At least one tender blogpost needs to be written....

Whenever people ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I struggle to put it into words because I don't even know what I want to do for sure-- all I know is that I want to help people, and I want to live around the world, is that too much to ask?


There is something, however, about going to a different continent that puts you on a path to self-discovery. I personally think it's all the rain that is washing away my muddy, unclear path into the clearly marked road which I should take.


THANK YOU MY DEAR AFRICA for you have shown me that way to my future.... and it is looking good. (Don't worry my dear Ghana, it looks like my future involves you).

DYING IN AFRICA

*cue dramatic music*
500am Wake up and the fever has returned. I assume I got chills throughout the night because I was wrapped up in my blanket in the morning. I got up anyways and read my scriptures.

730am Michelle and I arrive at the clinic just in time for the prayer meeting. We sit in the back of the meeting and I am overcome with tiredness. I lean forward, snot running down my nose (TMI I know but hey... it is what it is) and I close my eyes. Michelle leans forward and whispers that there is a place I can go lay down. I follow an older nurse into a room. Behind the partition is a stretcher type of bed. "Medaase" I say and ask "Wodindesen?" The nurse replies, "Alice" and it clicks that this is the famous AUNTIE ALICE that I had heard so much about. I lay down and a couple of seconds later she comes in with a blanket. She then comes in again to take my temperature from my armpit and then my bloodpressure (my pulse was 76... not bad for a dying person). Seriously, my eyes were SOOOO TIRED! There is some commotion and I open my eyes to Auntie Alice, Hannah and Nancy (two nurses) and a man in a white shirt who comes up to me and feels my temperature. He asks some questions and then Auntie Alice tells me she is showing me to a ward. Michelle follows suite.

838am: I am laying in the ward, got the chills again and Timothy walks in. He is carrying a needle, tape, a cottonball and a teal elastic strip. He has come to draw my blood-- he does a remarkable job-- even better than some of the Red Cross people who draw my blood at home (no offense but Timothy didn't even have to draw the lines for where my vein was!)

What my symptoms are right now? Teeth hurt, headache, eyes heavy, cold, stomach hurts like I'm hungry, sneezing, fever

900am Comfort and Gladys, two other nurses, come in to check on me... they are all SO nice. I don't even really know them but they had to come check on the Obruni Sister who is sick!

915am the doctor comes in and asks for my symptoms, I tell him and he writes it all down in a folder entitled "Patient Information"

930am Doctor: *is about halfway in the room walking* "You have malaria"
Corrine: 'You think so?"
Michelle/Deidre: "It's probably what the lab says Corrine"
Doctor: "Yes, you have it"
Corrine: *smile creeping in* "Oh okay"

Doctor leaves. Corrine rejoices. Doctor comes back in a few minutes later.

Corrine: "Oh. You are giving me a shot. Where?"
Doctor: "Your thigh"

I hike up the left leg of my shorts.... He slaps it a couple of times and then BAM! THE WORST PAIN OF MY LIFE GOES RIGHT INTO MY THIGH!!!!!! I just lean over and say "OH, OH, OOOOOHHHHHHH". The male nurse is smiling and the doctor just says "Sorry, I'm sorry" He finishes and rubs my thigh to help it. He is done and the end.

I get my bag of medicine and then by 1000am Michelle and I are heading back to our house to make lunch.

Across the Atlantic they talk different

Announcement #1: I have done it! I have become black! Okay, so it is more lke red... from a sunburn.... but hopefully when the red fades my skin will be one shade closer to the beautiful brown of Ghanaians. :)
Now, their skin isn't the only thing I love about Ghanaians, I also love the way they say things. You know, each culture has its own diction, and I find it fascinating (linguistic anthropology is something I've thought about but I don't think I'll do). So this blog post is dedicated to...

GHANAIAN DICTION.... and the translations of course!
"TAKING food" = eating food.
example. "you have had fu-fu?"
"yes, we have"
"how do you take it?"
"we normally take it with groundnut soup"
"GOOD LUCK" = god bless you
example. "AH-CHOO!"
"good luck"
"the rain was HEAVY" = it rained very hard
example. "Madame, that storm last night was really bad no?"
"Yes, the rain was very heavy"
"WHY" comes at the end of the question
example. Scene: Deidre, Michelle and I dancing in the rain. Matilda walks in.
"You are dancing in the rain. Why?"

Some common words and their meanings:
twi english word= american word

trousers= long pants
pants= underwear
knickers= shorts
biscuits= crackers

..... in other words, think BRITISH english. In fact, they sometimes don't even understand what I'm saying simply because of my American accent (and they say things more with a British accent).

Example. "What are you studying?"
"Oh, I'm studying dance (daaance)"
"What?"
"Dance" (again spoken with the harsh, more nasaly 'a')
"Write it for me...... *I write it down*..... Oh! Dawhnce" (spoken with the soft sophisticated British 'a')

Some things you don't say because they don't translate:
"when I was FLYING here....." = I don't remember what it means but it doesn't mean flying.
"I have a BOYFRIEND....." = It's a bit more scandolous than the American term, if you catch my drift


Announcement #2: We are almost HALF WAY DONE! Why doesn't someone just rip my heart out! This is all going WAY too fast but oh well. My project has taken a turn for the political side of things (maybe I really should have just been a Political Science Major). As I was having a discussion/informal interview with Michael and his cousin Ernest:

Michael: Michael is 23, well, he says he is but his birthday is in October :) He is going to a college in Kumasi to become a teacher. He knew RACHEL (shoutout to my girl) from last year so I guess he heard about me or something becaues he came knocking on Madame's door. His favorite country is Sweden and he loves kung-fu movies.

Ernest: Michael's 19 yr old cousin who.... actually, I'm not sure what he does. I think he stays here in Wiamoase, since he only recently graduated from school. He's kind of quite, with a gap between his two front teeth but he loves talking politics it seems.

Anyhoo, I was talking with these two gentlemen about Ghanaian politics and it seems a very interesting topic-- with a lot of meat there to dig around (especially since elections for President are next year)

Ghanaian Politics: It is very similar to American politics in a lot of ways actually. They elect their President every four years; they have four poilitcal parties but two are the main ones (NPP and NDC) which are always butting heads; they have a woman entering the race this year-- the wife of former President JJ Rawlings (sound familiar?).... Pretty cool no?

So my project is taking a turn towards that arena, instead of the dancing arena but DO NO WORRY MY FRIENDS, I'll still be learning the dance and it seems to be a great bonding tool to use... when there is music, start dancing and people love it!

PICTURE TIME!!!

June 3rd was a day for scientific history! We, the three 'obruni sisters' in Ghana realized why ants are sooooo ruthless-- they have the "small man syndrome" aka "the napolean complex". See Exhibit A: these tiny ants started attacking this huge flying bug... while it was still alive... yeah.... ruthless.



Passing a Primary School on my way home from the Secondary School. I couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture of all the kids lining up shouting at me!











Main street, Wiamaose. This is the road we take to get into the main part of town, to walk home from the school I'm at, to really do anything.... isn't is beautiful?!



We attended a funeral just this Thursday. As we were sitting down with the other church members, a woman came around (to shake hands, which is customary). She pointed to us in the back and said something. A member turned around and said "she wants you to dance with her!" WHAT?!? The music soon started up again and sure enough, we got up to dance... as requested and she came over to dance with us... she is the one with her back turned to the camera.




Michelle, Madame Esther, Deidre












from left to right: Michelle, Deidre, me. special guest: Deidre's braids starring as our mustaches. :)

:: Me soaked in water from attempting to carry that huge bucket (I promise you it was A TON of water!) on my head. I did it...... but it think it might be best to start smaller and work my way up dontcha think?

Hope you enjoyed those pictures!! I promise I'm working hard on my project--> I'll be heading to the Cultural Center here in Kumasi right after posting this blog so I can learn more about the traditional dances and make some headway on that! Someone even told me they could teach me the dances there... oh joy!!!

May 18th

D: "Oh please don't shave your hair!"

M: I won't, cause I want to see how long it can get. "It's a love/hate... curious/hate relationship" I have with my leg hair.

Update: All three of us are still holding out with the shaving contest-- Michelle wins for longest leg hair, Deidre is in second and I'm in third (but I swear it is only because a lot of my hair is blond so you cannot see it). One thing I'm coming to LOVE about Ghana is the rain.... "I miss the rain down in Aaaaa-frica....... I don't know the rest of the song.....". It has rained 8 out of the 14 days we have been here, and I am loving it. The sound of the rain tinkling on the tin-roof, or the sound of the rain hitting the inside of the buckets we put out to catch the rainfall; or how it cools the temperature down magically; or how everything becomes quiet, even the roosters stop crowing.

--------- WEEKLY UPDATE------------- CORRINE'S SENIOR PROJECT------------------

So I'm in Africa to study dance right? Well, it is all turning out to be somewhat different than what I imagined-- not in a bad way though. My bishop (or church leader over my congregation) back in Utah gave me words of advice before I left. One thing he promised me, no doubt inspired by God, was that the hiccups and bumps I meet along the way will be for the better. I keep reminding myself of that as I try to get my game plan situated for my project. I've been thinking a lot about going to Kumasi and visiting the university there-- to talk with their "cultural studies" people about dance-- good idea or bad? What do you think? I think it is worth a shot... particularly since, according to Esther, they don't teach dancing here in the schools.

Besides that, I am learning a lot about what it means to be an ethnographer, and how to go about actually documenting my experience here.

ethnographer: I think it depends on who you ask what this actually means but from my understanding-- it is what you call a person doing field research (basically, it is what an anthropologist is called when actually doing research... and anyone who isn't technically an anthropologist can be called this as well). Here are several other definitions from a book I've been reading, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, of what an ethnographer actually does:

a. "the ethnographer seeks a deeper immersion in others' worlds"

b. "anthropologists [and/or ethnographers] are those who write things down at the end of the day"

c. my personal favorite::: "the ethnographer's task is to write description that leads to an empathetic understanding of the social worlds of others"

May 14th

So to send our emails and do some shopping, we had to go to... *dun, dun, dunnnnnn* KUMASI!

Kumasi: The second largest city in Ghana, and is crazy to navigate. Just picture New York City, with vendors selling shoes, clothes and sunglasses; only here, you got to add locks, floor tile and fabric as common things to be selling. Kumasi is known for its large outdoor market that is called the Kejetia Market.

**** All in all, we liked Kumasi better this time around. But the reason I'm writing is to tell you a story- an experience we had there. Here it goes:

After emailing, Michelle, Deidre and I headed to the Opoku Trading Market to buy some supplies for our Nut Soup Esther is making us tomorrow. (Ps. This soup is A-MAH-ZING and we get to eat it with fu-fu.....)

fu-fu: I think that is how you spell it. You make it by cooking plantains and casava, mashing it up in a bowl by pounding it with a stick. Once they are all mashed up, one person continues pounding while another person folds the dough over and over until it is done. It is a beautiful thing, the rhythm of it all. I really like foo-foo but my body can only handle so much starch! It is not Michelle and Deidre's favorite thing about Ghana.

**** Anyhoo, we were on our way to the market, in fact, right across the street from it, when we came across a woman selling peanuts and what looked like peanut butter. We asked her how much it was- "5 cedi, 50 pesewa". "Um...," Michelle said, "That is kind of a lot... We are going to the store so we will check there first and then come back". The woman raised her voice, stood up and said, not in a harsh way mind you but firm... definitely firm "Not the market! This is better quality! This is very very good quality!" She then grabs one of the containers, twists off the top and points the lid towards us so we can have a taste. We all "oh and 'yum'" our way through the pinkie-swip of peanut butter that we have in our mouths and again tell her that we don't really need it so if we have money left over, we will think about buying some.

We do our shopping at the market, only to realize that we really do need the nut paste so off we go, heading back in the direction of this woman so we can see if we can get it for cheaper (we really like trying our hand at bartering with the vendors-- well, Michelle and Deidre do. If you know me, then you'd know how terribly bad I would be at that). We say hello to her and we tell her that indeed we want to buy some peanut butter. She asks us where we are from, we say "America" and that was a magic word or something because she went off saying things like "oh America, we like America!"

"America is good, good, good, good, good" (To which we respond "No, Ghana is good, good, good, good".... They liked that)

"America, and Ghana, and Britain.. the same mother and father", clasping her hands together in unity. She repeated this sentence in different variety probably four or five times.

"We like America, and Ghana, and Britain"

"Not France" shaking her head in a negative way

**** We shook our heads in agreement, even with the French comment (and I swear... I like the French... it just seemed like we needed to agree with her) :) Overall, she was animated and quite enjoyable to talk with (I'm soooo sad I can't remember her name). However, the conversation drifted back to the peanut butter.... we tried bartering and she wouldn't budge. She insisted that it was worth GHC 5 (that is how they write their money, it just means 5 Ghana cedi) because it was such good quality. I think to help prove her point even more, she gives us each a handful of her peanuts,,, they were really really good. Thanks to Michelle, we wouldn't budge either till finally she said we could get an even smaller one for GHC 3 and 50 pesewa. Deal! She found a smaller container, added the peanut butter and then we parted ways. The end.

MAY 13th

May 13th:

So I realized tonight that I might want to explain who the KEY PLAYERS are in my life right now (those in Ghana) so when I talk about them, you can picture them in your head.

Me: My name is Corrine. I'm 23 yrs old, from North Carolina and am an Anthropology Major at BYU. I have a buzzed head (pretty awesome... I know), wear skirts everyday since I've been in Africa, and haven't shaved in eight days.

Diedre: She is 21 yrs old, from Idaho and is a Public Health Major at BYU. She is uber cute, has light brown hair that is always in a ponytail and one of her favorite things to talk about is food. Deidre also has not shaved in eight days.

Michelle: She is 24 yrs old, and definitely the mother of the group. She is from St. Louis and is a Geography major. Her hair is brown and almost to her shoulders but you wouldn't be able to see it because she is always wearing this "I'm headed to the beach" looking hat that she wears all the time. Michelle loves to schedule things and has a really cute laugh. She hasn't shaved in eight days either.

**** Us three lovely ladies who decided it would be a good idea to spend the summer in GHANA, also decided to see who could go the longest without shaving- hence that detail added at the end of each bio. (Don't worry-- I'll be sure to keep you updated on that status as the summe progresses.... it looks like Michelle might be caving already!) Besides having shaving contests, eating baked ground nuts, and doing our laundry by hand, we ALSO will be studying the people and learning more about the culture. Me, I'm studying dance; Deidre is studying maternal health; Michelle is studying the health clinic and its self- sustainability. Where in exactly in Ghana will we be doing all of this fun stuff? We are residing in a town called WIAMOSE.

Wiamose: This lovely town, roughly seven hours from Accra, is both charming and steep. (I'm telling you... it is going to take me all summer to be able to run up the hill that goes into town... it's so long... and steep!) This town has around 11,000 people and everyone is so nice... They have just about everything here-- a health clinic, several schools, a market place, and even your normal assortment of churches to choose from! They speak Twi here and laugh everytime we say what little Twi we know.

*** I think we are really going to like it here. All the children run up the street when they see us, in their school uniforms which I swear makes them a million times more cute, shouting "obruni, obruni" (which means "white person" in Twi) and saying "how are you?". We reply and then they run off. So cute! In the town of Wiamoase, there is a lovely woman named Esther who lets us rent two rooms in her home.

Esther: She is our host mother. She has medium-length brown hair with golden highlights and bangs. She is always wearing beautiful dresses and greets us every night with a smile. She is one of the busiest women I know--she is up every morning at 5:30am cleaning, or cooking, or doing laundry. From there, she leaves to go teach at the secondary school all day and is back by 5:30 or sometimes 6:00pm. She is one of the nicest women I know-- always thinking of others (particularly me, Deidre, and Michelle) and will cook us food, when we don't have any, no matter how tired she is!

**** Already we have come to LOVE Esther and rely on her like she is our mother-- in a lot of ways, she will always have a place in our hearts as such. So this blog is dedicated to the journey of my summer in Ghana and because tomorrow (our EIGHTTH day in Ghana) will be our first day at the INTERNET CAFE, and it'll probably just be a weekly thing so enjoy..... the adventures have only just begun. And please, I know you are all dying to see who shaves first!