First Ghana Birthday= blood, tar, meat pies, and fans

August 25^th                  

Today I was born 26 years ago. Amazing how fast time flies.

This is the first birthday I have ever celebrated outside the United States. This is also the first birthday I have celebrated without any of my favorite people, which is kind of depressing but at the same time, in two years’ time, I will cherish every second I get to spend in celebration with my friends and family.

Would you like to know how I celebrated?

Here’s a hint…… right now my hands are on fire. Not literally on fire, although if I couldn’t see them I wouldn’t know the difference.

I’ll start at the beginning

7:32 I woke up but decided to stay in bed cause it’s my birthday.

7:54 I seriously woke up cause a group of kids came to my window and started screaming “ABINA!!!” (which is my Ghana name. It means I was born on Tuesday which may or may not be a complete lie. When they asked what day I was born on I just blurted out a day).

7:55-9:30 can’t really remember what I did. I think it involved eating breakfast and clicking around on the computer.

9:30 tried to take a bath but there was already someone in there so……

9:33-10:27 watched episodes of How I Met Your Mother. It’s amazing how addicting that show is but I did finish season 1! Go me!

11:02 went to catch the tro to go to Nsawam and pick out my birthday gifts J

11:07 the tro wasn’t there so I sat and chatted with Sister Afiea (this super nice lady who has basically taken me under her wing. She feeds me and helps me do everything. I told her I would paint her so I’ll let you know how that turns out)

11:42 the tro came so I said goodbye and climbed aboard. I met a nice man who had some interesting theories on America. I tried to tell him America is real big and we don’t all get shot at one time or another, but his family lives there as nurses so he had the inside scoop.

12:21-2:08 was in Nsawam. I walked around and explored a lot because this is my closest legit town. The people seem pretty nice except this one teenage girl who carried meat pies on her head. She kept following me, asking to be my friend, touching my arm, and asking me for money. I finally told her I didn’t like friends when she started messing with my hair and pulling at my bag. I'm sure it looked pretty comical with me power walking away, trying to be nice, then all of the sudden whipping around and telling her I don’t like friends. Ha. Way to think on your feet Melissa. As a birthday present to myself I bought a fan, a pineapple, everything to make pepe (which is hot salsa kind of), an ill-fitting dress made with pretty fabric that needs some serious help, 3 eggs, and a fan-ice. Happy birthday to me J except for the soap I paid too much for.

2:08-3:11 I was in the tro to Coaltar. So many things happened. First, when I was climbing into the tro, I was crazy awkward because I had a bag stuffed with goodies and a floor fan in several different parts. The only seat was left in the very back, so as I struggled to get back there and tripped on everything imaginable, a man decided I was pathetic and offered to hold my bag full of fan parts. I kindly took him up on his offer and tried not to look too flustered. We got on our way. Now, the road from Nsawam to Coaltar is very hilly and full of potholes. It basically sucks. There is even a tire place in the middle of nowhere because every single tire that has ever been on this road has issues. So my tro stopped at the tire station. What’s funny is all the tires at the tire station look treacherous. 92% of them are bald and the other 8% are cracked, ripped, or just plain old. We sat there for about 30 minutes pumping up one of the tires and tying another tire to the top of the tro (because in the future I will find out a buddy tro blew a tire down the road). While I was watching one guy do tire stuff to a tire, he slipped and cut his ankle wide open. It made me gasp. What does this champion do? Dip his hand into tire tar, the crap tire people use to fill holes, slather it on his wound, and just keep on fixing tires. As blood and tar dripped off this man’s foot, I kept looking around to see if anyone was going to commend this guy or tell him to get a Band-Aid. None of the above happened so I silently saluted him as we drove away. Before we could get to the friend tro to give him the tire, our tro just stopped working. It just gave up in the middle of the road. Then came a very scary couple of minutes. First the driver and the mate tried to fix the tro. Then they decided they needed to roll it down a steep hill, backwards, and slam on the emergency brake every few seconds to get it to work. It was like being on a very strange and dangerous rollercoaster (most of you know how I feel about rollercoasters, if you don’t, well I HATE THEM). I was in the back of the tro as it gained speed and bounced, BACKWARDS, down a steep hill. Then all of the sudden, the driver would pull the emergency brake and we would all whip-lash to the front. It was pretty intense. When they decided that wasn’t working, they got out, messed with stuff for a while, something miraculous happened, the tro started, and I got home in one piece.

3:19-5:04 I made dinner and ate it. I decided to make pepe and put it on egg, which is better when I don’t make it. My first mistake was to cut up everything outside, which attracted about 4,000 kids to watch and comment on my cutting skills, at one point they started copying everything I did, which was really entertaining and I had a lot of fun with that. My second mistake was cutting up peppers with my naked hands.  After 45 min my hands lit up like the 4^th of July. They are still on fire almost 3 hours later. I am praying to Jesus I remember not to touch my eyes. My third mistake was fixing too much hot pepe and not wanting to waste it so I ate almost all of it. Huge mistake. My stomach is gurgling so bad and because my toilet if full of roaches after dark, this is going to be a trying night.

5:04-currently I’ve just done random stuff. Cleaned dishes, responded to some very nice happy birthday texts, clicked around on the computer, and I talked to my neighbor for a while. He is moving back to his hometown to teach which blows cause he’s real nice and kind of reminds me on Elton John.

So the jist of the story is, even though my birthday wasn’t celebrated with my favorites (I don’t think I even told anyone in Coaltar it was my birthday today) I had a totally enjoyable birthday. I like the fact I was forced to entertain myself and make the day good for me, limited budget and all. It was a nice break to not be expecting a spectacular day and to just do the things I wanted/needed to do.

So for the rest of the night I will lie on my sponge mattress, call some important people, and enjoy a good movie. Happy Ghana Birthday, Melissa J