Starting Week 4

Teaching almost over
This week was my last full week of teaching. At TIS the students have exams coming up so I did my final evaluation on Friday for my fitness lesson. This coming week I am planning to observe the other teachers in my group and visit their schools to see what they are like. The following week I will help with exams on Monday through Wednesday but then we are taking a four day weekend to go to Mole National Park and Kumasi. At Mole we will see elephants, hippos, and all the other sweet “safari” animals. It is about a twelve hour drive to Mole and we will stay there for a day and a half then go to Kumasi, another huge town on the way back for a day. After that big trip all of our trips will be over and we will have three days left of teaching before returning for the States. The trip is flying by and we will be home soon.

Night life
On Friday night we went out to Vienna City and Manila Bar to see what the night life in Tema, Ghana is like. Vienna City was a little more of an upscale (Ghana terms) hotel/restaurant/bar/casino. The restaurant on top had a beautiful view of the city. After a little while at Vienna City we moved over to Manila Bar where there was a big open dance floor and a combination of Ghanaian and U.S. music. We were all surprised to see the large amount of prostitution, for lack of a better word, that was going on. There were many older white men with “escorts”. We had a particularly persistent young lady hanging around our group most of the night. Her name was Sarita and she was very interesting. She kissed our hands, kissed many of the girls in our group on the cheek and tried to dance with us every chance she could. One girl came over to Graydon and me and told Graydon that if he bought her a drink he could take her home. It is really sad to think that this is the way of life for so many younger females in the towns here. We did have a good night talking and dancing a little and experiencing the night life in Tema.

Meals
I mentioned the meals I have had at TIS a while back on this blog but I will give a little better rundown of all of the things I have eaten and tell my most unique eating experience thus far.

Banku (fermented corn dough) with okra stew, oranges – This is my usual Tuesday/Thursday Lunch
Yams, spinach stew, fried plantains, watermelon – This is my usual Wednesday Lunch =favorite lunch
Rice balls with peanut soup, pineapple – This was one of my favorite dinners
Beans and rice, fried fish, papaya and bananas – This is my usual Friday Lunch
French fries and chicken – We have had this meal a couple of times for dinner
Rice with – fish +sauce, chicken + sauce, beef + sauce, mystery meat and sauce – This is the usual dinner
Angel hair pasta – some type of sauce and meat – This is an occasional dinner
Crepes, eggs, bread, porridge, oatmeal, corn flakes – These are almost all of the possible breakfasts
Fufu with light soup, grasscutter meat (local bush meat), goat – This was my most unique eating experience so far. Last Friday for lunch my host teachers Alex and Alex took me to a local restaurant. There were big bowls of this light soup which is a reddish sauce simmering with various meats. In one bowl whole fish were simmering, in another goat pieces, in another the grasscutter meat. Fufu is a very hard, large potato like plant. To make fufu a person pounds boiled plantains, cassava and the fufu together and continuously folds the mixture together for about 45 minutes. This is possibly the most vigorous work I have noticed that goes into making a meal here. For a heaping helping of fufu, taking into account all the work that goes into it, it costs one cedi or less than a dollar. My meal consisted of a ball of this fufu drenched in the light soup with a hunk of goat and grasscutter meat. For both fufu and banku you are supposed to just swallow it without chewing but it is a pretty thick consistency so I usually chewed a little. Almost all of the meats for meals are left with all the bones and in this case the skins were also left on. I ate all of the fufu and most of the goat and part of the grasscutter but there were so many bones and I was not really into eating the skin that I didn’t quite finish everything. This meal is traditionally eaten with the hands but I also used a spoon to eat some of it. The grasscutter had a nice smoky taste but I only ate some of the skin with it. The goat was pretty much like a tender chicken. Both of the Alex’s ate their meal including most of the bones, soup and part of my meat.

We have also gone out to eat for pizza two times and have eaten the typical sandwiches and spring rolls for snacks or lunches while on our trips. We got hand dipped ice cream at one place and have tried an item called fan ice from vendors. It is very similar to icecream in a package and very cheap. As far as drinks go we have lots of bottled water, juice occasionally, when we go out orange fanta, sprite or coke are popular items and alvaro – my favorite unique drink here, it has a pear or pineapple flavor and is similar to a jones soda or something like that.

Church experiences
We have been able to attend two church services so far. The first was the opening service for the SOS College. The school has services at a place called the Joint Church normally but they are going to try to hold one service a month at the actual college. This was a very nice “Presbyterian” service that lasted about one and a half hours. There were some praise and worship songs and a hymn or two accompanied by some very great young voices. The message was on how Jesus Christ came and lived a human life and he related it well to a mainly student crowd. Three points I took away from the message were we need to as Jesus did – endure traditions, endure the word and follow in His footsteps. Another key point was the difference between wisdom and knowledge and how we need to grow in mind, body and spirit. I was surprised at how conservative the service seemed to be. There are some differences in how people here worship but for the most part this service was very similar to one I would go to in Michigan. The second service was at the First Baptist Church of Tema. This is a large beautiful church. The first thing we noticed was that there were only like five other people in the church when we arrived right at 7am when it was supposed to start. However at some point when I turned around not long into the service the whole church was nearly full. This service was a little more charismatic I guess is the right word. That is what I expected many of the churches to be like here. There was also praise and worship songs, hymns and lots of prayer. The church had a nice big choir and a good message about prayer. They seem to be focusing on stepping up their prayer lives right now. Some key points I got from the message was that Jesus is our perfect example to follow and as busy as he was he found time for prayer. He made time alone to pray to God. Prayer takes planning, commitment, and discipline. He also talked about how Jesus intercedes for us and that we are in spiritual warfare but the victory is already won for us. The only real differences from this church to a normal Baptist church service in Michigan was that dancing was a little more a part of their singing and when they prayed it was almost like yelling at times. Otherwise the service was pretty typical to me and had some very good parts. Six of our group members went to both services and their comments about the services seem like mine. They really liked the services and have been very good experiences. The Baptist service was about two and a half hours long and they made a point to recognize us for being new to the church and prayed for us during and after the service.

I mentioned this before in my blog but I am amazed at how much of a part of life religion is for these people. Church and related activities make up most of the week for what seems to be a large portion of people here. Even though we are sometimes quick to judge a church that may not be exactly like ours I have really been thinking about the passion and commitment that the people here have to their faith. While I don’t agree with every single theological aspect of the churches here, or in Michigan for that matter, I would love to capture more of the passion and commitment to Jesus Christ that the people here have. Here are a few things to think about from Titus 3. We need to remember that people no matter how bad they seem, no matter how different they are from you can receive the same mercy and grace that God generously gives. It is not by any great thing that we do but solely relying on Him for salvation. Verse nine is what I would like to think about especially. It says avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. We often times focus on the little differences in our Christianity and don’t focus on God’s gift of Jesus Christ and the love we should base our lives around. While I really believe strongly that I understand Gods word in most situations because of my upbringing and my church background it is not worth fighting about those little things with people. We are on the same team. I hope to focus on living more and more like Christ, able to defend what I know is right but more able to show his kindness and love. I am much more likely to win someone over through my positive attitude and love than through arguing and being negative.

Last Comments
I apologize for the length of these blogs but it seems much easier to write one big blog a week as opposed to many smaller blogs during the week. Everything is going well and I hope it is for all of you! Take care and God bless.