Toto, Have You Seen Kansas?

After my last post, I returned to my home and had a very rough evening.

Yesterday was much better and today has been better still. I feel as though I'm really beginning to settle in. My malaria pill makes me a bit nauseous right after I take it but I think that I have discovered how to minimize its negative effects.

Sleeping has still been coming easily to me, (knock on wood) and the toilet issues have been resolved. I'm even getting down the best strategy for a bucket shower. I draw a bucket of water and stick my head in it. This helps to conserve water and allows my hair to get really wet.

Alright on to more interesting things...

Victoria, the house #1 cook, is amazing. Breakfast consists largly of fresh, (that's right I said fresh) pineapple, poridge and hard boiled eggs or fried. Lunch changes daily based on a rotating 6 day menu. So far we've had delicious angle hair pasta and cabagge stew with rice. The same spices used in both dishes. Fresh bread is brought to the house daily. It doesn't taste like any bread I've had before and it is quite good. It actually has a bit of a citrus taste to it and looks like a long skinny hoggie roll. We fend for ourselves at dinner, constructing sandwiches out of veggies (brought daily) and boiled egg. We could also go to a restaurant, but all of us are trying to be good and conserve both money and food by eating in at night.

Eariler today I tried to call Joshua and was able to speak to him for one minute and thirteen seconds before the call cut out. It cost 4,000 cedis which is approx. 45 cents US. It was worth it!

Today we finished up orientation. We also had to sign up for the projects we would like to work on. After two weeks we will re-evaluate our schedule and decide if we want to change anything. Around 7am I will go around camp and empty garbage bins. At 9am I will go with the HIV/AIDS Outreach team to talk with people around camp about HIV. At 12:30pm I will work with a 6th grade english or science class until approx. 5pm. At 5pm I will teach a one hour computer class to grown ups. This is a full schedule and I imagine that I will end up scaling back a bit in a couple of weeks. For now it will allow me to get a good idea of four different departments. We shall see.

Tonight is a British Pub Quiz developed by a couple of IVs (International Volunteers) which will be held at a bar called "Holiday Feeling". We are all going to go.

My house consists of 7 people. A woman from England, a woman from Northern Ireland, an american man who's been living in Scotland for the last several years, a woman with dutch parents who grew up in Africa but finished her last two years of high school in Holland, another american woman who lives in Colorado and my roomate Hannah, from Australia. All in all quite a varied bunch. I really like all of my housemates so far and the vibe in our house is lovely as well. We have some pet mice and a resident spider of large porportion in the bathroom. I think I've decided to name the spider and keep him around. I am told that he sticks to the walls. He is very shy with humans and there are no bugs in the restroom.

I believe that several of us volunteers are going to Winneba for the weekend. We are renting rooms at a lovely hotel for about $6/person/night. It is right near a lovely beach. I'm pretty excited. I'll be taking my first trou-trou ride...more on that after I return.

In the meantime, I have accomplished a lot in the past couple of hours. I just purchased fabric and gave it to a taylor. He is going to make me a skirt for 40,000 cedis which is about $4.50. The fabric I purchased was 20,000 cedis so all in all the project is going to cost approx. $7.00.

Two funny things happened today:

1) I went to buy some flip flops but the shoe size is in the British fashion. When I told the lady that I was American (meaning to imply that I needed a shoes size translation) she directed me to bigger sandals.

2) The taylor first told me the skirt would be 50,000 cedis. I asked the taylor if, when I came to pick up the skirt, he could take it out (or in) for me if necessary. While I was talking to him he got this kind of funny knowing look on his face. Then I asked him how much it would be he said 40,000 cedis. I think he thought I was haggling with him.

My time is almost up at the computer cafe...must run!