I bless the rains down in Africa...

DAY TWO
The air here is so sticky. It’s not so much that it’s hot, because it is, but it’s more that the air makes my dress cling to clammy skin like starfish to a rock. I woke up this morning, like I will every morning, and took a cold shower. Not only is it cold because it’s the only water we have but also because I can’t imagine anything hot after tossing in my sweaty sheets all night. It’s my second day in Ghana, and already I can’t imagine what it’ll be like to leave. I walked outside in the early morning air, jotted across the dusty red dirt road and waved etesein (what’s up) to children dressed in red and white school uniforms. They waved back, their pink palms facing me, and muttered something to each other in Twi. The little one laughed uncontrollably and I just smiled back. I’ve gotten used to having children poke my white skin, try to touch my yellow hair and most often, laugh at my attempt at their language. I bought a mango and two bananas from a woman with a basket on her head and a tiny baby in a wrap slung across her wide hips. The baby smacked his lips as I handed the young mother twenty pesua. I wished her a good day and waved as I jaunted across traffic, dodging a Mercedes that looked terribly out of place in Okbungalow. I ran past more small children and had an overwhelming desire to take each one home. None of my roommates were awake when I arrived back at our small mansion, so I enjoyed some time to myself on our front porch.

Later that day, my roommates and I met with our director, Leslie, and headed off to Tedakwashi craft market. The cab driver wanted to give us the obroni price, but we bargained with him like pros and got a price of two cedi and felt very proud. We loaded into the crumbling cab, its seat torn and brakes squealed. We arrived at the market after a short drive and a small stomach ache (drivers here are insane). Upon entering, we had Ghanaians grabbing our wrists, shaking our hands and leading us this way and that to look at their shops. Every shop had the same things—wood carvings, masks, kente cloth and drums. We walked throughout the sprawling market, mixtures of Twi and English buzzing in our ears. I took a dozen photos of men playing backgammon with a makeshift table, men carving wood and sweating in a chiseled out cave beneath the underpass and children carrying bananas and nuts on their head. In the end, I didn’t wind up buying anything.

We went to the Chez Afrique again for dinner since they had another live band. This time, though, we walked. We walked with goats, children and hens pecking alongside the road with their chicks scurrying about under her ruffled plumage. The Chez Afrique was fun—there were less people there than before, but the band was far more entertaining. I sampled some of the local faire (joalla rice) and prayed I wouldn’t get sick. We danced and sang all night to the sound of the band and buzzing of mosquitoes.

DAY THREE
We woke up late this morning, after a long night of dancing at the Chez Afrique. I finished Kite Runner in the hot African sun and cried—no one warned me how sad that book was! After another welcome cold shower, I left the secured, barbed wire fences of our abode and breathed in the hot, dusty air of Ghana. I walked across the street and bought eggs, sweet bread and minutes for our cell phone. The house seems to be working out well that way—we’ve all been sharing the phone and buying joint minutes. Thirty minutes goes fast between thirteen people, but it seems to be OK so far. I’ve been getting along well with the others in the house, though I’m thankful that I’ve lived in a house with forty other people before.

We waited around the house until 3:30, when our friend Sonny came over with a big surprise: he had tickets for all of us to watch the Black Stars play in the National Stadium in Accra! We donned our best green, black and red gear and took the trotro downtown to the stadium. Before I go any further, I have to explain the trotro. It’s the main system of transportation throughout Ghana and especially Accra. Ghanaians rip out the seat of huge vans and replace them with their own—15 seat buses become 20 seat buses. People pack into the privately-owned trotro and magically make those 20-seat buses hold 22, not counting a few children sitting on the laps of their tired mothers. The trotro ‘maid’ hangs his head out the window and uses hand gestures to indicate where the renegade van is headed next. The thirteen of us, plus Sonny, climbed over mothers and grandmothers and took our seats after paying the maid 30 pesua. Driving through Accra was like driving through a different world. Shacks and squatters lined every side of the road, interrupted only briefly by huge theatres and buildings built by the Chinese. People in green, yellow, red and black grew more and more thick in number as we approached the stadium. We jumped out of the trotro, paid our one cedi and braved the swelling crowd. Hawkers took up the sidewalk with their sprawling displays of Ghana flags, Black Stars jerseys and paraphernalia. I bought a flag for one cedi and scrambled to catch up with the rest of the group. They were surprisingly hard to find, since many tourists attend such a huge match. I don’t know much about soccer, or football, but this game was a World Cup Qualifier and one of the big matches in the Cup of African Nations. We showed our tickets to security guards in full riot gear, their helmets glistening in the hot sun. They nodded and waved us on, through the metal turnstiles and past the rabid fans playing trumpets at the entrance. Sonny lead us to the very front of the stadium—literally, we were so close we could practically hear the sweat dripping from the players’ bodies to the sharp blades of grass on the long, manicured field. We listened as people cheered hours before the game started and watched impromptu bands spring up throughout the gargantuan stadium. Throughout the game, we stood, sat, clapped and cried alongside Ghanaians as they celebrated each completed play, cursed each ‘bad’ call and applauded at the players’ efforts. We watched three fights break out—one right in front of us ended in a broken nose and a police escort. The most interesting thing, though, was how tame the people were when fights did break out. “Hey fool, sit yo’ self down,” men would shout as their children tugged at the back of their shirts. Eventually, those in the scuffle would sit, and people would pat them on the back to calm them down. Another interesting thing that Ghanaians do is applaud players despite the outcome. One fan favorite, Essien, missed a goal but as he waved to our side of the stadium, people clapped and said “Next time, brotha. Next time!” We would never see that at Autzen. At Autzen, for every bad play, thousands of swear words would fly around the stadium like the mosquitoes around my glaring computer screen. “Damnit, Roper, get some balls!” or “Hey, Brady! Get off the field!’ You know we do it. But not here. Here, soccer players are a god among men, their photos plastered on billboards around every corner.

During the match, men painted in the team’s colors wandered back and forth in front of the crowd. One held a rosary and prayed every few minutes. Another balanced a ceramic pot atop his head, painted in Black Stars’ colors, of course, and burned some sort of incense inside. It wasn’t clear what exactly was in the pot, but it was obvious that is served some sort of religious purpose. That’s how seriously football is here—people actually pray about it.

In the end, the prayers of Ghanaians everywhere were answered as the Black Stars claimed a 2-0 victory over another African nation whose current name I can’t quite remember. People cheered as loud as they could for the heroes of their nation as they paraded out of the stadium into the sticky, dark night. The scene around the stadium was comparable to that at Autzen, except with about one million more people. Green, yellow, red and black beads shot through the clear night like cannons, the color barely visible in the dim light from the streetlamps. We followed Sonny through the crowd, kazoos buzzing in our ears and Ghanaian flags obstructing our view. Children cried for their mothers in the chaos and families begged for change on every corner. We jetted across four lanes of heavy traffic to find a cab away from the stadium. As we filed through the city streets, all 13 of us fell silent, taking in our surroundings. Mothers and young children cooked raw meat on open grills on the sidewalk; young boys urinated around dark street corners; giant gaping holes where the sidewalk should have been made the walk impossible without a flashlight. At one street corner, I felt grubby little fingers like greasy sausages edge their way up my arm. Startled, I looked down to see a little girl, her swollen tummy protruding beneath a stained purple dress. She squealed and buried her head in my thigh—“Obruni!” she yelled with some Twi words thrown in after. I gave her 20 pesua (20 cents) and wished her a good night. All her little mouth could muster was “Obruni!” in a high-pitched squealing laughter as I walked away.

We finally caught a trotro back to our house, where George the security guard waited eagerly to greet us. We treated ourselves to Star and Club beer, nice and cool from a day of refrigeration. About the beer: Star is a very light, girly beer like New Castle or something similar. Club is slightly darker. People chose which “team” they’re on because, in true Ghanaian style, they make everything a game. I don’t care for beer, as you know, but for 1.20 cedi ($1.20) per GIANT bottle, I’m on team Star. Go Black Stars!

DAY FOUR
Today, I woke up to a broken fan. Let me tell you, a broken fan is not something you want to have in Ghana in the summertime. Broken fans mean heat, heat means sweat, and that means little to no sleep. I survived the night, though, and finally rolled out of bed at 6:00. Needless to say, it was still a few hours before the rest of my roommates woke up, since their fans seemed to be in perfect working order. I made some oatmeal, a perfect mean for rainy Eugene but not as satisfying in sultry Ghana. Leslie, our director, and Dr. Williams (“Doc”) came over to the house at 8:30 to talk to us about responsibility, internships and Ghanaian customs and traditions. Interestingly, I learned that you never shake someone’s hand or make any gestures with your left hand. If you do, you must apologize or it’s considered especially disrespectful. We heard a few horror stories about malaria and were reminded to take out malaria pills daily. I can’t believe it, but I still haven’t been bitten. Don’t worry—I still take the pills.

After our brief talk, Doc and Leslie loaded us onto a large, white bus for a tour of the city. I learned that we live about 10 miles north of Accra in a suburb called East Legon. It was a bizarre feeling to realize that the town I thought was Accra was actually not Accra at all. The hot plastic glued my thin dress to my legs and back as we chugged down the road. Our first stop was the University of Ghana, which is only about one mile from our house. Campus here is beautiful, but extraordinarily large. Giant termite nests sprawl across acres of campus, making the area a bad place to be when it rains. We drove over windy hills to the top of the campus, where the Chancellor lives and Malcolm X gave a speech. The area also has a beautiful view of greater Accra. I got a little pit in my stomach when I couldn’t see the end of it on any side. Oh no—I have to navigate that?!

After seeing the University, we toured through the heart of Accra. The poverty here is heart-wrenching. Tin shacks dot dusty roadways, children scurry through crowded paths as their mothers wash clothes and cut fresh mangoes with dirty knives. We passed through an assemblage of squatters, their living area barely larger than a US city block but enormously crowded. The whole place smelled like feces and stale urine and I tried not to breathe. The place was a total reality check- how can we in American live such posh lives when there's so much suffering? That's where the contradiction comes in, though. These people have nothing, yet women chatted and laughed, children shouted and smiled as our large bus chugged by. They're so happy with so little- why can't we all be more like that?

After touring through the area of squatters, where I also saw the ocean (littered with debris) for the first time on this continent, we continued through the huge city to a craft market. People here were very aggresive, pulling on my pale wrists to drag me into their shops. Again, every store had the same thing but I did wind up buying a wooden elephant statue for 50 cents from a man who knew every American state capital (even Missouri!). He said that he loved America, and every chance he got he bought a book about the country so he could study more. I gave him another 50 cents toward his education fund and he told me to say hello to Colin Powell for him. I guess he needs an updated book.

Afterward, we made our way through the narrow streets of a Muslim community in western Accra. It was so interesting to see Ghanaians covered in traditional Muslim robes and women with their hair and faces covered. Women and children sold grains in front of their crowded homes and small boys balanced huge baskets atop their head.

After our tour of the giant city, we went home for a quick nap. When we awoke, it was pouring rain. Naturally, we went to buy Club and Star beer at the bar across the street where Michael, our 12 year-old bartender, introduced us to some of his friends. We journeyed back across the street and danced to Toto's "Africa" ('I bless the rains down in Aaaafricaaaa') as warm drops of rain streamed down our faces.