19 days

The only reason I know that it is 19 days until I leave to head back to the States for Christmas break is because I was checking my flight information this morning. I'll be back the afternoon of Saturday, December 13th in case you're interested!

It's been about two weeks since my last update and not too much has changed or happened.

Last Friday the 14th was field day for the kids at school. Basically it was a day of mostly organized games and fun. It was pretty fun except it was so hot outside. I think the students all had a really good time and it was a good break from school. Pictures...


The only frustrating part is that we've been missing a lot of school. Field day was fun but it meant that we had two four day weeks in a row, one full week and then another four day week of school. As a student, that's amazing. As a teacher, that really sucks. Because of our schedule we already only have each class four days a week and then to lose a whole day means I only see some students three days a week. Then on top of that, students have been pulled out of class to work on the Christmas program. One week, I only had one class twice. TWICE!!! So frustrating. Another frustrating thing was this past Monday when I came in to school to find out that I had one new student in Algebra I and one new student in Physical Science. Um, okay great that we're getting new students but where am I supposed to put them? Not only do I NOT have the space in my room but I was given NO advance notice to even find these students a desk and a chair. New students cannot be let into a school if we do not have the resources to accommodate them: period. Yes, I have a desk and chair for these students NOW but only because the desks we were having made happened to be done early. In a school this size, surprising a teacher with two new students is ridiculous and unprofessional.

Okay, I'm done complaining :-)

Two days ago on Friday, a bunch of us got together to celebrate Christmas a bit early! Amanda and I baked some cookies and then we all iced them! Then, we watched a few of the Friends Christmas episodes. It was such a fun night! Pictures...

Alright, well the only other semi-exciting thing was yesterday's Jumble Sale. It was pretty fun though with lots of people. A bunch of different organizations/people/stores/whatever bought tables for the jumble sale and then brought stuff to sell. It was basically a massive yard sale except people were selling arts and crafts and nice things. I bought a few things but thankfully I didn't bring too much money because if I had I would have spent it! Pictures...

See you in America soon!

Norma Dean

Norma Dean is the name of Meg's new pet - a turtle! She's still adjusting to her new terrarium that Meg built for her on the front porch, haha. Yes, she's an outdoor turtle but it's been so stinking hot lately that Norma mostly stays in the water. Here's her picture...She doesn't do much but she doesn't bark at me either - so she's my kind of pet! You may wonder about her name. Well, apparently Meg and her mom always name turtle's at the zoo, Norman but since this turtle is a girl, Meg chose Norma. Then, one of Meg's students was the one who helped her get the turtle and his name is Dean. So, Norma Dean :-) Also, apparently turtles are escape artists. Evidence...She was stretched like this trying to get out for like 5 minutes - willing herself over the edge. But it didn't work!

Anyway, that's it!

Sunday

Not much has been going on! The most exciting part has been Halloween. They don't celebrate Halloween in Ghana like we do in the States because here, a lot of people believe in what they call "juju" (I'm not sure if that's how you spell it but that's how it sounds). Juju is like voodoo or black magic. So in the States Halloween is mostly about dressing up in funny costumes and getting candy whereas here people would pay more attention to some of the darker meanings behind it. Anyway, at school we had "Storybook Dress Up Day" on Friday and some of the kids went all out! It was so fun. Instead of first period, we ended up having a costume parade out under the pavillion and it was so fun to be able to see everyone's costumes. I posted a bunch of pictures on here for everyone to see and here's the link to even more...Check it out because there are some great ones!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2254867&l=8a861&id=7703737

The top picture is of me and Barbara, who is the middle and high school math teacher. She dressed up as the imaginary number "i," which I assure you is a math concept. I dressed up as the "Doppler Effect," which again, I assure you is a science concept. The point was that in my books my characters are scientific concepts and I sort of copied from one of the best shows ever, "The Big Bang Theory," when Sheldon dressed up as the Doppler Effect. Nobody got it but I thought it was awesome. Here's another picture, one of my 6th grade math class!


They're not as innocent as they look :-)

Pretty much the last exciting thing that happened this week is...


WE GOT A COUCH!!! It's amazing and wonderful and great to not have to sit on wicker furniture or at the kitchen table with the uncomfortable wood chairs. The best part is that now we can sit together and watch movies! It's just so great to have a comfortable common area, now - even if we do have to cover it with sheets because it smells, haha. Living in Ghana doesn't give you the option to be choosy.

Completely unrelated - I'm so glad I finally checked Dublin Baptist's website to find Darrell's sermons are posted online! I've been listening to them for the past couple Sunday's and it's awesome. I'm worried about next week though since it seems that the audio for the next couple sermons is unavailable for some reason. Guess I'll have to go back to some old sermon's to listen to. The one I listened to today was about worship and how it brings joy to God when we worship him. My favorite part was when Darrell talked about how the key to peace and joy is surrender to God. The key to getting over being unhappy about all the bugs and crap that Ghana brings is remembering that God has me here for a purpose and surrendering to that purpose everyday. Because really, ants are EVERYWHERE and it's such a source of stress in all of our lives. You might think, "Oh ants big deal, get over it Elyse." But really, we left a plate with a banana peel on it out for about an hour to come back and find it SWARMING with ants. There are ants on the floor, ants on the counter, ants in your bags - everywhere. You tell me that that wouldn't grate on your nerves. Anyway, that's my beef with Ghana today :-)

Hope all is well in America! I miss fall. Take lots of pictures for me!

Caviar and cream cheese

So, right now it's 1:06am and I'm glued to my computer "watching" the OSU vs. Penn State football game. Currently 2nd quarter and still scoreless. God bless ESPN and the College Gamecast - without it I would be lost this football season. Despite the fact that Mix 97.1 radio station proudly displays on their web page that they broadcast all the OSU games online - they don't and those broadcasts were something on which I was banking to get through this season. So even though I don't get to watch or listen to the games, ESPN provides "real-time" updates during games that's good enough. GO BUCKS!

Today was a pretty great Saturday - until I broke the wine glass. Meg, Amanda, Jules and I got up and headed to the pool at about 9am. That's a pretty standard pool time for us. I mean it's Africa so of course it's already hot and the sun was shining. Even though my face is now uniformly red from sunburn (curse you SPF 15!) the pool was totally worth it and relaxing and amazing. We left when the Ghanaians started doing cannonballs into the water right by our stuff. Thanks guys. The pool to which we go, Shangri-La, has this mini-market out front with a small but varied selection of stuff and since they know us now they usually give us pretty good prices. I bought soooo many Christmas presents today! It was so much fun picking out everything and there is still so much to get. After the pool we walked to the mall (air conditioning, holla!) where I bought the aforementioned wine glasses. Mind you, Meg already bought a set of 4 about 2 months ago and all 4 were broken one by one over the weeks.

Break in story for a few quick lessons in "How to Know When You're in Ghana."

Lesson #1: prices are generally opposite of what you come to expect in the States. Evidence: While shopping in the grocery store today, Meg and I stumbled on to cream cheese. Cream cheese!!! While marveling at the wonder of cream cheese I noticed that next to it was some caviar. (Lesson #2: Ghanaians shelve things in the oddest places. Evidence: caviar and cream cheese and cereal was in the same aisle as whiteboards and picture frames.) When I think of caviar I think of expensive French restaurant or something. Well, this caviar was cheaper than the cream cheese. Only in Ghana will cream cheese be more expensive than caviar. Oh speaking of expensive - later during the shopping trip we found berries. (Berries!!!) A small container of strawberries was how much you ask? GHc 12! (Ghc 1 is about $1) Then, there was a container with three types of grapes - about 20 grapes per type - for the low low price of Ghc 22. Lesson #3: They let you sample wine in the store. Evidence: They let us sample wine in the store. Sounds crazy but it's true! Meg and I wandered in to the wine section and each got to sample a Sauvignon Blanc and a Shiraz. The Shiraz was amazing!

End of today's lessons.

With all of us swamped with bags from our purchases, we crammed into a taxi and came home. I made the most amazing dinner tonight! Rice cooked in this yummy vegetable soup, cabbage, carrots, green pepper, and chicken. It probably doesn't sound too good but I assure you that it was. Oh and Meg made homemade macaroni and cheese! That was pretty fantastic as well. Now the sad part. I was washing dishes...moved the wine glass out of the drying rack so that I wouldn't break it with heavy pots...and proceeded to then knock it off the counter - shards everywhere. BRAND NEW wine glass, GONE. Dang.

Okay so some updates about what's been going on the last week.

Last Saturday (so, a week ago) we didn't have power allllll day. From 1:30pm until 9:30pm. Thankfully one of the students at school had let me borrow a book so I was able to lie around doing my best not to sweat and read. This is the first time that the power was off for an extended period of time. What do you do when the only source of entertainment is your computer and there is no power??? I read and I read and I read. Even though the power was out and that stunk, last Saturday turned out to be one of my favorite in Ghana so far. Without a way to cook any dinner for ourselves, Meg and I decided to go get egg on bread. (One of the best things about living in Ghana: street food.) We left the house and the whole street was dark. We went around the corner toward the main street and still everything was dark. We got to the main street and looked left and right and STILL everything was completely dark. This was a bit unusual because usually when the power goes off it's not EVERYONE. With the power off as far as I could see - the sky was amazing. Remember: it was only about 6:30 when we left the house but it was already dark outside. It was a little disconcerting to look up and be able to see so many stars though because I didn't recognize a single constellation. I'm used to walking outside at night in the States and being able to name off at least one constellation. But this African sky is totally new and I don't recognize any of it. I felt pretty far from home then. So anyway, Meg and I were on the main street and it was totally dark except for the candles burning at the stands on the side of the road and headlights from cars. We walked past a salon where someone had pulled their car so that the headlights were pointing directly inside where someone was doing a woman's hair. It was cool to be able to see lights from Accra in the distance. It's hard to explain why this night was one of my favorites because really all Meg and I did was walk to get egg on bread and the power was out. But it was so cool to see that life in Ghana and the stands on the side of the road were totally unaffected by the power outage. Life in the States stops without power but in Ghana - it happens. One of the pictures I've posted is from the power outage night. I lit candles next to my bed just to be able to read. Reading the Bible by candlelight was also pretty great.

The other picture I posted is from dinner last Sunday night. This girl named Karen was in Ghana for 1 month and we got to be friends with her for the last 2 weeks she was here. By herself she organized a trip to 3 countries: Ghana, Georgia and...Guatemala? I think that was the 3rd one. Anyway, 3 countries each starting with G and she was working on something different in each country: health, human rights, and I forget the 3rd. She's pretty awesome and has moved on to Georgia for the next month.

Alright, so the 3rd quarter of the football game just started. I was hoping that this game would be a blowout by OSU so that I could go to bed assured of an OSU victory but with the score tied - I have to stay up and it's already 2am. My apologies if this post makes little to no sense. I'm pretty tired and seriously ready for bed but I have to stay up for this game!

When else can I update about my week? Hmm... Oh, I've started reading the Bible chronologically and I'm loving it! There are so many stories in the Old Testament that I don't know that finally I am learning. I just finished Job and I really enjoyed finally learning the story of the man I hear so much about. My favorite passage: (that actually wasn't spoken by Job but by someone talking to to him)

Yet if you devote your heart to [God] and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp. -Job 11:13-20

I think it's my favorite passage from Job because it just makes so clear that all we have to do is reach out to God, give our sins to Him and let them go, and then He will take care of us. Darkness will be morning, we will have security, hope and safety. What an awesome God.

Okay, well I think this post is really long enough. I'm going to go try and stay awake for the rest of the football game. Wish me luck and go Bucks! That almost rhymed.

Jeeves

Jeeves is the name of the little gecko who lives in my room.

I have a little bedside dresser next to my bed. The other day, I went to pick up a movie off of it and someTHING sprinted across the table so quickly I didn't know what it was. Two options: 1. it was a cockroach (did I mention I killed one of those BY MYSELF last week?), 2. it was a gecko. I convinced myself it was a gecko because those things are SO fast. My assumption was proved correct when I found Jeeves in my bathroom last night! Okay, so the thing before might still have been a cockroach but humor me.

So, here's a picture...

He's really probably only about 2.5 inches long. Just a little guy.

Anyway, that's Jeeves - the gecko who lives in my room.

This weekend is our fall break! That means we get/got a whole day and a half off of school. Not much but I'm thankful for any break! Today I was going to go to the pool but it's been raining most of the morning and it's still pretty cloudy. We'll see if it clears up but the best sun here is between 10:30ish - 12:30ish, I think. It's 8am now so it's still got some time to clear up! Tomorrow I'm planning on pooling as well so it better not rain tomorrow! I should have gone to the pool yesterday because it was beautiful outside but instead I cleaned EVERYTHING. There were ants in my bed - yuck. So I washed my sheets and did laundry and then proceeded to bleach my floors and the entire bathroom. Then, I bug bombed my room and bathroom. It smelled like a pretty gross combination of bug spray and bleach for a little while but at least it's clean! And semi-bug free.

Oh one last thing...

Thanks for the t-shirt, Mom. It's fits great :-)

Not a real update

Just something quick for now.

I put up some new pictures! The big top one is from dinner at the restaurant Monsoon on Saturday night, which is a sushi place. I wasn't sure how I felt about sushi but I am now - pro-sushi. It was really good! And the bread they gave us beforehand was awesome. The other new pictures are from Pram Pram on Sunday, which is a church service by the ocean for young kids. It was fun because my housemates and I were in charge of teaching and we taught the story about David and Saul - the point was to teach the kids about making good choices.

Anyway, just wanted to put up some new pictures! A real update is coming soon :-)

Oh and here's another picture...this is how close we were to the ocean!

Mosquitoes!!!

Is that how you spell "mosquitoes?" I hope so. Anyway, I'm not sure what else I can say here that I haven't already said in the mass e-mail except to rant about mosquitoes! This morning I woke up with at least 8 new mosquito bites on my right arm and two giant ones on my right leg. My legs have been doing well with not getting bitten but my arms are pretty scary from the elbows down - they're the only thing that show during the night! I also have more than a few mosquito bites on my neck and a couple on my face. I guess I'm just so sweet they can't stay away :-) Actually I have no idea - it has to have something to do with body chemistry because I'm the only one getting bitten like this and everyone's diet is basically the same. Maybe other people get bitten too and just don't react as violently as I do. Don't worry Grandma, I put up the mosquito net and I won't get a secondary infection :-) I killed two mosquitoes earlier, actually, which is quite a feat! I don't know how they manage it but usually I'll see one and follow it for a second or two hoping for it to land or come close enough for me to kill it but then just as I go to do it, the thing disappears. Literally disappears right in front of my face! Mosquitoes are little magicians, I just know it. But TWO, I got two earlier! One of them landed on my wall and I smacked the wall so hard that I had to make sure I didn't jam my wrist. Small price to pay for getting the little bugger. I'm sitting under my mosquito net right now and I saw a mosquito sitting on the outside of it. Sucker!

I must need some sleep :-)

Right now I'm really in to the show Prison Break! You can imagine that the lifestyle here is a bit slower than back in the States. Also, the weeks are so rough with school and everything that on the weekend I need time to just sit and be a vegetable to be ready for the next week. Anyway, I've been watching the first season of Prison Break pretty much nonstop and it's incredible. I highly recommend it! If you do start watching it though, don't be put off by the cheesy dialogue and suspect acting skills - power through the first few episodes and you won't even notice after a while! :-)

Speaking of Prison Break...I'd better get back to it :-)

P.S. Go OSU!!!

I don't like making titles...

Well, it's been too long since I last updated!

School has started! It's going well so far but it's A LOT of work. I'm currently teaching 5 classes: Algebra I, Algebra II, Chemistry, Trigonometry, and Physical Science. I'm also helping out with 6th grade math. I started out with teaching another class as well, Physics, but (thankfully!) the student ended up not needing it and so dropped the class. Sixth grade math might end up being another class for me though, instead of just a class with which I'm helping. It's the biggest grade in the school at 15 kids. The class might end up being split into two with me taking one half and the other teacher, Barbara, taking the other. It would be better for the students that way but so much more work for me since I already have 5! Even with very small class sizes (my two biggest are Physical Science and Algebra I with 3 students each) the planning load is the same. The students are great though, and I don't anticipate any problems. The biggest challenge, beyond planning, will be teaching to the different ability levels. In this case, having a very small class is almost harder because for example, in Algebra I, I have one student who is so far behind and should be re-taking 8th grade math, another student who is right where he should be, and the third student is 2 chapters ahead. How do you teach to that?! Hopefully, I'll figure it out :-)

One day this past week was a teacher-in-service day to organize our classrooms. Meg and Amanda (two roommates) decided it would be fun to do a wacky dress up day! See above picture :-)

Also, this week I had my first cockroach in my bedroom. It was huge and scared the heck out of me! I screamed and scared the rest of the girls. Amanda killed it for me :-) See picture!

We also got a puppy. Well, it's Jules' (another roommate). The puppy's name is Roxy, she's about 3 months old, and she's a German Shepard. She's cute but Jules went to the store a little bit ago and isn't back yet so Roxy is outside crying to come in. If any of you know me at all: I'm so not a dog person :-) See picture, though!

Well, those are the highlights, I think. I've been missing home a lot, especially since football season has started. I know it sounds silly, but that's what you DO in Columbus during the fall :-) So, I've started thinking about why I'm here in Ghana and I haven't quite figured it out yet, or at least God hasn't made it super clear to me yet. I'm starting to think that maybe my purpose here is more to help the school be more organized and to help with curriculum writing and things like that. I'm not sure but I keep praying that God will tell me what to do and why I'm here! During my Beth Moore Bible study this morning, I read part of the story of Abraham where God tells him to "Go from your country, your people, and your father's household..." That's what God has told all of us here in Ghana to do! We all left our country (literally for most of us) and our homes. And Beth makes the point that how "God hones us is rarely within the parameters of the familiar" and Ghana is definitely the unfamiliar. Please keep praying for me and the work being done in Africa!

Missing you all!
E

New Home

Okay well this is going to be a short post but I thought I'd get something up here. (Even if you are the only ones reading Gma and Gpa :-D )

I've gotten all moved into my new room and it's great! The Palace, as the house where I'm living is affectionately called, is huge and pretty nice. The worst part are the ants in the kitchen and I don't think our dryer works. Other than that, things are good! It's great having my own bathroom connected to my room. The house is also super close to the school - about a 5 minute walk. Then, in the other direction, there is a small "mall" about a 10 minute walk away.

We started teacher orientation yesterday and it was a short meeting in the morning and then we were able to work in our rooms for the rest of the day. My room is a corner room about 10ft x 12ft - TINY. It's so small with no whiteboard to write on or bulletin board to post things - great. I understand that my classes will probably be the smallest in the school but I still need materials to work with - frustrating. And windows are awesome but there are so many that there is hardly any wall space to put up a bulletin board or whiteboard. I'm not sure what's going to happen yet so we'll see.

All right, well right now I'm with all the other young teachers so I'd better go be social :-)

A little vacation

It's been an exhausting three days! Liz, Emily, Jonathan and I just got back from our trip to Elmina and Cape Coast.

Day 1 - Wednesday:

Up at 7 to be ready for William to pick me up to head to the bus station at 8am. 8:45am William shows up with Liz, Emily and Jonathan. It's then I'm reminded of "Ghana time." Yes, in Ghana there is a whole new clock by which the country runs and that's: no clock. Haha. It's not too bad except when it causes you to miss your bus. Oh well! We ended up getting a later bus to Takoradi, which cost a bit more but would drop us off where we wanted to be: Cape Coast. The bus was actually pretty nice with air conditioning and everything! After a quick two hour ride we arrived! After bartering with a taxi driver, we hopped in and we were off to our second destination of the day: Elmina. Once in Elmina we went to St. George's Castle (I think is what it's officially called). The castle was built by the Portuguese (if I remember correctly) in the 1400's. They initially settled in Elmina to trade with the Ghanaian's. Back then, the coast was known as the Gold Coast because of all the gold...obviously. Then they started enslaving the Ghanaian and other African people and the castle became a holding place for them until ships arrived to take them away. In the 1600 or 1700's (I forget) the Dutch took over the castle and continued the slave trade until the British took over in the 1700 or 1800's. (My memory for details is astounding!) Anyway, it's a pretty grim history but the city of Elmina now is amazing. After the castle, we had lunch at a little place nearby. I had Red-Red, which is fried plantain and beans - so yummy! We were then off to find another taxi to take us back to Cape Coast to Hans Cottage to stay for the night. We were fortunate enough to get a room with 4 beds, even if it was communal bathroom. Oh and it was only GC5.40 each (i.e. $5.40)!!! The big draw of this botel is their lake with crocodiles. We only saw one but there were a ton of birds! Before dinner, we were playing ping pong when a Ghanaian girl with her friends walked up and asked if they could join. We of course said yes and I ended up playing her first. Well, what she didn't say is that she was on a champion ping pong team and was a fierce player! I beat her though :-) Her and her friends even taught us some Twi, the local language. In addition to already knowing how to ask, "how are you" and how to respond, I can now say please and thank you! So fun!!!

Day 2 - Thursday:

We got up early and hopped into a taxi that we had arranged the previous day to meet us at our botel. Off to Kakum National Park we went! Once there, we bought our tickets for the canopy walk. This is a walkway with seven different suspension bridge walkways throughout the canopy of the rainforest - 30-40 meters above the ground! Emily is afraid of heights so it was hard for her...but she made it! It was aaaaaamazing. We didn't see any wildlife but we had a great time on the wobbly bridges, haha. After Kakum, it was back to Cape Coast to see the Cape Coast Castle. This one has a similar story to the Elmina castle but is much younger - built in the 1600's by the British. After the castle was a loooooong lunch at the Cape Coast Castle restaurant. Remember "Ghana Time?" We waited probably almost an hour for our food. At least it was good food! Then for dessert was my first experience with Fan Choco! It's basically frozen chocolate milk and it's sooooo good. After our long lunch we went in search of a place to stay for the night. Finally we reach the Somma (I think?) Guest House after following far too many wrong directions from the local people, haha. It's about the same price as Hans Cottage but not quite as nice. When we had secured our rooms for the night we went back out to the Oasis Resort to see the beach! At the beach we played with some of the local kids for a little while who were so funny. After taking some pictures on the rocks by the water, we headed back to the resort for some dinner and card games.

Day 3 - Friday:

Not too much happened. We ate lunch at our hotel at their rooftop restaurant. It's not as glamorous as it sounds but the food was yummy. It rained a bit but we didn't melt as we hailed a taxi to take us back to the bus station to head home to Accra.

Whew, I'm tired.

Just a quick note...

Hello!

It's been a few days since the last update because I haven't been able to get the page to load. Of course now, when I'm waiting to be picked up to leave, it works. Oh well, I'll do what I can with the short time.

Sooo...I had soooo much fun at dinner Sunday night! See picture. Jonathan was there with his two friends Vanessa and Chris (who are great!) and then I went with Amy, Jonathan, Jon, Liz, and Emily. (Yes, too many Jonathan's!) It was awesome to just be able to sit down and talk to Jonathan (A) and hear his stories about Ghana. It was a beautiful night, too. It was almost chilly with the breeze but was so nice. There was even a Ghanaian band playing music and we all got up and danced for one song!


Two days ago, Amy and I went to the market, which was an experience. A lot of the stalls had fish...but not normal fish. All of the fish they had, had this silvery sheen to them. I can't even describe it. And the smell...gha! It was really gross but apparently Ghanaian's really love it. I bought some fabric, too that I took yesterday to a seamstress to get made into a shirt/skirt combo. I'm not sure what it's going to look like so it'll be a surprise, haha.

Today I'm leaving with the three other new teachers and heading to Cape Coast and Kakum National Park. Liz is the one that knows what we're doing and on which days but as far as I can tell, there are some castles, forts, and fish markets to see as well as a canopy walk through the rainforest! We're basically just going to go down to Cape Coast and bum around for a few days and probably stay in a little hotel that Jon recommended. We'll also head to the next town over, Elmina, where there's a really good castle to see. Pray that I don't get car sick on the way down there!

Anyway, that's an update for now. I'll be sure and post another with pictures when I get back from our trip! "See" you in a few days!

First day out and about

Where to begin? Well, Liz, Amy and I decided to go to the mall (yes, there is a mall). It was pretty nice but it being Saturday there were TONS of people and the traffic was unbelievable. You think the 270/23 interchange in Columbus is bad...trying to leave the mall was way worse. First, there aren't many traffic laws to speak of in Ghana. There are really no lanes painted on the ground and even if there were I'm sure people would pay no attention to them. Ever seen that YouTube video of people driving in India? It's kind-of like that. Never will I drive in Ghana. So when we were leaving the mall, I was in my first Ghanaian (Guh-nay-an) car accident! It wasn't bad but William, our driver, was pretty peeved about it and got out of the car and started yelling at the drive of the other. That's kind-of how they handle these things here, hah. Long story short and a few police stations later, things turned out fine.

Liz and I got phones, too! They don't work yet, haha. We'll figure it out tomorrow. We also had our first oranges today! See above right picture... Here, they take most of the skin off somehow and then just cut the top off and you sqeeze and drink the juice. Yummy.

Tomorrow we're all going to an orphange where one of the couples preaches once a month. I think we also hang out with the kids some and make bracelets. I'm not sure yet but it should be fun :-) Then we're going to dinner at a hotel with Jon and his friends! Should be a fun Sunday!

I finally made it to Africa!

Hello!

Well here I am in Ghana! So crazy. It's so surreal to think that I'm finally here. There was so much build up and yet it was never really real to me that I was moving to AFRICA. It's definitely real now :-) The flights here were fine and the one from Detroit to Amsterdam was AMAZING! I had three seats all to myself so I was able to stretch out and lie down. It was pretty awesome. I had some minor trouble in customs but was able to get into the country without being sent back to the States, thank the Lord!

Anyway, I'm staying here with a young married couple, Jonathan and Amy, and they are so nice. Another new teacher will also be staying here with them and I'm so excited to see her! A familiar face! On Sunday I'll be meeting up with Jon Andereck and am SUPER excited about that! He's been here in Ghana for a few weeks volunteering at a clinic and I can't wait to hear about it. It will also be awesome to see a familiar friend! Can't wait.

Okay, that's enough for now. The weather here is good today. It's rainy season so it's not too hot yet! I already have two bumps that might be bug bites so pray that #1 it's not malaria, #2 it doesn't make me sick in general.

I miss the States already! The weirdest part is not being able to be in constant contact, i.e. phone, Internet, you know.

Elyse :-)

Greetings!

Hello! Welcome :-)

Alright, so here begins my attempt at a blog. For those of you who are not too crazy about these things don't worry, I still fully plan on sending out weekly/monthly e-mails with basically all the same information.

So, first installment:

Here I sit writing from PFO (Pre-Field Orientation) in Southaven, Mississippi. I've been here for the past almost two weeks attempting to get ready for my transition to Ghana! We've been learning about our TCK (Third Culture Kid) students, how to make an easier transition to the mission field, how to teach ESL in our classes, how to teach from a Christian perspective, etc. The list goes on and on. What does TCK mean, you ask? Well:

An individual who, having spent a significant part of the developmental years in
a culture other than the parents' culture, develops a sense of relationship to
all of the cultures while not having full ownership in any. Elements from
each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of
belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience.

TCK isn't about the kid growing up in a third-world country. Instead, their "first culture" is their passport country, their "second culture" is where they are currently living, and their "third culture" is the sense of belonging in relationship to others of similar experiences. Yeah, it's a bit confusing but the important part to know is that the third culture is not a place, rather a group of people.

In addition to attending all the different sessions, I have gotten to meet some of the other teachers going to/already teaching in Ghana!!! Hanging out and getting to know them has (by FAR) been the best part! AND, I finally know where I'm living over there! I'll be in the house with 5 other girls and I'm SO excited! I'll have my own bedroom and bathroom, which is pretty sweet. Yes, there is electricity, water, Internet, and American appliances.

Okay, well I think that's enough for now. Leave comments if you want and have a great day! I'll put some pictures up here once I get home and have a decent connection.

:-)