priorities

because clearly it is more important that the students harvest the beans and sweep the dirt of the entire campus before we start classes.
i mean, definitely the dirt needs to be clean. that's more important than letting kids learn.
(classes starting monday, maybe?)

a mutual understanding

every evening, as i sit in my living room, i am visited by many guests. sure, some are human, but most are of the insect variety.
they come in under my front door, mostly, and sometimes through the screens in my windows. all varieties: ants, beetles, crickets, spiders, grasshoppers, lightning bugs, and weird ones i can't identify.
they come in and fly around, swarm my light, and crawl around my walls.
they do their thing, have a big party every night.
but they are kind guests. they clean up after themselves every time.
the spiders catch and kill the grasshoppers. the ants carry away the dead beatles. they all work together and clean up all evidence of their crazy party.
then the next morning, when i sweep my living room, there is no evidence of the good time they had just hours before.
such kind guests. i guess i don't mind terribly.

the grand tour

i finally got the cushions for my chairs finished, so now i can post pictures of my house! my house was finished just a couple of weeks before i moved here, so everything is brand new and sparkly clean and wonderful. my house feels like a little bit of america here in ghana.

as you walk in the front door, you enter the living room. or hall, as it is known in ghana. these are the chairs i bought new cushions for. the giant blank space on the wall will soon be filled with something, but my walls won't take nails, so i'm working on some other solution, some way to hang pictures without nails.

if you turn to the right, you enter my guest bedroom/art studio/computer room. this is my computer desk and art workspace. next to that is a small seating area, where i mostly sit when i use my computer, and then my guest bed.

when you leave the guest bedroom, my shower and toilet are in the hallway. i know it is weird to post a picture of a toilet, but seriously! i have a toilet! it's exciting!

next to the toilet is the kitchen. this is another amazing room in my house. first is my stove (and oven! look! it's an oven!). also, notice the blender. amazing. i also have a sink, a sink in my kitchen! these things are rare in ghana: look and admire.

my curtains might be my favorite feature of my kitchen, oddly enough. they have can openers all over them, alternating with opened cans. material here has random appliances as inspiration sometimes, and i really like that i found a good one for my kitchen curtain.

yes, i do have two refrigerators. i know, seems excessive. one is spoiled though, so it is basically a bug-proof cabinet. the smaller one is the one that works. on top of it is the amazing peace corps water filter that help keep us all healthy.

on the other side of the hallway from the kitchen is my bedroom. i love it. outside that window are the goats. i don't love them.

also, i know you know what a fan looks like, but here is a picture. i have THREE. and right now, i usually have to turn them off because they are so powerful they make me cold. i am sure when hot season arrives, i will much appreciate that.

well, that's the tour! hope you enjoyed it, and please know, you are all welcome to visit! i have plenty of room!

27th birthday, ghana style

my friends elyse and jason came to town to spend the day with me for my birthday. we enjoyed fantastic fried rice, and when a man who was greeting us learned it was my birthday, he sang to me. it went: WE WISH YOU A um, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

merry christmas, happy birthday, same difference.

we came home and made peanut butter chocolate MILKSHAKES. (can you believe it? i still cannot.)

then we went back to town, where i had my first fufu. fufu is the most common dish served in ghana, and somehow i lived here three months without ever trying it. so for my birthday, that's what we did.

i realized once we finished it that we should have put my birthday candle in the fufu so i could have blown it out, but it was too late.

it was, overall, a simple yet splendid day.

many thanks for all the packages! i had four wonderful packages to open for my birthday, full of chocolate and cheese and stickers for my kids.

adventures in the kitchen

i almost died today.

ok, that's an exaggeration.  but i almost burned down my house.  

i decided to make thai peanut sauce and rice for dinner tonight.  i lit my gas stove and was heating the oil while i finished chopping the onions and garlic, and i guess the flame was a bit too big, or i took a bit too long, but the oil in the pan got REALLY hot and started smoking, and then LIT ITSELF ON FIRE.  

i had this huge pot, on a gas stove, with 1-2 foot flames shooting out the top of it.  

and of course no fire extinguisher.

i turned off the gas.  and hoped the oil would burn itself away and the fire would go out, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger.  my house was filling with smoke.

and i was panicking.

i know you aren't supposed to put water on a grease fire, but i had no idea what else i could use to put out this growing flame.  so finally, i just grabbed the pan and BOLTED to the front door and LAUNCHED it into the yard.  

it was raining outside, so soon enough, the fire went out.  my metal pan was halfway melted, and now i am nursing a (minor) blister on my thumb too.

i am just thankful my house is still standing.

and i'm grateful for the lack of smoke detectors, honestly.  my neighbors didn't need to be any more aware of this incident than seeing a melty black pan laying in the grass.