Saturday the 28th

Friday was pretty kickass. Davened then tea and toast before beginning morning seder with Alex. We learned for 4 hours in the morning. We learned the parsha and then pirkei avot. His hebrew is pretty good. It was a good study sesh and i left feeling super inspired and satisfied.

After our learning i went back to my room and bought 15 litres of drinking water. Alex came with yogurt and fruit which also made me happy. I spent the afternoon watching the movie 'twelve monkeys.' it's not bad. But i wouldn't say it's brilliant. Though i do love seeing brad pitt in his earlier years. I then (bucket) showered and prepped for shabz. I completed the fence around the house so i would be able to carry around the compound. Though the property is shared with christian families who thought i was a bit nuts. But they should probably be used to nutty Jews by now.

I was also in a pickle about food for shabz. You see, the woman who cooks for me is part of the community and she was cooking everything for me before shabbat because she herself is shomeret shabbat. However, this doesn't extend to carrying on shabbat. Now i knew she was going to carry the food to me on shabz. So i went to her before shabbat and asked if i could take it all now so she wouldn't' have to carry on shabz and work. But she said no, that she brings to food to all the guests and became quite offended that i was trying to take away her job. So it seemed quite impossible without getting Alex (who was uncontactable) to explain the situation since her english wasn't great. I reconciled it as such, that halachically she is not Jewish. She may at some point go through a conversion ( the community is planning to convert by the end of this year) however even then it will be a conservative conversion and she will still be carrying on shabbat, since Alex the leader of the community also carries on shabbat even after his conversion. As such, i decided that pending further investigation and not wanting to offend her any more than i already had that i would simply accept the food that had been carried through the reshut ha'rabim on shabz.

Another question arose then about how on earth she was going to keep the food until my meals. Now i couldn't go asking and indeed she didn't like me being any where near her outdoor 'kitchen.' but it seemed pretty obvious to me that anything i would be eating would not have been refrigerated since i doubt that there is a single private fridge in the whole village. Any food that was cooked was put into like giant thermoses to keep warm until it was time for me to eat the next day. So she'd prepared me a bunch of boiled eggs, some tomato stew and some rice. I ate a little bit of it all but i'm still waiting for the salmonella to catch up with me. She also prepared me some watermelon which was delicious but i have no idea how hygienic or unhygienic the circumstances were when it was prepared. So expect a stomach complaint in the next 24 hours. Keeping track of what i was eating was easier in kumasi when nobody but myself was responsible for my food.

But back to shabbat. Friday evening i went to shule, we sang kabbalat shabbat with the children and a few adults. After that we taught the kids a tune to one of the shabbat prayers and i gave a short devar torah about shabbat.

We walked home but there was no Friday night dinner. Apparently they don't do that here and since i'd eaten at 4 i certainly wasn't hungry. So i read by the light outside and was in bed by 9pm.

Shule this morning was at 8.30am. The service is pretty standard expect that many of the tehillim (psalms) have been translated into the local language, twi, so they sing them in that language. Apart from that most of the service is in english except for shema and the amidah which is lead tby the chazan. They also called me up to read from the 'torah' - meaning a chumash in hebrew for the first 2 aliyot. But after that they switched back to reading the parsha in Twi. I found it amusing that the first time i read in front of a community is in west africa. But then again, i defiantly just read since my leining abilities are limited. After torah reading a gave another devar torah which was translated as i spoke by Alex.

After shule, i went home, read and napped until 5pm when we returned to shule for a shiur, given by myself. I gave a shiur on hilchot shabbat focusing on the laws of mukseh since i mentioned it to Alex in passing a couple of days ago and he had never heard of it. So i explained it to the community. After that there was some question and answer time, much of it coming from the kids and revolving around what they had been taught about jesus in school. It was difficult for me to answer since i don't know much of abut jesus of Christianity but it was important that we had these discussions b/c obviously it's hard for the kids to be Jewish in school surrounded by christians. After that i gave a small vort involving the parsha and pirkei avot and by this stage shabbat was out and we went outside to do havdala which they do in the carlebachian style so i felt right at home. As we walked back home through the banana plantations the kids sung eliyahu ha navi and it felt totally surreal that i was in a small isolated west african viillage.

Tonight we watched ghana play mali in the africa cup of nations. Ghana won 2:0. yay!

As for tomorrow i begin my trek to accra to collect my BFF. Super pumped. And with that, g'nite.

Monday the 23rd

Sorry all - this is a bit out of order - this is from Monday but i forgot to post it - whoops!

What did i do today? Well, not much.

Yeah, welcome to ghana.


I mean i got up early at like 6am, i set my alarm to go off at that time but to be honest there's no a high likelihood that i could hav stayed awake much longer anyway because of the cacophony of goats and chickens in the courtyard. I dressed and martha, the woman who's cooking for me, brought me breakfast of eggs and toast and tea which i was actually hungry for and ate happily. Alex came and informed me that he was going to town but that afterwards he planned on taking me to an internet cafe. So while he was gone i had a bucket shower. I should wash my hair but have you any idea how much of a mission that is with a bucket of cold water? Plus it wasn't warm enough this morning so i didn't feel like the chill of that whole experience. I then washed some clothes. Seriously hanging out for israel and a freaking washing machine. b/c scrub as i might in my little bucket of cold water it's just not going to ever really get all the dust and sweat out of my clothes. After that Alex came around and we went to the internet cafe, i blogged and then we bought some butchers paper and a texta for when i teach. I came home and lunch was ready, rice and beans and SALAD! Now on the one hand salad is exciting b/c it involves vegetables. On the other hand who knows if they were washed? Sadly i'd forgotten about this in the excitement of my first fresh vegetables in almost 2 months. That is, until after i'd finished eating. So now i'm just waiting to see if i'm going to get sick. Only time will tell.


At around this time Alex disappeared. As far as i understood this afternoon we were meant to have a meeting to set a curriculum for my kids afterschool classes and the adult evening classes as well as decide what the two of us will study in the mornings. But he's disappeared. Hrm. There was also supposed to be a meeting of the community this evening to meet me but so far it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I know that he's going to kumasi tomorrow. He will probably be back in the evening/afternoon.


This is super frustrating, particularly when i could have spent the day teaching in kumasi. But then again, this is ghana. Things happen slowly and inefficiently. And i'm trying to get used to it.


So this afternoon Bernard and Joseph Junior (aka JJ) and Rachel, ie: Joseph Armah's kids, kept me company. We finished watching the rest of alice in wonderland. We talked a bit. Bernard gave me a talking to about black magic and the bad things it can do and how i should be super careful. It seems that he is christian, i'm gathering this b/c he wears a cross around his neck. But it might not be right. Dinner was boiled yam, tomato and bean sauce and a boiled egg. It looks like i'm going to be having a lot of eggs here.


Another off putting event happened today, JJ, came to me and asked for 4 cedis to buy him new sandals. I asked him if his father knew about this. He said yes, but i was suspicious, so i told him that i'd speak to Alex and we'll see. If his father comes to ask me for money, i'll consider giving it to him. But i don't want to become to local atm. Not that there is actually an atm here locally.


So what will happen tomorrow? Who knows. The kids go to school, the adults go to work/farm and Alex will be in kumasi. I need to remind myself that i'm on summer holidays and that if i don't teach every day it's not the end of the world. But i am feeling pretty frustrated at present.


And so that is all i have to share at the moment. Fun times.

Wednesday the 25th

Today was heaps better, but still not actually quite productive.

Got up early and went with joseph to his work. He's a photographer, weddings and the like. But he also does passport photos so today i went with to his shop. At about 11am i decided to go off and find an internet cafe. Which i did, but sadly i had not brought my blog posts with me so no postage was possible. After the interwebz i met up with Alex and we went back to New Adiembra which is the suburb of Sefwi that the Jews live in. He told me that this afternoon at 3 i would be able to teach the kids, but at 3 he didn't come to collect me so i found rachel, joseph's 10 year old daughter and had her take me to Alex. We found him and i got him to take me to the shule and to get rachel to gather the kids for the lesson. I think i've learnt by now that i have to push for things to get done here in ghana.

Once in the shule Alex took me through their services. Their shabbat morning one is pretty standard but they don't have a Friday night service. Which i think is pretty sad. They do a translation of the torah portion into twi (the local language) but they don't read with a tune so Alex has asked me to read from the torah this shabz. They don't have a mechitza but men and women sit separately.

At about this stage rachel came back and said that the kids aren't around and we won't be able to have a class.

So Alex and i stayed in the shule and we discussed the history of the community.

Oh and Alex's love life.

So for hundreds of years apaz the community kept kosher and kept shabbat but didn't really know they were Jewish, it was more that these were the rules of the paramount chief in the area and so everybody obeyed but then the missionaries came and gave him lots of pretty things and so he agreed to relax the rules so people didn't have to worship on shabz anymore. Also then a fetish priestess in the original location of the community, adiembra (i think) incited mini-pogroms so they left the village and mowed to this new part, new adiembra. But then the community lost direction and began to convert to christianity. But in the 70s their leader (whose name i forget) had a dream/prophecy that they were Jewish and had to find more Jews. So he found some in America and started writing to them. The community built up but after his death in 1991 the community waned again. That is except for Alex armah's brothers and friends. They convinced people to return to judaism (they hadn't actually gone to another religion they just stoppd identifying as Jewish) and eventually they built a shule. Alex got in touch with kulanu eventually and was sent to the community in uganda where there is a yeshiva (of 10 students) and now he is due to receive some sort of rabbinical ordination.

The only problem is they won't let him become a 'rabbi' or the head of the community until he marries. The trouble is that the community is 10 families much of which are his own family. So how does one find a woman when you are a jew in ghana? Well, he tried his best in uganda but the cultures were simply too different for him to find a suitable wife. He assures me that he's working on it but that he doesn't want to rush into such a big decision. So for now becoming a rabbi will have to wait while he sorts out his marital status.

In the meantime he wants to start a community nursery school with the hopes that from there he can build a primary and eventually a secondary school and thereby really boost the community.

I asked him some questions about observance in the community. Apparently shabbat was always kept though obviously the rules about not using electricity are new (then again so is electricity). But they didn't write or clean or work on shabbat even before they had contact with other Jews. As for kashrut they only ever ate kosher animals and were killing them in a way that they thought was kosher. However, since Alex went to yeshiva he has learnt how to kill chickens. As such until he properly learns how to kill a goat that will have to do. Though he says that there are still some families that kill their own goats their own way. As for matters of milk and meat, turns out to not be an issue since ghanaians don't eat milk. The only dairy products they would have, maybe is some condensed milk in their tea (since there's no fresh milk in ghana), but they don't even have tea very often. They would never have a milk based meal and plenty have never ever seen cheese before.

They import their matzot in from America, they don't have a tradition for matza, but i'm hoping that maybe tomorrow i will teach Alex to make it. i'm also considering making challah, the only issue for both of these is that i've never even seen an oven in ghana. So while i can make matza i suppose on the back of a wok overturned onto a fire (like pita) i feel like challah really requires an oven.

As for tonight, i had jolof rice with an egg for dinner then finished watching 'willy wonka and the chocolate factory' with rachel (i'd forgotten how seriously brilliant that movie is). Afterwards bernard and joseph junior (JJ) joined us. I don't really like either of them. JJ constantly asks me for money and Bernard thinks nothing is more hilarious than things i don't know. Such as that a local god can curse you and make you possessed. I know, hilarious that i didn't know that. Also that i don't speak twi. Totally hysterical. After 'willy wonka' i put on 'shaun of the dead' coz i figured that ghanaians like that type of horror-lite movie. The trouble is that ghana horror-lite movies are about people being cursed by black magic and becoming possessed and the like. Ie: things that 'really' happen. So when bernard saw this movie, he was convinced that there are real zombie attacks in the west just like people 'really' become possessed by the devil in ghana. Look, i don't want to mock their beliefs, but it's a bit of an issue when you can't recognise what's a movie and real life. He only believed me when i said it's not true and has never happened when i pointed out the impossibility of continuing to attack somebody with a giant whole through your centre as was the case with the zombies. After he realised this wasn't true or possible he thought the movie was stupid. Why would you watch a movie about impossible things he asked.

It's interesting, sarah and rachel are josephs biological daughters and the two bys JJ and bernard are relatives who he's caring for. I don't whether it's a boy thing or a genetic thing but the girls are super intelligent (rachel is out-of-control smart for a 10 year old) and competent whereas the boys are more than a little bit slow. Maybe it's a maturity thing?

In any case, bed time now. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Tuesday the 24th

And today you ask? Well not a lot either. Today i got up, dressed and davened, had breakfast of eggs, tea n toast then found myself with nothing to do. So i uploaded the photos from my camera to my laptop and organised them. Then i read some of the articles that i have on my laptop. Obviously they are all about jew shiz and they were great. Then i read some more from 'gullivers travels'. I finished reading my guide book to ghana, the one my mother posted over from oz. I made some plans about where to travel to in my last week. I went for a walk around the area, washed my hair (quite a feat given the bucket and no hot water situation). By this stage the kids came home from school. Rachel taught me some clapping games and i taught her some as well. I was given lunch by Gladis (joseph armah's wife) unfortunately nobody had told her that i don't eat meat or fish so she'd made me a fish stew. I felt so bad for not eating it that i ate double the number of plain boiled yams than i would have liked to just so she wouldn't feel like it was because i didn't like her food. After that the kids n i went to the local bar to watch ghana play botswana in the africa nations cup. Ghana won, obviously, but i was secretly rooting for botswana, the underdogs. I think they went down valiantly and only lost 1:0. After the game there was dinner of rice and beans, i watched a little of willy wanka and the chocolate factory with rachel and then we finished the end of a ghanaian movie called 'the good old days' with her brothers.

As for tomorrow? Well, i hope that Alex rocks up. It'd be great to actually be useful and productive while i'm here. Gosh ghana, you're pretty frustrating some times. And my sometimes, i mean most of the time.

Having said that today, even though i was frustrated, i was happy. Sefwi wiaswo is in the mountainous region of ghana and it's not densely populated so all around there are beautiful hills and valleys and jungle and breathtaking views. So if i had to be useless anywhere i suppose it's not to bad to have something nice to look at while i'm bored.

And that's all folks. g'nite.

p.s. As yet not sick from the salad but i asked martha to only give me cooked vegetables from now on. i'll save my salads for tmol shilshom and cafe cafe.

Sunday the 22nd Part II

So after the last post i went to the seamstress and collected my dress. She made me a beautiful dress of pale pink beaded indian fabric. The trouble is that it's too big. She measured me, but as always she left some room for growth. She seems to be in denial of my tiny white girl ways and keeps telling me that i need to be more fat to get a husband. Hilarious. In any case, i need to get the dress taken in. But i was leaving kumasi so i didn't have time to have her do it.

After that i finished packing. i'm leaving my big backpack in kumasi with most of my belonging and i'm only taking a small backpack with me to sefwi wiawso. I’m pretty proud of how light i can pack for 3 weeks. I mean, obviously, i will have to do a lot of washing. But because of the sun here, things dry very quickly.

Meanwhile, the boys who went to liberia came back late last night. So today while i was packing i spoke to one of them, kwachy, about the trip. He studies politics and is quite interesting; he is the one who gave me the book on african history. So we were discussing what happened to the child soldiers once the war ended. He told me that there are lots of NGOs and charities and the UN in liberia at the moment running lots of different projects. They do women's empowerment projects, and HIV/AIDS projects and literacy projects but that there aren't any projects for the child soldiers. Mainly because the world and the communities aren't sure whether to treat them as victims or as war criminals. You see, they might have started off as 8 year olds but by the end of the war they were 16 or 18 and by that age you are responsible for your actions, at least legally. So today many of the ex-child soldiers are homeless, most of the time their families were killed (by their own doing) and their extended families won't take them, neither will their villages. They have no education, having spend their schooling years on the battlefield so they are mainly illiterate. The boys are often involved in the black market (which is basically the only market) or various other dubious activities and the girls mainly work as prostitutes. The problem is that unless there are shelters and re-integration programs for these people in their early 20s they are going to be an unstable force in the country. They are deeply traumatised, many have intense drug addictions from what was given to them in the militias and they have no morality having grown up raping and killing from the age when most of us were still being dressed by our parents. If given the opportunity, say if the UN were to leave, these young people would return to their violent ways because looting and the spoils of war are the only way they know of to feed themselves.

So my advice - world - get on top of this. Ex-child soldiers need help. They might have done very bad things (such as killing their own mothers and eating the flesh of captured soldiers) but they are only going to continue to do bad things unless we help them. They have got to learn new ways to provide for themselves. Ok world?

After speaking to kwachy and farewelling all the boys and the house it was time for me to leave kumasi and go to jewville - aka sefwi wiawso.

I took a bus there, a full blown normal sized bus, not a tro tro (minivan). It made me pretty happy. But then again i was still feeling pretty miserable from being so sick. I felt super nauseous and tired, i was quite worried that i would either vomit or pass out on the bus. But i was determined to go to visit the Jews today. Also - i was sick of living in that house in kumasi. There were too many people in it now with all the new chinese interns, and it was becoming filthy, probably the cause of my illness in the first place.

At about 4pm i arrived in sefwi and Alex met me at the bus. He took my bag, we hopped into a taxi and drove to his place. There, a small girl met me and took another bad of mine. They showed me to my room. I was overjoyed. It was a big room with lots of windows, two beds, a tv, a couch and coffee table. It was clean and neat. But more than anything i was happy because on the table were candle sticks, a havdala candle and a small plush toy torah. I was ecstatic. We sat down and i asked the girl what was her name. Rachel, she answered. Not even rachel with the english pronunciation. She said rachel with the deep hebrew gutteral chhhhh. I hugged her. I was so happy to meet a rachel.

So gave Alex my prikei avot and the haggadah that i'd brought. He told me that he's been studying n a yehshiva in uganda for the past few years under the rabbi there. Apparently in uganda the community is over 3,000 people. So Alex studies in hebrew. But the rest of the community don't understand hebrew.

After Alex left however, rachel came in, she showed me her hebrew workbook and what she is learning. She is very good and is learning how to say 'ima' and 'aba' and 'bayit' and some sentences. I mean she's only 10 years old so she's pretty much up to par with the standard Jewish day school kids. Joking. Or am I....

After that Alex came and collected me and we went for a walk. On that walk he spoke to me about the ugandan Jewish community and their history and how they were persecuted. He also discussed how in the past the ghanaian Jewish community were persecuted for opposing idolatry which is the traditional local religion. At this point i asked a question that i was a bit worried about. I asked if the Jews in ghana believe in the local gods as well as the god of judaism. He told me, absolutely not! He said that the Jews know that there are no other gods big or small, they have no powers. He said that because of this they are not afraid of people become angry at them and cursing them and causing them to become sick or die or be infertile. This was a huge relief to me since all the other ghanaians that i have met even if they were christian or muslim also believed in the traditional gods, they simply believed that their other religion was more powerful than the local smaller gods.

He also explained to me some of the history of the community here. It seems that the local chiefs are descended from the Jews but have since converted to christianity, i think, and that they came here are traders across the sahara from ethiopia. Apparently most of the distinctive practices revolved around shabbat. If you were caught working on shabbat you were made to pay a large fine to the chief as a penalty.

After the walk around the town i came home and dinner was waiting for me. They know that i am vegetarian (in truth i spoke to a rova girl who also came here and she advised me against eating their meat since there is no way they have kosher (in the post shulchan aruch sense) shechita) but in any case i have been very sick so i just had some rice with spicy tomato sauce and a boiled egg. I was super happy to eat, surprisingly. Actually, since coming to sefwi i have been feeling much better. My nausea has gone away, i feel much healthier. I think the smell of the house (it still smelled like goat blood from Thursday) was really off putting and reminding me of my food poisoning illness.

As for the next little while,

I’m going to be learning with Alex in the mornings, the school kids in the afternoons and the adults in the evenings. I figure i’ll teach the kids songs and tell them bible stories, the adults i suppose we’ll do pirkei avot and with Alex i guess we’ll be doing Talmud. Conveniently i have all of Talmud and Rambam and various other jew things on my laptop.

As for internet, i think my connection is going to be intermittent so but i guess we will see.

Shavua tov y’all.

Sunday the 22nd Part I

So to catch you up on the past few days of whirl wind i'll tell you what's been going on.


Wednesday i got up early and taught 4 lessons of computer science theory in the local school. That's right, theory. I had a text book and i taught year 8 and year 10 computer sciences in theory. For year eight i taught them the methods of cutting and pasting text in word. For year 10 i taught them about the scroll bars and the tool bars in word. Seriously adorable having them take notes in their note books about these things.


After school i grabbed myself some beans n cassava, showered and hopped on a bus for 2 hours to nkawkaw. Why? Well you see, i ordered a ghana guide book on amazon for $3 second hand. But it didn't arrive before i left. So my mum posted it to me. The issue is that the mailbox that she sent it to is 3 hours away from where i live. Wtf ghana? Boys who gave me that post office box you didn't think you should mention this minor fact/inconvenience to me? Anyways so it arrived in a town call new abriem. In their defence, we couldn't have it sent to our house b/c there are no house addresses in ghana, if you want to receive mail you have to organise a P.O. Box. Luckily for me however the boy who had my book was willing to meet me halfway in nkawkaw. And to be honest, i don't really mind bus rides. So i on the way there i listened to one by ethan tucker on homosexuality which i didn't think was great and on the way back i listened to that lecture at mechon hadar about israeli democracy. i'd say a totally worthwhile bus ride. Even though i will never those 4 hour back. When i arrived in the bus station i went to the place we agreed to wait. I sat and waited. Because it was after 5 the bus station was closing. But i could get more tro tros from the side of the road near the station so i wasn't worried. Meanwhile every single ghanaian in the area came up to me to tell me that the station was closing but that i could get a bus from the side of the road. When i told them i was waiting for a friend they all sat down and said that they were going to wait with me until he came just to make sure that i was ok. Adorable. Anyways, i called him again after 45 min of waiting only to find out we'd had a misunderstanding and he was waiting by the side of the road not in the station. So i got up and said goodbye to all the concerned ghanaians. I met up with him, got the book and hopped on another tro tro back home.


Thursday i got up early and went to teach. They were practical classes in the computer labs. These kids have a totally kickass computer lab donated by the local queen mother. But their computer skills are terrible. It took us an hour to learn how to cut and past in word and even now i'm not sure that if any of them were placed in front of a computer again that they could replicate the actions. The reason is that they don't have enough teachers for the subject but also because they rarely get practical classes. This is because the queen mother donated the lab but not money for electricity to run it. So the school can't afford to use the lab.


The thing that was disturbing about the class was the student-teacher relationship. The teachers do nothing themselves. They get students to get their books for them, to clear the board for them, to get them lunch, to wash their dishes. But also they beat the kids. They hit them with a cane all the time. For any minor disruption or misbehaviour or for not being fast enough. They cane them on their hands and the backs of their knees. Meanwhile compared to my school the kids are so much better behaved. Indeed when i was teaching the kids by myself and i didn't have another teacher with a cane looking over 'maintaining discipline' they behaved even better. In my mind they responded to respect much better than to a cane. But i mean, i get it, i suppose. Africa is a little bit behind. The boys told me that there are new laws limiting the number of hits you can give and you might have to face a disciplinary committee if you can't defend why you gave the caning.


After school i came home and went with susan the australia and andy a ghanaian to the livestock markets to buy a goat. This was an out of control experience. We wanted a goat b/c we were celebrating australia day on Thursday b/c next week i won't be in kumasi. The livestock markets had heaps of sheep and goats and cows just roaming. So we went, we chose one, we bargained for a long time and then for about $40 we bought one and split the cost between us. Meanwhile a goat is enough to feed 40 people. So we took it home. We named him curious george (only the later discover that it was a girl). We then went out to buy vegetables. While we were out i bought some groundnut paste at the vegetable markets from a bucket. I was going to make groundnut soup for the non-meat eaters (ie: myself). By the time we'd gotten home the boys had killed the goat with the kitchen knife. Because the knife isn't very sharp it takes a lot of hacking at the neck before it dies. The boys then skinned it and gutted it.


It's interesting, the laws of schita make so much more sense in the 3rd world. Indeed a lot of halacha makes more sense n the 3rd world. Having laws that require you to kill your meat quickly might seem obvious to us in the west but in the developing world it's a lot of effort to find a knife that is that sharp and to maintain it that sharp. It means you can't use it for anything else. Furthermore the blood. The blood is full of nutrients so of course they don't drain it out. But meanwhile it's totally gross and at least to me it means that it's a lot easier to eat meat b/c you don't have to process it as much. Anyways so the boys took half the meat and made a stew with it and we fed 20 people with it. The other half they chopped up and took to a friends house to freeze (he has a freezer!) to use another day.


So basically, it was probably the most sustainable meat i've ever seen. But obviously i didn't eat it.


Instead, i made my soup. We ate merrily, streamed triple j and played australian music. Everybody had to have some Vegemite. It was a great night.


But it was all down hill from there. At 5am i woke up with terrible stomach pains and got up and went to the bathroom. For the next 4 hours i barely left the bathroom because of my projectile vomiting. After that i spent the rest of the day in bed feeling totally nauseous. I was supposed to go to sefwi wiaso that day to finally have a shabbat with Jews. Yet, there was no way that i could travel. By the afternoon i had a high fever of 39.2 degrees and i couldn't keep down any food or drink. I was pretty miserable. So i took some neurofen and slept for 22 hours and by shabbat morning i was feeling better. I took 2 dry biscuits and an energy drink to rehydrate me. I couldn't eat or drink anything else. I spent shabz reading and napping and recovering some more. i've decided that it was food poisoning from the groundnut paste that i bought from the bucket in the market. It looked pretty dodgy. So today i'm going to go to the village.


Woot.

thursday the 19th

Before i fill you in on my last couple of days i have a few very disturbing conversations that i keep thinking about and that i forgot to record.

On shabbat afternoon the african boys made fufu and soup. Fufu is plantain and cassava paste. The way you eat this meal is by pouring it all into a big bowl and then sharing it between the bunch of you. You eat it with your hands. Or specifically, your right hand. Now one of the nigerian boys is left handed. So he's not allowed to eat with the others. He has his own bowl with his own food. I mean i get it, because in ghana normally the right hand is for food and the left is for going to the toilet. But obviously if you are left handed it will be reversed and therefore your left hand is the clean one. Nevertheless he is excluded. Now, it's not such a big deal, personally i wouldn't mind having my own bowl of food. But in africa it's really insulting to make somebody eat separately, essentially excluding them from the meal. We were talking about it. Shola, the left-handed nigerian, accepted that it's the way it was but he made a good argument about why it is wrong. His left hand is clean so why should he be excluded simply for being different.

This lead to a conversation with a sociology student about culture and morality. Very quickly we moved from discussing left-handed people to homosexual people. In both cases they are excluded for being different. Alex, the sociology student made a super post-modern argument that there is not objective morality and there's not such thing as right or wrong culture. Therefore the fact that it is culture gives it legitimacy and is acceptable. I made the argument that even though we cannot know objective morality we can nevertheless strive to be more moral and that culture should attempt to correct itself and become more moral. Therefore ghanaian practices such a ritual sex slaves and female genital mutilation and the killing of homosexuals are practices that should stop. We didn't really get very far because even though he conceded that culture can change and does change, he refused to accept that the mere fact that it is culture is not a get out of jail free card for unethical practices. It was a really difficult conversation for me where at times he argued that gay people are such a threat to the structure of society that it is better that they are dead. That even if they are a doctor and can save other people's lives the danger they pose to traditional society is too great that we should kill them. And yet, he couldn't explain what threat they actually pose by not having sex with women. Or even by having consensual sex with men. He argued that every african must have children and that's why it was so wrong. But then i asked what if they are infertile? Surely then we should have to kill all barren women since they are also a threat to the value of reproduction. In any case the conversation ended with a recognition that neither of us were going to change our positions. I come from a place of criticism of culture, particularly even on my own culture and he comes from a place of accepting authority and tradition no matter what. Which is interesting for a sociology student. This is a theme and an attitude that that comes up a lot on ghana. I will discuss it more with you later.

Anyways at some point during the conversation a ghanaian girl called esther joined in. She's a law student. In the course of discussing homosexuality i explained why i don't have a problem with it because i believe that adults can make their own decisions and as long as the act is between two consenting adults that there's nothing wrong with it. Then they asked me about incest. I said that i believe that incest is wrong where there is a power imbalance ie: parent over child or both participants are too young to be making these decisions. I explained that young people cannot make these decisions and therefore the law has to protect them. That is why the legal age for sex is 16 years old. It is the same in ghana so esther asked me if i think the age should be lowered. I said no. She then proceeded to make the argument that people from the age of 10 can make these sorts of decisions. She explained that in ghana a 10 year old is a full-time worker. They sell in stalls on the streets, they manage their businesses, they work as farmers, they are often big financial contributors to their family. Meaning that are adults and can also chose who they have sex with. I then explained that 10 year olds are not actually developed enough psychologically to really understand the consequences of their actions. Indeed even teenagers cannot and that is why they have risky behaviours, particularly with regards to sex. She then noted, rightly, that even adults make bad decisions but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be able to chose. I argued that the fact that a child is working doesn't mean that they want to be doing that, or that they are as capable of doing this as an adult. It is the fault of society that we cannot send them to school and enable them to have a real childhood. Furthermore 10 year olds who are 'choosing' to have sex are also put into an unfortunate situation by society where they are vulnerable and we are failing to protect them. Indeed, it is the role of the law to protect the vulnerable.

We had to end the conversation because at no point were either of us going to change our minds. She was adamant that maybe 10 year olds in Australia were less developed but that in ghana they were certainly capable of being full adult members of society providing for their families and having sex. And i was not going to change my mind that children are vulnerable and need to be protected. It was just super distressing for me to be having this conversation at all. Particularly with a woman. Particularly with somebody is who educated. Particularly with a law student. If all those factors haven't enabled her to realise that we need to protect our children, or any member of society who is weak then really what hope is these for those who are at risk? Who is going to protect them? I like to think that she didn't really believe what she was saying but that rather she felt very threatened with how critical i'd been of her culture when discussing homosexuality and was therefore stuck in a position of defending her culture and society no matter what. Even if it means advocating for the legalisation of paedophilia. It doesn't completely exonerate her but i find some comfort in that thought.

Lastly since we are discussing issues with ghanaian culture i am going to relay a conversation/conflict we had last night. At about 10.30 at night, last night, one of the ghanaians comes into our room with a chinese girl in tow. He tells us she is going to sleep in our room. But there were only 5 mattresses in the room and there were no more mattresses. Where were we going to put the new girl? Moreover there are only 4 girls in the other room, furthermore, the other room is even larger than ours. So why were there 6 girls in our room and 4 girls in the other room? So i asked, are we moving another mattress in here? He said no. So i said well, maybe we should move her into the other room since there is more room there. His reply was 'this was gyimah's decision, so this is what we are doing.' Gyimah meanwhile is not in the house, he had gone to accra for the day. And so i replied ' well in his absence we can make common sense decisions.' At this the ghanaian (nicknamed Snoopy) became offended and left the room. Later another ghanaian came in and told us that one of the chinse girls wasn't going to sleep in our room so there is actually only 5 girls in the room not 6. This made more sense. But then when we asked which chinese girl he wouldn't tell us. When we asked were she was sleeping he also wouldn't tell us that. He then asserted that the ghanaians running the house can move any of us at any time anywhere and they aren't accountable to any of us. I found this hilarious. And asked if he was going to move me. He said maybe. I said no worries, are you going to give me a piggy back or carry me in your arms? He, i suppose understandably, didn't like this and left the room.

This morning snoopy called me into his room where i was to discuss what happened last night with him and andy (andy was the guy who threatened to move me to another room). Snoopy explained that he was offended because i implied that he wasn't using common sense in his decision making and that i had the gall to question the decision at al. He explained that he is 27 and i am only 23 and that in ghana we always defer to the older person. Indeed, we always accept the decisions of the person in authority and don't question them or ask for explanations. I then apologised for implying that he was not making a common sense decision but i explained that had he simply come forward and explained to us straight away that they were moving the other chinese girl and that this is the new girl and therefore there will be 5 girls in each room he could have avoided the whole conflict. Indeed when i implied that the decision didn't make sense, instead of saying that it's simply gyimah's decision and that's final, if he'd explained it and defended the logic behind the decision then it would have made sense and we wouldn't have had anything to complain about. But because he refused to explain things to us we couldn't understand what was going on and had to continue to demand an explanation. As long as we demanded that explanation he saw that as questioning his authority, and since authority is not meant to be questioned in ghana that was offensive and problematic. I also explained that making authoritarian decisions might work in a house of ghanaians but when you have people from other cultures, who say have less respect for authority, a more consultative approach to decision-making might be more effective. I then apologised again for offending him and said that i hope that the lesson we learnt from this is that it's best to share all information we have when making decisions since this is the best way to avoid conflict. I don't think he agreed but i think he was sick of arguing with me. He still seems to think that the best way to avoid conflict is by simply accepting authority. Oh well.

This brings me to another important point. Development and culture. i've been trying very hard to understand how it is that africa is so fucked. On my tro tro last night (more about that later) i listened to a lecture about Israeli democracy and religious radicalism. I then began thinking about how it is that israel and ghana are about the same age and when they were established they were at the same level of development (more or less) and yet in the past 50 years ghana has gone backwards where as israel is now classified as a first world country. Ghana has every valuable natural resource you could need; gold, oil, fishing, good rain, strong harvests, no wars. Israel on the other hand is majority dessert, has no natural resources per say and has been constantly plagued by war. So with all the odds stacked against israel how is it that in israel all the roads are paved and that electricity and water access are standard and that children are not working on the farms?

Well, it's about the culture. Do you have a culture that blindly accepts authority or do you have a culture that questions, and demands answers and accountability? This is most prevalent in the democratic nature of israel vs ghana. Since establishment ghana has gone through a series of coups leading to one military dictatorship after the other. For the past 20 years ghana has been democratic so this is changing. But really it's only been the past 12 years or so since the first few elections were 'won' by the previous military dictator. Israel on the other hand has consistently been a democracy, a flawed one, but i'd argue it has one of the strongest democratic systems in the world. There are many competing and opposing interests in the parliament and yet they still manage to form governments. The strength of a democracy is that if you are doing a shit job you are going to lose your job. It makes you accountable. You need to make good decisions and to defend them against the opposition and the media and to the electorate. This is the opposite of african culture where your chief has absolute authority, it is an inherited position and it is maintained until death. The chief is not answerable to anybody, it is the role of everybody else to simply accept their decisions.

In my culture however we got rid of that system a long time a go. Even 2,000 years ago the leaders of the community were chosen not based on inheritance but based on merit, they were the brightest scholars. Even then, they worked on a panel with the sanhedrin making decisions together and ultimately accepting that just because you are the head of the sanhedrin your decision is not final and sometimes you are going to be overruled by the majority. Indeed rarely in Jewish law and practice do we find any sort of uniformity. Any decision made by a community or rabbinical leader must be explained and even then, rabbis and leaders are going to consistently disagree with each other leading to a wealth of opinions and differences. In fact a decision derives it's authority not from the decision maker but from the logic and reasonableness of the decision itself. I know that modern judaism doesn't always match this and that hassidic leaders sometimes work on more of the chieftaincy system but nevertheless they always write long answers explaining the reasons behind their decisions.

This culture of questioning enables growth and development. As i was explaining earlier to Alex and esther that just because it is your culture doesn't mean that it's automatically right and it doesn't mean you have to accept it. I am the most critical of my own culture and my own traditions in attempting to better them and make them more moral. Indeed i think that everybody would be better off if we had less respect for authority. I think if we held our leaders to account we would get better leadership. I think if we got better leadership maybe people in ghana would have a waste disposal system provided for by the government instead of having to burn your own rubbish and pump your own water from under ground.

So on the question of 'is democracy good for africa?' Heck yes it is. Ghana has changed and grown exponentially since becoming democratic. But is it a natural part of their culture? Absolutely not. Yet it is changing. And my hope is that the more people become educated, the better that will be at demanding answers. Perhaps then people will stop taking 12 year old girls as ritual sex slaves simply because it is your 'culture.'

Tuesday the 17th

So i followed through on my plans.

Monday, yesterday, i did some much needed laundry and then went off to town. I brought the Nigerian called shola along with me as well as the Venezuelan (alberto) and a chinese girl called carleen. It's funny being considered the resident expert on ghana, capable of showing foreigners around. Hilarious.

So we went to town and i was already hungry so we went to the vegetarian restaurant first off. I got plam nut soup again. I was super happy since there were so many vegetables in it, also TOFU! Oh the joys of nutrition. I let the Nigerian try it. He liked it. The Venezuelan got some tofu kebabs and hilariously they were too spicy for him. Just adorable. While at the table there was a pamphlet about how eating too much meat might make you impotent. The Nigerian was quite offended by the suggestion. He told me proudly that African men can give birth to 12 children easily. I then explained that no Nigerian man is giving birth at all. Also African men don't eat sweets because they think that sugar makes them impotent. Hrm.

After lunch i bailed on all the others and went off by myself. I don't like shopping with others in the best circumstances but particularly with other people who are tourists and draw a lot of attention to us. It's simply more convenient to shop by myself. And efficient. I love efficiency.

So i went and bought some beautiful indian fabric. i'm gonna have another dress made. Don't judge me. They are 8 cedis each, this is only my third one and my last one too.

After that i had found my way to the central markets. If i thought the kejitzia markets were hustling and bustling these were a whole new level. They are under cover and winding and narrow and crowded. Think Arab shuk in jerusalem but narrower, darker, dirtier and so much bigger. The central markets in kumasi are the largest in all of west africa. And i believe it. But they are relatively organised. There's an area dedicated to baby products, to candy, to school uniforms. It's kinda like a giant sprawling third world department store. The equivalent of myers or chadstone.

So i found the area dedicated to the kente cloth makers. It's this tradition woven fabric in bright colours that are normally worn by chiefs or wealthy ghanaians on important occasions like weddings or festivals. They are priced at the cheapest plain ones at about $60 and then can easily be $400. so obviously only the super wealthy in ghana own one. And then they only own one and they wear it till it falls to pieces. I knew what type i wanted. The trouble was that there were infinite varieties of the similar style and various qualities. It was over whelming. Wall to wall covered with this cloth for a whole narrow street in the markets. i'd seen so many options i began to feel nauseous. So after a few hours of looking and thinking my brain might explode, i chose my favourite even though it was a bit more expensive than i planned. I was a bit nervous about spending that much money so i do what you always do when in doubt - call your mum. Even though it was 3 in the morning in australia. So i called the house and she immediately answered and was like "are you ok? Is everything ok?" adorable. She gave me the go ahead, though she might not have been sure what she was saying since it was 3am.

After the acquisition of the fabric i went to the supermarket and bought some instant oats. Makes me so happy.

By this time it was 5.30pm. Which meant peak hour traffic. Which meant that it took me 45 mins to get a tro tro home. After say 30 mins and i was tired and hot and super frustrated. I had a massive swearfest at ghana. I mumbled/shouted to myself "fuck you ghana - you fucking 3rd world country - get your shit together!" i felt a bit better then. But i did look a bit like a schizophrenic. But then a tro tro came. i've now perfected the skill of getting into a moving tro tro just as it's slowing down to pick up passengers. This way you beat the rush and the scrum for getting into one.

i came home, we danced a bit. I got some kinkey for dinner. Showered. Steven came back from accra so we caught up. Then I watched some daria with susan. Then bed.

Today (Tuesday) i got up super early, 6.30am so i could have some quiet time in the house. I was the first one up, got ready quietly, davened with the sun rising and then had some porrige and tea for breakfast. At about 8.30 gyimah and i went to a local school to organise for me to come and teach computer skills there for the next 2 days.

After that gyimah and i took 2 chinese girls and one chinese boy to the hospital to get them some preventative treatment for malaria. They weren't feeling so well and gyimah was pretty worried about them. Also i was kinda excited to go and see a hospital in ghana. It was everything i expected. Crowded. Screaming babies. There were posters on the wall informing us how to avoid and treat all these scary diseases that i'd never even heard of. There were also lot's of posters reminding us only to pay officials that have given us an official invoice and then get an official receipt so that the doctors, nurses and administrators can't take bribes. Classy ghana. But all in all it wasn't so bad. It was relatively clean and well kept and the nurses had adorable retro nurses outfits with those little white peaked caps and white aprons.

In the end the chinese didn't get the malaria treatment because it was too expensive for them. Instead they are just going to buy mosquito nets for sleeping under and some repellent and hope for the best. I wish them luck with that. It's interesting, none of the chinese are on any type of malaria medication and have no ways of preventing mosquito bites. Yet they know that all the previous chinese interns got malaria and had to be hospitalised. Yet they aren't doing anything different. They seem to have just accepted that they will get malaria. Hrm.

After out trip to the hospital i went with gyimah and alberto to campus so alberto could get some malaria drugs from the pharmacy on campus and i could withdraw some money from the bank there. Obviously the closest ATM to my house is a 20 minute tro tro ride away. Standard ghana.

I then came home, did more laundry. Re-arranged my room since there's now another chinese girl sleeping in here. That makes 5 of us on mattresses on the floor.

And that's it for now folks.

Cheers.

Monday the 16th

Wow. There is quite a big to catch you up on.

But first we must start with where I left you off.

Thursday night the headmaster of the school came and picked me up to take me to the nearby larger village for a drink. He came, knocked on the door and out we went to his motorcycle. Which is a bit scary since I'd never been on one before. But it was more scary since there were no helmets or protective clothing. It was even more scary since he had no headlight but instead had to hold a torch as he drove. And it was even scarier since we were driving super fast down winding dirt tracks through the breaking jungle. Basically it was a near death experience despite the lucky fact that nothing went wrong and he was a good driver. So we went out for a drink, had a beer (well, i had a beer and he had a soft drink). Then he took me home again. It was a bit weird going and drinking with him but it was an experience.

When i got home the co-ordinators for volunteers for the village were in my house. They were in the village to interview new project directors the next day. They'd made me dinner which was pretty nice. We sat down and watched 2 hours of a ghanaian tv show called 'adam's apples'. It's pretty much 'sex and the city' in Africa.

Friday i got up early. Chatted with my folks and then caught multiple tro tros back to kumasi. I finished listening to shai held on theology and then moved on to sexual ethics with ethan tucker. Then some john butler trio. Great trip. Except that my bus broke down and we had to go back to the bus station to catch another one. I feel like every time i travel on a Friday things go wrong. I seriously should have learnt from the besht.

I got home dumped my stuff and went straight out again to the markets at ejisu. By this stage i'd slept 4 hours the night before, had been travelling for 4 hours. It was hot, i hadn't eaten. I was tired and grumpy. I was at the market to buy vegetables to make stew and rice for shabbat dinner for the whole house and i had limited time. But then i arrived at the market and i couldn't find the vegetables. In particular i couldn't find kontomre, the only green and leafy vegetable in the whole country. I was searching and asking people and then kept pointing me in the opposite direction. I was so incredibly frustrated. I had a bit of a cry and a 'fuck you ghana, why the fuck don't you have any fucking vegetables you fucking incompetent third world country.' but then i went and got myself a malt beer. Sat down. Enjoyed it. Had some sugar in my system (since i hadn't eaten anything except a few biscuits in the morning) and was less dehydrated. I then carried on, persisted and found those freaking vegetables. Went home. Picked up my dress from the dress maker. It's pretty awesome. Made stew and rice. Had a shower. Lit shabbat candles. Did kab shab. Invited all the housemates to the kitchen. Did kiddush and hamotzi. And then we all drank beer/soft drink and ate my rice and stew. The Africans were a bit sceptical since there was no meat in it. They enjoyed it. But then after dinner went out and bought themselves some meat. Adorable.

Shabbat i got up davenned, did kiddush. Read my Ghanaian book. Finished my book. Moved back on to 'gullivers travels'. Talked a lot. Ate some biscuits. Ate some chocolate. Chilled with the girls. Chilled with the boys. Tried to nap. Failed. Shabbat went out and we decided that we were going out to town. So we tried to shower only to discover that there is no water in the house. Oh well. So we put on deodorant and perfume. Did out hair. Put on make up. I borrowed clothes since i obviously didn't bring going out clothes the Ghana. So i borrowed a skirt from a Nigerian girl called tywo.

Once we were all ready we went out to a bar in town and started drinking. Obviously Susan (the Australian) and I went off and got ourselves plenty to drink since Africans and Asians aren't known for their drinking abilities. This proved itself to be true since Susan and i out drank all the girls and boys and yet they were much more tipsy than we were.

From the bar we went to a club in a hotel and started dancing. It took me a while to get the hang of dancing to African music and dancing in the african way (which is super close and a bit sexy) but i eventually got the hang of it. I danced mainly with robert. I don't really like him since he's a bit of a selfish misogynist but he isn't bad looking, he dresses well, he was a good dancer, he has a girlfriend and he knows i have a boyfriend. So no hanky panky. Also, as long as i was dancing with him it meant i didn't have to fend off other random guys in the club who would just love to grind up against a white girl despite my lack of dancing abilities and my white girl bum.

Having said that - by the end of the night i'd say i was dancing just as well as the African girls and infinitely better than the Asian ones. But that could just be the alcohol talking.

We got home super late didn't shower or anything. Not that we could since there was no water. So we just crashed.

10am i got up, Susan and i got dressed and went off to lake Bosomtwi. It took about an hour and a few taxis and tro tro's but with a smart ways we managed to get a cheaper rides than were initially offered to us. We got to the lake and the village office wanted us to pay again 9since we'd already paid entry to the area) so we quickly bailed from their office and started on our hike. So we hike around the lake for 5 hours. Occasionally stopping at the villages on the way. Sitting. Watched the water. Playing with the kids. It was great fun. On our way back to the main village to get a tro tro back to kumasi we said a large hotel with a large carpark. So being super cheapskates we went to the car park and waited for the Ghanaians to start chatting with u. As they invariably do since we're 2 young white girls. Eventually they asked where we lived and then how we were going to get back to kumasi. And then they offered us a lift home. So in we hopped with this family for our ride home. But on the way we had to make a visit to their grandmother in a small village. She was awesome. Like in her 70s and we we rocked up she jumped out of her seat to offer us a place to stay. Then mid visit she went off and harvested some plantain and cassava to give to us to take home. Basically full of life and imagery and constantly laughing. She was kickass.

Then we got home. We were totally exhausted. So we showered. Made ourselves some beans and rice. There was a house meeting. Because now in the house there are 2 Nigerian boys. 3 Ghanaian boys. 2 Nigerian girls. 2 Australian girls. 5 Chinese (4 girls 1 boy) and a Venezuelan. So the house is packed. And pretty grotty. So we had to set some new rules. After that we watched some gossip girl season 2 and crashed.

As for today i'm due to return to the yes project and do corporate stuff. But i'm trying to avoid it too much. So i'm blogging. Then i'm doing laundry. (by laundry i mean hand wash in cold water in a bucket outside). Then i'm going to town. i'm gonna buy some indian fabric, some woven kente cloth and then eat at the vegetarian restaurant.

Sounds like a great day to me.

Thursday the 12th

This is my 20th journal entry during my time in Ghana. Which is fitting since it's almost my midway point. I will leave here on the 13th of February and today it is the 12th. So only 5 weeks left in Africa. Basically 4 weeks by now. And then 2 weeks in Israel!


So today, Thursday. What did i do and what am i yet to do. The truth is that not much happens here in the village though today was quite an emotional day. I went to school and taught form 3 social science about water pollution and land degradation. I then taught form one English, a story about the ills of alcoholism. Then there was a giant break and i as starving since i only had one muesli bar for breakfast and an orange. So at about 12 i went to town and got some beans and cassava and fried plantain. I also bought some Obama biscuits. I haven't eaten them but the packaging was kickass. Clearly Africans just love Obama. Except that he supports homosexual rights. And Africans are homophobes.


Anyways, after my lunch i returned to the school but i as not given any more classes to teach. However there were two form 2 girls who were in trouble and were called to the teachers to be chastised. Apparently they are smart girls but recently their grades have been suffering. The teachers suspect that they might have older boyfriends and will soon become pregnant and drop out of school. So after the teachers were done chastising them i took them for a walk with me to my house. Along the way e spoke about school and grades and boys and teachers. The whole lot. We got to my house and i gave them a book to share. It as the Peggy Oppong book called end of the tunnel. It's a teen novel about a very poor girls who studies very hard and eventually achieves her aim of being accepted to study medicine. Only then does she accept a boyfriend. Basically it's the perfect book to give female students. The protagonist is a very diligent student who delays having a romantic relationship in order to pursue her studies. I wrote the girls a message in the front and gave them my contact details. We then walked back to the school and had a chat about their dreams. One of them, Charity, wants to be a news reporter. The other, Alice, wants to be a nurse. I really hope that these girls remain in school. Since in form 3 there maybe 15 boys and only 3 girls. So it's really a struggle to keep girls in school in this village.


I also had a chat with one of the teachers (i wish i knew his name). The same one that i as chatting with yesterday, the one ho comes from kumasi. Anyway i told him that i think a lot of Ghana's problems could be solved by teaching to the needs of the community. So in rural areas there should be a whole subject dedicated to agricultural studies. 60% of Ghanaians work in agriculture yet Ghana doesn't produce enough to feed itself. They have archaic and inefficient farming methods, they don't do crop rotation, they don't plant in lines, they do subsistence farming, they don't irrigate. Basically i think it's silly teaching these students calculus if we are failing to teach them hat they need to know most. Ho to bring themselves out of serious poverty despite their working so hard. If they had more efficient farming and greater crop yields they would be wealthier and then their kids would be able to do calculus and become mathematicians. But so far most of the students come to school without any breakfast. There's simply no food to feed them. Not infrequently teachers are feeding the students or buying them uniforms or helping with the school fees (that are super cheap anyway). Basically, the way to get Ghana out of foreign debt and to improve their standard of living firstly is to improve teir farming.


I have got to get on to this.


If only i knew anything about farming i'd be all over it.


Hrm.


Anyway, at the end of the day there was an assembly to thank me, they gave me a bracelet and i had a photo with form 3. after that i said my good byes to the teachers and i returned home. There i discovered foster. And shortly after bill arrived. Foster is the co-fonder of plight of the child the NGO that organises students to come a teach in Bontodiase and that built the library. So i was chilling with bill and foster. Talking about their organisation and their plans for world dominations - by that i mean, they are expanding to also send volunteers to an orphanage in the central region. Bill is proceeding nicely with his plans to come and do his masters in Australia. He's honestly so impressive. He was the national president of aiesec, has written a math textbook, a novel and a business la textbook and has started this NGO. Plus being a la student. Basically, i'm sure he is going to change the world.


Anyways - after chilling with the boys i went to the well to get some more water and i carried it back to the house on my head. I think i'm getting heaps better at it now. I can even walk at a normal pace while carrying it. It's much easier carrying things on your head b/c your neck is so strong but your harms are weak. Good thinking africa. It's maybe one of the only things you got right.


As for tonight - there is electricity! And the headmaster has promised to take me to the neighbouring village to drink. I hope it's palm wine. I love that stuff.


A for tomorrow - i have to catch a 6am bus directly to kumasi. We'll see if i can make it. After that it's my last week in kumasi. So sad. Slash - i really don't want to leave this village - i really love it. I love working with young people and i hate working with companies which is basically all that i do in kumasi. Poopy. I'm super looking forward to going to sefwi wiawso the Jewish village in a week. I also super looking forward to my BFF joining me. Firstly because i love her but secondly because she's a Jew. I seriously miss Jews.


And i suppose that'll be all for tonight.


g'nite.