Day 3!!

Still alive! Today was extremely productive. This morning I woke up drenched in my own sweat around 7. Matilda who rents a room next to mine was yelling “cockroach!” because there was a HUGE cockroach about 4 inches that came out behind the stove as she was sweeping. Emmanuel started preparing a delicious breakfast for us. We had fried eggs and oatmeal. The stove we cook on is a gas four burner stove top. We add canned milk and a little bit of sugar to it. Emmanuel also cut 4 mangos for us. Those, like everything else, taste much better here than it does in the states. Today was our first day out in the town and I LOVE THE PEOPLE HERE. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to leave them already. My heart is so full with love for them. They have so little and share so much. The friendliness and community aspect makes me think twice about my life and how blessed I am.

Today was HOT. I woke up sweating and haven’t stopped since. Even at night sweat just rolls down my back. Esther’s house is right behind the primary school and today they were out playing. They yell “Abruni” at us ALL the time. I love it. Our conversation goes like this: Etesan (How are you?) Elle (Fine) Wo din de sen (What is your name) Me din de sen (My name is….). We walked uphill to the town and we got SO much attention. The first place on our way was to the clinic. OH MY GOODNESS. I may never come home. The clinic has about 10 wards. Gideon the pharmaceutical man showed me around the whole clinic. We went to the lab, records office, OPD (Out Patient Department), Exam Room 1 & 2, Maternal, Female & Male, Post Natal, Rehab, Eye, and Pediatrics. We met Samuel Baffour (Esther’s Husband) outside the pediatric clinic. Next we went through the market and caused again quite a commotion. We walked past a cocoa shed and stopped in to ask him a couple of questions. Bakro gave me a bite of cola? which is apparently the main ingredient in diet supplements. He said it would make me very full and thirsty if I ate a lot of it. It tasted like dried up garlic and was very bitter. I don’t want to eat that anymore. He kissed our hands and we went on our way. It was only about 9:15 at this point and I felt like the day was almost half over because we had accomplished so much already. We took a taxi to our next stop. We stopped off at a cocoa farm so Cassie could see what they look like. Then we went to the Secondary School or High School for ages 13-18. We took our taxi back to the market place and Emmanuel showed us where to buy fabrics to have skirts made. Rose Mary is the shop owner and the fabrics are GORGEOUS. All hand dyed with beautiful African prints. She sells them for 4 cedi per yard in bundles of about 3 yards each. That equals about 2.25 USD a yard! We also stopped by the cemetery and we saw an empty spot because someone is dying and will be buried there by the end of the week. A lot of Ghanaians are superstitious about Ghosts and don’t go in there. Emmanuel called up his Aunt Nana’s daughter Christiana because she could help us go around the market and prepare our dinner. She used to cook for the other BYU students. She took us into the market and Emmanuel told her to take us on the back roads because we cause a lot of commotion and don’t get to places very fast because of the little kids greeting us. We tried the back roads and about 10 minutes into our walk we ran into about 12 kids in absolute rags but were so happy to see Abrunis. They were yelling “How are you?” and laughed every time we began speaking Twi. They followed us and held our hands for about 50 feet. We said bye bye but they kept following us. I can’t believe how many people were smiling and waving at us. They have so much love for complete strangers. The kids here run around in rags and sometimes naked but have no care in the world. It really humbles me when I see how little people have and can be completely happy with all of it. We finally got to the market place after stopping every minute to greet a smiling face and shake the hands of the happiest kids I’ve ever seen. We were getting ingredients to prepare Tomato Stew for dinner that night. We bought 3 onions, spices, curry powder, 2 green bell pepper, a handful of spicy red peppers, garlic, and ginger all for 3 cedi 50 pesewa (roughly 1.80 USD). We made a quick stop to buy chicken and then we continued our journey into the station to buy our oil, sugar, milk, Milo, rice, and tin tomato. We came back to the house around 5 and began preparing the food. Christiana wouldn’t let us help too much because she wanted us to just sit and watch her prepare it. Two little neighborhood boys Kofi and Kobi just sat and ate their dinner in Esther’s back porch and we talked to them in our limited Twi. We sat and talked about America and Ghana with Emmanuel and Christiana. They used to like Obama but are very disappointed in him but are in love with Beyonce and Oprah Winfrey. Emmanuel likes Rihanna too, haha. After dinner we did our dishes and walked back into town to buy more water. We made it back to our place all by ourselves for the first time! Honestly I am BLESSED. The place I am staying is 100x more than what I was expecting and the people here are so friendly and hospitable. I was offered about 10 meals from strangers. I am grateful for this opportunity to spend time with these people.