Junie's Online Thoughts
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Totally forgot. This morning I cut Jeremy's hair. I've never cut a guy's hair before. Well, once I cut a friend's hair and it turned out very bowl-like. Jeremy's gotten a little shaggy and since Erin is gone, I offered to try. It scared me, mostly because I dont have a clue what Im doing. Cutting hair is really hard!! I tried to use the between the fingers trick that beauticians use, but I still didnt get the layers right and the first time through, it didnt look too good. Jeremy persuaded me to try again and the second time was a little better...still, the cut makes his head seem really long...and the top's just kinda hanging out there...The sides poof out a little too. Hmmm....Oh well, he can get a trim at the Aveda school when he swings through MN on his way to my sister's wedding. That way it will look good by then.
Yesterday we went to the Cultural Center for some serious shopping. I was grateful that Jeremy came along...that place makes me indecisive, wimpy and exhausted. I needed someone who could pull me away if the vendors weren't being fair. After just an hour or so, I bought a fair chunk of presents. While there, I kept seeing sculptures of women with no shirt, clutching her right breast. I asked one guy why the women were portrayed that way and he said it was because of modesty. I knew that was bullshit, so I asked a female vendor later. She started in on some "African saying" about how when women run, their boobs bounce but they dont fall off. So it was about something like that, some perspective, and boobs dont fall off. "And..." she added, "Something about motherhood. I suspect its about motherhood, or the strength of women, or just a way of presenting, I Am A Woman. Like a visible erect penis shows the person in the sculpture is a man. She's always clutching the right boob, because that's the clean side, but I dont really know for sure. Thats the trouble...you ask someone and they end up making up a bunch of shit because they dont know either.
We came home, and I tallied up the gifts. Not much more to go. Then we ate, chilled out and went to bed.
Today after brunch and cleaning, we walked toward the internet cafe. Along the way there was this noisy parade thing going on. We followed and figured that it was a Ga funeral procession (common in the events surrounding a funeral....not only a wake keeping and weekend celebration and burial, but a triumphant parade through the streets, singing, dancing, honking horns and carrying on.) We think some of the younger men were also marking tomorrow's soccer game between big rivals Hearts of Oak and Kotoko, due to many of them wearing the team's colors. Some men dressed up like women....and I have no idea why that is...if its in conjunction with the funeral, or to be funny, or just to be transvestites. Havent seen that before here...and again, if we would ask a random stranger on the street, they'd give us some made up answer.
Lots of emailing today (finally!) so this blogger's short. Only two weeks now.....SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its so hard to believe that its time for me to pack and leave. Wow. Yeeks. Ok. Enough about that....more later.
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Not much today.....errands. Its hot. Nothing new.
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Part three. Sweeeeeeeeet. Finally found it through AOL's search engine. "Where Evil Lies" was made in 1995. Yahoo movies gave it a c+ (whats wrong with them???) and described the plot as "When an exotic dancer gets the chance to audition at the hottest club in town, she and her friend discover they're in the hands of a female slavery ring." In Amazon's movie section, another guy posted a review. Apparently, the sleazy photographer boyfriend sold out the brunette. He sent them to the club. They were drugged and then woke up in a cage with a bunch of other girls who fell for the same trap through the same sleazy boyfriend. The reviewer really liked the prancey lame striptease of the blonde shy girl. Whatever. No mention if they escape, if there's some girl/girl action or something equally lewd, or if the audience must suffer through more bad stripteases.
Part two. New internet cafe. I've been looking on the web all day to try to find out what the heck happens in "Where Evil Lies." Is there just more stripping and sex? Does the sleazy camera boyfriend and geeky boyfriend have something to do with the weirdness at the bar? Why were the girls drugged? Does someone get killed? Whats going on at the Tiger bar???? We will never know.......
Anyway, after giving up on the movie, we walked home. Unlike Accra, the streets at night in Kumasi were ALIVE and full of people. Bustling, I would say. We sifted through the crowds and had a beer at the hotel. Mosquitoes made us a little miserable, but luckily we had a mosquito coil and that helped to make them sleepy and less prone to biting.
Next morning, I tried to eat some pineapple for breakfast. The day before I'd cut up the fruit and put it in a plastic yogurt container. Just sitting in the room overnight had made the fruit ferment and bubble. Ew. We opted for egg and bread on the street instead, then made a giant ring through the city, starting at the Fort and Military museum. If my dad ever came to Ghana, he would love this place. Tons of guns and cannons and tanks and swords from early rival fighting, WWI, WWII, the crisis in Rwanda, the Congo crisis and other peace keeping missions. Good tour. Lots of photos. When the British created the army during colonization, they didnt allow any Africans to wear shoes. Only if an African did some sort of special favor for a white guy, then he was rewarded with sandles (while the whites wore big boots). Except during any photos, any Africans with shoes had to take them off. Most had a hard life, trekking through forests and swamps. Sad times of exploitation, and sadly theres plently of that still around in GHana today.
Then we moved to the Cultural Center to buy gifts. Didnt buy as many as I'd like, mostly because a lot of the stuff can be found in ACcra and then I wouldnt have to carry it around all week. Next came the museum of the great Asante Sword. A uber-fetish priest, long ago, during the English invasion, prayed to their god to bring them the strength of Asante. First came the Golden Stool, which embodies the spirit of the people and is not meant for anyone to sit on it. (It has its own stool to rest on.) Then came the sword, which embedded itself in a rock. As long as the sword remained in the rock, the ASante people would stand strong. Apparently, the Brits tried numerous tactics to dislodge the sword, but none availed. The museum itself was closed for lunch. We waited around for 15 minutes, then gave up and moved on to Keitia market, the largest open air market in the country. This thing was huge and spilled across stretches of city blocks. We didnt find much fabric, and just strolled through the stalls and mazed hallways instead. By the end of the afternoon, I felt beat, so we dropped off our stuff and ate dinner at Moti Mahal, a kick ass Indian restaurant. Ryans' Irish Pub sat down the road, so we had a few beers before returning to the hotel. (Its not really very Irish...they have a dark beer on tap and serve Irish-y food, but otherwise its just a plain old bar with a tv.)
The following day we took a trotro to Lake Bosumtwi, actually a lake in a meteorite crater, not a volcanic crater. The lake itself was fine and pretty, but as soon as we walked over a guy approached us. He claimed to be the head of the lake and wanted us to make a donation to help plant trees. We hear a lot of this, so told him we would think about it. We walked off by ourselves into some of the smaller village surrounding the lake. Most folks were friendly and waved. Before we turned around (it was starting to rain), we chatted in TWi with an older lady. She repeated the sentiment heard throughout the day, that Jeremy was very beautiful. Then she asked me why I was dressed like a man (in khakis and a button down shirt.) Oh well. We returned to the lake to find the money guy giving a large church group a tour. I guess he was slightly legitimate, so we gave him a few cedis, drank a mineral and taxied back to Kumasi. That night we had a horrible dinner at Chopsticks, a chinese/continental restaurant suggested by the guidebook. Overpriced, not tasty and the waiter not only miscalculated the bill, but added nearly a 10% tip for himself with no explanation (probably hoping we would tip on top of the bill.) SUckola.
We returned to Accra on FRiday, ready to be home and sleep in our own bed. It was nice, but I think the touring bug has left me for a bit. We met up with Lothar and his wife, Deanna for dinner. We cleaned the house. I started shopping for gifts. (1/3rd done!)
On Sunday, in honor of the Milo Marathon in Bolgatanga, which I did not attend, I woke early and ran nearly a third of a marathon. (Almost 8 miles.) Not bad considering I havent been running at all in more than a month. Need to start sometime. Monday I worked out again. Didnt yesterday...need to today. My time is short and I've still got some jiggles I want to slim down before I hop on the plane home.
Last night we met up with Sadaf and Sean, only to learn that both Sean and Stephanie are leaving the same day I am.....and SAdaf might leave in March. Who will be left?? We had a few beers and it felt soooo good to catch up with them and their stories from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, Copenhagan, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and work. Sean even took photos for a surfing magazine. Then the conversation moved around to credit card fraud. Apparently, its becoming a HUGE problem in Ghana. When Jeremy received his orientation through Fulbright, they quoted that 80% of the credit card charges in GHana were fraudulent. And last week at the internet cafe, Sean watched the guy next to him buy thousands of dollars worth of Adidas and other merchandise. He put on his sunglasses to spy better and found out his passwords and account information. After the guy left, Sean went into his email and found an email message from someone in the UK with entire lists of credit card numbers. Someone must be working for the credit card issuing company and is selling numbers for people to use. It all gets mailed to some relative living in the U.S. or the U.K. (not hard to come by here...somebody knows somebody in either place.) Sean forwarded the whole shebang to an FBI site based out of NIgeria (because there are so many credit card scams and frauds in Nigeria...now theyre coming here.) The FBI guy wants to talk to Sean....its really a big deal. I've heard other stories of young punks charging on credit cards that are obviously not theirs.....besides, the ONE time we used a credit card here in GHana, what happened? The number was stolen and someone charged an $1800 plane ticket on it. Lucky for us Jeremy got a new card and the whole thing was shifted to the fraud department, but what about all the people who arent so careful? It really ticks me off. And I dont know if its just that the Ghanaians dont realize the severity of the crime...its just numbers....you get free stuff....or if they are just knowingly stealing from foreigners. Big problem.
Well, thats it for today. Finally caught up.....Whew!!!!!
Ok. Just wrote a long bit about Kumasi and the damn computer ate it. Grrrrrrrrrr. Fine. Rode in an uncomfortable trotro to KUmasi. STayed at the Kingsway. Ate a crappy meal at Vic Baboo's, tourist center within the city. Walked to the Rox Theatre to see a movie. That night's feature was "Where Evil Lies" which implied it was a horror movie, but the poster had some mostly naked woman writhing uncomfortably. We paid our 6000 cedis and went inside. Picture the worst Cinemax movie ever made, except with more strippers and more inept acting. This winner began with the brunette posing seductively while the longest credits ever ran. Her boyfriend shot the photos, and her shy blonde friend and her geeky boyfriend hung out in the back and watched. Brunette refused to disrobe, but then convinced her friend to play sassy with the camera. The two wild gals set off for the city. The brunette's boyfriend suggested the Tiger Club where brunette could drop off her photos and try out as a stripper and with some special tickets he gave them, they could get all the drinks they wanted. At the door, the bouncer responded strangely to the tickets, and mumbled under his breath that they would get more than free drinks. Once inside, the quirky bartender also acted strangely about the tickets, and after whispering to a strange lady, proceeded to mix them drinks with a special white powder in them. Meanwhile a bar employee ran past with his pet mouse. (Why? Who knows?) The girls slammed the first drinks while watching the house's frizzy haired stripper dance to the world's most boring song. She finished and it was the brunette's chance to try out at the auditions (although she was the only one there to audition). By now she was wasted so she stripped buck naked. As she danced (if you can call it that), the frizzy haired stripper made eyes at the blonde. When brunette finished, the blonde, previously shy but now affected by the drinks and powder) decided she had to suddenly strip too. She hopped on stage for an awkward, silly strip tease. As we watched this, we winced at the horrible dialogue, grimaced at the boring stripping, wondering when in the hell the plot would actually start. By now a good 45 minutes had gone by and none of this made any sense. I wondered what the Ghanaians thought of this film...shocked? happy? During the blonde's dance, the film freaked out a little and all the guys sitting in the front yelled for them to fix it. Naked white girls. WHy did I wonder what the audience thought? We, however, couldnt take anymore, so we left. At the door, I heard brunette say that she thought the placed seemed a little funny and the bartender quipped back that it was always funny at the Tiger Bar. I imagined the screen to go hazy and heard the plop of them passing out. Just when the "plot" started, we left.
Hang on....computer problems. Let me post this.
