Saturday, September 27, 2008
All Kinds of Visitors
Dear Everyone,
For dinner last night, I had tomatoes, beef, and cheese spread on tortillas. As I was thinking about how absolutely fantastic it was, I also thought about how it was totally worth the three hours it took to prepare. But then I realized it actually took longer than three hours. The tortillas alone took two and a half hours to roll out and cook, and that with two people working steadily. The cheese spread came from an ethnic store in Tamale. The tomatoes came from the Market in our village. Sarah bought the beef in the village last week and pressure cooked it into a form chewable by human teeth. And then we made tortillas for three hours.
I spent the last two weeks in Tamale, first at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS) for an introduction to Ghanaian culture class, and then at Missionary Ali’s house for a teacher/teacher conference.
The TICCS course was fabulous. My class had 20 students: 18 Roman Catholic clergy members, one anthropology student, and me. We spent the mornings in class discussing cultural differences—delightful, especially since we were from 9 different countries (students from America, Poland, Brazil, Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Bulgaria, and India, and teachers from Ghana, naturally). We spent the afternoons on fieldtrips in Tamale—to see cloth being woven, pots made from clay, and animal skins turned into leather belts; to meet the chief in Tamale; to see a traditional African diviner; and to drink pito. It was huge fun, and I liked all of my classmates and teachers immensely. TICCS is such a caring place. The Guy From Ethiopia mentioned Ethiopian New Year (which was September 11th), so of course we all gave him New Year’s greetings at breakfast. But the TICCS director found out about it, and he had a cake served after supper, at which point all the Indians led us in a heartfelt chorus of Happy New Year to You—to the tune of Happy Birthday and in about 7 different keys. The Guy From Ethiopia had been looking a little homesick, as if he was missing a holiday and his mother’s cooking, but after cake and Happy New Year to You, he looked more like his holiday had been properly acknowledged.
Missionary Ali and I enjoyed incredible productivity during my week at her house. We went over the plans for Karissa’s fourth grade education, which has somewhat begun but will begin in earnest on Wednesday. We also did some shopping and some baking and tried our hand at potty training Hannah Ali’s Firstborn, all with encouraging if limited results. We also saw a seamstress and were measured for suits; I have high hopes that I might attend classy events (church, for example) more appropriately dressed in the future.
I returned to Nasuan with Nathan and his parents, Grammy and Poppa, who had spent the week in Accra. Grammy and Poppa were the first and most beloved of this week’s visitors, and they were the inspiration for exciting activities such as a treasure hunt, sing along night, and a poetry reading.
Our second arrival is the inspiration for my prayers of thanksgiving to Jesus for his gift of a ferocious attack kitten. Bernice the Cat arrived Monday, courtesy of Missionary Valerie and Family. Karissa and I spent hours pouring over the girl section of Sarah’s name-your-baby book before settling on “Bernice,” which means “bringer of victory.” That meaning, I believe, may be Bernice’s only consolation, as it turns out he is a boy kitty. Who knew? I mean, I investigated, sure, and I was 95% sure he was a girl when we named him. But the next morning he was attacking his Happy Face Sponge (a gift from Karissa) with unprecedented vigor, and from that angle he suddenly looked a lot less feminine, my certainty dropping to 45%. Karissa promptly took him to the Good Guard Abulai for a definitive answer, and, well, there you have it. A boy kitty named Bernice. He is fortunate to have also been given the nickname “Berni,” which sounds a little more masculine (regardless of on which side of the name book we found it).
Aside from our gender and naming issues, Bernice and I are getting along fine. I’m busily learning what cats eat when they’re too little to hunt in a world without cat food (this morning, he had eggs), and Bernice is diligently trying to learn the house rules: 1. Pee in the sandbox, and 2. Don’t bite my feet. He is much better with rule one, which will hopefully change to “Pee EXCLUSIVELY in the sandbox” in the near future. Eventually, we will add 3. Go outside, and 4. Kill mice, but for now we are taking baby steps.
Despite Bernice’s arrival, and bringing us to the end of this week’s list of visitors, this week’s Mouse Count is two. Sadly, only one died politely in the trap. Also sadly, this means you get to hear about the other one. I was in the shower. As I reached out to turn on the water, my right foot descended on something warm and soft and wriggly. My bathroom light does not penetrate the depths of my shower, see, so how was I to know what awaited me? More bad news, the Stepstool of Doom was in the kitchen. I threw on my towel, bolted into the kitchen, and returned wielding my Stepstool toward the vile fiend. Half-maimed and squealing, Shower Mouse maneuvered himself into the corner between shower wall and floor, where my stepstool could not fit to pursue. I returned to the kitchen for the broom, with which I swished Shower Mouse out into the open, switching back to Stepstool to finish the job. Highly traumatized (my foot touched a mouse body, and I was naked), I re-dressed in my dirty clothes and went to the Esalas’ house for cleaning cloths and pity. I related my tale of woe to Sarah, Grammy, and Poppa, who responded with all appropriate horror and sympathy. A major downside to killing Shower Mouse in the dark depths of the shower is that I couldn’t see to tell when the job was finished and so kept bludgeoning away—throwing in a few extra hits just to be sure. Thus, when I did go in with a flashlight and cleaning supplies, my recent victory proved far grizzlier than those past.
Today’s Suggested Prayer Topics are:
1. Everybody is always traveling. This time, The Esalas Limited are taking Grammy and Poppa to Tamale, as they are returning to America this week (possibly on Monday). At the end of October, I will also be traveling to America.
2. Everybody is always at risk for malaria. Since our internet access is so limited, I can’t generally tell you when people are actually sick, so I’m suggesting you just pray for everybody all the time. In the past few weeks, Sarah and Karissa both had malaria, and both are fine now. Nathan and Karissa had some kind of fever before that (Esala Fever, if you will. Sarah narrowed their illness down to about four fevers, all of which have the same treatment: Treat for malaria just in case, then just be sick until you feel better), and they also have recovered from that. Annaka doesn’t feel well today, so she’s being treated for malaria too (again, just in case). Aili and I, as far as I know, are still feeling pretty good.
3. And thank you, Jesus, for my cat.
Christina
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Happy Accident of My Amazing Bathroom
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Happy Accident of My Amazing Bathroom
Dear Everyone,
This week’s mouse count is 1. He died in the trap, as is only good and proper. After several direct hits with poisoned bug spray, Toilet Spider remains alive and thriving. And that’s it for dead animal news.
I successfully painted my little house. It’s amazing how happy paint makes me. I got white, red, and yellow paint in Tamale with the goal of painting my living room peach, my bedroom yellow, and my bathroom um-we’ll-see-what-happens. Ghana is without those handy little we’ll-mix-paint-for-you-in-whatever-shade-you-want centers featured at home improvement stores in the U.S., which meant I found myself mixing my paint myself. That joy (which actually was pretty fun after I got going), coupled with my general unfamiliarity with the special techniques required for working with oil-based paint (namely paint thinner, which, thankfully, Nathan knew to buy), made me especially glad no one was around to watch as I began my painting process. Christina the Incompetent triumphs again. Oy. I endured much dripping and flinging of paint splattering. I discovered oil paint’s amazing stickiness and how it adheres to flesh with great ferocity and soap is no match for it no matter how diligently applied. But by the end, I’d painted my living room a cheerful light peach—almost, but not quite, pink—and my bedroom a darker, warmer orangish-peach. I seem to have an affinity for mixing peach. Karissa, Annaka, and Aili even took their turns with the roller and did a quite admirable job. And my bathroom, by happy accident, became the most amazing bathroom ever. Not kidding.
It all started in January when I arrived in Tamale and Sarah took me shopping at Melcomes (more on The Melcomes Experience later). I needed a shower curtain, and Melcomes had two to choose from: moderately depressing dots or arguably tasteless butterflies. Always preferring tasteless to depressing, I chose the butterflies. To serve as bathmat (the height of luxury, bathmats), we found a bright and cheerful rug made from scraps of fabric by the Coalition of Women in Distress (they have a little shop in Tamale). In the village, I selected bright blue fabric with fluorescent green swirls for curtains because it matched the shower curtain (that’s right: blue and fluorescent green butterflies). I often see this fabric made into clothes in the village, so there’s the added bonus of Sound of Music showtunes suddenly flitting through my head when I’m out in Nasuan. Anyway, I’d thought to paint my bathroom orange—not because I thought orange would compliment the existing décor, but because I had red and yellow paint for the living room and bedroom and it seemed wasteful to buy another whole gallon of paint just to get a “sensible” color for my already sketchy bathroom. I was shooting for a basic, Crayola orange, but, well, I got a little excited with the red and ended up with a very red, tomato-orange—very bright, very shiny. If you’ve ever seen my car, you’ll know the color. It turns out, though, that this red-orange suits my blues and fluorescent greens amazingly well. It dispels the slightly creepy “camping with the spiders” atmosphere my bathroom once had, replacing it with a loud beckoning: “Come. Pee here and Welcome.”
Melcomes, as I mentioned, is a nice [read: the only] place to buy shower curtains and other luxury household items in Tamale. The Melcomes Experience is not just an experience. It’s an Experience. Oy. For contrast, recall that in many stores the shopper moves through the store collecting items to purchase and then gives these items to a cashier, who collects money in exchange for them. At Melcomes, the shopper looks at the items but isn’t allowed to collect them. Instead, sentries stationed at various intervals issue “tickets” (torn scraps of paper bearing indecipherable scribbles) for the items the shopper wishes to purchase. The shopper takes these “tickets” to the cashier, pays money, and receives a receipt. The shopper then takes the receipt on a scavenger hunt back through the store and collects the items he’s purchased, showing the receipt to the sentries, sort of like a permission slip. “See, I have purchased the plastic pitcher with the blue lid. Please allow me to pick it up.” The shopper then takes his items to the second check out counter, where the clerk compares the shopper’s pile of items with his receipt and allows him to exit the store with them. I’ve heard this method is supposed to be some kind of theft deterrent, but all I can figure is that the store might make money on the stuff people pay for but can’t find the second time around.
There’s another store in Accra, called Game. Not sure why it’s called Game; it looks a lot like Sears to me. Anyway, Melcomes has a billboard near the Game store. It says, “At Melcomes, we don’t play Games.” Perhaps they feel scavenger hunts don’t count.
In other village news, I got proposed to again at Market the other week. This proposal is noteworthy because the guy only asked about me after he was absolutely certain Aili was taken. Friends, it was unflattering. If it’s not too rude to mention, Aili was not even looking her best—sleeping tied to Sarah’s back with her mouth open and her sweaty hair plastered to her head. Call it vanity, but nobody likes to be second choice.
Christina
The Happy Accident of My Amazing Bathroom
Dear Everyone,
This week’s mouse count is 1. He died in the trap, as is only good and proper. After several direct hits with poisoned bug spray, Toilet Spider remains alive and thriving. And that’s it for dead animal news.
I successfully painted my little house. It’s amazing how happy paint makes me. I got white, red, and yellow paint in Tamale with the goal of painting my living room peach, my bedroom yellow, and my bathroom um-we’ll-see-what-happens. Ghana is without those handy little we’ll-mix-paint-for-you-in-whatever-shade-you-want centers featured at home improvement stores in the U.S., which meant I found myself mixing my paint myself. That joy (which actually was pretty fun after I got going), coupled with my general unfamiliarity with the special techniques required for working with oil-based paint (namely paint thinner, which, thankfully, Nathan knew to buy), made me especially glad no one was around to watch as I began my painting process. Christina the Incompetent triumphs again. Oy. I endured much dripping and flinging of paint splattering. I discovered oil paint’s amazing stickiness and how it adheres to flesh with great ferocity and soap is no match for it no matter how diligently applied. But by the end, I’d painted my living room a cheerful light peach—almost, but not quite, pink—and my bedroom a darker, warmer orangish-peach. I seem to have an affinity for mixing peach. Karissa, Annaka, and Aili even took their turns with the roller and did a quite admirable job. And my bathroom, by happy accident, became the most amazing bathroom ever. Not kidding.
It all started in January when I arrived in Tamale and Sarah took me shopping at Melcomes (more on The Melcomes Experience later). I needed a shower curtain, and Melcomes had two to choose from: moderately depressing dots or arguably tasteless butterflies. Always preferring tasteless to depressing, I chose the butterflies. To serve as bathmat (the height of luxury, bathmats), we found a bright and cheerful rug made from scraps of fabric by the Coalition of Women in Distress (they have a little shop in Tamale). In the village, I selected bright blue fabric with fluorescent green swirls for curtains because it matched the shower curtain (that’s right: blue and fluorescent green butterflies). I often see this fabric made into clothes in the village, so there’s the added bonus of Sound of Music showtunes suddenly flitting through my head when I’m out in Nasuan. Anyway, I’d thought to paint my bathroom orange—not because I thought orange would compliment the existing décor, but because I had red and yellow paint for the living room and bedroom and it seemed wasteful to buy another whole gallon of paint just to get a “sensible” color for my already sketchy bathroom. I was shooting for a basic, Crayola orange, but, well, I got a little excited with the red and ended up with a very red, tomato-orange—very bright, very shiny. If you’ve ever seen my car, you’ll know the color. It turns out, though, that this red-orange suits my blues and fluorescent greens amazingly well. It dispels the slightly creepy “camping with the spiders” atmosphere my bathroom once had, replacing it with a loud beckoning: “Come. Pee here and Welcome.”
Melcomes, as I mentioned, is a nice [read: the only] place to buy shower curtains and other luxury household items in Tamale. The Melcomes Experience is not just an experience. It’s an Experience. Oy. For contrast, recall that in many stores the shopper moves through the store collecting items to purchase and then gives these items to a cashier, who collects money in exchange for them. At Melcomes, the shopper looks at the items but isn’t allowed to collect them. Instead, sentries stationed at various intervals issue “tickets” (torn scraps of paper bearing indecipherable scribbles) for the items the shopper wishes to purchase. The shopper takes these “tickets” to the cashier, pays money, and receives a receipt. The shopper then takes the receipt on a scavenger hunt back through the store and collects the items he’s purchased, showing the receipt to the sentries, sort of like a permission slip. “See, I have purchased the plastic pitcher with the blue lid. Please allow me to pick it up.” The shopper then takes his items to the second check out counter, where the clerk compares the shopper’s pile of items with his receipt and allows him to exit the store with them. I’ve heard this method is supposed to be some kind of theft deterrent, but all I can figure is that the store might make money on the stuff people pay for but can’t find the second time around.
There’s another store in Accra, called Game. Not sure why it’s called Game; it looks a lot like Sears to me. Anyway, Melcomes has a billboard near the Game store. It says, “At Melcomes, we don’t play Games.” Perhaps they feel scavenger hunts don’t count.
In other village news, I got proposed to again at Market the other week. This proposal is noteworthy because the guy only asked about me after he was absolutely certain Aili was taken. Friends, it was unflattering. If it’s not too rude to mention, Aili was not even looking her best—sleeping tied to Sarah’s back with her mouth open and her sweaty hair plastered to her head. Call it vanity, but nobody likes to be second choice.
Christina
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