1 month and it already feels like Home

I was just robbed... That's right robbed. Already in a bad mood because I had forgotten it was Sunday and, after taking a cab down to the market circle, found everything was closed, I was walking to the Internet cafe and a man put his hand in my purse and grabbed a fistful of money and quickly walked away. Shocked Kim and I stood there for about ten seconds and then she exclaimed "Ummm...did he just take your money?"

After that we were swarmed by Ghanaians going "Who took the white ladies money? Who took the obrouni's money? Which man was it, we will beat him!"

You'd think that after one month I'd be savvy enough not to get my money stolen. I mean I know how to take a shared taxi for 45 Pesewas (about 30 cents) to the main market, I know how to say "Thank You"* in Fante after I order a Beer at the local bar, and I know how to make a really good cup of Milo - the preferred cocoa energy drink. Yet SOMEHOW I don't know how to hide my money well enough so I'm not robbed in broad daylight.

However burglary aside I'm having a great time hear and have adequately adjusted to Ghanaian life. Often Kim and I go to Market Circle, which is exactly what it sounds a street in large circle full of shops and vendors - who constantly hiss at you or yell "Bra! Bra!*" in order to get you attention, in the middle of this Circular shopping destination is a maze of small shacks selling a variety of items such as: phone credit, sugar cane, posters of Jesus, dried fish, giant live snails as big as my foot, sandals, pirated dvds and most importantly bread (this is our breakfast every morning along with a sachet of water, which I find exceedingly ironic as "Bread and Water" is what my parents threatened give me for dinner if I was bad - this threat never panned out but I believe this is now punishment for my mischievous childhood). In Market Circle you are constantly harassed by people desperate to sell you anything (see list above) or exchange money, we also see a lot of beggars and men desperate for us to marry them. However there are also s lot of friendly faces - like the woman who sells us beads and her grandchild Faith, the Rasta man that sells us delicious sugar bread and the young girls who sell water on top of their heads and always say "see you tomorrow!" in hopes of our continued thirstiness.

There is a saying that we have here - GMT or Ghana Man Time. Basically it means that everyone does everything at their own pace insuring that no one and nothing is ever on time. As I was often 10 minutes late to school (if I rushed) I find this a nice break from the over organized life style I led back home and am, appropriately, half an hour late for the weekly poker game I play with two British lads. This is one of many get-togethers the Tadi (our nickname for Takoradi) volunteers have during a week as well as movie night, which generally occurs at our place on my roomies laptop with everyone speaking the whole way through and rarely any of the film being watched, our night for going out ,which consists of going to the one club in Tadi and downing sachets of gin we picked up for 50 pesewas, and beach day, which ultimately ends in a well crafted Sandcastle or a dinner of Fufu or KenKey. We also travel on weekends as a large group which has been an interrsting experience: This weekend we traveled an hour east to the appropriatly named Hideout Lodge, which (owned by a friendly Swedish woman and her Rastafarian husband) is a 5 minute walk down the beach from the isolated village of Butre. Though the huts were roomy the beach was beautiful and the food was relativley cheap the weekend was dampened by the massive amount of bedbugs and being tossed around in the ocean when we tried to skinny dip at midnight. However we didn't go for the infested beds or full moon (pun intended) we decided to get all the volunteers together after one of us had to go back to Canada for one month after a tradgedy occured at home. It was a great weekend and I hope for many more like it.

I have now started teaching regularly and have gotten into a marvelous rhythm with my students. I teach literature and English to primary and secondary classes from Monday to Wednesday, then on Thursday and Friday I teach music and creative art to the nursery classes. They are both amazing experiences and I always try and make it fun and unique, however the English and Lit can be quite taxing as the children have less respect for me, or should I say fear, because I do not wield a cane and constantly beat them as the other teachers do. Corpral Punishment is alive and well in Ghana and there has not been a day where I have not seen a child whacked for speaking out of turn, forgetting their homework or being late - they number them off at exactly 8:15 and if you do not have a number you are taken out of class and are beaten with a cane or have to kneel on the hot concrete. In the begining the teachers vounteered to lash the children for me but though I respected that I had no control over their methods of punishment I said that I would deal with "The Little Trouble-makers" myself. And so, if a child dares to disobey my class rules (Respect the Teacher and Eachother) they must run around the school yard thrice, do multiple jumping-jacks or stand on one foot with their toungues out and flap their arms like a chicken for 1 minute. I Joke Not. However they do not always respond to my alternative methods and today after several warning I walked out of Class 5B in the middle of teaching them about turning adjectives to adverbs. Next week they'll know better...I hope.

I now have 1 minute and 33 no make that 32 seconds left on my computer at the Vodaphone Cafe and still need to post this so see you next time avid readers I'm off to watch a footbal (I mean soccer) game at the local pub, and only 20 minutes late!

* Hissing, though seeming rude, is the easiest way for the locals to get eachother attention. It is how I now siganl a taxi or try and catch the boys on bikes selling Fanice (delicious icecream in bags). "Bra" is "Come" in Fante and is said with a palm out fingers oving hand gesture.