The past four days (Thursday-Sunday), I have started to get past the initial excitement of "I'm in Ghana" and I've started to just be here like I would be anywhere else. I'm not saying being in Ghana is no longer exciting. I'm just saying that the initial "Oh my this is fucking crazy" feeling is starting to wane a bit.
Thursday I was pretty much a very lazy person, but a nice lazy... lethargic let's say. I read for a few hours, wrote for a few hours, surfed the net for a few hours, went for a walk for a few hours, chilled with some friends at a local spot for a few hours. It was nice. What worried me that day, though, was my stomach. I ate oatmeal for breakfast, as I do every day, but I put some butter in it that morning. While I was eating the oatmeal, I could sense that something was not right about it. I knew it was the butter, but I didn't think much of it. For the next 10 hours or so, I felt really strange. I constantly felt like I was full and that if I ate anything, I would throw up. A few times I thought I would throw up. I skipped dinner and took a nap instead, although I couldn't actually sleep. However, when I got up from resting, I felt pretty good. Not 100%, but better at least.
So I decided to go out to Bywel Bar. My African Popular Music professor told us that Bywel had some of the best live music in Accra on Thursday nights, so I was pretty excited. It was a very cool place. From the front, it looks like you walk inside and then you are indoors, but actually you walk inside and you are still outdoors, which is very nice given the warm night air of Accra. The place was very crowded. All around, there was a nice mix of Ghanains and foreigners, neither one really being dominant. (I've already discovered that anytime I go out, there's a disproportionately large number of forgeiners, probably because of the money factor). On top of that, there was a nice age mix... youngsters like myself all the way up to 60 year old women bustin' a move on the dance floor. Once again, neither really dominated. The band was pretty awesome, although Dipesh told me that it wasn't as good as it had been the previous week. They played some reggae, highlife, and samba/salsa/something music, and then this really old guy who apparently is a very respected musician sang some American songs like "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Hit the Road Jack," and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." I chatted a bit with my friends who were there, although for the place was too small and too loud to talk too much. I mostly danced a lot which makes me happy pretty much any day of the year. At one point during the night, the owner of the place, a 65 year old Indian/Middle Eastern man came out and gave a little speech. It went a little something like this:
"When Bywel Bar first opened it's doors 25 years ago, it was intended for the 40 and over crowd. In recent years, we have begun to let the youngsters in. And I do not regret that. However, if anyone tries to push drugs in my club, I will have your ass behind bars. I know every single drug pusher in town and I'm not about to let you ruin the good name of Bywel Bar. I know some of you threatened me last week, but let me tell you, I have police here tonight, so just try, just try and see what happens. You can leave now and I will not say a word or you can go to jail."
Later he went on, "Eight times people have tried to break into my car and I beat every one of those bastards up. Don't think I won't do it to you. And another thing, we have tourists here. Do not destroy the name of Ghana by bringing your filth in here. I promise you, by March 6th (the 50th Indepence), all of you will be in prison." Then everyone started clapping. It was pretty instense.
I left with four of my friends, and we had two very interesting cab rides on the way back. There were several cabs outside the bar waiting to take people home. We tried negotiating with several who would not take our price of 15,000. Finally we got one of them to budge, although he seemed like he didn't really want to take us. (This has been one thing that has been bothering me a bit. Though I do think it's fair for us foreigners to get local prices, I also feel like it's not a big deal to give a taxi driver at extra 5,000 cedis (about $0.50 for me) when they keep insisting that our price is too low, especially when there's five of us. Maybe I'm just too easy to hustle, but I feel like it's not a big deal to give a little more when clearly I've got a little more. But eh, whateva...) After taking us down the road about a quarter of a mile, a policeman stops the cab. He looks in, sees that there are five people in the cab, and then he and the cab driver start getting into some argument in Twi. We don't really know what's going on, although we realized finally through their arguing it was because he had too many people in the cab. So the policeman tells us to get out, he hops in the front seat with his AK-47 (yeah, the cops here carry around some big guns... it's a little frightening), and then some woman who was on the street also hops in the cab, and then they just drive off. I was completely confused and I felt really bad for the cab driver. So we walked about 50 feet and got another cab. I completely opposed the idea of us all getting in one cab again since we just got a cab driver in trouble for that, but everyone got in the cab, and I didn't want to be left in Osu by myself at 1AM. Next time I'll be a little more insistent on the idea and I'll bring up this story. So the cab driver's taking us home, and about 5 minutes later, literally around the corner from where we live, there's a road block. So the policeman pulls the cab over, looks at the five of us, and starts yelling at the cab driver. They have this really long argument while we all sit in awkward silence and confusion in the cab (confusion becauase they are speaking Twi, although I did hear the policeman say, "What if something happened? What insurance company would help you out?"). Finally, the cab driver gets back in the cab, and then he drives us around the corner to our home. We gave him a little extra money because we all felt bad. So yeah, no more five people cabs.
*****
The next day, I woke up nice and late, around noon. Auntie Adua, the woman who owns the little stand near the academic center that a few friends and I frequent a bit, invited a few of us over for lunch Friday afternoon. So we went over and chilled at her stand for a while because she was still preparing the meal. I had a coke for the first time in quite a while... I had forgotten how amazing a coke can be on a really hot day (which is every day here). Once the meal was ready, we came into her home and had lunch on her back porch. It was the best, I mean THE BEST food I've had since I've been here. There's nothing like a nice home-cooked meal. She made us jollof rice, fried chicken and fish, fried plantains, and a vegetable pasta salad. It was pretty amazing. Albert came to the lunch, as well as Rasheed, a really awesome Ashesi student we met a few days ago. We talked of many interesting things during and after our lunch. The most interesting was the conversation on being fat, which is so interesting that I will devote a separate little section to it (watch out for it very soon!).
After lunch, we came back to Church (anytime I write just "Church," I'm referring to my residence, Church Crescent... we just call it Church) and played ping pong, frisbee, and futbol (I'm writing the Spanish because it helps me differentiate between American football and what everyone else in the world calls futbol). I kicked the futbol over the fence. That made me sad. But apparently someone got it back. Later that night a bunch of us went to the local clinic to visit Ally. She got sick a few days ago, just started throwing up a lot, so she went to the clinic. She already felt better by the time we visited her, and she actually ended up leaving that night, so no worries. So far, she's the second person to go to the clinic, and one of many to feel sick at some point. Our stomachs and intestines just don't respond so well to everything here. I stayed in the rest of the night and chilled with Jackie and Tania. We talked about our time here, impressions, happenings... you know, shootin' the shit. Then we watched half of Kill Bill Vol. 1. We stopped it because we were all sleepy. And then I went into beautiful slumber...
*****
And now for Saturday. (I really hope people are reading this. Not that I don't enjoy writing for myself, but damn...). I woke up and read for about an hour. I finished The River Between. It was a really good book, but I'm not sure how to feel about it. There was struggle and conflict, and then the last 10 pages or so built up the ending to seem like the hero was going to triumph, and then in the very last paragraph, that hope is shattered. How depressing is that?
I went to Kaneshie with Jackie, Tania, Ariel, and Danae. Kaneshie is the place with the market and the kids playing soccer (and sometimes I'll still call it soccer) from the week before. We went back to the same spot to play soccer, but there were different kids this time. We played pretty hardcore for a while, but after about 30 minutes, I was so insanely hot and sweaty that I just couldn't go on anymore. I felt like I was playing in a sauna. The game ended up being 1-1, but I was so hot that I really didn't care about the score. We sat around for a long time and chatted with the kids. I actually talked mostly with a teacher who looked like he was about my age. We talked of many things, but one thing he said really made me think: "You must have come here for a reason, for some goal. Just make sure that when you leave you have completed that goal. A lot of people come here and think they have all the time in the world and then when they leave, they realize they didn't get to do what they wanted to do." He had a really good point. I've only been here for two weeks, but it's true that I should really start thinking about what I want to accomplish here, what I want to do before I leave. Otherwise, as he said, I may end up leaving unfulfilled. And how often does one come to Ghana? Not that I'm ruling out the possibility, but you never know.
That night I went with several students to ChurCheese. It's basically the Ghanain version of Chuckie Cheese, only the atmosphere is more sterile and less exiting. The food was up to Chuckie Cheese standards of quality, which loosely translated means that it really sucked. The pizza was nasty and greasy, the burgers were rubbery, and the grilled chicked looked fried. Bleh.
I stayed in again Saturday night, but oh, it was more than just staying in. I never ever would have expected what was to come that night. The music was blasting, we were all chatting... Then four girls from the Buf (the other residence) came over. The game ended, and it seemed that it would be another one of those nice nights at home. But suddenly, out of nowhere, this dance party just somehow emerged. At first it was just a few people dancing, but somehow, by some act of God, we were all just goin' at it like there was no tomorrow. As the night went on, people started coming back home from whatever clubs or parties they were at and they would be so shocked and inspired by the energy of the dance party that they themselves would join in as well. I mean, this shit was hot. What was great was that there were so many of us and so much energy that at times I would leave the dance party for a while, my longest departure being for about 45 minutes, and then I'd come back, and it'd still be hot as ever. Ultimately, the party ended at about 3:30. It was amazing. Five hours of intense dancing, energy, good people, good tunes... what more could a person ask for? I think I also found my dancing soulmate. Her name is Megan. All night long, she inspired my energy. We were totally on the same page with our dancing. It was pretty incredible.
*****
Yesterday, Sunday, was... well, it was a typical Sunday. Nice and lazy. I got up at noon. Ate. Went to the beach. Took a nap. Made dinner. Ate dinner. Went to sleep. It was nice.
*****
Today. This.
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