School, Sea, Sunset, Somnambulation

Well finally a shot of my sisters... from the left, Nana, Afia, Abena, though we call her Mina. This is the only shot I have of all three- and now Nana is living in Koforidua with her mum. We were swimming, obviously, in the front... Mina and Afia go to school alllllllllllll day, they leave 8am get home 7pm, or later. They are in Junior high, and granted it takes half hour to hour to get to school depending on traffic, but still...!

Below is my front yard, with the pool as you can see and my house... if you walk in that sliding door behind the fence, there is a lovely breezeway that is kept very clean for visitors. I have enjoyed teaching the girls a bit how to swim, or just encouraging them to feel comfortable in the water. Last I went swimming was in the evening- Afia and I made a fruit salad- pineapple, pawpaw (papaya), banana, orange- and we ate it while we swam, and the sun went down...

In some places dusk is merely sunset. The lifegiving ball of fire sinking in the sky slowly melts below the horizon and the haze becomes cool, or it is not witnessed because of the hanging clouds and only the dissipation of the light admits a shadowed world. But here, dusk is a time of its own. I began to notice it first when I was taking walks on the train tracks behind the house towards evening. As I was ambling I looked skyward and saw what was perhaps a bird above me, then another and another, and as I kept my eyes up they were filled with hundreds of small black reflections flying overhead. And as I looked closer I saw that, of course, they were bats. So I saw them again the next night and the next, always they come as the sun departs, though once the light is gone they have dispersed and I see none. Always they fly from the South, fluttering like funereal confetti on a current. And then that same current carries a most achingly beautiful voice, as though from the same far off gathering as the confetti, as though from the spirits of the other world are calling through a doorway, briefly opened each night when the sun is at just such a place, singing the praise of God, chanting the evening call to prayer. I have never lived in a place where I could hear proof of Islam each day, a few times a day, and always at this time of evening. So I floated on my back that day in the pool and watched the bats from the silence of the water, the strange and eerie silence of submersed ear drums, watched the light go, a few stars penetrate the light and dust, watched the black bodies of the desperately flapping bats move from south to north above me, watched it and then raised my head to hear the low, deep voice coming from nowhere and everywhere, coming from the human and the superhuman, weaving the fabric of the night around me with ancient melodies.


And these are my team mates, plus some Germans. From the left- Adam Streeter, whose blog is also definitely worth reading and can be found by looking at my followers. Anna Martinez who is doing the lovely video footage and is also attending Achimota School with me. Me... of course the one shot that had everyone in it and smiling I had to have my mouth all weird... then Meredith who lives in Tema, maybe an hour away with traffic.... don't know if she has a blog. Then our German friends Laura and Anne who stayed in Ghana in 2005 for 6 months and have made it back almost every year to visit and vacation. I sure hope to do the same!

This picture demonstrates a few things- first, the roasted plantains that she is selling- those are everywhere, though I actually haven't tried them prepared that way yet. The soccer ball on the umbrella: Ghanaians love soccer, though, this being Not America, they call it football along with the rest of the NA world. Ok, if you click the picture, and read the advertisment on the wall it is for Ghaliwood, which I got a kick out of. Have not see it yet, true Ghaliwood, but I'm looking forward to it. Then if you look behind the Ghaliwood signs, you see the green wall with half of another add for VEGA that has been posted over- well if I zoomed out the entire wall would be green and advertising VEGA and this would be one of many monotone walls advertising either a food or cell phone company.

oh. my. gosh. where to begin!!!!!!!!!!?

where did I leave off?
The Belgians, American and Danish girl came in dazzled and frazzled and tired and shocked, and it was finally I who was the "experienced" one to give advice and all.... a good feeling. Unfortunately most of them are living far away, up in other regions of Ghana so I won't see much of them. Except the Dane- she goes to my school. Schoool. SCHOOOOOOOOOOL!!!? what? I'm still in school? I'm supposed to be learning practical things as well as a new culture? I'm a teenager?

Let me back up.

We went to school when it started, last week to get our uniforms, pick our subjects and pay our fees. However that day only entailed waiting and walking around and waiting and then finally picking our subjects- even though we changed them again, just today. Then we waited for the rest of the week to be called by AFS and told that we would be going back to school to actually begin.... but we waited all week and it was only today, Tuesday the 22nd that we finally started school.

The campus is incredible. Absolutely beautiful. Built in 1927 by the British, Achimota Senior High School has a timeless and almost placeless feeling. Novelistic imperial British tropics. Could be India, could be any time in the 20th century, one could turn the corner and see some proper Missionary/Military wife in a sweeping white gown reading Dickens under a parasol... writing small notes in her journal about the red dirt and shining faces, the enormous black scorpions and breathtaking trees. How did those first people see this same land? Before it was over run with industrialization and media, before it was mostly Christian, and before the red dirt was paved over? Before the air was made thicker by smog, and before natives spoke English, the later of which is a simple way to say a lot of things.
There are immense trees over the whole campus, and wide open lawns in front of the tall white washed buildings. The buildings with blue shutters and a constant two feet of red dirt smudged around the base, some of which are dorms to house the approximate 1500 boarding students, some of which are our classrooms and others of which house the teachers and administration. The only real mark of the era is the large billboard between the boys dorms and the girls dorms reminding students that engaging in premarital sex can lead to HIV/AIDS.

Today we went to school late and finally got our uniforms and figured out our classes and got our books and were left with less than two hours to go to class, which was a nice amount of time to feel apart of something but not get overwhelmed. So, first impressions... the kids are as shy of us as we are of them... and since there are three of us obruni girls, at first it was easy to stay apart, but now that we are all in different classes (a conscious decision) we will each begin to blend into our own groups. I have chosen the Vocational Visual Arts track (vs. General arts or Science) because I am excited to do classes like textiles and General knowledge in arts that will give me more of a local taste- will be, hopefully, traditional Ghanaian, or at least West African. The class I came into was Economics, and I really like the teacher- he had taught in Missouri for a year and had also hosted an exchange student. But when we were going around telling him our names, and let me note that when a student is speaking in class he/she must stand, though most kids just sort of half raise their tushes from the wood bench, this one boy stood and said his name... well he was really tall, I mean tall for any standards and especially Ghanaian because most people here are fairly short, and so the teacher looked at me and said "Afia", because I had also given them my local name, "would you like to marry this sort of man?" well. I will leave you to imagine just how red my face was and just how loud that classroom became with hoots and hysterics. Welcome to Class 2V2. (Form 2, Vocational 2). My class prefect told me that ours is one of the notorious loudest classes in the school... which is fine by me because they are loud with laughter. So for now that is school, and I will post some pictures when I download them. Oh just a word about the assistant headmistress....I'll just say she is the stereotypical scary headmistress that you do not want to see after the first day. My friend, Marie, was debating about whether to go to form 2 or 3 (form=grade) and the woman was like, well if you want your name to appear at the bottom of the exam sheet every time, laugh laugh laugh, go to form three, but I won't change you around unless they demote you because you can't keep up ... laugh... well, Marie, bless her, said no, I think I can do form three thank you. (I'll keep you posted).
It is true that they post our exam results publicly for all the school to see.... great. and for the dress code. One pair of stud earrings is allowed. No bracelets, no necklaces, no second earrings, nails must be cut all the way down, no polish, no makeup, no hair clips, only in a pony tail- not down, not braided, not a bun, only pony, she kept saying it, only pony, only pony. The girls here actually are made to shave their heads from the very first class of school until they graduate high school. Sandals must be brown, nothing inbetween the toes (like flipflops) and no closed toes. No rings. No food in classrooms, not even in our bags, though they were willing to make an acception for us as day-students to bring tightly sealed completely concealed snacks for break time. Lunch is after school at 2:30- break is for a half hour at 11 and that is the only time we may use the restroom as well. Our uniforms must be washed and pressed... Yes. Dress code is tight, but overall I am more or less excited about school. But somehow over the past month I feel like I've grow so much I am out of school- I am beyond school or something, so it felt weird at first having to get back in that mindset. This summer has been so extraordinarily long and filled with new experiences from climbing a multi-pitch in Yosemite to visiting DC to everything about here I just couldn't believe that I had to go back to SCHOOOL.

This past weekend was by far the best I've had here... On Saturday I had another drumming lesson and learned my new favorite rhythm, then went out of Accra with my YES friends and an AFS volunteer to a beautiful park called the Aburi Botanic Gardens where we were toured around and saw trees planted by different presidents and even Queen Elizabeth. The place was made into a park in 1890 and has sections for herbal medicine research, conservation, and then the trees that we were toured through. Once I upload my pictures I will speak more of the Gardens. So we got home around evening and less than a half hour after I got back my brothers decided to go out so I spent a nice night drinking pineapple juice, listening to the music, admittedly feeling awkward at times... at a little spot on the side of the highway near the sea.
The next morning I got up to go with the same volunteer to the International Central Gospel Church, or ICGC. It was quite a church I must say- first it was big, hundreds of people all decked out in their Sunday Best, live band, ushers in suits, a big choir, even a balcony, and everyone was singin' and dancin' and and fillin' up that whole huge building with glory and praise. Then we went to the beach for the first time...

The beach. the beach. sandy expanse of untarnished white swept up by a crystal blue sea and elegantly swaying palm trees shading your personal haven...right? Warm water with gentle waves rolling around you and bright fish darting between your legs- It's the tropics after all.
WRONG.

Labadi beach is a touristy spot and hence a money making opportunity. Bars line the beach, with shaded tables to sit at (and pay for) very crowded- people selling things from bathing suits to carved wooden statues to mini drums to little Ghana bracelets to pirated DVDs...
I was so excited to be in the ocean that I just started running, jumping, splashing into the sea, feeling the perfectly chilled water and there- oh, is that seaweed, huh, why no, its a plastic bag. And that there- it's a ice cream bar wrapper, and that and wow- it really is dirty... then a whistle. Silly girl has gone flitting and prancing into the red flag zone. Ha, count on me to do such a thing... but truly it's hard to tell because most of the beach is red flag. In fact the area where we can swim is very small, like a hundred feet from white flag to white flag (though I'm a terrible estimator). But at least there is a lifeguard. Many Rastas, many Obrunis, many locals, music blasted from everywhere so loud that even when you are swimming you can be dancing... not my idyllic lie-on-a-beach-and-read place, but interesting in a people watching/meeting sort of way... and I did enjoy swimming, especially when it was later and the waves were really crazy, powerful but close to shore so still safe...
and then there was Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, as well as Kwame Nkrumah's birthday celebrations..... but I will wait until I have my pictures and some more time.

Personally, I am just riding the tide, starting school is the main thing on my plate, and having to get to school by 6:45 tomorrow. I have not felt real homesickness since DC, though I think of home and people- you all- often, especially when look at the night sky.

As always, that this may find you in peace.

by the way, this had nothing to do with sleepwalking, don't worry, you didn't zone out... but I'll be doing that soon... if I don't cut short all the things more that I want to say and instead sleep.