06/23/13
The Tremendous Twelve
I want to take
a minute to go over some of the people I have met on this trip so far, since I
think they are all truly wonderful, kind people and everybody should know about
who they are. First, I will introduce my CIEE brother and sisters.
Franz Essig, aka Stanford (that’s where he goes to school),
can be clumsy at times and we already created an acronym for him to use for
these moments (TMF>total Franz move). He is a great guy though and probably
very intelligent. He’s majoring in international relations and has lived just
about everywhere, including Japan, the UK, and the US.
Paige, who is my homestay sister, is from Texas, and she
knows how to have a good time. She has been to Kenya before, and a week or two
after she left the entire village she was living in got burned down (crazy). She
has some strange genetic condition that makes it difficult to handle her eating sugar; that would be awful. Her mom at one time was a penis cake baker, which is pretty
badass I think, and she also baked endowed gingerbread men for Christmas. Plus,
she’s related to the founder of cysco foods.
Ellie is a fellow Madisonite, so obviously she’s pretty
cool. Her grandpa is the creator of colgate toothpaste, which is also pretty
awesome. She definitely knows how to have a good time, and her and Paige tend
to feed off of each other as enablers, especially when it comes to ordering
desserts.
Johanna is from I believe Arkansas, and she has a way of
expressing things sarcastically and in a way that describes perfectly what
everyone is thinking in a jokingly, friendly way. It’s hard to describe
exactly, too bad she’s not here to work that one out for me. For example, she
is the inventor of TFM.
Beth is from Texas as well and recently got married (woooo!)
I believe less than a month ago, so she has had one transition after the other
in the past month. She tends to say what’s on her mind. It can be refreshing
though to have that level of honesty, as long as you can handle the truth ;).
She has been to Uganda before, so Ghana is not as new of an experience for her
this time around. She’s an international relations major and does some amateur
photography as well.
Jamesia (Ja-mee-see-uh) tends to be very independent but
still easy to get along with. She works as a model, but I’m not sure what all
she has done with that. She likes to mess around with her hair, and it tends to
be in a different shape every day. I believe she’s from New Jersey.
Zoey, who is originally from Minnesota, I thankfully met on
the first plane going out from Minneapolis. She is a firecracker and always keeps
things interesting. The group has
diagnosed her with a healthy case of ADHD. She is not very inhibited and not
afraid to throw down when it comes to dancing or just about anything. We
decided that by the time we leave, her ass is going to be famous. She is really
friendly to just about everyone and despite being unafraid of independence,
still socially oriented.
Chloe lives in a homestay with Zoey and is yet another
Madisonite (represent). She ended up
showing up a few days late and missing the orientation because of visa issues
which made her transition that much harder (it was hard enough for the rest of
us). She caught up though now and is having a good time. I think she’s a
political science and something else double major (sociology?). She likes
Indian food, which I can absolutely appreciate.
Emma is an anthropology major but used to be going for
fashion design. Fabric is really cheap here (about $2.50/yard for some really
cool looking stuff). She has a hidden evil side that her sister had a way of
bringing out in her, but now that she’s older they’re cool with each other. She
looks a lot like the girl who plays Hermione Granger (Emma Watson?) when she
got her hair cut shorter.
Bailey is one of those people who’s not afraid to reveal
anything about herself, which I find impressive. She told us about a time she
literally crawled around while drunk and yelled at her friend that the room she
was going in was her room not her friend’s (it was her friend’s). Hopefully I’m
at liberty to say this, but she got a breast reduction, and she claims it was
the best decision of her life. She’s the
third Texan of the bunch. She took an African Dance class at her university
(University of Colorado-Boulder) as well, which made me extremely happy. She is
a world traveler and has already been to 17 countries. 17!!! That’s like going
to a new country every year starting at age 4.
Anna is on her first trip via airplane and guess where she
decided to go.. Ghana! That takes some bravery I have to say. I’m not sure she
had even left her hometown up until now. She went to college in the same town
she grew up in and hasn’t really traveled much if ever. Obviously she is out of
her element and is taking more time to adjust than the rest of us, but
hopefully I can learn more about her soon. I do know that one of her friends is
dating a professor that’s 20 years older than her though. :O
I truly do think all of these people are great and add something
unique to the group.
Family
My host
family is made up of all wonderful people that have been helpful in this tough
transition. I will go over each of them briefly.
Captain Ansah, my host father, has a very strong
personality, and he enjoys pushing me and Paige into eating more food etc. He
likes to give lectures about various topics, especially Ghanaian politics but
also American and international politics. He gave us a speech when we first
showed about commending us on having the bravery to step out of our comfort
zone and study abroad in Africa. Captain has been in the military for a very
long time and has been around many countries because of it, such as the USSR,
Israel, and Egypt. He is very hospitable in a somewhat pushy but well-meaning
way.
Mame (Maw-May) Ansah is the queen of the household and
doesn’t have to lift a finger, except at Evans (I’ll get to that later). She
expresses herself with sounds a lot (she’ll greet you with an enthusiastic AYY!
or express sympathy with an expressive ohhh). She likes to get her groove on.
Mame and I were dancing to the radio a little together today. She makes sure we
have everything we need and everything in the house is taken care of. Also, she
makes a mean fufu (a fluffy dough eaten with soup using your hands).
Evans is my housemate (the only other person that lives in
the same guest-house as me. They call him their nephew, but he’s someone that
they took in because he needed a place to stay and they heard about it through
church. He does the bulk of the housework. It seems like every time I see him
he’s washing dishes, doing laundry, cooking, or doing something for mame.
Whenever someone wants something done, he’s the first one to be called for.
Mame puts him to good use. He’s somewhat soft-spoken and shy but light-hearted
and easy to get along with. I feel bad for him having to do so much work, while
me and Paige are getting by with doing hardly anything. He’s basically our
servant.
Emma (short for Emmanuel), is another person taken in by the
Ansahs and given a place to stay for about 15 years. He has a job and works
most days, but he took us out a few days ago still. He’s a nice guy and easy to
be relaxed and friendly with.
Wofa is the resident old fart, and half the time we can’t
understand him because he mumbles and speaks mostly Twi, but I’m sure if I
could understand him, I would think he was a cool guy. He wore a Barack Obama
t-shirt on the first day we arrived, and I think he has a cheeky sense of
humor. He does a lot of sitting around chillin’.
Isha and Ofori are the mother and father of two kids and
live in the house Paige is in. They are yet another of those taken in by the
Ansahs despite no blood relation. They are both awesome people and very kind.
Ofori is a real estate agent and is all about technology, cars, and working
out. He has a bigger TV than any place I’ve ever lived in, and it has about
1000 channels. I have better TV here than in the US! Their two children are Paa
and Eruwaduoa (eh-roo-ah-j-wuh). Paa is the cutest little 2-year-old boy I’ve
ever seen (I’ll post pictures of him). He laughs a lot and is usually a happy
camper. Eruwaduoa is about 6, and she has more energy than she knows what to do
with most of the time. She likes showing me how good she is at jump rope (which
is not very). She can do one or two before she gets messed up.
Lots of people to keep track of I know! And that’s just the
beginning too. There’s our professors and CIEE staff (Kwasi Moto is a boss). I
don’t have time to keep going though so I’ll leave it there for now.
