All I can say is.. Never a boring week in Ghana. The majority of this week was again spent at the shop everyday for the car, there is just problem after problem and once something is fixed, something else breaks down. As Paul and I were driving back from a mechanic shop, (which when I say shop I just mean a dirt covered plot of land with a bunch of broken down cars) our car ran out of petrol (their form of gas) and as our luck would have it we were at the station where there is So much traffic. Paul had a couple boys help him push it back to the filling station (gas station) and as they were pushing him, he ran into a pole right by the gas pump. I had been waiting under the shade and walked up to see him with a nervous grin on his face as he explained what had happened. The car had a big dent on the back side and red paint was smeared on it. So we took it Back to the same mechanic shop we had just left and waited while a mechanic jumped in the back of the car, (literally) stripped the car's lining and hammered a stick from the inside out to push out the dent haha I was laughing so hard, and when Paul asked why, I just said "Ghanaians are quite creative." And then I went on to explain to him that in America, they have a machine that suctions to the car and pops out the dent. Anyways, after the man was done hammering out the dent, he had created all these bumps on the outside of the car so then he took a hammer to the outside to "smooth it out," Which then ruined all the paint on that side so we ended up driving it to another mechanic shop where they sprayed the car to look new, then as we were backing out of that shop, Paul accidentally hit a truck which scraped up the paint on the front side on the car haha (no joke) but we decided we are just going to put a sticker over that particular part of the car. We now have a For Sale sign on the car and have had quite a few offers so we will hopefully had it sold by the end of this next week.
Also, a big joy of Ghana is the bugs, they are EVERYWHERE, and as much as I try, I'm still not used to it. Thursday morning as we were preparing our morning Milo (which is like ovaltine), we got out the sugar and Paul opened the box. Huge aunts, like 10x bigger than we see in the states swarmed out of the box. Paul threw the box, and tried to catch all of the ants as they scampered about, but I was SO grossed out and am will forever be nervous to open up a box of sugar haha.
Other news, Paul and I bought a table, and some baskets to organize our room. I've gotten back to exercising which feels so great, Paul doesn't love cardio but one day he borrowed a neighbors bike and rode alongside me as I jogged haha which made quite a scene around Hohoe as you can imagine. The jeweler that made my ring, has taken it back to adjust one of the holders for the diamonds on it which is quite a bummer because I miss my beautiful ring. However, a positive to that is that he took Paul and I over to his house (it was really sad he had no furniture, cement floors, and no electricity) but his wife had just had a beautiful little girl and she let me hold her for a while, I almost took her home with us. Paul's been driving the taxi at night time (passengers have to pay double price) and I just sit in shotgun and collect the money, it's actually been pretty fun. I met with Happy Kids Orphanage on Friday and will start teaching tomorrow, I'm nervous to start all over at a new orphanage but hopefully this will turn out to be a really positive experience :) Well that is a basic run down of my week. Life is what we make it, and I'm definitely having the time of my life and feel so blessed.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Week of February 14
So... I have made a decision that this blog is going to be like a journal of each week here which I hope is still interesting. Today I am writing on a Tuesday, but hopefully I will be able to get on a schedule of just writing on Sunday. We now have an internet connection, which is a flash drive that I plug into my laptop and then buy internet time on, so I will now be able to update this as I would have liked to since I've been in Ghana. It's the only place really where I know how to reach the people I want to let them know what is going on here. First things first though, uploading pictures onto the blog takes a lot of time and I'm already so far behind that I am feeling rather overwhelmed so this is the link to my facebook album and it has all the pictures up until now, ENJOY!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=17736&id=100001963982884&l=f0cea964ec
As for this week, we were really excited about our new car and gave him a name and everything, it seemed to be going well and the driver was bringing in around 25 dollars a day which we thought was pretty good. However, just our luck the carborator stopped working, then the lights had to be fixed, then the gear box needed to be changed and the shocks and it is just taking way too much money, time and energy to fix so after all this hassle, we are now going to sell it for more than we bought it for and Paul's dad has a guy who can get us a more durable car (hopefully haha).
We are officially not getting our own apartment. Paul's parents sat us down on Sunday and explained that it is not safe for us to live on our own here because there are a lot of people who would like to harm us. They believe in Black Magic here and if people are jealous of you, they can use it to kill you apparently. Paul and my marriage is the first of it's kind in Hohoe, and probably most of Ghana so people are envious and that's why his parents are so worried. It's true though that everyowhere we walk in town people stare, whisper, point or call out to us so I think it's just better that we play it safe than sorry. We've fixed up Paul's room a lot though and are buying a table today and hopefully are getting shelves made this next week.
We also bought bikes this last week, Paul picked mine up on Tuesday and on Wednesday it was stolen from the mechanic shop where he had ridden it. Supposedly it was a friend who took it and he was supposed to bring it back but after 5 days of waiting and trying to get a hold of the "friend," Paul surprised him at 6 this morning. The boy had apparently ran my bike into an old man which led to having the bike be seized by the police so Paul had to go with the boy and his mother to the police station. The police said to get the bike back, the boy has to pay 50 cedi which is around $35 but he doesn't have the money but supposedly the mom is going to find the money and call Paul when she has gone to collect the bike. Also, while at the police station, Paul saw the bike sales man who was still working on the bike Paul had purchased for himself. The bike guy was at the police station to report that his store had gotten broken into and all his bikes had been stolen, along with the bike that Paul had been waiting to pick up so we've now bought 2 bikes and have in our possession 0. I wish I was making this all up, but it's So true and So typical Ghana.
Other than that though, this last week was great, we were able to go to church in Ho (a town which is an hour and a half away) and the spirit was strong and we felt Great! Also, I was able to bake a cake from the cake mix that I brought from home haha only after Paul lit the oven with a match first on the top, and then the bottom. Also, Paul's dad has taken over on the visa process and he and the National Security Coordinator took a copy of our passports and marriage license to the Ambassador of the U.S. Embassy yesterday so we'll just have to see how long this whole thing takes, we are optimistic though that it won't be like years. In the meantime, we are really just enjoying our time together and making great memories :)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=17736&id=100001963982884&l=f0cea964ec
As for this week, we were really excited about our new car and gave him a name and everything, it seemed to be going well and the driver was bringing in around 25 dollars a day which we thought was pretty good. However, just our luck the carborator stopped working, then the lights had to be fixed, then the gear box needed to be changed and the shocks and it is just taking way too much money, time and energy to fix so after all this hassle, we are now going to sell it for more than we bought it for and Paul's dad has a guy who can get us a more durable car (hopefully haha).
We are officially not getting our own apartment. Paul's parents sat us down on Sunday and explained that it is not safe for us to live on our own here because there are a lot of people who would like to harm us. They believe in Black Magic here and if people are jealous of you, they can use it to kill you apparently. Paul and my marriage is the first of it's kind in Hohoe, and probably most of Ghana so people are envious and that's why his parents are so worried. It's true though that everyowhere we walk in town people stare, whisper, point or call out to us so I think it's just better that we play it safe than sorry. We've fixed up Paul's room a lot though and are buying a table today and hopefully are getting shelves made this next week.
We also bought bikes this last week, Paul picked mine up on Tuesday and on Wednesday it was stolen from the mechanic shop where he had ridden it. Supposedly it was a friend who took it and he was supposed to bring it back but after 5 days of waiting and trying to get a hold of the "friend," Paul surprised him at 6 this morning. The boy had apparently ran my bike into an old man which led to having the bike be seized by the police so Paul had to go with the boy and his mother to the police station. The police said to get the bike back, the boy has to pay 50 cedi which is around $35 but he doesn't have the money but supposedly the mom is going to find the money and call Paul when she has gone to collect the bike. Also, while at the police station, Paul saw the bike sales man who was still working on the bike Paul had purchased for himself. The bike guy was at the police station to report that his store had gotten broken into and all his bikes had been stolen, along with the bike that Paul had been waiting to pick up so we've now bought 2 bikes and have in our possession 0. I wish I was making this all up, but it's So true and So typical Ghana.
Other than that though, this last week was great, we were able to go to church in Ho (a town which is an hour and a half away) and the spirit was strong and we felt Great! Also, I was able to bake a cake from the cake mix that I brought from home haha only after Paul lit the oven with a match first on the top, and then the bottom. Also, Paul's dad has taken over on the visa process and he and the National Security Coordinator took a copy of our passports and marriage license to the Ambassador of the U.S. Embassy yesterday so we'll just have to see how long this whole thing takes, we are optimistic though that it won't be like years. In the meantime, we are really just enjoying our time together and making great memories :)
Sunday, February 13, 2011
First Month In Ghana Recap
Apology for the lack of writing, we've been unexplainably busy but I will improve I promise to writing atleast every couple weeks. The first 2 weeks I was here were spent basically with Paul and I just enjoying being back together after our 6 months apart! Then my mom and Sarah came and it was a whirlwind of fun, laughs and tourism traveling to the waterfalls, monkey sanctuary, kokrobite beach (where paul and I met), to the slave castle and to see Paul's family village. My dad came in a week and a half later to enjoy the wedding festivities Paul .and I were married in court on Friday, February 4 which we were a little unprepared for, not knowing exactly what would happen but we were husband and wife :) Sunday we were married in Paul's parents church, my dad walked and gave me away to Paul and we were happily married for the 2nd time. Both of my parents were in African apparel and Sarah was the Perfect maid of honor. It was a Huge celebration and was actually a lot of fun! We had a reception after at a really nice outdoor place and then drove with my family to Accra and they left back to the states Monday morning...:( We miss them a lot, it was a total blast having them. We started off our honeymoon at kokrobite but an opportunity arose to buy a superb taxi (which is our business venture) so we spent the week getting all the details figured out. Next week we will honeymoon FOR REAL :) We are just happily married though and working on finalizing our apartment to move in this coming week!
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