I like your structure.

The last few days have been quite a whirlwind of little experiences. On Friday we went to the market again to buy fabric. Friday night we dropped off some of our newest purchases at Marjorie's for more clothes! These dresses--they're getting to be a bit addictive...we must be careful.

Yesterday was a very relaxing day. Whitney, Holley and I stayed in and watched three movies--yes three. I know many of you may be shocked to hear that, considering I do not watch many movies in general, but it was definitely a necessary step to recuperating from the craziness that has been the past two weeks. I got a little antsy in the middle of the second one, so I went for a walk to buy more phone credit. About 10 feet into my walk, two ladies came up to me and started talking. One of them lives two houses over and is named Jillian (I think). The other had a baby strapped to her back and is named Barbara. Note about babies: women here use cloth to literally strap their babies to their backs. I'll have to show a picture at some point. The women I met were telling me that they don't like the way that we carry babies at home--people here would say you are hurting the baby. They like to have their children strapped to their back to keep their hands free to work. It's really cute.

Anyways, Jillian told me she would really like to have me as a friend and that she liked my "structure". When I obviously didn't understand what that meant, she said she liked my height (I've heard that a lot since being here). Throughout the whole conversation she was saying at random times that she liked my structure--it was quite amusing. She started walking with me down to the little shops down the street. She apparently works in a Russian man's house and lives there with her three children. She introduced me to her mom and sister who both work at little stands. She told me I have to come back and buy something from her mom when I need food. I also met her sister's children, 5 year old twins named Prince and Princess. They were so cute! A few other little kids were playing a game in the dirt and looked up and laughed at us, pointing and calling me "Obruni!" I couldn't tell if they were making fun of me, but they were really cute.

We walked back and stopped at Jillian's house. She called all her kids out to meet me, two boys of 2 and 7 and a girl of 5. The girl's name is Porschia. She was adorable too! Jillian worked on teaching me Twi and random things about the culture. She wants me to stop by sometime soon to say hi, so I think I'll go by tomorrow. It was a really cool experience to feel a little more immersed in life here.

Today, Holley, Whit and I went to this incredible incredible INCREDIBLE smoothie shop called "Smoothy's." Whitney was not a fan because she doesn't like fruit, but I'm pretty sure I'll be getting smoothies there daily. I don't remember exactly which fruit was in mine, but there are some 30 something combinations and the three we tried today were just delicious. I'm going to try all combinations this semester. I'm officially obsessed.

Then we wandered around Osu, the center of Accra, for several hours. We saw a ton of little kids there too. One little girl ran up, grabbed my hand, and just walked with us. The kids were all so excited to see three tall white girls wandering their streets. The area we were wandering was not as affluent as where I live. It's hard to describe what it looked like, but there were just tons of little shops, people's homes with their clothes hanging on the clothes line out back, chickens and dogs wandering the streets...it was really colorful. There were not a ton of people around, but it seems like most places around here shut down on Sundays, so that was not surprising. It was another really great adventure in just seeing some more of the culture around here.

Tomorrow is week two of classes. I still have some reading to do for Global Connections (the reading has not been very interesting so far, but it's all intro stuff) but I did my Twi earlier. I'm excited to keep picking up more of it! People laugh when I try to say things, but oh well. Eventually I may start to blend in!

Psh, yeah right. But that's okay. Sometimes it is fun being an obruni!