May 22 and 23

I have got to think of better titles for these posts. :-)

May 22, 2009

This morning the power is still out. We woke up at 7:30 and it seemed too dark, so we went back to sleep. Because the power doesn’t work, the water heater doesn’t work either. I have only showered twice in the week we’ve been here (including today) and both times the water has been cold. I actually decided that I don’t mind cold showers so much. When it’s so hot, it feels nice. So maybe I will shower more often in the future.
We have a woman who works for us here, cleaning the house, washing our clothes, and cooking our breakfast and dinner. Every morning we have what compares to an omelet with onions and peppers (no cheese) on a piece of French bread for breakfast, with hot chocolate to drink. For dinner we nearly always have rice, and then either vegetable stew to pour over it, kebabs, or fried chicken. It all tastes pretty good, and neither of us have been sick yet. Her name is Zet.
Today Jason told Zet that I would like to show her how to cook some American food, and that I would like to go with her to the market sometimes. She interpreted that to mean “Rachel will cook dinner tonight.” So when we discovered there were no dinner plans, I went out to the kitchen (it’s a separate building, and very hot) and threw some spaghetti sauce together. Our refrigerator is broken, so she had someone bring us a frozen block of meat, and we sautéed it with onions and garlic and threw in some tomato paste and a French Provencal spice mix. It wasn’t the best sauce ever, but it worked.
While I am talking about Zet, I should mention that something about the way they do laundry here is amazing. Old stains that I couldn’t get out are gone, and our whites are much, much brighter. I have been very pleased. I don’t love to have my clothes dried on a line because they are kind of stiff, but it’s fine.

May 23, 2009

Today we spent the day doing training for the sales agents. I can’t really talk about what they’re doing or how, because this is a test for the company and it is proprietary information. It’s too bad, because I just wrote all about it and then Peter told me I had to delete it. Sorry.
This afternoon, we went to the Tamale art market. It was very small and not very busy. They don’t get a lot of tourists here. I thought it was funny that the art market surrounds a building called the North Ghana Volunteer Center. They are definitely trying to cater more to tourists than to locals. I also thought it was interesting that they had art products that are not local, such as Ashanti fertility dolls. I really wanted to buy art in the style of the local people here, but the Ashanti are a people further to the south. The dolls are pretty iconic for Ghana, though.
I called my family this evening as well. It’s not too expensive to make calls to the US from Ghana. I realized that they had a lot of questions about our life here that I should write about on the blog. If YOU have any questions, please leave them in a comment. I am happy to tell you whatever you want to know about our experience here.

Now I am going to tell you about the trash, if you are interested to know. There are plastic bags EVERYWHERE here. Littering is perfectly acceptable behavior, despite the fact that many packages say things like “Keep Ghana Clean.” I don’t know how they expect people to dispose of things besides throwing them on the ground. I’m pretty sure that Zet just empties our trash cans outside the Palace somewhere (but I’m not sure on that. If I find out differently, I will let you know.) The plastic bag problem is accentuated by the fact that many products are sold in plastic bags as packaging, such as water and ice cream. They are little plastic packages known as sachets that you bite a corner off of, and then squeeze into your mouth. And then you throw it on the ground if you are Ghanaian, or if you are me, put it in the trash can and let somebody else put it on the ground.
I don’t know if any of my archaeology friends read this blog, but this next part is for you. When I went to a village and saw the trash everywhere, I understood archaeological sites better. I didn’t comprehend before how there were little broken pieces of pots everywhere in the villages. I guess I thought they just got scattered after breaking. Now I realize that there very likely was trash everywhere in the village when people lived there, and the people probably just didn’t care too much about stepping on sherds as they walked down the village path. It seems strange to me to live in a place that is so dirty. I wonder who first had the idea to bury all the trash in the ground so nobody would have to look at it.