Day 1 and 2

Yesterday was my first full day in Africa. I was awakened by roosters very early in the morning. I had muesli bars and a malaria tablet for breakfast. It felt bizarre to be davening shachrit in Africa surrounded by chickens. And goats. All around the place are goats, flocks of them or just little one. The tiny ones are adorable. Know what else is super cute? Ghanaian babies. All strapped on to their mothers' backs like koala bears. Seriously the cutest things ever.

Anyways then my host in Accra took me to exchange monies. The Ghanan Cedies (pronounced CDs) it pretty strong for 3rd world currency. 1 US dollar = 1.6 Cedies. We went back to the house I G-Chatted with some friends and then we set off to the bus depot. It was a 45 minute taxi ride away. That cost 10 Cedies. On the way at every set of lights or intersection there were people coming up the to cars to sell things. Everything from water sachets, to toiletries, to women's' high-heeled shoes. All their wears were carried atop their heads. Kinda like you expect from movies but then you're in a bustling city and it's women's shoes. Surprising.

At the entrance to the bus depot there was a guy selling flags. Presumably for sporting events because there was lots of African flags, the American, English and lots of South American flags. Oh, and the israeli flag. Everywhere. I also passed an electronics store called dizingoff and they really like calling their stores 'shalom.' So instead of shalom felafel there's shalom hairdressing and shalom carpentry.

Another thing idiosyncratic of Ghana, they really like God. On their stores and homes and bumper bars everything is god this and God that. God is able. God is good. In God we trust.

My host helped me buy a ticket to Kumasi (20 Cedies) and then we bought a sim card and some credit. Sadly the regular sized sim doesn't fit into my iphone so I'm going to have to buy a phone here. I checked my bag into the bus (yeah like for a plane) and then I farewelled my host and got on to the nicest bus I've ever seen in my whole life. It had giant business class seats in very soft leather and tacky but ornate window dressings.

At the beginning of the journey a hawker came onto the bus and spruiked his skin tonic very loudly in Twi for a while. I spend that time listening to a Machon Hadar shiur on kashrut. That also felt super surreal. I napped on most of the trip. The bus played a Ghanaian movie. It was very poorly made. It was about a pastor and his life in the village. The village also had idolaters who worshiped multiple gods. They had midgets (aka vertically challenged individuals) painted as skeletons to represent these gods. There was also a women who didn't wear enough clothing who asked for his help to find a husband and he "very righteously" yelled at her for dressed like a whore and kicked her out of his office and didn't give help her. Meanwhile the pastor was unmarried and his congregation wanted him to take a wife so he chose a pious woman from the community. Interestingly in my mind she was fat. So was the other woman, the one who was scantily clad. They were both presented as being totally irresistible. Interesting from a western perspective. Anyways, the idolaters don't like the Christians so they inflict a demon on the pastors wife and she becomes possessed. But luckily with the power of Jesus he saves her. And everybody lives happily ever after. Basically it was really interesting b/c it was very superstitious and misogynistic. Maybe a useful insight into Ghana?

I arrived in Kumasi after 5.5 hours of travelling at 5.30pm. I was careful to carry my own bag off the bus even though there were many young men here eager to help - for a fee. I waited for about 10 minutes chatting to the locals until Emmanuel came to collect me.

We caught a minibus to the compound/house. It has super big high walls around it and it has 3 bathrooms and many large bedrooms. Also it's just generally quite big. There's also a cross in the floor at the entrance. Told you they were religious. I have my own bathroom since I am the only girl in the house. There's about 5 guys living here too, all Ghanaians. One is studying computer science, the other is a lawyer another is studying to be an actuary. My bathroom is quite nice. Certainly nicer than some of the bathrooms I had in Israel.

Emmanuel, the president of Aiesec Knust is responsible for me and he'd made a lovely fish stew. I told him I was vegetarian and he was very disappointed. I had plain rice for dinner. But since it was the first hot food that I'd had for a couple of days I was happy to have it. It turns out that they eat a lot of salmon and herring here so I'm not sure if I will break my vegetarianism for this or not. I'm not sure what to do about food for Shabbat. There isn't a fridge in the house so I can't keep food from one day to the next. I think maybe I'll ask the street food people if I can pay them on Friday and then collect the food on Shabbat. We'll see. So we ate and I spoke to the lawyer (i've forgotten his name). Then I showered, unpacked and went to sleep at 9.30pm.

I woke at 7am to my alarm. I probably could have slept more but I'd definitely slept enough. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, davened, took my malaria pill and had the left-over rice for breakfast. It had been in the rice-cooker over night. I was a bit worried because it hadn't been refrigerated but I feel fine thus far. I found a hole in the mosquito net they gave me so I need to sew it up.

Today I need to buy candles and beer for Shabbat, some toiletries and a phone. I also need to contact the Jewish boy from Sydney who is here and then maybe also the Jewish community in Sefwi Wiawso.

This morning I went for a walk with Steven who studies business administration. It was very interesting. He told me a lot about the Ashanti tribe in this area the most powerful and respected tribe in Ghana. They speak Twi and still have a King. Some day soon I'll go and visit his palace. We spoke about Jews because he was very interested. He told me that he knew that Jews were very smart and that they are always developing new things like in technology and agriculture and finance. I told him that Jews aren't born smart but that as a culture we value education and hard work so that helps us. I told him about kibbutzim and socialist farming. He told me about economic development in Ghana and the school system with public and private schools. Also about the university system and how it's subsidised by the government but how it's hard for students to get employment while they study, because there's lots of cheap labour here already, so most students have to be supported by their families while they study.

Emmanuel got ready and we went to the local fast food joint. I got beans with cassava and pepper sauce with fried plantain. It was delicious. To get there we had to walk through a dirt track in a field of cassava and plantain. Probably the very plants whose fruit I was eating. I went with Emmanuel to the centre of town to visit the markets there. I've never seen anything like it in my whole life. It felt like every single one of the million residents of Kumasi were at the markets. There were people everywhere. You could buy anything you want on the street there. Toiletries, food, shoes, electronics. They were selling xboxes on the street and smart phones. Emmanuel took me to the supermarket. I'll have to go back there to buy more stuff tomorrow, particularly since I forgot to buy candles and beer for shabz. I think I'll put on a Shabbat dinner for the boys in the house this week. Anyways at the supermarket you could get anything. Except shampoo. They'd run out of shampoo. It was refreshing, however, to see that all the conditioners they sell were for frizzy hair. Girls of my own kind. I bought a phone to use here. Then we took a trou trou (like a sherut/maxi taxi) back to the suburb of Kumasi that my house is in. It's a totally enormous city. Very spread out with big parklands. We returned home around 3.30pm. The house was boiling. I was seriously hot and sweaty. I read a little ( man walks into a room, the first novel by Nicole Krauss) then napped for maybe 15 mins, but i had to lie on the cold concrete floor b/c everything else was way too hot. I then went with Steven to get some food again but i didn't get any because I was still hot from my lunch meal. I tried using their internet. But it was too slow at night. I'll try again tomorrow. I watched a movie with Samuel, the guy I brought the laptop for. Meanwhile, I think he's dating Christina, the Australian girl who came here last year. Anyways, we saw city of god. Very violent and entertaining. But seriously violent. The electricity is down again in the house. I hope that it will be more consistent than this and that I will be able to use the interwebz at some point. Very annoying.

Tell me if you think this is too much info. To be honest, I doubt that I will be able to maintain this amount of writing, but I had a bit of time on my hands. I suppose that this is more a public diary than blog.

Oh well.