Do you like meat?

Lauren and I woke up early on Sunday and spend 5.5 hours in church. Really. 1 hour of bible study, 3 hours of service, followed by 1.5 hours of meetings and greetings. I looked at it as more of a cultural experience and truly enjoyed meeting all of Lauren's congregation. I won't lie though...although very interesting, getting through that was a challenge.

Lauren and Leslie have a weekly tradtion that after church to go to his Aunt Sophie's house for a traditional dish called fufu. Fufu in Ghana is made from boiled cassava and unripe plantain beaten together with a mortar and pestle. Water is slowly added towards the end to create a dough like ball. This ball is then split up and put into induvidual bowls, which is then covered in ground nut soup. The soup was dark, oily, and spicy and is filled with random meat. My bowl had various parts of cow, crab, goat, and fish in it. The broth and fufu part were so good! The meat was...interesting and I didn't want to be rude so I continued to eat it all. By the way, everyone eats this dish with their hands so it's very messy. At one point,
Aunt Sophie looked up at me and said "do you like meat?" and I nodded. She grabbed a giant chunk of mysterious meat from her bowl and plopped it in mine with her hands. It looked really strange and had black hair on it. I guess my face gave away what was going through my mind. She said "it's cow skin, it's good!". Then it got me to thinking what other mystery meat was in my bowl. I made a huge mistake by asking, because I had already tried most of it. After finding out that I munched into a chunk of cow head, I had to stop eating.

Leslie has been feeling sick and I guess he has malaria. Which seems like a big deal but I have already met 4 people with malaria since I have been here. It's very common and people act like it's a common cold.

Today I am at the American Embassy with Lauren. They have fast and free internet!

"Our boys crushed USA"

Lauren, Leslie, his friend Carl, and I went to Ada which is a coastal town 90 min east of Accra on Friday afternoon. Leslie knew someone with a nice little beach house there but we ended up staying at a little motel on the beach. We had our own
little hut with bed nets. It was very charming and we had constant service of food and drinks to our porch table. It cost about $25 for all four of us, and they said it was one of the more expensive places. We went to the Leslie's friend's house on the beach on Saturday and his house care taker took us out on a small motor boat. Leslie and Carl had never been on a boat of any kind before so it was an interesting experience. They really had no idea what to expect and every movement made them nervous. We rode around the Volta river and out to the estuary, where the river met the ocean. There were all sorts of villages along the waterfront complete with huts. We saw small fishing boats with large crews. We had a great time relaxing and getting away from the crowded city.

We drove back on Saturday in time for the Ghana vs. USA game. Lauren and Leslie invited their friends over, which ended up being a mixture of peace corps volunteers, other fulbright researchers, a french guy, and leslie's buddies. All, except for one guy from Chicago, were rooting for Ghana. I was a bit torn but as I sat on the couch eating plantain chips and drinking Ghanaian Star beer (which is pretty darn tasty) and listening to screaming ghanaian fans outside, I decided it wouldn't be right for me to root for USA. As we watched the game in Accra, my family and lo's mom were watching the game in Bellevue. After a fairly intense match that went into overtime, Ghana won 2-1. This continent exploded. Everyone here is obsessed and since Ghana is last team representing Africa, everyone African supports them.

After the game, we lathered on sun screen and abandoned all valubles and ran out into the streets. Another huge parade ensued. Thousands of Ghanaians, of all ages, were out partying, riding on top of cars with flags, and blowing into horns.
After guessing that we were Americans, many were shocked to see us celebrating in the streets with them but it was a sight that I wouldn't want to miss. The sounds of celebration never died that night.

I didn't even think that Ghana winning would cause everyone to come up to me the next day and basically rub it in my face that they beat my country even though I told them I was rooting for Ghana. I am sure I won't hear the end of that for the
duration of my stay.

Learning Twi and Ga

We spent the morning at UCC (Underprivileged Children's Centre) which is a transitional school for children of families that can't afford to pay school fees. I felt so privileged to tour the school and meet the kids, the founder/director, and volunteers.
The school is in the middle of one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Accra and the director basically welcomes all children to the school so they won't end up working or begging on the streets all day. He rented a house where he lives, along with the volunteers and some of the older vocational school students (that his wife runs). He erected 6 small classrooms (little wood shacks) in the yard for over 160 kids. Volunteers come from the UK mostly to staff as teachers. I went around taking photos of the classes, students, and volunteers for the non profit that is just being started to raise money for the school and recruit volunteers.

I focused on children from 5 families because Lo has followed these families for months for her field research about education.
The second half of the day was planned to visit the homes of the five families and photograph the individual family members as well as their living conditions. We ended up making it to one of the five but we will go back to finish.

No normal tourist would have this chance to invade someone's community and home, especially with a large camera and a tripod. I felt very lucky to get this opportunity. A Ghanaian named William, who works for Lauren as her research assistant and interpreter, also joined us throughout the day. He is from her research area and he speaks both the local dialects (twi and Ga). It was only because Lauren and William have been meeting and interviewing with the families for months and they felt comfortable with them. I was introduced to the whole family and was very polite about taking their photos. At first, most were shy and nervous but then I showed them the digital picture and they got really excited and then pretty into it.

The living conditions were shocking. I think the pictures will do a better job than any description. One thing the pictures won't tell is that the family of nearly 20 were living and sleeping in one very small room that was packed with all their belongings and one very large bed. There were a few other rooms down the hall that were packed with other large families. Lauren is very familiar with the details of their lives, and I found it very interesting to learn more about their history, family dynamics, and daily lives.

By the time we left, everyone was very warmed up to me and very thankful of my visit. I am looking forward to meeting the other families and learning more about the life style and taking more pictures.

I have hundreds of pictures and I wish I could put them up on picasa. I don't see that as a possibility as of now but I will try to add a few pictures to the blog. The internet has been out at Lo's since the day I got here. I guess the landlord didn't feel like paying the bill. Guess I will just go with the flow...

Busy day 2

Spending the day at the orphanage here was very humbling. First, I was formally introduced to the director of the orphanage to get permission to take a tour. My flight attendant I spoke of before took me around the property and showed me the old and young boys and girls houses, along with the much younger children's house, and then to the nursery. I was able to take pictures at will throughout the property except for the nursery where I was asked to not take any...I quickly found out why. That was an image that I will have a hard time forgetting. I have never seen so many babies and toddlers and so little space. The conditions were horrible. Fortunately, the moldy cribs were being slowly replaced by sturdy metal cribs by the non profit I mentioned, Dreams for Orphans. That group has done a lot for the orphanage and I was impressed to see the amount of improvements they have made (ex. bunk beds for all the children so they didn't have to sleep on the floor, building a library) with their limited amount of resources. I loved having the opportunity to meet the kids and hear what their life was like. Some of them were in the process of being adopted so that was a positive side of the day.

I was constantly swarmed by the kids as I was shooting them and their living conditions. The second I kneeled down to photograph someone, a kiddo would cling on for a piggy back ride. The little ones were running up with their hands held up for me to pick them up or grabbed my hand to walk with me. It was surprising how little supervision a group of 30 children had and that they were able to leave the property out into the public streets at anytime.

After the day at the orphanage, we went to Leslie's place to watch the Ghana vs. Germany Soccer game. Due to Crappy (with a capital C) roads and some serious traffic, we got there a little after the game started which gave me the chance to see swarms of people huddled around a tiny tv on the side of the road and in little shops to watch the game. The whole country (besides everyone in traffic) was glued to the TV. Leslie had a few friends over and all the guys were speaking/yelling in pidgin (which doesn't sound anything like english), throughout the game. Well, as you probably know, Ghana lost....BUT, so did Serbia which means that Ghana qualified to go on to the next round. And guess who they are playing on Saturday...USA. That should be interesting. Lauren doesn't even hesitate when she says she is all for Ghana. I, on the otherhand, am so TORN! So I look at it this way: since they are playing each other, at least one of them will go onto the next round!

The fact that Ghana lost didn't seem to bother anyone. As soon as everyone saw the brackets, we heard a mob of fans assembling outside of the apartment. I grabbed my little camera and Lo and I recruited a guy to come with us to join the mob. Blow horns, carhorns, screaming, dancing, blocking all traffic, running up the motorway, and crazy celebration ensued. Lauren and I attracted a LOT of attention as we stood out in the crowd. I won't go into a lot of detail but we made a smart decision in bringing a strong guy that we knew along with us. That being said, I was never scared and I had great time.

We had a late drive home and on the way they do routine police checks of cars after 10 pm at night. We hit 4 police checks on the way home. This is how they normally go: you pull up, turn you overhead light on, keep windows rolled up. Police man shines his lights at you and in the back seat of the car and then shakes his crappy flashlight to signal that you can go through. Well, at one stop, we were asked to pull over. I rolled down the window an inch and the police basically asked if he could come home with us to which lauren replied, "my husband wouldn't like that", and he said, "what about your sister (implying me)?" and lauren replied "she's married too, our husbands are at home". He gave us a bit of a hard time and then let us go on our way. I was shocked. Lauren's response to me "there's your first taste of Ghanaian police, you've seen nothing yet."

First Impressions

Talk about a painless plane ride. Lauren knew 2 of the flight attendants on my Delta flight and she told them I was coming so I got the VIP treatment, short of being bumped to first class. I got my own row of 2 and was consistently spoiled with first class leftovers throughout the flight. Both woman were incredibly nice and I chatted with them a bit about their time in Ghana and the non profit they started at the Orphanage visited yesterday. Watched Invictus and then slept about 4 hours...not bad.

Arriving in Accra seemed very natural. Customs was a breeze. Lo (lauren) met me at the airport and even though it's been 9 months since we saw each other, it felt like no time had passed. Riding around in the car all day was an experience in itself. I saw a large baboon on the way to her place! Goats, chickens, dogs, and roosters were wandering on the side of the road. We ran a couple errands (the mechanic, the laundry service, and pumping gas which were verrrry different than what we are used to and I will try to take some pictures at some point). I quickly realized how friendly and welcoming everyone is.

I met Leslie (lauren's BF) after 2.5 years of hearing allll about him. He is extremely nice and handsome. He was excited about the Lucky Charms I brought him...I guess Cereal doesn't really exist here. Leslie has been to the East coast of the US a couple times and hopefully he will be able to visit the US this summer, if he can get a visa.

Our next stop was the largest orphanage in Ghana which houses over 200 children, infants to 20 years old. The kids were at school for the most part. I am going back today to take photos for the non-profit that the flight attendants founded, based out of Seattle, called Dreams for Orphans. I will blog about this soon after I visit more and get a tour.

By this point I was pretty exhausted but Lo kept me going to avoid passing out and messing up my jet lag adjustment. She had been invited to dinner at the house of a Zambian Diplomat for the High Commission of the Republic of Zambia. We got there around 7 pm and were greeted by 2 families from the church she attends. They were incredibly welcoming and treated us like top notch guests. I offered to help but they insisted I was a guest and didn't want me to lift a finger. One thing that was interesting was that our host and one of his daughters poured water over our hands out of a pitcher into a bowl at the table right before dinner. They prepared a huge feast of Zambian food, comparable to double our Thanksgiving dinners. There were about 7 Entrees of meat...various preparations of chicken, beef, and fish. These were accompanied by rice and nshima, the main starch which is basically condensed cornmeal, along with beans, and sauteed greens of some sort. I know one of the greens were sweet potato leaves which had a really interesting flavor. I tried everything! Even the weird looking fried fish. For the most part, I really enjoyed the food. Lo tells me I am spoiled because Ghanaian food doesn't compare. The families were incredibly hospitable and told me to come back for more dinners before I leave. Pictures below.

Went to bed at 11 pm. So proud I was even still functioning at that point. I felt a bit dazed and glazed over throughout the day but I stayed up to get a full night of sleep. Woke up to roosters behind Lo's house. Stopped at an internet cafe (80 cents for an hour...sweet!). Off for a new day.

Happy birthday to Katie!! Enjoy your conference this week. We will celebrate when I get home.

In the city that never sleeps

My time in the big apple was spent vising museums, eating good cheap
food, meeting great people, and A LOT of walking. I stayed at Ben's
place in Harlem and we were out and about the whole time. I am writing
this on my iPhone as I wait it the longest security line evvvver at
JFK. I an quite proud of myself that my bag weighed 50.0 lbs and I
have plenty of time to stand in this rediculous line. Anyway, here is
the break down of the weekend:

Friday- after a much needed nap, I ventured out to central park and
the Met. Picasso was the featured exhibition. I also got to see a ton
of 19th century European art and some pretty sweet Egyptian artifacts.
Ben met up with me on the rooftop of the Met where they had a summer
exhibition of thousands of bamboo twigs tied together. Sounds weird
but look at the piassa pics. We hung out with Manhattan's finest and
then made our way to meet up with Ben Trigg who came to visit me from
New Jersey!

Sat- walking walking walking. High line park, little Italy, china
town, and lots of well known parks I'm forgetting the name of. Walking
was really the best way to see the city as we stumbled upon all these
street fairs, random gatherings, and lots of interesting people.

Sun- woke up and went to MoMA where they had one of my fav (if not my
fav) photographers on display. It was one of the better exhibits I
have seen, followed by more permanent works in the museum. Paintings
we have known about for ever and seeing the original makes you finally
understand why it's so amazing. We continued our walking journey until
dinner time at a pretty awesome little hole in the way Indian
restaurant. The food was delicious but the coolest part was that the
restaurant is BYOB. We grabbed a six pack of yummy beer from Vermont
and they kept them cold for us while we ate. No "corkage fee". Loved
that.

In between all that, I met several of Ben's friends and got to catch
up with him after a 3 year hiatus. All in all, great weekend.

Oo I'm almost at the front of line. I made sure not to sleep much so I
would pass out for the majority of this 11 hour flight. Hoping alcohol
is free :)

Have a great week!

MoMA

Ray's pizza...mmm

Afternoon at the Met

Bumpy start..but I am here!

I am not even going to waste text explaining the mess that was Seattle security. Let's just say that my travel mindset is a little rusty and small details slipped through the cracks. I ended up having to get my bags checked at security extensively and almost missed my plane. Note to self: NO LIQUIDS OR SHARP ITEMS IN CARRY-ON, DUH.

Red Eyes always seems like the best idea when you are booking your flight. As many of you know, I sleep like a rock so sleeping and traveling at the same time seems incredibly efficient, right?! Not even I could catch some z's through the screaming 3 yo sitting right in front of me. And the parents just sat there as if nothing was going on. I offered gum (I used to be one of those screaming kids when the pressure changed) but they just shrugged as if this was normal. Oh, and the turbulence coming in to JFK is definitely something to write home about.

Spent almost 2 hours on crazy subway network and was still in the same city at the end! Ben was just getting ready for work and is already an incredibly generous host. It seems like no time has passed since I saw him last. I took a lonnng nap and am up and about to head out into that urban jungle.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone! Happy Friday!

It's about time!

After months of waiting, the time has come!
Passport, check. Visa, check. Malaria pills, check check. Packing...hmm, gotta get on that.

I am leaving tomorrow night to fly on a red eye to NYC. I will be staying with some good friends that I haven't seen in 3 years! I studied abroad with Ben and Christine in Paris and I am really looking forward to catching up with them while in New York. I haven't even thought about what I will be doing in NYC as a first time tourist. Any suggestions?