teenage pregnancy

in ghana, i suppose women do sometimes get married and have children very young, and it is normal.
but i am really sad that one of my p2 girls (second grade) is pregnant. she is an older student (14 years old), but that is still too young for a baby. and it almost certainly means the end of her education, at the level where she can barely spell her own name.
last term, a jhs2 (9th grade) girl got pregnant, and that made me sad too, but she at least got some amount of an education first.
but now these two girls, audette and lika, are probably just beginning a really hard life. so sad.

koko

my new favorite food in ghana is koko. it makes me laugh that i now like this so much, because when i first saw it and first tasted it, it was disgusting.
it is served in a clear plastic bag, and it is a brownish-gray color similar to that of dirty dishwater. and it is thin and runny like dirty dishwater too.
koko is made out of millet and has ginger and i think even some hot pepper to flavor it. it is a breakfast food, add a little sugar and eat it like porridge. and it kinda burns your throat a little bit because of the spice, but it feels so good on a sore throat.
it is SO good. i find myself craving it for breakfast.

totally worth it

there might be some very civilized, very polite way to eat a mango, but i have not discovered it. 

whenever i bite into the wonderful, juicy sweetness of the mango, right away my teeth fill with the fibrous pulp.  as i try to pick the bright yellow vampire-like fangs of mango threads from between my teeth, the juice starts dripping into my hand from the piece i'm still holding.  then it starts dripping down my arm.  if i'm lucky, i can catch it before it gets to my elbow, and i lick the juice back all the way to my hand.  then, when i've eaten through the peel, the insides get so slippery that it slides all over and i almost drop it several times, all the while picking at my teeth and licking to my elbow. 

i know every time that this will happen, but i just can't resist the mango.  i need to start hiding in my house when i eat them, i think.

i have good news for you

thanks to the massive rainstorm last week, the field i burned down a few months ago is now starting to sprout new grass!
i'll try not to burn it down again this time.

yum

there is just nothing better than a mango freshly picked from the tree in your backyard.