So at this point, now that its near the end of the semester and my time in Ghana, you as a reader are probably thinking "Caitlin seems to go on a lot of trips. I wonder if she does anything in Accra besides sit in the living room eating popcorn and watching movies...". I do watch plenty of movies and have eaten more popcorn than I can put into words this semester. It's a very bad habit to fall in when a can of popcorn is one cedi at the supermarket and right outside the supermarket, they sell these pirated DVD's that have like 20 different movies on them. I'm also a pro at making popcorn on the stove and its so much better than what Orville makes.At least to me, this seems like all I ever do. But I do other things. Lots of other things. So here's my mini-collection of anecdotes from the past semester:
Volunteering, and I don't mean my sucky internship. A few weeks ago I started going to Beacon House with Maggie and Whitney. Beacon House is a house (duh) for orphan children, and it's not like those pathetic and depressing World Vision, "save a child for pennies a day" commercials. The kids are amazing; so excited to see you and as soon s you walk in, they put their arms in the air for you to pick them up. Cute, but then some of them pitch a fit when you put them down, so you learn pretty quickly who to pick up and who not to if you have limited upper body strength like I do. These kids are so damn cute, I don't even mind reading them "The Big Hungry Bear" five times in a row. The first day I went, I mistakenly put my sunglasses on my head, which lead to a whole world of problems since there was one pair of fake RayBans and about 10 kids that all wanted to wear them. This ended up in an impromptu runway show showcasing the sunglasses on their head and upside down on their faces. I swear some of the little girls here could show Kate Moss and Giselle a thing or two. The kids I've encountered in Ghana are always so grateful for someone to play with them and give them attention, its one of the most rewarding experiences to just hang out with them. Just this weekend, one of the girls in my program Alex organized this awesome art's day event in memory of Joe Nkrumah (Not Kwame; this one was a famous Ghanaian artist). The kids that came were so polite and well behaved; they lined up quietly to get their t-shirts, paid attention to the speakers and actually painted on surfaces they were instructed to. I kept having flashbacks of Free Art's Day NYC events I volunteered at with the sorority sisters and how nuts those kids could be; running around, giving attitude when they don't like food or a certain project. Essentially, Ghanaian kids are amazing and I want to take them all home with me. Best souvenir ever, "Look! I brought you a child that will dance to hiplife better than Michael Jackson and adore you!".
Unfortunately, I am no saint and do not spend all my time volunteering. Just like in America, I've been infected with a tropical shopping bug and subsequently have more African masks and beads than I know what to do with. I also somehow ended up with a Ghanaian flag that is taller than I am. Makola is usually the first stop on the shopping extravaganza's, and this is here we get the yard and yards of fabric we bring to Marjorie, our amazing dressmaker. Words can't describe the fabric selection at Makola; it's like the inside of Project Runway on steroids. Not even Tim would know how to make all this fabric work. I started the semester planning to be very picky choosy about fabrics; I only wanted certain colors and patterns blah blah. Yeah, that lasted alike a week. Now I see something pretty and, get 2 yards of it, just in case. My absolute favorite fabric by far is the Obama Akwabba print. When he visited in July, they manufactured a ton of fabric so people could wear his face all over their clothes. Now I have a skirt and PJ pants. It's like wearing a campaign poster on your butt... I'm all set for reelection 2012. As a result of my other impulse buys, I have about 10 skirts, dresses and tops with Marjorie currently... hopefully she'll finish them by Friday when I leave. She's a madwoman with a sewing machine, and she always makes sure to leave room for us to eat. Which if you had a normal diet wouldn't be a problem, but mountains of rice for four months definitely requires some wiggle room in dress measurements. At least I'm tan, thank god.
Besides Makola, we also go to the Arts Center, a one-stop-shop for any African souvenir you can imagine. Last weekend a group of us went, and once again I was pushed into buying things I never really wanted. Every time you go there, immediately upon going through the gate about 5 guys come up to you and start asking where you're from, if you're married, if you'd like to see their masks/drums/paintings. Usually I can brush these guys off, ignore them or tell them you're from Japan or something. This time though, one guy asked where we were from, and a girl said "Alaska", and he immediately shouted "JUNO!". I told him I was from Hawaii, and he asks "So are you from Maui or Honolulu?". Then he told me his name was Colin Powell, and he can name the capital of any US state or country in the world. And he really could, he even knew the capital of Iowa and about 5 other towns. He was so funny, I ended up buying a drum from him. Not that I wanted a drum, but his knowledge of capitals was impressive and a good selling tactic. I figured I should reward his hard work.
I still go to school too. Once in awhile at least. Finals are currently eating my soul. If it were New York and I had this finals schedule, I would probably be going out every night and nursing my hangover at the library everyday while I pretended to study/screwed around on Facebook. This is Ghana though, and not doing shit for academics all semester and suddenly having 3 papers, an exam and various projects due is putting major pressure on my brain to be smart. As I write this even, I should really be working on my final paper for my internship seminar. But like my internship, the seminar that went with it was taught by a hormonal pregnant lady that I didn't like any more than my internship, so I'm having some trouble getting enthused enough to write this thing (she also wants it 4 pages SINGLE spaced.... who does that??). Uncle Kodjo is giving us a final exam tomorrow, which I'm hoping is a series of easy fill-in-the-blanks like our midterm was accompanied by a shot of liquor afterwards. Last week at our request he had us over to his house at Legon campus for dinner. The man is hilarious-- he kept encouraging us to drink more beer and rum until the lions came to get us. He told us a story about a party he hosted where a guest had so much to drink that he turned to Kodjo, pointed at the bushes and said "Kodjo, the lions are coming to get me". Then he danced around holding the half full bottle of rum that he helped consume. Based of this, I'm not super worried about this exam.
Tonight is also the screening of the films from my documentary class. I've had a love/hate relationship with this class, since I realized about halfway through I do not have the artistic vision to put a film together. I can do any summer camp craft you put in front of me, but something about film baffles me. I think I watched too much TV; my parents calling me square eyes as a child has turned out to be a little too true. I watch clips and I can't determine what works together and what doesn't. Thankfully my group members Evelyn, Joey, and best roomie ever Alana are much much more artistic, otherwise we would have ended up with Ghana tourism commercial. Joey thought up the concept for the film, where we would document aspects of the gay community in Ghana. If we had done this in New York, we would have just had to set up a camera in the west village for a few hours and we'd be done. In Ghana homosexuality is illegal, but there's still a strong community that exists despite the law. It's a pretty damn cool film, even if it's been a pain to put together. I can definitely say goodbye to an Oscar in my future, filmaking is not for me.
Finally, a little transportation tidbit from Ghana: I will never complain about a New York taxi again. Between tro-tro's and taxi's that feel like those cars in Looney Toons where the sides fall of leaving just the driver and a steering wheel chugging along, it's always an adventure just getting around. I can't wait to not have to bargain a price for getting from point A to point B just to end up at Point C because the driver gets lost or he didn't understand my English.
First taxi incident: Whitney and I were on our way to Beacon House to spend the afternoon with the orphans, and our taxi driver missed the turn we're supposed to take. He starts grumbling and we're irritated because we had asked him if he knew how to get where we wanted to go before we got in the taxi. He goes around and around, finally making a U-turn onto the other side of the highway. As he does this, a traffic cop yells at him, and as we get into a lane another cop jumps in front of the taxi to stop it. The two cops then get IN THE CAR with us, yelling "You cannot turn there!" and tell the driver to go to the station. Whitney and I are petrified, and keep asking them "Can we get out please?", convinced we're going to get arrested as accomplices in this traffic violation. At this point, the cop sitting in the front seat turns around and says to us "Don't worry, we don't want to kill you, we want to save you". OK! THEN LET US OUT! The driver is blaming us for telling him the wrong place, the cops are angry and we just want out of this situation. We're let out and hop into another taxi, still shaken and stunned at what happened when the DRIVER FROM THE LAST TAXI starts chasing after us. Apparently, even though he got lost and is getting arrested, he still wants his 4 cedi.
Second taxi incident: A little over a week after almost getting arrested for a U-turn, a bunch of us are in Osu getting ice cream with our CRA Debbie who's leaving for another job. We're all cheery and full of yummy gelato and hop in a taxi to go home. Now, Osu is the part of Accra that used to be under Danish control in the olden days and is home to Christianborg Castle, which used to be a slave castle and is now the head seat of government. Kind of like the White House but they don't hand out special M&M's and you can't take pictures of it. Not that this is particularly important, but the road we were on in Osu is Castle road, which leads guess where. Anyway, we're in our taxi on Castle road where traffic is always backed up because it's a major commercial area. We're at an intersection when two guys on a scooter pull out in front of us, and our taxi driver slams right into them. The four of us in the taxi shriek, and we pull over to assumably do the insurance info exchange that proceeds every accident. However, we are in Ghana. We all decide to get out and find another taxi while our driver is yelling at the scooter twins, but when he sees us leaving, everything suddenly becomes a-ok and he jumps back in the cab to continue our journey, laughing along with the driver at the ridiculousness of it all.
Something like this happens every day to me in Ghana. Life here is always ridiculous, I can't believe I only have 3 days, one paper and an exam left. I'm sure I'll squeeze at least one more ridiculous story out.
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