Needless to say, all of our experiences with our host families were different. Fortunately, I was “adopted” ,like Dr. Cho likes to put it, by Nana Gyan’s family along with Liz. We were in a house with a huge open space in the middle, a kitchen,  a storage room, and bathrooms on the first floor and a staircase that led to a a living space that then split off into four rooms.There was a lot of movement in the house as people, friends and other guests staying at the house, went about their days. Liz and I had a room with two beds, a chest, and a table. We agreed that we liked the emptiness of it- it was solely a place for rest. Rest, however, was difficult to get as we were living in the heart of the city! We would wake up to music blasting loudly around 7AM.

Friday night we got ready to go to Elmina Beach Resort and picked everyone up along the way. The club was too American. They made us wait a whole 3 hours for Azonto music! The audacity…

We were up pretty early on Saturday because of the noise. We got ready and then went with Becky, Nana Gyan’s wife, to the market. We were buying food for the redred we had as lunch later that day. We helped cut the plantains, but we were awful. Our slivers looked more like chunks and Auntie Ann thought we were going to hurt ourselves. I can see why we weren’t allowed to mess with the bean stew.

Joél and her host sister, Mary, came by later to take us to community gardens. Liz and I were dismissed from the kitchen after our plantain fiasco. Community Gardens was beautiful! It is comprised  of a few little restaurants bordering a lagoon. You have a great view of water, fishermen, and trees. We drank pineapple juices, rested, and then went back to the house.

Joél and Mary left, but then Kaneisha and James joined us. Only James stayed for lunch. We ate, and then passed out for a good 2 hours. We woke up, had some light soup, and then went to Goil. The music played is called “High Life” and it is for an older audience. I had a blast dancing, threw in a little salsa.

Now, waking up for mass on Sunday morning at 5:50AM was easy. What wasn’t was staying awake as the service was in Fanti. Liz and I just sat. We went to the Fanti service instead of the English one because James’s and our host family had members in the choir. We were instructed to eat everything given to us for breakfast…and we did. Napped. And then we helped pound fufu for lunch. We had to eat everything as well.

The food coma we had us feeling like beach whales. Even my sweats were feeling tight. Eventually we all returned to the guest house and recounted our stories. I think Liz and I had one of the better weekends 🙂

 

NOW FOR SARD-

Bambaya is exhausting. It’s our second and hardest dance. It’s all about the drums thus we can’t really count anything.Tiffany is the cutest, she looks like someone out of a Charlie Brown movie when she does her solo. We’re left drenched and tired after each session as the dance is pretty lengthy.

Today Nick was able to take over the drum solo. He was great! I unfortunately got lost a lot of the time since Kweku plays some complicated rhythms that throw me off. Whatevs.

The performance should be fun. We were each given three invitations to hand out.I plan on giving one to Madame Kate,the teacher I work with at Ghana National, Victor