A few stories from the past week that must be shared:

  • In Twi class last week we learned body parts and sentence construction. My professor randomly called on me to say aloud “I like to eat chicken breast”. While I’m not sure what exactly ended up coming out of my mouth, I know it was near the equivalent of “I like chicken boobs.”
  • I went to Kaneshie market last week with two friends. It’s a good 30 minutes away from our house with traffic. We were on a mission for fabric and locally-made shea butter. (Note: Ghanaians have no idea what “budder” is…you must ask for “buttAH”…as in shea buttah). As soon as we completed our shopping, it started pouring rain with no sign of letting up. By the time we made it to the exit of the market, the streets were flooded up past our ankles. And when I say flood I mean gutter excess. And when I say gutter excess I mean a nice collection of liquid forms of who knows what. We waded through this to find a cab. Darkness fell. We were drenched. And all cabs refused to go anywhere near Labone (where we live) because of the road conditions. Finally we found a driver who didn’t know how to get to Labone. Agreeing to direct him, we hopped in the car (all the while I’m thinking… ‘wait, I know this place well enough to direct natives?’). We made it home in time for a necessary shower before dinner.
  • Saturday my friend Amanda and I went out to explore Madina.  Madina is a section of Accra about 40 minutes away…basically Accra is a sprawling city with several neighborhoods…I live in Labone/Cantonments, go to the university in Legon, work at Scripture Union in Ridge, etc.  That really doesn’t have much to do with this story.  So anyway, on the way home our cab driver got confused as he neared our neighborhood.  He realized that he didn’t know where he was going right as he was passing the US Embassy, which is a monstrosity of a building monitored by lots of cameras and lots of police. Realizing this, the driver decided to make a u-turn in the middle of the road in front of the Embassy/police.  The police ended up freaking out, yelling lots of things and signaling for the driver to pull over. The cab driver just yelled back without stopping the car until a policeman ended up cocking his rifle.  And then the driver sped away faster.  Amanda and I clung to each other, at a loss for words and thoughts, expecting to hear shots or something.  The driver tried to turn to us to tell us that everything was ok.  We were just like “?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!”… We soon made it home safe…adrenaline pumping. Whew.
  • Saturday night some of my friends and I decided to go out. We began the night at Champs, which is basically the United States squeezed into a tiny bar. I saw a guy with a mullet. We left soon to head to “Accra’s #1 club,” Aphrodisiac. First off, the bouncer almost refused to let three of us in, including me, because we were wearing flip flops, affectionately called “kyale wotees” here in Ghana. “Kyale wotee,” pronounced like “chahlee wotay” literally means “Charlie, let’s go” in the Ga language. We learned that kyale wotees are not the choice shoes of those who grace Accra’s #1 club with their presence. After eventually convincing the guy to let us in, we found the club to be completely empty, and the DJ playing “Like a Prayer” and “Get Down On It” with ten-second interludes of “Miami” over and over and over and over. And then we left.
  • I bought 007 Quantum of Solace on the side of the road on Sunday. I tried to bear with the horrible quality of the bootleg, but my two friends and I who watched the movie finished it having no idea what had happened.

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