The past 5 weeks...what?!

Where to begin?!  I'm currently in the northern region of Ghana in a city called Tamale.  I haven't been able to blog about the past 5 weeks...so here it goes.

Week 2 (Accra)
Ghana Blackstar's football game against Malawi:  Only 5 cedi to get in!  And, we were on TV!  I guess some other SIT staffers were watching the game on TV and the cameramen panned our group.
Church with the host family:  It was Methodist and Mama Vida was definitely apart of the women's fellowship.  I sat with her, amid the small sea of other women in white clothes, pearls and blue hair wraps, and just felt uncomfortable to be frank.  The service was partially in English, partially in Twi and lasted about three hours.  All in all a positive experience, but not for me.
After church my group convened, loaded onto a bus, and headed to the outskirts of Greater Accra for a funeral service.  What a spiritual day!  We danced and listened to the drumming and singing of a group who had lost a member.  The dance, drum, and song dated back 2000 years!
Lecture of Political History of Ghana:  Politics are not my bag, so I have only one fun fact...Ghana gained independence in 1957 on the 6th of March-Winter hat to summer cap, anyone?
The remaining lectures in Accra were about conducting fieldwork and research ethics.  It was helpful to have an ethnography class under my belt before arriving in Ghana.  I feel ready to get after my research.  Speaking of, there was change in ISP topic after going to the funeral.  Many of the people at the funeral had body/face markings and were tattooed...my interest was instantly peaked and I wanted to ask a million questions.
Homestay fun:  Many a interesting conversation with Mama Vida.  One morning she looked at me and asked "Where are your earrings?"  She didn't quite understand that I don't have my ears pierced and that I prefer jewelry elsewhere on my ears and face.  Another rich talk started by her claiming "All the people in America think all the people in Ghana live in trees"  Uh, no.  She continued "You have bush people too [referring to the folks who live in villages and other rural communities] Yes, the red Indians that you have, you know, the ones that live in Indiana"  Uh, double no.  That took some straightening out.

Weeks 3 and 4 (Kumasi)
Beautiful city!  Smaller, cleaner, and cooler than Accra.  Much easier to get around.  Home of the largest open-air market in Africa, if not the world.  Cultural hub of Ghana!
We spent the first night in a hotel and split to our homestays the following morning.  My host dad was Mr. Cobbina, a 70 year old with 7 children.  He runs student hostels in the area.  His youngest, Emmanuella, actually turned 21 the day before I left Kumasi.  She stayed in the house while I was there to cook and look out for me, but she attends University at KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah Univ. of Science and Technology).  She helped me a lot with the Twi and became a great friend, even though she never let me help with cooking or cleaning...  I actually didn't stay in the house Emmanuella and Mr. C lived in.  I was around the corner at Mr. C's sister's house.  Huge house!  It used to be a hostel, but now just houses family members.  It's set up like an apartment building.  In my apartment, I stayed with BB, a 30 something yr old cousin.  He was very friendly and accommodating and liked to speak Spanish to me then claim it was Twi.  Fun guy.
Every morning, my group met up at Worker's College for a Twi lesson.  We crammed self introductions, pronouns, verbs, tenses, tonality, numbers, and time expressions into 8 days of class.  The two Fridays in Kumasi were dedicated to Twi quizzes.  Writing Twi is eons easier than speaking it, hands down.  One of my favorite things we learned about Akans, the people who occupy the Ashanti Region (where Kumasi is), is that they are called by the name of the day they were born on.  For me, that was Tuesday/Benada and therefore, I go by Abena.  Much easier for Ghanaians to pronounce.  The letter L doesn't exist in Twi, so I was called Ghana quite a bit among other variations.
In the afternoon, we boarded tro-tros to KNUST.  The first couple days we had lectures on art.  The two men teaching them were EXTREMELY soft-spoken, dry, and boring.  I think we all wished we were doing the art instead of sitting and listening about it.  Semi-bummer.  The remaining days were spent in the dance studio where we learned two of the traditional dances in Ghana.  We had a final performance for host families and friends to attend...best part: not a soul came to the performance.  The audience consisted of the three kids in my group sick with Malaria (don't worry, it's very easily treated here and they are all healthy now) and Yemi, our academic director.  We had more of an audience during practices than the performance.  Still, it was a blast and we got to wear traditional garb.  Plenty of pictures to come from that night.
So many other things happened in Kumasi, but I'm giving you just the basic gist of my stay there before my internet time runs out!

Weeks 5 and 6 (Ampento)
THE VILLAGE!  Easily my favorite of the places we've been.  The group was split into three villages, six students per village.  Ampento translated means "not fighters"-everyone was smiley, warm and welcome.

I'm close to running out of minutes right now...tminus 12 remaining, so I'm gonna leave with one story and come back to tell all about the village.
Night one:  It was someone in our groups birthday, so we all met up in her village (about a ten minute walk from my village) to hang out.  By the time we departed, it was late and I was tired.  I walked with my group back to Ampento and turned off at my homestay house.  I was greeted by a group of voices, but it was dark so I couldn't see anyone.  One voice asked if they could sleep with me (not uncommon), to which I replied "Me pa wo kyew, daabi, mempe saa" (Please/Excuse me, no, I don't appreciate that).  That's all it ever really takes to get someone off your back.  So I went into my room, shut and locked the door and went to bed.  THEN I awoke with that urgent sensation in my bladder...I had to pee.  I wasn't sure if anyone was outside still and I wasn't familiar with my bathroom situation at the time, so it was time to get creative.  I emptied a gallon ziploc bag I had in my luggage and proceeded to catch my urine in it.  Didn't miss at all.  But then I noticed the bag was leaking, of course.  I swiftly grabbed a black plastic bag to place the ziploc into.  I thought all was well, so I sealed the tops and set the bag by my door.  Turns out the black bag had a hole in it too...woke up to a standing pool of piss all in front of my door.  Certainly a bummer, but also a timeless tale.  I'll leave you with that.  Peace and love friends and family!