the weekend, and more

i spent saturday night playing with the help boy who lives in mama vida's house. his name is kuesi and he is 8 years old. he has been living with mama vida for 2 years and next week he gets to start school! kuesi wakes up before me, goes to sleep after me, and works all day long. he washes clothes, does the dishes, sweeps, and fetches water. his family lives in a village in the north and is paid 2 ghana cidi (about $1.50) a month. we played cards and pick up sticks. at first he was very timid and polite around me but by the end of the night, he was joking and smiling.

my brother calvin woke me up on sunday morning at 6:00am. we were going to play soccer and he said that if we didn't get there early enough then we wouldn't be able to play. we got the the field (or sand box) at about 6:45. there were about 60-70 young men there warming up and passing around. calvin and i fist played 3 vs 3 on a smaller field with a few other guys and then one man asked me to come play on the big field. it was really fun but i got tired quickly. i was surprised how organised the game was, they even had coaches and a ref. the twi word for 'western person' is 'obruny' however this word has come to mean 'white boy' where ever we go everyone refers to us as 'obrunies' by the end of the soccer game, i was so dirty that the men called me 'abibany' (black person).

mama vida has a goat tied up in her front yard and one night i asked her if it was a pet. "no" she said, "the goat was a christmas gift, we are waiting for it to get fat enough and then we eat it. would you like to be here for it?" i told her i would like to be around and she said that they would wait to slaughter the goat till i returned to accra and then she would make goat fufu. fufu is the national dish of ghana and i had it for the first time for lunch a few days ago. fufu is heavy, i told my mom i had it for lunch and she said that you should only eat it on sunday and then walk around the block and then sleep. fufu is made by pounding yams and corn meal with a huge pestle. it kind of looks like churning butter. fufu is about the same consistency as pizza dough, only looser. it is eaten with your hands (as is every food here) and dipped into soup.

yesterday morning i had a twi test and then in the afternoon we went to the studio of an artist named kofi setordji. he is a painter, sculptor, print maker, film maker, and philosopher. he calls himself a creator. kofi believes that artists cannot change the world, he believes that art is like road signs; people have the opportunity stop and recognize art and it will assist them in their life, or people can ignore them and face danger. kofi has done a lot of work surrounding the genocide in rwanda and is currently working on an instillation dealing with identity. his compound was the first quiet place i have experienced in accra and i really enjoyed meeting him and listening to him speak. we made small wire sculptures with him, i made a spider.

on my trou trou ride home yesterday i sat next to a young school girl (all students here wear uniforms). she was probably about seven or eight years old. about ten mins in to my ride home, this small girl tapped me on the should and said "are you from south korea?" i laughed and told her no, that i was from america, and i asked her what she knew about south korea. she said that she has a friend there and wanted to know if i knew her.

we have two more days in accra before we leave for kumasi. we leave on friday morning at 7:00am and it is about a five hour bus ride north west. it will be said to leave mama vida's home but i am excited to experience something new!

ps - thanks sammy for the title recommendation!