Corn rollin gangsta baby..

Wassupp! so guess what? vanessa has CORN ROLLS! hahahha funny shit hey? I love them. i look like such a little kid especially considering i wear no makeup every day either, but they are really awesome and only cost me 5 bucks! you will all see photos eventually but at the moment its too hard to load. anyway its monday morning 10.30ish and I will fill you in on my weekend. There are so many things which happen and I just want to run straight to the computer and recount the moment perfectly so its written down fresh and forever but I cant so I try my best to commit it to my memory for a few days and then catch up..its difficult though.

Saturday i got home and washed the dishes while the boys finished cleaning up. Kwasi's junior sister Akua who is my age, came over with his nephew ni (11) and erika (4) Ghana kids are usually quite scared of me at the start and really shy, but its so nice once they start to get comfortable with you and they just dont leave you alone. Anyway they invited us over to their place in the afternoon for lunch/dinner so we said we would see them later and headed down to the beach. I had the best time!!! The water was so warm and nice. The waves were just big enough and I just felt really happy. Got hardcore swarmed by all the kids there. The lifted me up and chucked me in this big black tyre, i was floating in it and they are all surrounding me screaming and jumping around hahah it was so surreal I was just pissing myself. After that they were constantly around watching my every move, a wave would come they would dive under the water and 'accidently' touch me, when they went for the ass grab though I had to put a stop to that! hahah the kids ranged from like 7 - 13 years old I'd say. There was this one kid who was the biggest little show off and he kept bossing everyone around and trying to get my attention and impress me I just wanted to sit him down and tell him that wasnt the way to impress a lady and probably improve his future picking up chances ten fold, but decided against it:P At one point I lay on my back and started to float and all the kids were like HEY HEY HEY HOW DO YOU DO THAT!? They were absolutely amazed and I was equally taken aback at their reaction. Most kids here cant swim at all or or not very well, and had obviously never seen anyone float. The beaches arent really patrolled (apart from a few dodgey rastas who asked me for money yesterday claiming they were life guards) and there are a lot of drownings. So we then proceeded to have a little swimming lesson- floating 101. Like 20 little ghana kids watching me in the middle and trying to float. Some of them did it really well and some never got it and were flaily around like spazz', but it was really fun. I got out of the water after ages and attempted a bit of soccor with the boys then me and the kids started playing in the sand. We made a castle and I wrote my name in the sand, pretty soon every kid was doing the same and calling me over to show me their name. It was so cute. We drew pictures and I attempted to inspire their creative side and stop them from drawing exactly what I did, haha one of them drew a house which was kool - I liked him.Then little show off boy drew over it and asked for my number! hahah These older boys came over and we started doing like yoga poses and puttting our legs over our heads and cycling in the air. it was so fun. Anyway then one of the kids had a bike which they were riding around in the shallow water (dont think they know about rust either) and he let me have a go. It was a perfect size for me (unlike the bloody amsterdam bike) and so off I went, dripping wet riding up and along this huge stretch of beach. There I was peddling along the shore, twisting and turning as the water sprayed up from beneath the wheels. there was hardly anyone around apart from the occasional person who would wave to me and I was just so happy. It was such a beautiful moment. On the way back this rasta man literally ran down from the bank and stopped me, saying I looked so free riding along that he thought it was nice for two like minded souls to say hello and share respect. "Peace and love!" and papa kool roll was off again (i think that was his name) Haha love it. Anyway came back and had another swim then we came home had a wash and headed down to the boys sister's house for lunch/dinner. Its so funny because I thought you know, being in africa and stuff I could just go a bit feral and not give a shit about that stuff but the boys are always asking me whether Im going to take my bath and encouraging 2 a day...haha hint hint.. nah everyone here is just big on personal hygiene. put in my place with the 'dirty african' generalisation wasnt I? So anyway walked down to the sisters house and had lunch there. The family was very nice. sometimes the language barrier gets a bit ner because they all speak Ga (a local language) but overall they were very welcoming. Erika got so exciteable and was like dancing around shaking it, the kids kept giving me story books to read to them and erika and I kept making pig and cat noises and raising our eyebrows at each other. shes the cutest thing. Sister Joyce who is like the head of the house said I should come back tommorow and she would get someone to do my hair a way I liked.Anyway we werent there for too long but we ate our spaghetti and stew, watched some tv, came home and went to bed soon after.

On sunday Kwasi went to church and me and papa hung around the house and cleaned up a bit. we were watching more crappy ghana tv and i started to get really restless and shitty. ghana tv can do that to you. the shows are fucking terrible and I watch some pretty bad television so its safe to safe its pretty bad. Its always the same shit; midgets, magic, whorish black women, and medicine (drugs secretly given to hurt/take advantage of someone) i was like dude i have to get out of here. Papalopa (thats godwins african name) and i went down to the beach again had a quick swim, came home and went to the sisters house. Had such a great afternoon/evening. We all ended up getting drunk on big bottles of ghana beer, dancing around in circles chanting and clapping thse little songs, playing tennis, doing this weird game which I will have to teach when I get home (Its like a rhythmic paper sciccors rock with kicks and claps) and just having a ball. i got my hair done and we sat around big bowls of fufu and soup eating with our hands and feeling very satistified. They were all like 'Sistteerr Vanessa!' And I just felt really welcomed and loved they said they were equally greatful of my respect towards them too. Great day.

Today is monday and i am back in Nima ready to go to the refugee camp for 2 weeks, no idea what to expect which pretty much sums up my time so far anyway! time shall tell. fill you all in soon. happy birthday to those i have missed and hope the wedding was awesome amy! xxx