Updates, updates, and more updates!

Wow! i'm super-duper behind on updating you on my life but its been going pretty well!
So, I guess it was 3 weekends ago, some friends and i were going to go on an outdoors-y trip to the volta region (its SUPER pretty over there!) but then we found out that the national soccer team, the Black Stars, was going to play a World cup qualifier against someone (nobody really knew who, but hey...) in Takoradi, so we went west instead! We had an interesting time getting there, as the mate on the tro-tro made ups get off WAY too early and we ended up walking a lot and getting hassled a lot which is really lame but whatever...
So we got up saturday m orn ing in time to get to the stadium (even tho we dididn konw where it was) by 8am, several hours before the game was to start, bc we had no idea about how to get tickets. we got there, and it was really kinda crazy- the stadium was really nice and seemed pretty new, and there were TONS of people there already. we ended up getting in the expensive (10cedi, not 2) line, but it really didnt matter.... it was also crazy cus at first, i was in one of the s mallest minorities of my life - of course, i'm always racially very much in the minority, and ghanaian society is very very VERY male-dominated (that'll have to be an entire post itself!) but all of that was WAY even more so at the game! We decked ourselves out in ghanaian gear, from jerseys to hats and flags and balloon thingys...which was SUPER fun but we got super mixed reviews from people - we got a lot of "oh! you love ghana! i love that!" but also really annoying racial remarks like one guy who told us in twi that they should let all the black people in first and us not at all.... boo.... anyway...
so the line we were in aimed for the box office building with windows m ost of the way up, so we figure people will go in through the DOOR to get in or hand their mon ey and get their tickets through the window....but of course not! so the box office got super full of people, and we realized it might be super difficult to get tickets.... until people started climbing in through the WINDOWS to get in.....for a while most people were getting pushed back outside by the people in, but after failing to give mo ney to some people inside, we realized we were completely screwed. eventually, a guy in line with us showed us a guy who was willing to jump through the window and get tickets for us for an extra cedi each.... we say ok, but by that time, a bunch of our friends had called asking us to get tix for them (10 in fact) but the guy wouldnt get that many, so we just gave him our money and waited outside the line, along with a bunch of other people who did the same thing...so we were waiting, i'm starting to get kinda worried, cus its getting SUPER crazy in there, when a TON more people suddenly start jumping through the window, cept this time nobody was pushing them out! so it became a MASS of people jumping into the window! whatever, their problem, right? until i hear a bunch of yelling and turn around in time to see the police (wearing motorcycle helmets) charging towards us, literally pushing people out of the way! AHH! so we ran out of the way and watched them start hitting people down off the windows! a friend of mine actual ly almost got hit with the handcuffs they were swinging! yikes!
within a few minutes, there was the neatest line formed in front of the box office, with the police in a more fomidable line next to them....and i'm now even more worried: 1) how is the guy going to get out now? 2) how will he find us? (oh wait, we're white jk....VERY difficult to forget, apparently ), 3) what if he just wanted o ur 11cedis/person and run (but if he were going to do that, he would have taken the money for all of our friends' tickets, huh) 4) if he doesnt come back, there's no WAY we would be able to get back in line! boo....
but somehow, the guy came back with our tickets! wohoo!!! so we got into the game!!! woot! it was pretty crazy.... it would have been cooler if there had been a bit more competeition (we played lethsoto) but we won 3-0 which was SUPER cool! we didnt really get hassled at the game (everyoe was too excited) but after the game, walking the very long walk back to the hotel was not too fun- not necessarily negative comments but just a lot of drunken twi aimed at us, but its REALLY tiring to hear "oburuni, et te sen?" incessently! boooooooo ! but the game really was cool, and i'm SUPER glad we went!
the next day we (isaac and jackie, btw haha) headed out in search of adventures, and def found one! btw, it was sunday, aka everything including most tro-tros werent working, so we had some interesting encounters with taxi drivers but ended up getting in one that took us to this random little village, prince's town, which was WAY down a poor, unpaved road! the driver claimed to be the son of the chief, who we tried to meet, but he wasnt there.... but then we somehow got on a tour of the old slave castle - who knew? anyway, it was BEAUTIFU L there, a lot like cape coast, where you see a beautiful coastline after coming out of a room where thousands of people died! incredible! we also got to ride in dug-out canoes out into a huge lagoon surrounded by a bunch of wildlife, and the other boat actually got to see some monkeys! woot! but wow it was beautiful!
so the next weekend, (ps the weeks have been absolutely FLYING by here- monday-wed i have 1-2 hrs off between getting up at 6:30am and getting back to my room after 7:30...then thurs/fri are spent catching up on errands, schoolwork and/or traveling....) the EAP center took us to a festival in the Eastern Region, less than 2 hours away-- turns out there are MOUNTAINS surrounding us- who knew? haha anway, only about 15 of us went, which was nice, bc it wasnt toooo big of a group! we got there and it was a lot like a somewhat more tame cape coast festival- chiefs being taken around in big chairs carried by 6-8 people with tons of drummers, firing guns, of course singing, dancing, really hot..... but it was pretty cool bc instead of following the parade, we got really really cool seats (UNDER THE TREE ;)) right next to where all the dignitaries' chairs were st up, and where they all processed by to sit down! aka it was a lot less stressful- ! (exciting!) we even got to see the presidential candidate for the (now ruling) NPP (new patriotic part y)- Nana Akofo-Addo!!!!! crazy crazy npp supporters! Too bad the paramount chief looked mad at the world the entire time, but hey...ahhhhh good times!
anyway, but more general updates on life: starting the few days before the festival, the phone network that all the EAP students use was down (for like 3 days, no calls/txts/anything), then the power was out that weekend, and then the water was out for a few days, then back in time for me to leave the following wed for a trip (sorry, saving that for a new blog!) but then went off again like 15 min before i got back...but i got kinda sick off something i ate while i was there so i've been kinda sick and the water's been off almost all week: why am i saying all of this? its life in ghana! there's always SOMETHING slightly different, if not wrong or slightly incovenient, then just plain strange! (ps when the water has been out this week, it comes on at least once a day or so to fill up the gigantic tanks (poly tanks) so we DO have water, you just have to fill/haul buckets for anything you need!
aw and one more anecdote about life before i forget: i'm sure by now you're getting some kind of idea one way or the other about how nice/etc people are here and/or how welcomed i am- but before you do, this is the best example i've got right now: so thursday night i was going to go to bed, when i remembered i had to get my laundry from the line outside- i got downstairs, and realized that it was starting to RAIN!!!! yikes! so i RAN all the way across the large rectangle of rooms in my hall to where the lau ndry l i nes are, and quickly got them all in my basket, and back under some cover...btw NO ghanaian girl would ever get her hair wet (bc its chemically straightened or has extensions that smell when they get wet), so no matter how much/little i care about getting wet or not, its j ust not a good idea for me to walk back in the pouring rain, so i decided to wait it out. within a few minutes, a girl came from behind me (girl #1) and asked what i was doing, and i explained that my laundry had been on the line and i didnt want to get it wet by walking back in the rain!; she gave me a sympathetic smile and said that i could pass around under the very narrow overhang all the way back to my block, but i was surprised that it was large enough (bes ide the fact that it would look like i was staring into a bu nch of peoples' rooms!) and hesitated to follow her. before i could, another girl (girl #2) also came from behind me and said "oburuni, ___?" with an angry scorn on her face. boo! it wasnt the normal "et te sen" or "wo ho te sen" or the other phrases i know or can respond to, and she didnt look happy so i said, "i'm sorry, i dont undersand everything you're saying" she laughed at me and said that she asked me what i wanted. i told her the same story, but she just shook her head, popped up her umbrella, and walked away laughing at me. that got me angry enough that i didnt want to see ANYONE any more, so i made a beeline to the overhangs and walked as quickly as i could through the wet and rocks back to my block. BOO! ANGER!!! but as soon as i got back to where my block meets the longer one, i almost ran into girl #1, who had put down her load and was carrying TWO umbrellas- one for herself and one to give me when she found me! awwww it made me SO happy! i didnt know either girl before that night: i feel like that kind of thing happens a lot here - for every person that is really rude/angry/trying to cheat me, there's someone else out there who has my back ;) woot!
much love to you all, hope you had a good halloween, and HAPPY NOVEMBER!!!!!!