Humie's Questions

So I want to start by saying Go Gators, and go Mom for recording and sending me the UF games. I'm not looking at scores online, or talking to anyone who wuld know them, I'm removing myself from the up-to-date media and watching the games for the first time 2-3 weeks late. (It's very hard to do, please dont ruin it and send me an email or txt with updates...)

Just saw my first one last week and it was freakin awesome to see some good American sports again. Thanks mom, it was amazing.

mk prtr I'm glad you are appreciating the posts... I actually had no idea you were reading my quasi-adventure here.. and as my mom said, I'm enjoying NCAA football, although a bit delayed..

As for whoever "anonymous" is that posted the link to the Tesla Re-Invented article, that's freakin awesome! 100 years later someone is finally picking up again on the idea. The article is here http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/02/wireless.electricity/index.html
and if you didn't read my post on Tesla you can find it here http://guillermoinghana.blogspot.com/2009/07/nikola-tesla.html

OK so now to the main event: About 2 months ago I got a letter from Humie. It was a great letter and had lots of great questions. I thought instead of just replying to her, you all might enjoy to know the answers as well... here goes...

1)"What's the drink of choice there?"
There are many different drinks that people have in Ghana depending on the situation and region of the country. I'll summarize a few:

Palm Wine- Essentially you knock over a palm tree and leave it laying on it's side for a week. During that time the water inside will ferment. You then drill a hole in it and collect all of the juice into a bucket below. This comes out as a sweet nectar type alcoholic drink

Apateche- Is essentially Ghanaian moonshine. It's also made from palm trees and it's distilled several times. It tastes like gasoline and is incredibly strong. However, shots of it only cost 5 pesewas (roughly 3 cents) and it has led to some of our more interesting nights out. As I have said many times before "I mean, when $1 worth can hospitalize you... you know it's a dangerous drink."

Beer- There are many different beers here, Star, Gulder, Stone, Castle, Club and more that I cant think of at the moment. They range from light to dark and are 1.5cedis (about $1.00) each for a 40oz. I heard it rumored somewhere that Ghana had the first brewery in Africa... not sure if that's true...

Pito- A local home-made beer style drink.. never tried it... you can drink it hot or chilled.

Various refreshments- There are an assortment of other drinks I dont know the names for, which are non-alcoholic. A preferred style of drink-making in Ghana seems to be spicy drinks, which I just can't get used to. There's one drink that uses ginger and it has quite a spicy kick. Also you can get "minerals" (sodas) of all kinds here... fanta (in like 3 diff flavors), coke, sprite etc.

2) "How often are you at school? (Mr. G.) haha"- I teach every day at my JHS. Tuesdays are my lightest day, I only teach for 70 minutes (one 2 block class). Wednesdays are my heaviest load, I teach all day from 8:00AM-2:00PM. It's exhausting, and I actually teach all of my classes that day.. Form 1-3 science and form 2 math.

3) "Do you travel to the main city for internet or did you bring a laptop?"- I didn't bring a laptop with me. To go online I use the TSO (Tamale Sub-Office) in, you guessed it, Tamale. I only come here every few weeks and that's why my replies to emails and things have been delayed. A reminder for people who are new to the blog, I write entries by hand into my journal, and every few weeks I transfer them online here.

4)"What do people do for fun?"- Card games are very popular here. Although they don't play any games that we play in the US. Their decks here use only the cards 6-K. "Draft" is also a popular game here, it's a game almost exactly like checkers. There's also an array of board games that people play, as well as a version of mancalla (sp?). Futbol is obviously very big here and people play that a lot as well.

5)"Is there a TV?"- Yes. The country has televisions. However a lot of people don't have electricity so they don't buy them. Mr. Bubu and some of my other counterparts have televisions, I don't plan on buying one though...

6)"Are there any redheads?"- Sounds like a retarded question. But actually I've seen a few black people who's hair is a blonde/red color. I'd never seen it before Ghana but, yes, there are black redheads here...

7) "Let me know if you want me to send you anything"- I would love to get some more packages... I've been hurting in the package department... I think I'll make a wish list and put it in the column of the right of my blog...

8)"Any pretty flowers there?"- I have seen some very nice flowers, but have been more impressed with the butterflies that fly between them. I have seen some gorgeous butterflies here and taken pictures of several. When my memory stick is working right again I'll dedicate a post to my butterfly pictures. Oh, and to chicks in bikinis too... (gotta keep up my street 'cred)

9)"How do people get married?"- Marriage here is about the same as in the states, with a ceremony and whatnot. The main difference is that in the north where I live, due to the heavy Muslim influence it is acceptable to have multiple wives. The Koran states that a man can have up to 4 wives, as long as he can financially sustain all of them, and love all of them equally. Some people practice polygamy, and some like Mr. Bubu and Suf our language teacher choose to have only one wife. The traditional setting of multi-wives is a central small house with a ring around it of other tiny houses. Each wife gets her own little house surrounding the man's inner one. Don't get me wrong, I love women, but why you would intentionally choose to have more than one wife is beyond me...one seems like plenty work enough...

10)"Do you teach in English or Dagbani?"- English is the official language in Ghana for education and business. There are over 70 language spoken here but once kids leave the primary (elementary school) all of their classes are taught in English. There are still challenges though since the Form 1 kids just out of primary aren't good with English yet, and the Ghanaians have a different accent and tonation they use when talking. Also if the kids are totally lost, local teachers can give them a nudge in Dagbani to help... I dont have that benefit...

11)"Do you think this trip will change you? <--Dumb Q, lol"- Not a dumb question at all.. I feel in certain ways it already has changed me. It's incredible what you start learning and remembering about yourself with so much free time to just think. I've been doing a lot of reading, writing, and just thinking lately. It's a welcome relief from the US grind so many of us fall into. The challenge will be to see what else I will discover here, and how much of it I can bring back with me when I'm in the US culture dominated by time again.

12)"Are the mosquitoes as populated as the ones in Alaska?"- Holy shit the mosquitoes.. there's so freakin many of them here... and it's funny how supply and demand works even in education. Mosquitoes and Malaria are such a big problem here that an entire unit in my Form 3 science class is dedicated to the life cycle of the mosquito, and control methods. Combine 1,000 bites with the fact that I think I've become vitamin deficient, and my stubbornness to refuse to leave the bites alone, and you get a lot of infected mosquito bites. Not fun.

So that's the last one. Awesome questions that I don't think I'd quite answered before... if anyone else has any others let me know I'd be happy to answer them.

Please send me letters and packages :( I'll write my wish-list now and put it on the right under my address :)

-Guillermo