The Weekend :)

Friday- it rained all day! I had to carry all of my sex ed materials with me which included a ton of books and a huge flip chart all through the rain and on all the trotros it was quite a lot of work! I followed around the new English teacher for her classes and basically did nothing. The sex ed talk that was spose to happen didnt because a lot of the students were on a field trip that the headmistress didnt even know about... ya i know right! Ab had come to help with the talk but since it didnt happen we went back to the streetwise office and worked some more on the grant proposal until about 5. Then we caught a movie at the mall (The Taking of Pelham 123 with Denzel and Travolta) it was pretty good actually. We ate sugar kettle corn omg it was sooooo good :) After the movie we went to go visit Ezra (another intern) because he has malaria... it doesnt look like much fun at all! Then I was dropped off at home and chilled with the roomies for a while before heading off to bed.
Saturday- I had to wake up really early because ABs mom invited me over for a cooking lesson (Ezra couldnt go bc he was still sick)... so I hopped a trotro at like 7am to a place called circle. Then i went on a thing called a space bus- its like an awkward huge metal spaceage looking death trap bus all the way to Abs house. When I got there we went to the market and got all of the ingredients, then went back to start cooking. Ab lives with his mom and his auntie and neice, they all had the music blasting early in the am and sang and danced all around the house it was so much fun! We made a vegetable rice sauce with tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, and green beans- a ton of spices like chili powder and veggie cubes... and we also made a spicy yam soup which was really amazing... we poured everything on top of jolof rice and ate - its was soooo delicious, im pretty sure that I'm beginning to love cooking especially with all fresh stuff and making everything from scratch! :) Im really going to miss stepping outside our gate and having fresh fruits and veggies and basically everything else we could ever need right on the street- driving to a store is going to seem like such a chore lol. Anyway after eating some of Abs friends came over and we all watched the Black Stars vs Uzbekistan game (Ghana won 2-1) oooooh ooooooh :) then we went to a play on campus called pepper soup that was put on by the drama department. It was a great time and a really funny play :) Before calling it a night a couple of us went out for icecream- it seemed like the longest day of my life lol.
Sunday- CIEE is a study abroad program where the students from the U.S. live on campus and take classes at the university. The director of the CIEE program is Abs supervisor. I met him like a week ago and he invited me to come play in the CIEE olympics on Sunday. I was on team Explorer lol... i met a ton of fun new people and made some friends. We played football, 3 legged races, sack races, marathons, lime and spoon race, and some traditional Ghanian games. I'm not sure which team won because the score keeping was corrupt lol... but it was a total blast! They provided water and bisquits (they tasted like cornbread banana bread) for dinner which was pretty nice and we also all got FanYogo :P Im going to class now so I'll update more later!

Wednesday/Thursday

Woke up and went to clas... which was boring as usual. I wrote all of my notes with my left hand to entertain myself and try not to fall asleep. Then I went and fixed my phone again- the people at the Tigo store know me personally lol. After that most of us walked to the university to go to the post office and then buy stuff for dinner- we also bought FanYogo... its like frozen yogurt thats in a pouch (amazingly yummy and addicting lol especially in the heat) There are guys who have bike horns that ride around and sell fanyogos and meat pies lol quite interesting. It was my groups turn to cook - we decided to make yams, veggies, and chicken strips. The chicken was so gross I still have nightmares about it! We had to cut if off the bone and take out the gristle (sp?) and remove the skin (which still had some feathers in it no joke) there was blood and slimy chicken pieces everywhere! We dipped the chicken in melted butter then flour and then crushed up cornflakes and baked them in the oven. I made boiled yams (squashish potatoes) and some curried veggies which were a big hit there were no leftovers at all!!!! just call me chef beth ;) We cleaned up and then watched The Happening :)
Thursday was quite an interesting day! I slept in and then used the internet for a while. I moved out of my room because of my crazy roomate. she gets intoxicated and then forgets where she puts her stuff and forgets what she spends her money on and thinks that everyone is stealing from her... so she told me that I had to lock the bedroom door everytime I left and I refused... so she told me to move to the empty room that the Aya center just opened up in the house. I gladly moved in to my new room (pics to come :) After I got all moved in I went to class where we finished watching the movie about Mmbuto SeSe Seku. I finished up some research for a grant proposal that I have been writing for streetwise. My boss came over so that we could work together on it... he mostly watched the world cup egypt v trinidad (egypt won) while I was the brains of the operation lol. He ended up staying for dinner along with someone elses coworker so it was really nice. The group made peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches, fruit and stirfry... dont ask me lol?? Then some people left to go to Chez Afrique for jazz night I prepared my sex ed talk for the next day.

Street St Johns is On, Stadium at University of Legon, Night Market, Dorms on Campus, Library on Campus

The Entrance to the School Where I Teach, School Front, Classrooms, Classrooms, Soccer Field at St Johns

Dorms at the School where I Teach, The Aya Center where I Take Classes, Open Sewers (ew), Pool, Pool :)

Random Observations

When people want to get someones attention (like a waitress or a cab driver) they hiss like "ssssssssssssssss"
Women dont shave
Women carry babies on their backs like with a peice of fabric that they tie around their waist.. .and everyone carries stuff on their heads. I have no idea how they balance them and I want to learn!
Most times females have their ears pierced from when they are really young because girls have to have their heads shaved all the way through school and its hard sometimes to tell them apart. Women are also expected to wear earings to work.
The trotros constantly smell like BO now that the weather is getting warmer
Im not getting any tanner :(
Any time that you have food you say "youre invited" to the people around you. People arent expected to actually eat the food that you invited them to but its considered rude not to say it.
8 days after babies are born they are considered to be human and part of the family- before that they are not. Babies are named for the day that they are born on. My name is Abenaa (tuesdays daughter) because Nov 17th 1987 was a tuesday. So find out what day of the week that you were born on and then you will know your ghanaian name.

Boy
Sunday-Kwasi
Monday-Kwadwo
Tuesday-Kwabena
Wednesday-Kwaku
Thursday-Yaw
Friday-Kofi
Saturday-Kwame

Girl
Sunday-Akosua
Monday-Adowa
Tuesday-Abenaa
Wednesday-Akua
Thursday-Yaa
Friday-Afia
Saturday-Amma

Our House, The Walkway to our house where the guard stays, Our Backyard, Our Watertank, Hillside View (More pics 2 come of the pool and other funness)

The Play, The Night Market, Me in Class, Me Teaching Class, Me Teaching Class Still lol

Monday and Tuesday

Monday was a national holiday here- the end of Rammadan. So none of us had to go to our internships!!! We really wanted to go to bojo beach... but that seemed to be everyones plan and the traffic was outrageous... so we settled on going to a pool at a hotel in walking distance from our house. The pool is so nice!!! We all swam and worked on our tans... workin on getting called an obruni cocoa (brown foreigner lol). Its 5 cedis to go swimming for the whole day which is how much the beach costs but theres no travelling or cab fees or crowds so I actually like it a lot better! We pretty much spent the entire day at the pool and then went home to eat spaghetti and garlic bread which tasted amazing! The we swept and mopped the whole house and cleaned everything because there is a thick layer of reddish brown dust on EVERYTHING! One time I thought that I had gotten a great tan... but it washed off in the shower- the dust just gets everywhere its pretty bad. Most people carry around hankies to wipe off the bottom of their pants and their shoes and their faces but I think its pointless because it just gets dusty again. Anyway... after dinner we watched a movie together- there are dvds here for like 2 cedi that have like 50 movies on them each im sure that they are illegally pirated but yeah now we have hundreds of movies in the house lol.

Tuesday I went to school and the Teacher had finally arrived from Nigeria. She had never taught in Ghana before so I am supposed to take her around for the first week and show her what I have been doing. She seems like she knows what shes doing so I am soooo relieved. Now I can focus on being ateaching assistant and running all of the other programs that I have to do! School was nice we finished up most of the lessons that I had been working on with the kids in class so that she could have a fresh start. After class I went over to my other internship to work on the club that I am going to be running at the school, and get prepared for the club meeting on Friday (which is sex education). After that I went home and didn't do very much. Fell asleep pretty quickly yet again lol.

Saturday and Sunday

Taryn's boss invited us all over for the night in Mallam to make beads and jewelry, so when I woke up Saturday morning I got ready for that adventure. The trip was about 2 hours long. As soon as we got there we started making jewelry... it was sooo much fun I forgot how much I loved to do it. We read some beading books and learned how to make some pretty complicated pieces. The lady who runs the place takes children out of stone quarrys (where kids break big stones into little stones) and then puts them through school. She has people make beaded jewelry and then sells them to raise money. At night we went out to get some food and then we ate it on her roof which was nice and had a great view. Then we watched a movie (i played beads instead) and then went to bed. I had to wake up at 5am to get back to the house by 7 in order to go to church with my boss. He said that it would help me with teaching so I told him that I would go. I got ready for church and he picked me up- the church that he took me to was catholic and he is the teacher of the little kids (like ages 2-7). He had to teach them the lesson of the day and compared it to their favorite cartoons and they all acted it out and he was really great at improvising and making up stuff on the spot (which im pretty sure is that skill that he wanted me to learn lol) I only went into the big church part to take communion. It seemed like any regular chruch back home... not much different. After church Tom (one of my roomates that came home with me from Mallam so that I didnt have to travel by myslef for two hours) and AB and two of his brothers went to a football game Kotoko V Hearts of Oak. We were rooting for the Hearts of Oak team but they lost 0-1. These are more local teams and they are divided by tribal ethnicity which is interesting. There are 5 main tribes in Ghana.. Ewe Akan Ga Asanti and Fante. My boss and his brothers are Gas and the Hearts of Oak team is the Ga team. For a snack we had something that looked like peanuts. I put one in my mouth and it was all soggy and mushy so I spit it out instantly thinking that it was rotten or something. Turns out that they are boiled... weird but interesting... they kind of taste like potatoes?? I dunno lol. I also tried a donut for the first time which taste kind of like sugary bread. After the game we all went out to eat at a Chinese place. Mine was actualy really good and I cant wait to eat the leftovers :) By the time we got home I was already 3/4 of the way asleep so I didnt fight it anymore and just went to bed.

Thursday Night and Friday

First and foremost I just wanted to apologize to everyone about the spelling and grammar in my blogs. I never have time to reread them... and I usually have about 23.71 minutes to write about my entire week from Thursday to Wednesday... so forgive me lol. Im also sorry that I dont have access to the internet most times from thursday until wednesday of the next week. Its so difficult to get to the internet- lol its Africa go figure. Ok well enough apology lol- here goes... Apparently my boss thought that being free at 3 meant that I was going to be there at 3... but I was still in class at 3 and it takes an hour and a half to get to the office... so he ended up coming over to work on the Friday afternoon clubs that I will be running at my school. So far there are some sex ed classes, spelling bee classes, reading groups and football matches against other schools already set in stone. I am supposed to make up some of my own events... some are going to be drama club (like improv, poetry readings, and interpretive dance). I might possible also start a recorder class :) and who knows what else I still working on it. While AB was over there was a HUGE crash on the main road by our house. Everyone started running down the street to pull the people from the cars. It was three cars (2 of which were on their sides!) Ambulances take hours to get to the scene so they are usually just for dead bodies. Cab drivers actually volunteer to take the people to the hospital which is pretty interesting and scary. It was really crazy to watch - and now im even more terrified of trotros! After my boss left another girls boss came over and made everyone red red but it had fish and beans in it so I just had some fried plantains (which are like bananas... ew lol). After dinner most of us went to Chez Afrique to watch some live jazz. We got a little lost walking so we ended up getting there quite late. It was still really nice and fun and I had some fresh squeezed pineapple juice yum! After that I went home and passed out completley exhausted. Friday morning I woke up and got ready to teach class. The first class that I had was the one that I had the mental breakdown in on Tuesday so I was dreading it! The prefects in the class wrote me an apology letter and promised that they would behave from now on. Everyone in the class behaved like angels as I taught them how to brainstorm and outline the descriptive essays that they are going to be writing about their families. No one at the school has heard from the real teacher (Im getting annoyed). I taught that lesson in my next english class too... and then I taught Primary 6 RME. It was the first time that I had taught the class and my boss was there to observe me which made it even more nerve racking, but I got through it. We had to go visit another school where an intern was teaching french so that my boss could observe him, so I went with. It was a really boring class because I only understood half of what the guy was sasying since Ive only had a semester in French lol. After that we ate some spicy rice at the night market on campus and rushed off to a musical play about the life of former president Kwame Nkrumeh. The play was at the National Theater in Accra. It was so nice and really interesting!! The play seemed to last forever... but when it was finally over on our way home we heard my new favorite song (Simple by Bradez) blasting from a club so we all decided to stop and dance. We ended up staying there for a couple hours and only left when most of us were falling asleep on the dance floor lol. I slept really well that night!

Wedesday and Thursday

I love Wednesdays and Thursdays because I dont have to go to my internship!! lol hopefully that changes as time goes on. Wednesday we all woke up to the sonds of car horns and sirens on our street. Apparently there was a really bad accident far away and traffic had been redirected. The police vehicles that were trying to get to the scene were stck in traffic for hours. I never want to get in an accident here... emergency response is not fast at all. So since is was 6 am I got up and got ready to go to the Aya Center at 7. I had to finish my outlines for the final papers that were doing. I fiished and printed them off. We all waited here for the teacher of our 9am class to get here but he never showed up (probably because of traffic) so we went home and most of us took naps and ate lunch. I also got stuff ready for our cooking groups meal turn. We went to our last lass of the day and watched a movie about corruption in African governments... it was mostly about Mmobutu SeSe Seko- and was really interesting. After class my group and I gathered the last of our ingredients. We made macaroni and chesse with green beans and green peppers and carrots and onions along with some garlic bread. Everyone loved it so yay us! After dinner we (all 8 of us since my roomate is never really a part of what we do) went to a place called Uncle Jerry's to watch a soccer game on TV. It was kind of like a sports pub place so we sat around and talked to some of the locals it was really nice. After that we went home and listened to music and just talked... we're pretty much becoming a sort of family. All of us have become really close friends :) Thursday I slept in which was really nice :) In the morning I kind of just mozied around and did some housework (aundry and dishes and sweeping) and then went to the Aya Center to play around online a little bit before class. Our class today was just talking about our internships. Sounds like we are all having some challenges but the teacher promises that they would get better and that we are supposed to have challenges- its the entire point of the trip- so I feel a little better at least. My boss called in the morning and asked if I could stop by my other internship office at streetwise because he has some other work for me to do so that is what Im heading off to right now.

Monday and Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday teaching classes were very tiring. I had all of my english classes write speeches titled if I were the President of Ghana. When it came time to present none of the kids in the class would be quite and I had to get up like every minute and tell them to quite down. It got really really annoying. After 12 hours (2 days of 6 classes) of trying a ton of different things like making them copy the definition of respect out of the dictionary and making them put their heads down and switching seats and lecturing and being nice and being stern I finally had a mental breakdown in the last class... as I was lecturing the kids on how they are wasting my time and their classmates time and how their are kids selling things on the streets who would give anything to be in school and have an education like them and they took being in class for granted... I cried lol. In front of everyone it was so embarassing! and the headmistress found out and apologized for the children misbehaving. The problem is that the only form of discipline they respond to is being hit with a cane... and I cant do that. I refuse to even carry around a cane. So I need to figure out a way to get the kids to behave... wish me luck. The real teacher is supposed to be coming soon- I hope that I have the strength to get through this until then. Monday night we had to deal with a roommate situation... my roommate decided that she was going to start drinking at 10am- she was highly intoxicated by like 12... but in a happy fun way... then it got out of control at like 2. It was so embarassing... people from the Aya center were there and some people from another girls internship were all watching her as she made a fool out of herself. The downfall came at like 5 when she got irrationally emotional and started throwing stuff and screaming. It was completley horrible. So we all had to deal with that on Monday night. Some of the people cooked dinner... they made ground nut stew (peanut butter and tomato soup) which was ally good. While others tried to help the situation by calming the drunk woman down and trying to put her to bed it was INSANE! Finally I just left because I didnt want to deal with it anymore. I went to the internet cafe to finish some research and stayed there for like an hour and a half before going home and going to bed. Tuesday night was a bit more uneventful. After my internship I was emotionally stressed and exhausted so I went home to chill. I had 3 marriage proposals on the way home lol. Usually its about 1 a day so I must have been looking extra cute ;) Its really weird but Im kind of used to it now because it happens so often. Ghanaian men ask white women to marry them because they think they will take them back to America to live a better life. To save them grace we are supposed to say next time. I usually say that Im married - but then they cleverly reply that women are allowed to have more than one husband here so its pretty much a lost cause. After being home for a while a few of us went to get pizza because its buy one get one free tuesdays at the pizza place down the road. The line was about an hour and a half wait but it was worth it. I drowned my stress in pizza and washed it down with icecream lol! :) all better. Sorry that this entry seems a bit disjointed but I really dont feel like rereading it or organizing it so if you have questions or dont understand something let me know lol!

Sunday- day of rest

Sunday I finally had a chance to sleep in so I took it. When I woke up I mostly did research for my papers and read for class. Things are a lot harder to do here without access to the internet on the weekends. We walked down to the internet café but apparently they didn’t feel like opening this particular Sunday… so they didn’t lol. It was a scorching day outside, none of us could stand the heat so we spent a lot of time indoors. After a while a couple of us walked to the mall because it had cooled down significantly outside. I bout some noodles and some cheese sauce packets for my dinner group on Wednesday. We’re making mac n cheese, garlic bread, and some veggies. After we walked home from the mall it was getting pretty late so we settled down and made some ramen noodles for dinner, finished our homework and went to bed. Some of the people in the house went to church and it was apparently quite an experience. They played music but everyone kind of just sang whatever song they wanted or mae up their own songs. And they were all jumping up and down and screaming and rolling on the floor and talking in tounges. They said it was louder than a rock concert... they are going to try another church next sunday lol.

Saturday

I woke up super excited to go to the beach. My boss planned to take like 15 people to a place called bojo beach and we were all supposed to leave at 8 am. The bus driver ended up canceling so we scrambled around to try and find rides for everyone. It took forever. We didn't get on the road until 12 and the beach was an hour away. We got lost a few times and the people whos car we were following got pulled over for not having their seatbelts on and traffic was horrible. We didnt end up getting to the beach until like 2:45. When we finally got to the beach we had a picnic lunch which was really good. My bosses mom made lunch for everyone apparently the best chichen anyone has ever tasted….There was a stray dog so I asked AB for his bone and he was like no we eat the bones. I thought he was kidding but he was definitely not. People here suck the marrow out of the bones and eat the bones because they help with digestion. Weird to me! I didnt know anyone besides AB and his brother so I met a lot of new people... they werent very interesting though lol. To get to the beach we had to take a boat across a channel of water which was really fun! We got to the beach and it was sooooooooo beautiful! Compared to the first beach I went to which had a lot of garbage in the water and people trying to sell stuff everywhere and a huge crowd- the beach I went to only had like 5 people besides our group- no one was trying to sell stuff and it was clean! Huge improvment. The first thing we did was play beach football, everyone on the beach played it was so much fun! The a few of us went swimming in the huge waves, and then we all danced on the beach because there was a dj with huge speakers and apparently people here dance all the time... ALL the time! After the beach we all went home which took quite a while in traffic. We stopped for some fried rice which tasted amazing especially because we were starving. And then I went home and passed out instantly lol. And also I forgot to add that I leaned a new work- Chaley… it means dude : )

Friday

Woke up early and went to teach school. In my first English class I taught them about recycling and then had them all make advertisments for a pretend new recycling program at the school where I work. It went over fairly well. Then I taught the next English class about drama since I havevnt seen them since Monday- so they didnt get that lesson yet. After lunch I was on my way to teach the religious morals and education class but the teacher who had them for the class before mine was running late and said he would take them for the last hour so I got to leave early since school ends at 12:30 on Fridays... sweet! Then I rode the trotros home and went to the Aya Center to do some research. We have two annotated bibs and outlines due for our final papers in two classes. Its really not fun. I did a ton of research since I knew I wouldnt be able to use the internet over the weekend. The Aya Center closed at 4:30 so I went home and ate some dinner.My boss told me that he would come to pick me up around 8 because he thinks I stay in too much and I need to experience Ghana and meet new people. He didnt show up until 9:30- but all my roomies were watching a movie so I got to watch that with them which was fun. Then he picked me up and we went out to eat at this club/bar place. I had some really spicy vegetable noodles which were really yummy. Then we (another american girl from the university, my bosses brother and my bosses brothers girlfriend) went to an outdoor club. We all danced to great music and had a blast! We didn't get home until like 2 in the morning... and I had to be up really early to go to the beach the next day so I went straight to bed.

Thursday

Woke up early to do some research at the Aya Center. We have to turn in an outline and annotated bib for o final paper in one of our classes. My topic is how loans from the World Bank and the IMF to developing countries actually slows down delopment and then Im going to try and propose some solutions to the problem (thats my goal anyway). After hours of research I walked to the TIGO store to get my phone fixed. Apparently my sim card was defective? Then a few of us walked over to the campus to see where the post office and library were because a couple of us are going to be using it this weekend. We also passed a place where you can get your passport photos taken. We need to get four more... three for our extended visa and our visa to Togo, and then 1 for the Aya Center (They want to make IDs for us because they cant tell any of us apart lol- to them we all look the same). Then it was time for our internship class. I gave the presentation for my group and we talked aut our internships. After class we all headed home and read outside while tanning and listening to music. It was nice to relax. After our dinner of baked potatoes my boss stopped over because he was in the neighborhood and he told me that he was taking me and his other intern Ezra for a night out at a club Friday night so I'm really excited it sounds fun. Then I planned my lessons for Friday and went to sleep.

Wednesday

Class wasnt as interesting this time. Almost everyone fell asleep lol! It lasted from 9-11am... then we all went home to grab a bite to eat. Most days for lunch we have bread with either marmalade, groundnut, or biferella (nutella). The Aya Center planned a teaching seminar for those of us who are going to be teaching at 12 so a couple of us went back there for that. It wasn't very helpful to me but I did learn a little bit about the education system in Ghana. All of us are considered to be untrained teachers. Thats someone who has a lot of knowledge in a certain field (english per say) but who hasnt been trained to be a teacher. There is a major shortage of teachers in Ghana so untrained teachers are quite prevelant in the schools. The teaching seminar was an hour long so we just waited around for our next class to start. This one wasnt very interesting either but definetly not as bad as the morning class lol. After class my cooking group made dinner and we all ate. Keke is gross and I'm pretty sure that no one in the house will eat it again. It tastes like gritty vinegar corn paste if that gives you any idea lol? After dinner I made no bake cookies which turned out perfectly and everyone loved them- they ate all of them I'll have to make more! After desert I got some pictures together for my blog and wrote some blog entries/emails so that I could send them out the next day- then hit the hay.

Tuesday

Woke up and got ready for another day of teaching. All of the female teachers are required to wear a knee length skirt with a blouse or a knee length dress, and the men have to wear kahkis and a button up. So I got ready and headed on my trotros to the school. I didnt get lost now for two times in a row so I think I'll be fine for the rest of the semester hopefully lol. My phone stopped working and I havent had a chance to get it fixed so if I get lost it will be baaaaad. Anyway-I got to school on time for the morning assembly which is a morning prayer. All of the students line up and the teachers barck commands like about face and forward face like millitary style it was so weird.. but then the children sing good morning Jesus its a really pretty song. Two little boys were hitting eachother in the line so the teacher went over to them and hit them with a switch across their shins- i just stood there in shock. They offered to give me a switch for in my class but I declined. After that I taught a few english classes. In the syllabus that they gave me it said that drama was a form of english and my boss AB at Streetwise said that I will be starting a reading and drama club- so I taught them about drama. We went over all of the definitions and made up a play so they know how much work goes into it. After my lunch break I had to teach RME which is religious and moral education. Since they gave me no books and I had no idea what the classes were about... I had the kids break into groups and pretend that they were the President of Ghana- and make up three laws that would make Ghana a more religious and moral place. I have no idea what I'm going to teach the kids on Friday... I havent gotten that far in my life. I really don't like being a teacher I've decided. I don't like feeling resposible for childrens education- it freaks me out a little bit. I don't really feel qualified but I guess since I know english that qualifies me... I hope the real teacher gets here soon!! On my lunch break I talked to a few of the teachers who were complaining about how no one respects teachers in Africa... they have taught in many different African countries and its the same everywhere. Teachers dont make a lot of money here so parents and students do not give them any respect at all. Its really sad. After school my group prepared dinner that was going to be cooked the next night. We decided to make some stews- a beef one and a tomato one so we cut up all the veggies and everything. While we were in Cape Coast over the weekend we stopped at a stand on the side of the road to buy Keke. Apparently the town that we stopped in is known for making the best Keke... its like a tamale wrap made of maize?? and you're supposed to eat it with soup so thats what we decided dinner on Wednesday would be. After prepping a couple of us walked to a place where they serve icecream across from campus. We havent had dairy in FOREVER so it was really tasty, and its been quite hot so it cooled us off! After icecream we just walked around campus to see what was going on and picked up a couple of things from the night market. Then we headed home to do some reading for class and go to bed.

Staff Lounge at My School, The Students During Morning Prayer, Our Group at Elmina Castle

The Gang, Cheering on the Blackstars, After the Game, Players, Crowd

Monday

After my exhausting weekend I woke up to reality (my alarm clock) set for 5:00 am so that I could get to my school at 7:30. I got on all of the right trotros and didnt get lost this time YAY! When I got to the school I saw the headmistress and she informed me that the teacher that I was supposed to be the assistant to wasnt coming until the 15th of Setember so she asked me to handle her classes until then. Without having any time to prepare at all they put me in my first classroom at 8 and told me GO... no time to prepare-no instructions- no books. I was terrified and frustrated but I didnt want to look like a dork in front of 35 kids for an hour so I went around the room and asked them their names and what they wanted to be when they grew up. A lot answered doctor but a few wanted to be footballers, air hostresses (flight attendants), journalists, accountants, engineers, and actors. After that I asked them to write about their vacation holiday that they had just gotten back from so I could see how much English they actually knew since no one told me what level they were. I let them write until the end of class and then collected their papers. I found out that I had 6 English classes to teach that day so I pretty much just repeated the process in all the classes. At my lunch break I asked to see an English syllabus and they gave me a few books so I looked over those as I ate some plantain chips from the snack store at the school. After the day was done I truged home to plan my lessons for the next day. At home dinner was already being made by the monday group. They made homeade pancakes and hashbrowns that they cut tiny tiny shreds from potatoes. They also made omlettes but someone had a hard boiled egg here and found bones in it so I refuse to eat eggs at all lol. After dinner I pretty much passed out from exhaustion and I had to be up early to start it all over again on Tuesday.

Rainforest Canopy Walk :)

Hotel Room

President (Guy in white and orange)/ Parade/ Chiefs/ Parade

Me Next to a Croc/ Crocodiles/ and More Crocodiles

Elmina Castle: Castle View/ Fishing Boats/ Ocean View/ Door of No Return/ Female Dungeon