Simon says....

These past few days have been sooo much fun. In Twi class on Monday my teacher brought us groundnut cakes, which tasted exactly like peanut brittle with more peanuts and less caramel. yummm..

Tuesday was the end of Ramadan, which is a national holiday so we got off from school. Yay!! It was an incredibly relaxing day. I woke up early and alternated all day between doing laundry (by hand!) and sunbathing on this 2nd floor balcony of our hostel. It's really big and gets a ton of sun so Emily, Holly and I laid out and listened to music on Emily's computer. We definitely had quite a lot of Ashesi students watching us, laughing at our obroni selves. We just kept telling them that we're trying to get rid of our obroni-ness. After doing that for a few hours (only an hour outside), I watched Freaks and Geeks on Emily's computer for wayy too long. It's become one of my new favorite shows. Thankfully there is only one season so it won't distract me for too long. Tuesday night a bunch of us cooked dinner and watched a few episodes of Freaks and Geeks. Then Holly and I decided to have an impromptu dance party after a few people left so we blasted music and grabbed Busola (my Nigerian roommate) from the room and made her dance with us around the living room. We live in the middle apartment on the third floor by the stairs so we definitely had a bunch of people walking by laughing at us. It was really fun. Pop, rap, oldies, country - all were good enough for karaoke and silly white girl dancing. Good times.

Today was the best. In my Leadership Seminar we took a field trip to this school about 30-45 minutes away. We all split up into various groups depending on what we wanted to be involved in. I joined the teaching group and ended up teaching some 3rd graders math and science for a couple of hours. They were soooo adorable and so sweet. It was so much fun. The school system is quite a bit different here. Three of us walked in to what I thought would be observing, but the teacher gave us some chalk, had us introduce ourselves and told us to get started. He didn't offer us a workbook until after we told him that we had no idea what level they were and what they had learned so far. The kids were so smart though. Everything we came up with to question them on, they knew the basics of. Multiplication tables, fractions, division, bones, taste buds, etc. Evelyn and I brought the game of Simon Says to Ghana. We played Simon Says with them a few times to help them review their different body parts. It also helped in getting them to be quiet and sit down. An Ashesi guy, Nii, came in later on and helped us too. We took a field trip outside to observe the different animals around us and whether or not they were herbivores, carnivores, omnivores. The children were absolutely adorable. I just loved it.

Tidbit of the day: the way people pronounce their English here is the British way. For example, Americans pronounce water without enunciating the t. Ghanaians and Africans in general pronounce the t in all words like that: water, bottle, etc. I had a guy make a comment on my American English when buying water sachets today.

Love from Accra!!