The Internationals

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We had slept in, we decided to take it easy that day. The International office was throwing a dinner with entertainment at the Great Hall on Campus. Chantel and I tried to avoid eye contact with any of the staff for the International Office, considering they weren’t willing to register us under their office; and here we were eating their food and entertaining ourselves with their entertainment.

The dinner was kicked off with some speeches from the Dean and the Assistant Dean. Followed by some performances, which included traditional Ghanaian dance and drumming, as well as a few performances by the International students. One performance was an international student rapping (she was quite good) to the beat of this guy’s beat box noises that he made into the microphone (he looked a little out of place, beat boxing with a yellow tie on top of a blue dress shirt, tucked into pleated khakis, red wavy hair that matched his red moustache). The two international students that performed sang a duet; the song was recognizable to the point where, I knew I knew it from somewhere, but not enough for me to name it. They were definitely the weakest of the performances, but it was clear that they came to the university with one of those programs of big packs of American, that all moved in herds around campus, because during the whole time they were singing, everyone was cheering and clapping form them. During their awful (I’m being generous) performance, I felt like I was in the twilight zone, where horrendous singing and tone deaf performer were seen as talented people and celebrated. I couldn’t see Chantel’s face during the performances, so I though maybe I needed my hearing check. Until I looked across my table at Jeneke’s face. Then I knew that my hearing was perfectly fine. Jeneke is another international student from Denmark, which Toyoko introduced to us. Jeneke’s face clearly expressed her reaction to the singing; it was as if some force her to have a spoon full of Buckley’s cough syrup (I love those commercials).

Finally it was time to eat; this was our first time to have some real Ghanaian food. Toe be honest, it isn’t as crazy as I imagined. No zebra meat, or roasted ants, everything was relatively good, and nothing was too crazy. Overall, I like the food here, but I eat everything anyways. You’ll have to hear Chantel’s side on food. Rachel Ray should do an episode of Tasty Travels here.

CHANTEL - ok so An thinks I am the pickiest eater on the planet and she informs people that I don’t eat anything here but really I try…mostly. I can’t eat spicy food at all and I cannot handle unidentified meat product is spicy liquid with floaties so it has been a bit of a struggle. I do eat food from out little night market now - and I eat the spicy sausages with lots of bread and ketchup. There is a new vegan food stand that has just opened that makes good brown rice, salad and fried tofu ( yes mum I actually paid to eat brown rice and tofu) Egg omlette sandwiches from the egg lady have been a popular favorite, there is lots of fruit, the other international dorm has “pancakes” (re fried dough) most days and when all else fails we go through incredible amounts of oatmeal and two-minute noodles - we’ve been trying instant mash potatoes but are first attempt smelt and tasted like dog food so we’re working on that. Plus we have the tantalizing banana bread lady. Why is she called the tantalizing banana bread lady? Well that is because every time she see’s An and I all she says is “tantalizing…” She is about the funniest person ever and she makes pretty dam good banana bread. If we eat in the market we can have a good meal for $2 and we’ve been pretty good at pretending to eat healthy.

AN - After dinner and desert, the Ghanaian dancers came out to perform again, and like the dancers from the last performance we saw, they come out the audience to bring people on the floor to learn some new moves. Good old Chantel is always game. Me, I usually bury my head and avoid eye contact, once I get approached, my defense is whining “No, no, no, “ and this time I added the excuse that I had dessert, which was ice cream and as a result of my lactose intolerant condition, I had a stomach ach, which impaired my from learning any dance moves that night. It worked!!!

That evening we had to plan to go t a funeral, a wake keeping. But as the dinner was coming to an end I felt exhausted. I haven’t slept in days. I think my insomnia was acting up again, it resurfaced every time I’m under stress. However Chantel did go.

CHANTEL - This was my first time leaving campus after dark and going anywhere without An but I was feeling adventurous so I went for it. Jenny (another international who’s lived all over the world - Jenny is one of those super mellow laid back hippie dancer types who’s also tall and blonde) took me with her and two of her male Ghanaian friends to one of the guys villages, Medena, near campus. I have to admit I was pretty nervous getting out of the taxi in the middle of an actual village with people everywhere, all staring at us. Not even two seconds after arriving everything goes pitch black - unscheduled lights out. So not only was I wandering around my first village in Africa but I was doing it in the dark as well. Anyways, the guys were very good and sensed that I was having a mild panic attack with all the people talking and yelling and running around so we had a seat and waited for the funeral service to end so that everyone would come back into the street for the dancing to start. Ghanaian funerals are nothing like the ones in Canada. The funeral is a celebration of life with dancing and singing until really late. After some wine from a carton (you know the 1 litre cartons that apple juice come in? yeah one of those) and some attempts by me to speak the local language it was time to go and join crowd gathered to watch some dancing. Drummers came out and got things going and it was much more of a party than a funeral. The guys all started dancing and dragged Jenny out with them. Now Jenny is a really good dancer - she’s been taking classes for two semesters and has performed with the Ghanaians and everything, so she had no problem busting a move. However, when I got dragged up (and I mean physically dragged up) to do my best impression of traditional Ghanaian dance I made about two dozen Ghanaian children fall to the floor laughing. That’s it - no more dancing in public until we take some lessons.

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Comments

[marilyn]

food for thought?
I still can't get a fix on Ghanaian food, given your eclectic forays so far. Spicy soups with mystery meat floating on top? But banana bread sounds close to home. I thought there would be a lot of fish, given your photos of the fleet? And a lingering British influence--toast and marmalade?? What are you two going to do to showcase Canadian talent? I guess you could practice doing the Molson'e Rant? Remember that, a few years ago? proud to be Canadian??!! Chantel, you should write up the funeral in more detail for your SA 356 exotic event participant observation exercise. Plus, go with Ann for a traditional Ghanaian meal and write up a restaurant review c.g. The Sun or The Province here!