Try saying that outloud and that’s how you say “I’m happy” in Frafra. At least, that’s what my friend Julius told me.
These past few weeks have been busy and pretty great. School was set to start on September 14th, but they moved it back a week because the Ghanaian census will be taken on Sept 26. Many teachers who are being trained as census enumerators are required to attend a two-week workshop, and this would interfere with the first week of school (not that anything actually happens the first week of school, but no matter). Five of the teachers from my school are going to be census enumerators, Francis being one. He showed me the workbook they gave him, and it looks pretty cool. They go out in teams and cover certain areas. It seems somehow difficult though, considering there are a variety of kinds of housing arrangements and different kinds of families. Francis also mentioned that now that it’s rainy season and all the corn and millet is grown up, it’s hard to even see houses sometimes. Also, people may be reluctant to give information out because they don’t understand why it’s wanted and don’t want to get in trouble for anything. Or maybe they don’t understand the language that’s being spoken to them. Or they’re migrant and don’t have a home. Or they’re mentally ill and roam the streets and can’t give you any information at all. It’s a lot different than in America. I’m really interested to hear the results. So! School hasn’t started yet, but I do have my notebook and lessons prepared! Woo preparedness! While waiting to find out about when school would actually start, I had lots of fun at site. Here is a list!
- One day I was sitting around with the two adult Stevens, Lucy, Ennis, Vincenzia and two other boys (Lord and Kwame) and we were all plucking groundnuts from the uprooted groundnut plants. At one point, Lord commented that Vincenzia’s big cheeks (the chubbies of a toddler) (she’s about two years old) were bowfruit (fried dough balls that you can buy anywhere). It was really funny because, normally, you buy bowfruit in 2,000 (20p) or 3,000 (30p) amounts, but Lord said that she had 10,000, which is just ridiculous. I liked it because it was cute and a clever thing to say. Now Vincenzia calls “cheeks” “bowfruit.”
- Twice in one day, Lucy and Vincenzia came into my room and pulled out the tupperware of spice packets (taco seasoning, etc…) to play with like flashcards. Lucy opened it up, help up a packet and said “Vin! What is this?” and Vin would just stare at it because she’s two and Lucy would say something like “Say ‘talia’” (like if the packet was for pesto sauce or something and has a picture of noodles on the front) and Vin would say “Talia” in her little baby voice and Lucy would say “MmmHMMM! CorRECT Vin!” She sounded just like her dad (Steven). They went through the whole collection. It was adorable. Babies teachin babies.
- I got my cats vaccinated for rabies! This was an event. I’d gone to the veterinary office early in the week and told the man sitting outside that I needed someone to come to my house and vaccinate two cats. He said okay, he could tell someone before Thursday to come. Here, to make sure people don’t forget about things or to ensure they actually get done, you take the person’s phone number and incessantly call them. It works out. So I did that with this man – Jawad – and I was expecting someone to come on Wednesday, although he said either Tuesday or Wednesday. Well! On Tuesday morning, I walked into town to go greet Beatrice and Godsbig, and while I was at their house, Julius randomly shows up and is like “Katrin! The vet man is going to your place! We should go!” and I was like whaaaaaaat? because I’d forgotten that I’d earlier told Julius about wanting to get the vaccinations done. Apparently, he’d taken it upon himself to also pester the man until he came. So! We hurried back to my house and the three of us commenced trying to get this rabies biznaz finished! It was a trial. Camil (Have I mentioned that he hates me? It’s true. A few times a week, we have these staring contests where he glares at me with pure loathing and I look back with this goofy, apprehensive face. It’s scary.) has always hated strangers and avoided the vet man at allll costs – hiding under the couch, chair, desk and climbing into one of the desk drawers. Finally, I managed to snag him by the ear and quickly hand him off to the vet. Cheerio was easier, as he doesn’t have a natural inclination to despise all other living creatures. It was only 6 cedis for both of the shots and he didn’t ask for any money for the fuel, which was surprising. I’m pretty sure it worked out this way because I was in league with Julius. He told me on the first day I mentioned it to him that he would ask around to see what the price was so that I wouldn’t get cheated. That, and putting effort into getting the man to come early, was really awesome of Julius and is a perfect example of how Ghanaians are really helpful and nice. I’ve hung out a lot with Julius lately because he is also my new Frafra teacher!
- Frafra lessons! Getting these lessons going is probably the best thing I’ve done for myself in months. I should have done it months and months ago but definitely better late than never. During training, everyone but the deaf ed volunteers learned a spoken Ghanaian language. We only learned Sign Language, partly because the previous group of deaf ed volunteers (the people we replaced) said that we should be taught only Sign. This was a good idea because it’s much more important for us to be able to sign as well as possible so that we can do a good job teaching, but it would have been nice to have some training in the local spoken languages too. But! Peace Corps gives us money to pay local language tutors if we want to and it’s absolutely possible to set up your own lessons. This is what I finally did because not being able to speak or understand Frafra was making me feel incompetent/juvenile/just bad. I asked Julius if he would help me, he agreed and we’ve had two lessons so far. He’s a really good teacher – very helpful and engaged but laid back. I’ve just made lists of things I want to learn how to say, and when he tells me how, I just write it down phonetically. So, “I’m happy” sounds like “mmmpohmmpeeay”. “I want onions” sounds like “mmmbooray arabasa.” It’s pretty easy for me to memorize things, so learning it this way works fine. Even after the first lesson, I felt a lot better in town – just more comfortable and relaxed. There is this old woman who always sells kola nuts that I usually have unintelligible conversations with (she said something in Frafra and I go ‘mmmHMMMM’ x 4 or 5 times) and I asked Julius how to say “we are friends” so that I could say it to her. He told me and at the end of one of these nonsense conversations, I said “tah ah zort” to her and she died laughing. Tongo is a really great village with really great people, and I’m just really glad that I’ll be able to communicate with them starting now 
.
- I had my shoes repaired and met a new friend. Here, if you sandals break or your shoe gets a hole in it, you don’t throw it away, you take it to the local cobbler (identified by the huge pile of dilapidated sitting in front of him). I have a pair of bloack flipflops (nice ones, not charlies) that broke – the place where the strap attaches to the bottom between the toes busted. So, I took it to Simon (“See-mon”), Tongo’s cobbler. I’d never gone to him before and he was like “Oh! I have seen you passing this way!” and we got to talking while he fixed the shoes. He did a really great job – shoving the little straps back inside and sewing them down. He also saw that it was coming unglued in one place and superglued that right up. Now they’re good as new and I only paid 5,000. There should be more cobblers in America. Also shoe related – I was sitting at a spot when a little boy (less than ten years old) asked me if I wanted a shoeshine. I was wearing the same black flipflops and just thought it was funny and accepted. So he got all his little wares out and started shining. He also found more little places to glue and for everyone one looked at me and said “madame?,” asking if I wanted him to glue it. It was funny.
- I’ve been running again! I don’t know if I wrote about it here, but I had to take about a 6 week break from training for the half-marathon because of knee issues. Now things are feeling better, and I’ve been running again for about a month. If you imagine me running in the early morning, totally rocking out the the Glee version of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and directing ridonk dance moves toward the goats I pass, you are imagining reality. It’s silly. Yesterday I ran for 2 hours and 20 minutes, the longest ever. I was tiiiiired but otherwise felt good. The race is on the 26th! I’m excited. Send me energizing vibes. Andy and I are leaving Tamale with some other volunteers doing the race on the 24th, which is why…..
Now I’m in Tamale. I came down early and am getting some immensely enjoyable Peace Corps paperwork done (heh) and working on the deaf ed manual. Because Tamale is Tamale, other fun things have happened, including….
- Andy and I discovered that we could get market ladies to just give us stuff. We were buying veg a couple days ago when a man rolled up on his bicycle and the lady gave him a carrot and he left. Andy asked if he could have a carrot too, and she gave him one. We decided to see if this would happen again. We went to another area and just said “Oh, good afternoon. Please, the carrots, I only want one. Can I just have it?” and, no problem, she handed it over. This reoccurred with a garden egg. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was funny and somewhat unexpected how they just handed their stuff over to us. Interesting.
- Oswald is growing fatter and more rambunctious by the day. We fed him a packet of Friskies (lickable, lappable sauce!) to him and he loved it. We also launched him at the turkeys that Andy’s landlord owns. Did I write about these grand birds? Imagine a pictures of a generic Thanksgiving turkey and that is what’s strutting around the yard. Now imagine us trying to land our kitten on one of these beast’s back – “Attack!” See? Tamale is fun.
- We made chocolate espresso pancakes this morning. No big deal! We constantly impress ourselves.
- I bingoed in Scrabble last night (“laughing”).
- Today, Issah is visiting us from Tali and staying the night. Right now, he is at the internet cafe with us, having his first computer experience. I think right now, he’s watching youtube videos of cats doing dumb stuff, which is appropriate, because that’s really what the internet is for. Tonight we are going out for chinese (Amazzzzzing “Soup Noodles with Assorted Meat.” Sounds sketch – is actually heavenly.) and meeting up with this random Dutch volunteer that I met the other day. He chatted a little bit here at the internet and he asked if he could eat dinner with Andy and me sometime because he was really lonely. I think he’s here alone, doing research, and I can imagine how alone he might feel. So we called him up and he said he would meet us there. A stranger asking to eat dinner with you = something else that wouldn’t happen in America. It should be a fun time: two Americans, a 14-year-old Ghanaian (who has another letter for me! yes!) and a completely unknown Dutch guy (whose name is Edzard. no joke.)
Okay, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Stay tuned for riviting future news on the following: the half-marathon, the zaniness of being in Accra, going to the beach, three days of medical attention and more!
ps – “Mmm bo ellay ah!” (“I won’t marry you!”)
