This is what we are doing?

Date: 21/02/2010
Time: 21:00
Location: Accra, Ghana

Another two weeks has passed on my study abroad Ghana style. Birthday month, turning 21 and still a ton of exceptional experiences to have. The past two weeks has been a mixture of relaxing (per usual) African bead making and a Ghanaian family homestay.
Now when you think African beads. Is there a type of bead you would think off? Maybe for those that do not know about the African culture, and have no idea that there are certain types of beads that pertain to Africans it would not seem odd…but for those that know what I am talking about, tell me what beads would you think we were going to use when we were bead making? Well, we paid 25 cedi to have the number one jewelry maker in Ghana (courtesy of Christa of course) come in and teach us how to make jewelry. We were uber excited- it was time for arts and crafts. Something most of us have not done since year 1 or so? So this famous jeweler (who by the way was invited to teach the Obama kids how to make jewelry when they came to Ghana) held up this necklace that had three balls on it and beads that looked like you could buy them in Michaels. I looked around the room… people were looking at each other with a very questionable facial expressions. No one could say anything though as obviously we were ignorant jewelry makers compared to Christa (who by the way has her own jewelry line and this number one jeweler) Anyway, we took the challenge. We all decided to build this magnificent piece of art work- some like Melisa and Sara Legasey decided to take the artistic selves that they are and create a different necklace masterpiece. Which the jeweler said, “oh okay… woow that is great” Definitely not meaning what she had just said! Anyways, the 3 hours it took to make the necklace was all worthwhile- why… because I decided I was not that bad at art work.
After a lovely relaxing weekend of bead making and chilling out in Accra for the weekend and week, NYU in Ghana decided to switch things up for us. They decided to send us on a homestay. Think homestay in a foreign country- usually they send you to a typical family right?. Well… pretty sure none of us had a typical Ghanaian family. Most of us were put with wealthy families- but hey… it is Christa who is basically running the program so she would never put us with a traditional family. But anyway, I was originally supposed to be with Molly and Arielle. Molly got a text from our homestay sister saying, “Hi Molly. My name is Justine and I know you are staying with me this weekend. Can you ring me I just wanted to let you know that we are not a typical family…Call me” How weird is that? We had guesses on what on earth this girl could mean. We had… what if the parents are gay, we had the family is actually all obrunies, we had they are billionaires, and then our student life coordinator guessed that it is a family with multiple wives. Well… I never got to find out for myself. I was placed with Heather Fossity. We had a driver pick us up from the homestay office (driver turned out to be the cousin of our hometay father) we were driven to a hotel where we met our daddy for the weekend. It was the most awkward time of my life. It literally looked like they were our sugar daddy’s and we were there young white “biddies”. We sat and he ordered us drinks, after awkward chats and not chatting, it was time to decide what we wanted for dinner. Now… for those of you that know me- I am actually terrible at making decisions. Bobs and Anthony I think you can attest to this. I have no ability whatsoever to make any decisions. “Anthony, what should I do about this________. Should I choose this____ or this_______” But, decisions had to be made so after our weekend daddy said, “do you want to make food, or do you want to eat out, or order in?” We decided on ordering pizza from the hotel. Heather and I were just going to order 1- but our father ordered about 5 pizzas and chicken kebabs for us. His reason was, “I do not want you girls to be hungry” This is just the attitude of the Ghanaians. No matter where you go they make sure you are fed well. But do I mind? Nope!
Eating a massive dinner put Heather and me to sleep. Weekend daddy wanted to take us dancing later that night (because at this point it was only 8pm) but, Heather and I must have been in a food coma or something because we fell right asleep. – going to sleep early here is a necessity unless you are going out as I have explained before everyone wakes up at the crack of dawn. As Sara’s homestay sister said at 6am, “wow you like to sleep in”. We are not on the subject of time though except for the amount of times I threw up and had no so pleasant pooping sessions. It seems that my system had finally given in to the different foods here. I ended up throwing up everything from the night before and more, as well as pooping out I don’t even know what. Finally Nurse Mary told me to come back early from the homestay so she could start me on antibiotics. My homestay was short lived, but I must say for the few hours I was with the family I learnt a lot. My weekend daddy made a lot of multiple wives jokes, and was loving feeling young.
The rest of the weekend was me recovering from the bacteria that was festering in my stomach, and listening to the stories of others. Overall the group was 50/50 on if they had a great time or not. Poor Liza had a horrible homestay with a man who was looking to marry a white American woman. Sara legasey had a family that hated Jews, but Sara Hayward had a great time pounding Fufu in the middle of nowhere, and oh almost forgot. The “not normal Ghanaian” family… Justine ended up being a student from the USA who was here for a year, and the host dad was a successful business man who has his own business. He supplied the three girls with beer all through the weekend and they swam in his pool.
Well now it is time for the “Magic School” bus to say goodbye, as I am tired and need some sleep so I can go teach some kids at New Horizon.
Goodnight to all,

-KR x