September 12, 2012
Man, oh man. I’ve
almost been free, not really free cause I'm still in my 3 month confinement
stage, for a month. I’ve heard it said, and I will second the notion, that the
days crawl by but the months fly.
I would like to think I am more comfortable at my site than
when I first got here. The problem is my brain is in a fast regression. I have
forgotten that small amount of Twi I knew. It’s pathetic and what’s worse is I
think my condition is getting worse. I want to blame it on the dialect and the
different voices, but in reality I know it’s because I have a black hole in my
brain. The longer I stay here the less Twi I remember. Most of the people in my
village speak only English to me because they assume I can only speak English,
but there are a few people who think the best way to teach a person Twi is to
speak as much of it as you can, as fast as possible, and then when I translate
it to English (because, oh yes, they also speak English) to make sure I have the
translation correct, they yell, YELL, at me to speak Twi. I know you have heard
this rant time and time again, but it never gets any better. I think it’s the
thing that frustrates me the most. Imagine leaving your entire family and
everyone that love you to move to a foreign country, trying to learn the
language, and then having someone cut you absolutely no slack.
But in other news, I had a lovely time cutting cassava with a
group of women the other day. Cassava is a yam-potato type thing that is used
in everything here and you have to crack the skin off with a knife. The woman who has basically taken me in as her
own daughter (I’ll call her Sister) let me sit with her and a few other chop
(food seller) ladies while they cut up cassava to make something I can’t
remember the name of. After studying their technique for a while, I asked for a
knife so I could help and not look so useless. I sort of sucked at it. In my defense I had
not eaten breakfast yet so I was a little disabled to begin with and these
ladies had been raised cutting cassava. They make it look so easy with their
giant knives, just cutting into the palm of their hand and cracking the skin
off so easily. I ended up cutting a very
small, but painful, chunk out of my left ring finger. Being awesome, I just put
a bandage on it and worked through the pain. No big deal.
It was fun to sit in the middle of town and listen to the
local gossip (I didn’t understand a word of it). I created quite a spectacle
though…. The white lady cutting cassava……in the middle of town… but I got kudos
from people for trying and also a lot of laughs :)
My new gang is a group of what I believe to be children, in
and around, the age of 6. They are all my neighbors and they are just the sweetest
group of nuggets. When I first arrived here I was annoyed because they were constantly
watching me and I couldn’t go to the toilet without this group of kids yelling and
running circles around me. Then I started
doing chores and I found out they love helping. They also are extremely sweet
and they are re-teaching me Twi. They tell all the other kids what my name is
and sit for hours while I draw them (did I mention they are models?).
Now if I could just get some patience with the pre-teens.
The teenagers are better because they understand more English and are so
involved in their dramas they only stop to ask me where I’m from and if I can
tattoo them. The pre-teens are a whole other story. They talk in this strange
high-pitched voice, which is how they hear Americans, I guess, and they say the
dumbest things to me just to make their friends laugh (sounds a lot like home).
When I was outside drawing my little models, I attracted a
massive group of children, 18 and under. They were all crowded onto my front
porch and there was this one 13 year old boy who was annoying the heck out of
me. He kept calling me obruni, even though I and several other children had
informed him of my name, and he was talking in that awful “valley-girl” voice.
He kept asking me ridiculous questions and I kept answering him with “What is
my name? When you learn my name I will answer your questions.” This made absolutely
no impression on his pre-pubescent brain. Finally I said “You sound so weird. Why
do you sound that way? Is something wrong with your throat? Are you sick? Is your
voice sick?” I think the only thing he understood was “voice sick” and this
made him slow down a bit.
Another funny thing that happened while I was drawing: I
drew two seven-ish year old girls. They have little girl bodies so I was
drawing little girl bodies. There was a boy, about 15 years old, next to me
watching me draw. He was friends with the annoying voice kid. He said “Abina,
you should draw these.” and pointed to his chest/shoulder area. Not really
understanding what he meant, I just said “What, shoulders? I drew their
shoulders. See, here are the shoulders.” And I pointed to the shoulders in the
drawing. “No, these.” and he pointed to his chest specifically. I gave him a
very confused look and said “Boobs? I’m not drawing boobs on children. Are you
crazy?” Now, there were about 30 kids on my porch fussing and screaming and
playing, but the second the word “boobs” and “crazy” came out of my mouth about
half the kids fell silent.
I don’t know about the word “boobs”, but “crazy” Is not a
good word to use here. It’s seen as a major insult. Back in the states we just
throw it around “Girl, you are crazy!” “That movie was crazy!” “We should get
crazy tonight.” It’s no big deal and it’s a joke most of the time. Here,
insinuating someone is not right in the head is not taken lightly. So, the kid
gasps, laughs nervously, and says “Abina, did you say I was crazy?” Me,
realizing "crazy" might not have been the best choice of word and trying to focus
on the subject at hand, said “These are little girls, they do not have boobs.”
At the second mention of the word “boobs” the rest of the kids fell silent and I
heard a small child gasp. The boy started yelling excitedly to his friend in
Twi and then said “Abina, what did you say? Can you say it again?” Then it
dawned on me that maybe “boobs” is not such a good word either. “I don’t understand what you are asking me.
Say what? I don’t understand.” Is what I repeated for good 15 minutes until,
and thank god children have the attention span of flies, the novelty of the
word “boobs” wore off and the playing/screaming/fussing resumed.
School starts on September 17th and that day cannot
come soon enough. I can only watch movies, wander around my village, and stare
out my window for so long. I am very ready for school to start so I can get
this show on the road and actually have something to do besides watering my
plants. I started doing lesson plans last week and I have worked on them for a
total of one day. I just can’t get motivated! Every time I sit down to do them I
would rather read, or do laundry, or anything else basically. Even now it’s
12pm and I haven’t even gotten out of bed. I should go do lesson plans (and I
will damn it! I would high five myself right now if I could) but instead I am
typing this blog thing out. Alright
motivation, I will find you as soon as I eat this here watermelon and watch one
movie……
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