Obruni obruni!

Obruni means "foreigner" or "white person." We heard it a ton on Saturday when we went to two different markets--that and "white girls, white girls!!!" One of the markets is an outdoor shopping market that is incredibly beautiful and chaotic, but unlike anything I have ever been to in the US. I had gone one time before when I was here in March. There they have pretty much everything you could ever need at these little stands. They have fabric stands, cosmetic stands, electronic stands, little packaged food stands. The stands are in no logical order, just thrown next to each other, and a lot of them are similar. They're all crammed in this massive area, some in concrete buildings so they can be stacked on top of each other. There are about a zillion people wandering among them through these tiny little alleys, a lot of them balancing huge boxes or buckets on their heads. It's incredible to see, but can be somewhat overwhelming in the heat.

The other market is an art market that we also went to in March. It's filled with tons of souvenirs and beautiful crafts. There is a ton of jewelry and dresses and masks and wooden sculptures and wall hangings and just amazing things. You have to barter for everything here. The general rule of thumb I was taught is that you should always ask for half or less of what they ask for. That works sometimes, but on occasion they will try to really rip you off and ask for something like 80 cedis for two dresses. Then, you can sometimes get them down to 25 cedis or something similar. Must try not to be ripped off!

Yesterday was kind of a catch-up day. We all went to a brunch at a restaurant nearby. Then there was an optional trip to the beach. I had not slept very much, so I decided to stay home and sleep for three hours. It was fantastic. Then a whole group of us discovered we were really hungry and decided to sample some Chinese food from Accra! There is a place about a ten minute walk from here. We went and ordered and then sat and waited for literally an hour and a half for our food. Now, it was 12 people and apparently getting your food at restaurants takes much longer in Ghana than the US. But an hour and a half? We all started out chatty and bubbly, reading some tabloids from about 2006. After about a half hour, we started to get hungry, and you all know that hungry Maggie is not happy Maggie. That's how it seems to be with the rest of our group too. After what felt like forever, we got our food and came back to our house to eat it. The food was similar to Chinese food back home, but some of the flavors tasted slightly different. The egg rolls were a lot more doughy, but still delicious and wonderful. My life is apparently beginning to revolve around food.

When we were right outside of the Chinese place, this whole group of children ran up to us. Oh dear god, the children here are beau-ti-ful. They are so so so gorgeous and adorable. A little boy of no more than two waddled up to us and just kept waving and saying hi. Ahh. I may come home with an African baby...just kidding! But really.

Fun stuff: Our hot water heater sparked and started smoking while Whitney was showering. Because of this, we have no hot water. We could use other people's showers, but that would require taking all of our stuff to another house. So, we take cold showers. Really really short cold showers. It's actually not as bad as it sounds.

More on food: Yesterday, my friend Holley bought pineapple and my other friend Alex bought avocado from little street vendors. I don't think I need to reiterate how amazing the pineapple is, but ahhh it is so good. The avocado tasted different from avocado at home. It was really really rich, almost buttery. Oh it was so good.

I'm about to go get ready for my first class of the day: an African dance class at a local university! I actually will probably have to drop it, because it conflicts with my internship class on Tuesdays, but I'm at least going the first day to see how it is. It's going to be quite interesting--my dancing skills are rather sub-par to begin with, but I'm hoping that by some twist of fate I'm a natural at African traditional dance...Hopefully I'll get to meet some Ghanians too. Weeeee