Keeping my word, culture shock, and trust

Hello Everyone,

It's been a little while, I guess only 13 days, but it feels longer than that. I've taught three lessons now, and things are getting easier, as is expected. But I have a question for everyone, mainly the teachers, but I can't seem to remember how kids get punished in American schools, here, they get caned, and I'm opposed to that, and I need some help remembering other techniques. So please be as detailed as you can, and I'll take everyone's advice into consideration. Thanks!

Since the day after I last wrote, I've been tutoring 2 JSS girls, math. That's been a lot of fun, they're my adopted daughters anyway, but teaching math is easier cuz there's less of a language barrier, even when I sub for the Primary school I tend to teach math instead of health, cuz it's much simpler to talk numbers than biology to 8 year olds. Let's see what else? My landlord played the overprotective jack-ass again and yelled at my wood carving teacher for something he did not do. Oh that made me very angry. I went to talk to Appiah (my counterpart) about it and he could tell I was pissed. See, this is what happened. I told Ema, my wood carving teacher, that if I cut my hand while carving I would pay him 100,000 cedis. Cuz Ema kept telling me to watch my hand, he doesn't want me to get cut, and I got annoyed so I thought if I told him that then he'd stop saying it, cuz he knew I'd watch my hand. Well, two weeks ago, or almost, I was using the knife and ooops, a teeny tiny baby cut! Well, I'm a woman of my word and Ema doesn't even charge me for the wood let alone to teach me, so I figure it's all fair, he deserves the 100,000!

Well, as I'm brining him the money my counterparts senior brother asks where am I going, and I think the story is funny, so I tell him…. I mean seriously, this cut is worth 15,000, it's that's small…..but I'm a woman of my word…..anyway…..the senior brother goes and tells Appiah that Ema told me I have to pay Ema 100,000….so they thought he was taking advantage of me, as in I'm white so I must be rich…..no no no no no….Ema is the last person to take money from me, he still kept telling me to watch my hand cuz he thought if I cut myself I wouldn't come back to carve and he'd rather me learn carving than have a 100,000. and mind you, 100,000 is 2 days pay for me, but it's like a month's pay for him.

Anyway, Appiah yelled at Ema and made him feel small and told him to give the money back to me. I refused. Seriously, I had to put the money on Ema's lap for him to take it. And then I went to Appiah and sternly told him that my money is my money and what I do with it is my business, and if Ema told me to give that much money, I would tell Ema no…. Appiah should know better than that, he knew I put a knife in a very large man's face for beating his ex-girlfriend, he should think I could tell someone no to money. Anyway, I was pissed, but the silver lining is, at least there's someone powerful in the village who will stick up for me, but really, I don't need that, and I have plenty friends who will do that for me. SO I was angry!!!!!!

Oh and last Monday I went to the sub-office…Shaza I got your package and three months worth of letters!!!!! I wrote you back, now I just have to mail it. I also got a letter from Kim and Angy, and Grandma and Mom…..thank you!!!!! All very appreciated. Oh and I wanted to let you all know that I was a little bit too quick too ask for money….All of the money is greatly appreciated and I'm saving it for when I really need it, but really, I'm ok, and money for Christmas and birthday is fine. I don't need money all the time. It makes me feel greedy especially since I don't need it. But thank you for the understanding and the quick sending of cash.

20 min later, and I'm finally getting into my mailbox….thank goodness for Word, right? I can type while waiting for the pages to load J Oh and the elecitricity is so funky in Ghana that even in the 2nd largest city in the country the light goes out almost everyday….and something about the current being low so this particular internet café switch to a different something so they had to shut down all the computers for a minute. Iiishh…. oh well……I'm really tired, I spent the day riding around Kumasi with the PCV who runs the sub-office and she told me there was an internet café in the tro tro station but alas, she was mistaken, so after walking around the tro station I had to walk up and down a hill to get to the closest internet café, to sit and wait for a computer, and then to wait ten minutes before my email would go, and then have a woman ask me to finish right now cuz she needs to save her work on a disk, and then after I told her please wait 10 min I just got to my email, the worker comes and tells me to finish my work they have to shut the computers down….errrr……haha….

And for 5 min the page has been loading. And there's much mail in my box. I'm sure of it...

Hope everyone is doing well….oooooh scary news, they've found bird flu in Nigeria, but no cases in Humans yet……I can't touch birds and if there's a case of human bird flu that close peace corps will pro'ly evacuate us, so no need to panic, but it's a little scary…..

So I've taken to eating cows….haha. mad cow, bird flu, maybe I should learn to love the smoked dried fish…..ewwwww. it's really gross though……

Miss ya'll!

Oh! I went to a funeral on Saturday. Oh my dern, I need to write you all about it and I'm all tired now. Well, let's start by saying the woman died in October, and her body was on display at the funeral (yes, this past Saturday, MONTHS later) needless to say, the amount of makeup on her face was ridiculous, but I think there's a reason for that….do human bodies keep that long? Anyway, she was on display on a bed, that was in the center of a room with the casket against the wall at the foot of the bed and there were 4 women wailing around the room. I think that was their job, while a line of people walked around the bed. Very interesting. Next, everyone wears Black, or Black and rRed and my very good friend gave me some black cloth for Christmas and his mother sewed it for me, so here was an Obruni wearing Mourning cloth, lemme tell you how many people stared, it was unnerving, plus we all know I look like a ghost J Anyway, then the herse is sort of like a pope mobile……and it was painted purple! Chrissy, rich bitch purple! Haha and this chick was rich, but that's not the point……the point is you can see the casket through the glass….i'm having pics devolped so hopefully it came out….i used my SLR….( 30 min later and I still have not been able to see my inbox……3,000 cedis down the drain cuz of slow ass connection, haha,….that's one coke! Hahahahah, it's all good) Oh and it's funy in Ghana they have pictures sizes 5x7 or 3x5 hahah no 4x6……so I'm getting 3x5s cuz they're cheaper and then if there's any I want to enlarge, then I can, plus 3x5s will fit in my American photo album, 5x7s won't. J still no inbox, oh my……So when I started writing this letter, I had 100 minutes, now I have 44 min remaining and I still haven't been able to open my inbox. This is mad! Gmail is good mail but it takes longer to load than yahoo or hotmail, but it shouldn't take this much longer. Jesus………


over one hour....no gmail......hotmail not working either.....going to walk to another internet cafe, i'm vexed!

Kris


15th Feb,2006

So after I left the Buzzy Net cafe I tried two more internet cafe's and neither one was working! So I'm here again. Finally internet is working, but it's still somewhat slow. Happy Valentine's day (yesterday!) And I began to teach the P6 students "50 nifty united states" song, but I forgot a line, can you help me out?

50 nifty United States, from 13 original colonies
50 nifty stars on the flag that billow so beautifully in the breeze
each individual state contributes a quality that is great
(and i know there's some more lines here, but i just skip to the singing of the states in Alpha order)

So Erin, I know you learned the song in the 5th grade, I hope someone else has too.

Also, last nite was a culture shock experience with something so small as passing around photos! Who ever would have thought that there's cultural differences between shareing photos? But there is! and that's how i got shocked! YOu all know that in the states, when you get pics developed you look at them and then pass them to the next person, usually to your right, but it doesn't matter and then the last person in the circle gently puts the photo down and keeps it in order. Right? Well, i got doubles cuz i was going to give the photos as gifts to the people i took, and send a few home. and well, Nana Ama, Sapisco's sister (i'm very angry with her right now, very angry) she was trying to steal some of the pics of her and was making all the pics out of order. Not to mention that the children picked up the pile of doubles that i had set aside for me, so then all my pics were out of order. Now get this....Nana Ama comes over to my house only for Pure Water sachets (filtered water from a bag, you can get 30 for 6,000 cedis or pay 300 cedis for one) not something i'm fond of but i will not refuse water to anyone. Then she goes and I see that she's taken a few pics that i took of her, and I tell her she can keep those as her valentine's gift....not only does she laugh like it's not good enough she also tells me next time get the big size. See in Ghana you have two choices, 3x5 or 5x7......welll I wanted the pics to fit into my photo album and I figured the ones i really like i can blow up in the states. Plus i had three rolls of film to develop which cost 100,000 cedis and was giving her the pics for FREE when if you buy them from teh photographer in town he charges 6,000 for the big size! so you see how nice i am? TOo damn nice. Anyway, i was angry, and feeling taken advantage of and was taken agback by what happened with the sharing of the photos, so I started to cry and Sapisco was kind enough to let me cry on his shoulder, even though in Ghana that's unheard of. Usually when someone cries they just leave the person alone and tell them to stop crying, but luckily he's a good friend and understands that in my culture we like to give hugs when we cry :) And i talked with him about it this morning too. Ugh, I was even more pissed when I was sorting my pics last nite and realized Nana Ama took BOTH sets of the pics of her, and some other piucs that i don't remembe.r From the funeral roll, out of 24 i have 14 pictures! But that's the thing, people here steal all the time, even from there best friend, i don't understand. and me, miss little trust worthy, i got lots to learn.

Anyway, it upset me.

I hope you all had a wonderful valentine's day. I cooked shredded beef with green peppers....very good :) i actually enjoy beef again, scary eh?

Friday I'm going to Takoradi, Western Region to visit two PC friends :) Tim and Angela.

HUG

Kris