Wow life without internet sucks...

Okay definitely meant to send this out 5 days ago. But the good news: I finally found an internet cafe that's open after 7 and provides reliable internet, without trying to give me some kind of crazy African computer virus.

Anyway, the long-overdue info on my host family:

When Adina (my host mom) and I arrived by taxi to her house, we were enthusiastically greeted by her adopted son Isaac. She and Isaac live on the second floor of a big two story home (huge by Ghanain standards) with her elderly mother, and she rents out the first floor to about three people (I really can't tell who lives here and who doesn't, there are so many people coming in and out that I lose track). Don't worry Mom, the house is very safe - I have my own room and bathroom with a key and ceiling fan. The house is open to the outdoors, meaning I have to put on DEET everytime I want to get food (30% Deet is the stuff that scares the wings off of mosquitoes without giving me cancer). When I open my door i look into the courtyard below and the city skyline beyond, which is pretty fantastic. One thing that really takes some getting used to is the cold showers. As in, much MUCH colder than my grandma's swimming pool. This is good in the afternoons, but I'm a morning showerer, meaning a very shocking wake up experience every morning.

Adina is a very kind and happy woman, though sometimes reserved and quiet. She works as a general contractor, landlady, church deaconess, and chef, to name a few of her occupations. She has three children, all adults, and two adopted children - I mentioned Isaac but she named another adopted child who "travels a lot", I haven't met him/her and don't fully understand what she means. She also has this weird "I know better than you do" complex about spicy foods - I'm from Texas and I can handle spicy!

Isaac is 17, but is nothing at all like my brother Mike. He's very shy and speaks very rarely, and when he does it's only about football or food. We naturally bonded over the Spain-Paraguay game (he was rooting for Spain, I couldn't care less so of course I rooted for Spain too), and he seemed to open up a little when I asked him about his favorite movies - he loves kung fu so I promised to show him Shaolin Soccer. Having never used a computer before, I've started teaching him how to type and he's picked it up really quickly. His first full typed sentence was "Ghana is the greatest football team I nowe [sic]". We just watched Spain-Germany, where Spain rocked in the second half and he literally jumped out of his seat in excitement.

Everyone in Ghana uses a taxi to get anywhere - very few people own cars. Some taxi updates: The taxi drivers are some of the most creative people in the history of ever. I've been in taxis that have likely been on the precipice between barely functional and chaotic twisted-metal fireball for the last 10 years. I was in one two days ago that didn't have a closing right rear door, so the man used a sugarcane contraption to strap the door shut and passengers only entered through the other side. I was in another where the horn stopped working, so the driver rewired the horn to the windshield wipers, so that clicking the wiper stick would make the horn go. Clearly he has his priorities skewed; horn over windshields? But that is the way driving goes in Ghana - drivers will honk at just about anything, and just because they honk at you doesn't mean they won't hit you if you don't get the heck out of their way.

One more note on taxis: they all have some kind of religious phrase on the back of their car. I've been keeping a list of the good ones: "Vote for Jesus", "Touch the Jesus", "I Will Avenge Thy Name", etc. Pretty awesome.

I live within walking distance of the largest market in Ghana, where everyone seems to be selling me just what I'm looking for - even the lady's undergarment vendor. It's a claustrophobia-inducing experience, where the two-lane streets are overtaken by pedestrians and taxis will literally sit on their horns trying to get through a one-lane space. Everything is very affordable and prices are extremely bargainable - always ask for half the price and work your way up from there.

The confusing part about dealing with vendors is they don't know the value of their own currency - seriously. The value of the cedi was changed in 2007, when they removed 4 zeroes from the old value to make the "new cedi". However, not everyone got the news. I asked for the price of an article of clothes, and the vendor said "20", meaning "20,000" but it was actually 2. GAAAAAH!

I watched a "Nollywood" film the other day (Nigerian Hollywood). With a red-tinted video quality and muffled sounds, it easily was 30x worse than any chick flick film in existence (challenge!). A quick synopsis: A film opens with a man beating and choking his wife, very fakely. The wife's mother walks in and sees. She pulls her daughter aside and tells her, "I know you must hate him, but for my sake you have to forgive him." Why this lady owes anything like that to her mother is beyond me, but of course she forgives him, and the plot subsequently deteriorates from there. Good for a joking "Oh my god why did I just waste an hour and a half of my life" moment without the Star Wars Christmas Special aftertaste.

Okay, running low on time at the internet cafe, so I have to peace. Next time I'll talk about my job, and what I'm doing day-to-day.