Frog legs, tro tros and mold...

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So, with a little bit of trouble forcing them down, Cate and I tried frog legs the other day…
It’s true what they say - they taste like rather small chickens…
So, not too much has been going on for me in the last week or so. It’s been pretty quiet, save for the usual chaos of a normal day, and I’ve been thinking a lot.
Lately I’ve been feeling really at home in Ghana and when I think about it, I am amazed at all that I’ve learned since coming here. It’s quite nice to know the ropes now - it’s nice to know what to do and how much to pay when you jump on a tro tro, it’s nice to know what all of the crazy hand motions mean and to understand the unspoken rules of life here, it’s nice to know what to expect when you order food from a menu or a booth on the side of the road, it’s nice to know when to walk away when you are getting ripped off by a taxi driver, it’s nice to know what a Ghanaian means even when they don’t say a single word, it’s nice to know that asking for the washroom instead of the bathroom will get you a lot farther in life, it’s nice to be able to sing along to all of the Ghanaian songs on the radio, it’s nice to know that having small change is a must, it’s nice to know that you are welcome almost anywhere and that people just sometimes have a peculiar way of showing it, and it’s nice to know that life can be lived simply but fully.
Last Thursday 5 of my friends and I piled into tro tros to go to the International Trade Fair in Accra. We caught a tro tro to 37th station and then split up into 2 different ones to get the rest of the way there. Sarah, Cate and Margaret got into one and the rest of us caught another one a few minutes later. We when were about 5 kilometers from the fair, I spotted the girls running across the road and getting into a taxi up ahead of us. I yelled to them out the window because I was confused and thinking maybe we had to get off and take a taxi the rest of the way. Well, when we got up closer we realized that their tro tro had been in an accident with a private car, and thinking that the rickety old tro tro was going to blow up from the impact, all the passengers had jumped out the windows. The three obrunis were the only ones bleeding and I think it will take me a long time to forget Sarah’s strange smile as she stared at me with blood running down her face. I got out of the tro tro and ran over to them. I was shaking like crazy and still a bit confused as to what had happened. Cate assured me in a frantic way that it was worse than it looked, but I didn’t really believe her seeing as how she was looking up at me through the taxi window with blood dripping down her arms and onto her clothes. Well, needless to say, it freaked me out quite a bit. Even later at the hospital when they were “cleaned up” and waiting for their final approval from the doctor, my hands didn’t stop shaking for a long time. I just kept thinking about how it could have been so much worse and that it could have been me. Scary stuff. The hospital might have also been a source for my shakiness, seeing as how they cleaned the blood off of all three girls with the same bucket of water and just squeezed Sarah’s arm until the glass shards came out, due to their lack of a pair of tweezers… Our group of 8 is making quite the name for ourselves - 2 with malaria and 3 in a tro tro accident…
We had a really cautious taxi driver the other day and I was starting to think that maybe everyone had come to their senses and decided to drive in a civilized manner, but then I realized that we were probably only driving slow because if we went any faster, the car would crumble to pieces underneath us. Haha. From time to time I have to wonder how some of the vehicles on the road even run at all - more often than not I can see the road through holes in the floorboards of tro tros.
Due to the accident, no one really felt like riding on a tro tro for two hours and going through with our original plans for the weekend, so we stayed in Accra and went to a play on Friday night. Beauty and the Beast was put on by the Theatre Club on campus and it was a really interesting thing to watch. It was basically the same storyline that we all know, yet the costumes were hilarious and made from scratch, there was a pretty amazing Ghanaian twist to all of the singing and especially the dancing, and at one point, the silverware were doing the Soulja Boy dance to “Be Our Guest.” Haha
The next day we lounged at the pool and then went to a pre- St. Patty’s Day celebration at Ryan’s Irish Pub in Osu. On Sunday, I went to a huge Gospel concert in Accra put on by the Chosen Vessels 300 person choir from a Christian group on campus. Boy was that an experience. I’ve never stood in the midst of 600 people singing at the top of their lungs and dancing to their heart’s content before. It was impossible not to be happy.
There is mold covering what seems like everything these days - due to the humidity and the slow but sure onset of the wet season. I found mold all over my pillow the other day but I was so tired I just decided to stick a pillow case on it and pretend like I never saw it. I also found mold in a pair of my shoes… random, huh? If you leave bread sitting for more than a day, it gets quite colorful, let me tell you.
I had my very first exam of the semester today, in Twi. I think it went fairly well, it’s just really strange to think that that was the first test I’ve had in over two months. I almost forgot how to study for them…
Meanwhile, I’m missing you all.
Much love,
Cari

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Comments

[amanda]

o my goodness cari im glad everyone is alright. the story about the tweezer kinda gave me she shivers. thats crazy that u just now had an exam blah ur lucky anyhow i hope u do well on ur exam. i cant believe ur so used to things over there. it seems like not too long ago i was amazed u were even going and now i find ur stories entertaining rather than unbelievable anyhow love u much and wishin u the best