Sunyani,Ghana 11-17-2008

Ive realized this year isnt as much about me having fun, as it is me learning about myself. Dont get me wrong I am enjoying myself. But this stay in Ghana has really made me appreciate my "Gladelife" even more! I know ive said that so many times, but its very true. Its the small things that make me love home so much(actually, the differences are totally different, but ill just say theyre small). Ive really had to cope with so many different things. And ive really had to be patient with people who are just completely rude to me. School is very very aggrivating. The teachers are arrogant know it alls, who think that the students should understand everything that comes out of their mouth. I love my host family but its not as much a son to mom and dad or brother to brother relationship as it is a business parter relationship. And the variety of things(food,sports,Entertainment) are,well, there is no variety. I eat either rice,fufu,banku,kinkee,plantains or ampesi. But usually its fufu,which i dont mind eating (or i guess i should say swallowing) but at one point in my stay i swallowed fufu 14 out of 15 dinners! If you eat anything that often youll get sick of it! Sportswise, its just futbol. Which again i dont mind watching, but right now at home hockey season is in progress and of course Vanderbilt is bowl eligible for the first time in almost 30 years, THE YEAR I GO TO AFRICA! Hahaha! And entertainment, theres really nothing to do in Sunyani other than shop, and as i like to call it, get the obroni price. Which consists of people trying to get you to pay triple the amount an obibini would pay. I really hope youre not getting the wrong impression(which im sure you probably are) of my stay or think in crying myself to sleep(which i havent shed a tear since being here, surprisingly, because i caught the homesickness bug pretty bad at first), becuase i have a new appreciation for my family, friends and life itself. Ive caught myself so many times thinking that if i didnt come to Ghana, id be just going about my life and having no appreciation for it. Im really happy with my decision in coming to Ghana,becuase, if i had gone to a more westernized country, it would have been a different story! I wish more students had the opportunity to do what im doing now,because it will take me along time to go back to my ways of complaining about not having "good" food in the pantry or saying theres nothing good on TV even though i have a selection of 300 channels, etc, etc. Hahaha. The moral of my rant this week, appreciate your life, its probably better than you think!

PS.

The first picture is of my view towards Baakoniaba road outside of my house. The second picture is of my house. If you cant read the words on the house it says "The House of the Lord". And the third is of Baakoniaba road going towards downtown Sunyani. Notice the Cocoa House in the distance, you can see it from everywhere you go.

The Ghanaian Military

My brother Adu had told me that a bunch of my fathers church members(well im not sure if theyre apart of his Kenyasi church, or if theyre just Anglicans) had died in a trotro accident on Saturday. The group of 22 people were on there way home from a funeral when a truck full of stolen wood collided with the trotro head on. Heres the whole story:
The Ghanaian military were chasing after a utility truck full of stolen wood. So they decided to open fire at the truck, which shot and killed the driver and made him swerve in to the other lane and kill 22 out of 23 people in the trotro. I just find it totally unnecessary to open fire on a truck full of stolen wood. But what also gets to me is, they drove off without helping the people in the trotro! They freaking drove off! I think that they might have just wanted to shoot at something, which ended up in this tragety. That just shows how untrained the military is here. At least wait until there arent any vehicles around! And theyre supposed to be protecting the people of Ghana?! And its also even worse that they didnt even have to integrity to stop and check on the people!
But what really hits home to me is that i met a number of these people at my host fathers installation in Kenyasi! Nothing more than an introduction to them or anything, but it still hurt me so much. Also, another AFS student had come to Sunyani to visit the AFS students here and on her way back home, she was only a few minutes behind the accident! That could have been her! 22 people died over a truck full of stolen wood! I find that very pathetic!
I just ask you to pray for these people and their families! Because their lives where cut short because of one poor decision.

Miracle Junction, Baakoniaba 11-03-2008

I cant believe its already been 2 months! Im already done with 1/5 of my stay here in Sunyani! I already feel as though ive matured so much. Ive realized that there are so many things in my life that I take for granted, but never really noticed it, and I wont take for granted of them when I return home. You don’t know what you have until its gone, and that’s the truth! I have so many new found respects. Ill name just a few: legal minorities in the states, because I feel like im always being watched here in Ghana. School at home, its waaaaaaay better than I thought and if youre still in school, don’t take it for granted! Sanitation at home( ill follow this up a little later), an I used to worry about a mcdonalds(oh how I could eat some mcdonalds now. Haha) bag on the side of the road!
Communication is a bit different/difficult here. Everything is kind of indirect. I sometimes cant get a straight answer. And it doesn’t really help that I don’t speak much Twi, and sometimes peoples accents are pretty hard to understand. I didn’t think there would be a language barrier, but there is! A lot of times im not even able to understand people, I always end up saying Menti a sia(I don’t understand). Mainly it’s the pronunciation of things. Ie. “th” is not “th” its “duh”. Like “there” would be “dare”. Or “barber” would be “baba”. But im actually surprising myself by picking up a good amount of twi. Im able to converse with my family a little bit in twi. And im able to ask simple questions. Its just small stuff, but itll add up after 10 months.
So at the beginning of my stay I hated fufu. I felt like I needed to gag sometimes. Cause its pretty weird to eat. For one thing you just use your hands, and the soup is usually boiling hot(Ghanaians are like immuned to heat. Haha), then you just pinch some of it off and swallow it. And theres like bones and eyeballs from the fish. The actual fufu itself isn’t weird. Its just smashed up cassava and plantain. Its just the method you eat it is whats weird. Google it or youtube it, theres probably somewhere you can find it. But now I love fufu. I remember I was eating ampesi and plantains one dinner and I asked myself “Why aren’t we eating fufu?”. It was just one of those things I needed to get used to. Im going to miss it when I get home! Haha.
Ive never been hated on because of my color( at least I don’t think I have) until I got here. On two different occasions its happened. One: my ceramics teacher was teaching us about the formation of clay(him and the ecomonics teacher always pick on us three exchange students to answer questions, and im not joking. I don’t think they realize that there are 40 other people in the class) and he asked me “Richard, where did clay come from?” I answered truthfully “I don’t know.” And then in the most sarcastic way he said “ Well if the whiteman doesn’t know than how should i?”. I guess he was just joking but it really hurt me inside. Hes and older man so I think maybe he might have some resentment against the UK for colonizing the former Gold coast. Then on another occasion I was on my dialy run before school and I ran past 3 guys. And as I ran past, one of them said “look at the white man, he thinks hes so much better than us!” then they started laughing. That pretty much killed my day! I know they were just joking but they wouldn’t have said it if they didn’t think it was partly true. Maybe I need some tougher skin. But I think everyone is equal in the sight of God. Whether someone’s race, religion or gender is different than mine. One of these days God will prevail and all prejudices will finally vanish.
Going back to the trash thing earlier, I never really realized how beautiful Ghana really is. I always was just always saying to myself “look at all the trash everywhere!”. But I never looked past it I just never realized ghanas natural beauty. Its rolling hills and lush green vegetation its very beautiful. As the saying goes: Don’t judge a book by its cover!
Take care,
Rich

Pics are of my Backyard, Miracle Junction(Where I live),my hallway(my rooms the first on the right, note the directional arrows and the windows to the hallway. haha),and me washing clothes.