More e-mails from Africa

Heather Loveridge (sort_of_heathery@yahoo.com)
Sent: Fri 6/27/08 8:51 AM
Reply-to: sort_of_heathery@yahoo.com

Hey everyone again! I'm still safe and happy in Ghana.
This week there wasn't any school, so Sharece and I went on a spontaneous trip to a town called Cape Coast. As the name suggests, it's a place on the coast, which means beaches! Needless to say, we're both very sunburned. :) We also went on a walk through the rainforest in Kakum National Park. They have this Canopy-walk thing which is a series of rope bridges suspended way high up between trees. They said the highest was 40 metres, you do the math to figure out how many feet that was. I don't know, it was high and swing-ey. We didn't see any of the wildlife they claim lives there, but we saw some pretty freakin' huge butterflies! I got mosquito bites, but I'm taking my Malaria pills still, so no need to fret.
Let's see. . . we finally found some American movies. They sell those in packs, so you get 10-15 movies on one disc, and we found one that has most of our favorite dance/musical movies, like Stomp the Yard, Step Up, and Moulin Rouge.
I really like it here in Cape Coast, and I think part of the reason I enjoy it so much is because this was our first time going someplace alone. Since we got here, we've had a guide everywhere, and we've been limited by what that guide felt like doing. Since we haven't had a guide, we've been kind of ripped off by the taxi drivers, but I think it's worth it to be able to do what we want when we want. We spent several hours at the beach yesterday collecting sea-shells and relaxing at the beach. The seashells are made even cooler by the fact that they're from Africa. We also saw a dead-decaying dog on the beach. I thought it was a goat, but Sharece said it had paws, she looked at it closer then me.
Since we arrived in Behenase, we've found three cockroaches in our room. They flip over on their backs, we don't know why. Also, there are lizards everywhere, which is so cool! There are chickens, which we hate with a passion, seriously, we want them dead. There are also goats, but Ose says that they aren't goats in Behenase, because goats are used for witchcraft, so we have to call them sheep. A few of them are sheep, but some of them are definitely definitely goats. So, whatever Ose, we'll call them sheep, but we know what they are! Ha!
I found out that they have Ice Cream in Ghana! It's not really ice cream, actually, but it's good enough and satisfies my need for calcium. We can't drink any milk because they don't really have consistent refrigeration in our house (the power goes off four times a day, about). They tell us to eat the bones and get calcium that way, but it's icky and hurts, and you have to chew them forever and they're gross. Pleh, screw that. Food is pretty cheap here, though. Like, the ice cream is 40 cents, and a bag of water is 5 cents, and a loaf of bread is $1. And the bread is fresh and homemade and tastey! Yeah. There are also these Cream Cracker things we eat a lot of, and they taste like Ritz, which reminds us of home. Anything that tastes remotely American we eat a lot of. Like spaghetti noodles. We go through those.
Hmm. . . I don't know what else to tell you. But it's a pretty long e-mail already, so I guess I'll finish off by saying that the vegetation tastes like pickles. It really does.
Love you all! Especially you, Mommy!
I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to an internet cafe next, but it'll probably be some random time. But please e-mail me, I'll respond. . . eventually. Till then, keep it real!



Heather Loveridge (sort_of_heathery@yahoo.com)
Sent: Sat 7/05/08 11:16 AM
Reply-to: sort_of_heathery@yahoo.com

Sharece and I have a personal vendetta going against the chickens here. I don't think I've ever hated a living creature as much as I hate those chickens. First, they are everywhere, always pecking, always caw-ing, always. . . existing, which is just plain annoying. What's even worse though? The roosters. So we hate the hens, but we hate the roosters more. We throw rocks at all the chickens, yes, but especially hard at the rooster, and we save the bigger rocks for them, too! Ha! They wake us up at, like, 4 in the morning, and they sound posessed, and yes, I hate them with a passion. Actually, all the animals here sound kind of possessed. Especially the Geep (That's goat-sheep, I'm not sure if I explained that before, tell me if not and I'll clarify.)

Hmm. I've been sort of sick this week. It started Thursday, with the typical throwing up and such, but that went away, and all I have now is a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes, and my right armpit has this spot in it that really hurts. I also have a killer headache, (sorry to complain, but it's pretty much all i can think about right now) but that comes from an entire night of not sleeping due to a funeral.

Funerals here are much different then funerals in America. The mourners must stay awake all night, and in order to do so, they dance to really really loud music. So you know how the mexican music is when it's blasted really high? (I don't mean to sound racist, but it's a fact) Like, where the bass is a different rythm then the higher notes, and it rattles through everything and you can't even drown it out because it's a deep vibration rather then an actual noise? It's exactly like that only African instead. Same accordian type tuba almost music. Yeah, that started at 10 pm, and was going to end at 10 am. I left before it ended, but I can still feel it pounding through my brain. I think if I'd had to sit through it for another minute, my brain would have liquified and poured out my ears. Okay, that's all I'll complain about for now.

Hmm. Oh! I've started actually teaching! It's way fun, too, I think. Ose randomly went to Bekwai on Friday, and he left me with his class. Sharece helped when she wasn't teaching at her school, but it felt good to just be there in front of the class without someone else interrupting every five minutes to repeat what I just said. Since there wasn't anyone else to do that, I just repeated everything I said, only slower. The system seemed to work, and hey, even if the kids didn't learn anything, at least they had fun.

Okay, that made me think of another thing to complain about. Sorry. They beat the children here. They have "canes" which are really long sticks and they smack the kids with them. I hate it.

Alright, well, I can't think of anything else really that's happened this week. I love you all and I'm missing you very much. I've had dreams almost every night where I'm home, and they hurt. I'm sorry that this message has such a negetive vibe, I promise the next one will be better. Again, I heart you!



As a side note: Heather began feeling better in the day after writing this e-mail.