A New Home

We’ve just moved into our homestays, and I am excited and scared. My host family seems really nice. I’m really getting along well with my host siblings, who are helping to teach me Twi. This is especially important because my host mother and father don’t speak very much English. This may prove to be problematic later on, but we’ll see. As far as I can tell, there are five children living in this house with us, but I’m not entirely sure. Nana is the youngest, and he’s probably around one or two. The next one is Felix (pronounced Fellix) who’s probably around ten or eleven. Then there’s Gideon, whom my roommate and I are not entirely sure lives in this house. He eats with us and always seems to be around, but sometimes he gets called away by other community members and doesn’t come back for extended periods. Anyways, he told me he was fifteen, but he looks about twelve or thirteen. He’s in Junior Secondary II, equivalent to eighth grade for us. Then there’s Benedicta, shortened to Bene, who’s probably about fourteen, and Mary who goes to work most days, though I don’t know where, and looks to be sixteen or seventeen.

I’m paired up with another girl from my program, Katie, and our room is blue. We have our own bathroom in our room, which consists of a toilet and a bucket shower area. The whole thing is maybe six feet long and three feet wide, but it is very clean, and there is a big vat of water for us to fill our bucket with right outside. I am happy. They have been feeding us mostly semi-familiar food. For instance, the first night we got here we had rice and ramen noodles and chicken in a mildly spicy red sauce, that I can only guess is tomato based. We’ve since had oatmeal and porridge (which is kind of like cream of wheat but made from maize) yams and fish in a spicy red sauce with shredded vegetables in it, and groundnut (peanut) soup with rice balls. We helped “drive” the rice for the rice balls: a process that involves mashing the rice into a paste with a wooden paddle, in a pot that is tilted and braced by iron rods that hook onto the handles of the pot. Whoever is driving then plants their feet on the rods to steady the pot while they mash the rice, which is a rather violent and rigorous process, I found. The paste is then rolled around in a damp bowl until it forms a lump of similar size and shape to the fufu that we've had, and it is consumed in the same manner.

When I asked to help make dinner today, my host mother said that on the weekend she would take us to the market to get ingredients and then together we would cook dinner. I am very excited. I don’t know what we’ll make, but if it’s anything like the rice balls today, it will be an adventure. I told her that one day I would get the ingredients and make spaghetti. I think I’ll be able to get everything I need for it. I might have to crush the tomatoes myself, and I don’t know what the situation for garlic and spices will be, but I know that pasta and tomatoes and onions are available here, so I’ll figure out the rest as I go. There’s a western style grocery store not far from my house that I’ll check out and try to compile the ingredients. I don’t know when I’ll do that though, because after class I’ve been pretty busy with homework and socializing. The workload hasn’t been too bad yet, but I have six assignments to complete in the next two months, plus a very sizable stack of readings, and the October exams feel like they’re just around the corner. Still, I’m determined to make time to hang out with my host family and make the most of this experience.

On our first day, we went out to the community sports pitch after dinner and played volleyball (kind of) with a bunch of the kids there. There were a few young men around our age who seemed to be leading the activity, and a bunch of girls around 14-20, and a few boys that were mostly younger. I was actually pretty good, and it was a lot of fun. Katie did her best, and it was hilarious, but she had fun too. Mostly our evening activities with the family involve little Twi teaching sessions with various family members. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I think I’m actually starting to pick things up.

Our walk to school is pretty treacherous. We technically don't have to take the dangerous route by the open gutter (that I think used to be a natural waterway, and now provides food for many of the neighbourhood chickens) but it shaves about 10 minutes off our already 35 minute long walk to school, and our host family would judge us if we took the long way.

At first I was kind of nervous about this living situation, just because communication with my host family might be really hard, but at the same time Katie and I are learning more Twi, and faster, than just about anyone else. Maybe we’ll actually be able to speak more than just a few words in every few sentences.

There’s always more to say, but I think I’ll cut it short for now. I still have a lot of reading to do for tomorrow. On Friday we have a field trip to the Eastern Region, so I’m sure there will be lots to say about that. As always, I’ll keep you posted.