon and Im off to Kaneshie with Nina and Stacey to buy more fabric. She ordered some dresses and I want to see where she got them from if they are nice so I can get some for my friend who had twin girls. Tonight Ross promised to burn Lord of the Rings II on cds and we are supposed to go to this place where we can rent out the room and use their projector. I hope it all goes okay because IM DYING to see LotR2...........I will even bring cookies to share!!
Its still hot hot hot hot hot....temps rising. Oof.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Theres something that happens when the temperature raises higher than 95 degrees. My body shuts down, freaks out and feels like its melting from the inside out. I simoutaneously want to puke and scream and cry, and its awfully hard to do all three at the same time. The temps on the rise here in Ghana, and I think Harmattan is officially over. We're entering the Hot Zone, which will only get worse until the rains start in early May. God help me.
We're at Busy internet today. I need a fast connection to find craft ideas and Jeremy needs to hook his laptop into the system to download some articles. I suspect the airconditioning is another reason we're here today....but who can blame us?
Erin and I agreed to swap workouts and today was her day to show me pilates and tae bo. All was well until she reached up in a stretch and whacked her hand on our ceiling fan. She didnt lose any fingers, but she did get four cuts and major pain. The workout was cut short, much like the workout yesterday when I was showing her mine. She ate right before she came over, and after numerous jumping jacks and other flopping manuevers, she felt queasy and had to stop. We're not having any luck here.....I just need something to help push me along. I envisioned myself losing massive amounts of weight easily and quickly here in Ghana, and thats not happening. Despite the huge reduction in the number of sweets that I used to eat compared to now, and the three to eight miles I walk every single day, and the three buckets of sweat my body produces every hour, I would be hard pressed to admit losing more than five pounds. Jeremy, on the other hand, has easily lost more than ten pounds...noticeable to anyone who looks at him. Even his cute little butt is nearly gone...and he's not even trying. Does he do aerobics? Does he keep a food journal? Does he do yoga or lunges? No, no, no. He walks a bit, eats the same or more than I do, and doesnt even care what a calorie is. He is, however, blessed with a faster metabolism than me, damn him, so his fat just floats away. Mine hangs on for dear life, despite my cursing, my pleading, my jogging, my anything. I keep trying, though...knowing that my body is slow to catch up to my activity and maybe by September I will have lost 10 or 15 pounds...not the 35 I was looking for, but what can I do, eh? Stupid boy metabolisms.....life's not fair.
Monday, February 03, 2003
Gosh, so much to write about. Lets see.....left Friday around 3-ish. The bus ride was nice, I prefer driving at night. That way I cant see how fast the driver is going and time moves faster. I daydreamed about my family and being home, or let my mind wander. We arrived and caught a taxi to Hotel Labelle, where we had made reservations. The clerk told us that he didnt hold our reservation and that all the cheaper rooms were booked. Only the air conditioned rooms, twice as expensive, were left. We argued that they gave us a reservation, thus they had to honor it. Finally, tired and cranky, we were reduced to minor threats, calling them cheats if they didnt give us the cheaper rates and that we would tell all of our friends not to come there. That seemed to work and finally he gave in and honored the price quoted to us on the phone.
We slept, then woke early to visit the Cultural Center. I liked the vibe of Kumasi. I didnt see and white people but us, it was more relaxed, and we were more of a spectacle but less of a target. On the trotro to the center, we made such a fuss---all the old ladies asking Jeremy what color his mother's skin was, what our names were, where we were from, how old we were, all in Twi (thanks to Jeremy, the translater). One guy hitched onto us and offered to accompany us to the cultural center. Stacey found most of her presents, I bought a painting, we wandered around while Jeremy and Akwesi chatted. Erin arrived (she had been in Cape Coast) and together we headed toward some of the smaller villages outside of Kumasi. First stop, the carving villages. Both Erin and Jeremy remembered them as being different and cheap and quaint. But I think the inflow of tourists since their last visit has drastically changed the dynamic of the shacks that line the road to Kumasi. Nearly every stall had exactly the same merchandise---fertility dolls, unity figures, elephants, masks, misc odds and ends. None of them were cheaper than the cultural center, in fact most were incredibly more expensive. We didnt even make it to the Kente village further down--we were soon saturated with the sameness. Back into Kumasi to Vic Baboos, a restuarant. There I finally saw a few abrunis--really, really white folks in shorts. (Now i know what JEremy meant about being a total tourist if you wear shorts. You automatically stick out because of your skin color, but youre that much more obnoxious or noticable if youre dressed like youre going to Disneyland.) We then tried to fix our tickets at the STC station, but for the second time the woman closed just as we walked up to the booth. Damn! We would have to come back early Sunday morning.
Stacey opted to go back to the hotel, so Erin, Jeremy and I travelled to the market, the biggest in the country. It looked a lot like Makola here in Accra, but a little more spread out, I guess. I bought some waist beads and enjoyed the non-existant "abruni! abruni! calls" that we get anywhere in Accra.
Waist beads are a cultural part of Ghana. When a girl reaches puberty, she is ready to become a woman. She receives waist beads, thin strands of beads in various colors, to tie around her hips so they grow properly. (I think the ideal is something like an hourglass shape---broad shoulders, small waist and bigger hips) The beads fall low--pubic hair/butt crack low, and apparently, as a woman ages, they become almost an extreme sensual object--like kinky lingerie or crotchless panties. Erin wore them and during a trip to the market earlier in her trip, she bent over to get something. Her beads were exposed and a vendor woman raced across the pathway, nearly tackling her in an attempt to tell her to cover those things up. Its a big deal, and theyre pretty. I tied one on and soon began adjusting to the feel of them. Most times I dont notice them, but every once in a while, when Im trying to yank down my pants to pee, I hitch my finger around them and nearly yank them off before I remember oh yeah....im wearing those beads.
Anyway, we had dinner finally at a place next to Hotel Labelle. I decided to try the talapia because everyone makes such a big deal out of it here. I must say, I found it to be disgusting. My one bite tasted like dirty river bottom. The second bite was no better. Yeck. Luckily Stacey liked it so she ate it. Good thing I had fried rice, too.
Next morning, we arranged for our tickets and had enough time for a quick trip back to the cultural center for last minute busy. Then we returned to the area around the STC station and found a chop bar/street spot that served breakfast. While eating our eggs and bread and milo and nescafe, Jeremy chatted with the ladies in Twi. AGain, such a funny fuss---they were so amused that he could speak the language and joked that another one of their patrons had been impreganated by a Canadian who ditched her and we should take her and the baby back to Canada. (they were just kidding.) It was nice to hear him talk (he should practice his Twi more) and to chill out before the big bus ride. One pm came and it was time again for the bus. The trip felt longer this time, we saw numerous accidents, but arrived in Accra by suppertime.
It was nice to be home again...although we still havent found Antoinette. We left our laundry outside our front door when we left...I hope she found it and that we get our clothes back. Tonight is another birthday in the big house so there will be another dinner party. Jeremy just found out that he made it into the big final round for the Fulbright grant. He reapplied with a killer application and this time around it looks really hopefull. It would be wonderful if he could get it...he would have more than enough for this trip and have a little leftover to support him during early write up period. Good luck to him......
