Life in Ghana

It is very hard to believe that we have been in Sunyani for almost two weeks! We have settled very nicely into life here. Living in the university dorm has given us a great way to meet people, as with 400+ students in the building there is always someone around and lots of new people to meet and visit with. Ghanaians are very social people, and there is always something going on in the dorm.
We are learning and practicing Twi, which is the most common tribal Ghanaian language in the country. As with many cultures I have encountered, the people here are thrilled when we attempt to use their language…even if done poorly. The cleaning ladies in the dorm building speak very little English, and have made it their mission to ensure we learn more Twi while we are here. We also try and use as much Twi as we can when we go to the market for groceries. We have got a few regular stops now where we shop and we practice our Twi with them. We go to a really sweet lady named Akua (pronounce Aqueea) for our fruit, and yesterday her 17 month old daughter was there with her. She just stared at us with her big brown eyes…not sure what to make of these two obrunies (white people).
We have also become regulars at a stall that sells nice tomatoes. The first time we went there I smiled at one of the ladies and she looked so surprised to see my braces. She pointed and said “your fingers!” The other ladies around started killing themselves laughing and saying “not fingers, TEETH!” The woman became very embarrassed but eventually told me that she though my teeth looked very beautiful! They think I have ‘bling’ on my teeth! Now when ever we go there, they laugh and tease the lady about my ‘fingers!’
Vincent, one of the students that was part of the project last year, and is again this year has become our Ghanaian culture guru. We have a ‘code’ that we (meaning both us as Canadians and him as a Ghanaian) can speak very frankly about our cultures and our values etc and discuss them openly and honestly. He is a gem of a guy! We had our first cultural booboo this past Friday evening and a true test of our 'code.'
There was a German exchange student here for four months named Jan, and he was leaving on Saturday, so we decided we should all go out and celebrate his last night here. We told Vincent that he should invite who ever was close to Jan, the more the merrier. Vincent called me a little later and asked if it was okay to invite one more friend. I told him of course, he should invite who ever he wanted. Not long after the call Vincent was knocking on our door a little concerned. It turned out that in Ghana if you invite someone to go out, it means that you are offering to pay for this person. So we had put Vincent in a very awkward situation as he didn’t have enough money to pay for other people’s dinners, but we had told him to invite people! Poor guy. It was great though that he felt comfortable enough to come to us to explain the situation. It all got sorted out, and we had a great evening.
Oh, BTW I unfortunately left my camera cord at home in Canada, so I can't access my pictures to share, but here is a link to a few of Amanda's pics. They are a bit out dated...from when we first arrived, but more should come soon. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93568&l=937f2&id=855290180