Sweatylicious

Hello Hello!

So it is now tuesday about 1pm i think and I seriously feel like I have been here for a week or so. Considering Im going to be around for another two months I have a feeling adjusting back to normal melbourne life is going to proove to be quite difficult. ah well deal with that when I come to it I suppose! So umm when I got home yesterday I chilled out with the fam for a bit. They have welcomed me so much it is really beautiful and nice. My aunty/mum is called kokua (pronounced koh-koo-ah) and she is the best. She wasnt around last night and I missed her. When you are in such a foreign environment you really rely on people who make you feel comfortable. you need those 'rocks' or you're fucked. There's this little girl sophia who is the cutest little thing, whenever i havent seen her in awhile she runs up and shakes my hand and then just stand there and doesnt let go. All the kids are pretty quiet around me and they sometimes they just stand there staring but they let out huge bursts of giggles more and more as time passes. They had a ball with my camera last night and took heaps of photos of all of us. Esna who is my 18 year old brother is so kool as well. Theres just something really comforting about him. He hardly says a word and when he does I have to get him to repeat it about 5 times (perhaps why he chooses to say nothing to me:P) but he is always around looking out for me. Last night he knocked on my door, came into my room, and just sat on my bed next to me saying nothing at all really. It was really nice though. I have given up always trying to make conversation with him because its all in vein,I think he will talk in his own time if he wants too. I really like him. I had to walk to the asanti dance room place for the performance and he came along with me. Met up with Koffi and when we got there we watched a drumming and dance performance by the guys, it was really awesome. One of them had the best body ever, topless, sweaty..shaking his hips and booty ahhh - hot. hahah I got introduced to all of them but can hardly remember there names. That is a big problem Im having here. I am absolutely terrible at remembering names and here it is considered very important to adress people by their name when you speak to them.they sound so foreign as well which makes it harder..but anyway Im trying! I definitely can't get away with calling people dude, man and bro anymore though:P So Esna and I walked home after the performance, he showed me lots of shortcuts which I treid to put in the memory bank. Heaps of kids call out Ubrunnnii How Are You!? now. When I say 'Im good how are you!' they just laugh their asses off...its a bit of a novelty so you just go with it. Its funny when older people say it because its not really social ettiquette to yell out Hello White Woman! and most adults know that, you get the occasional ubudan? (crazy person) yelling it though.. Ah I could keep writing so much more, all the little details i dont want to forget..which you might not give a shit about..well jsut skim over the boring bits and let me go yes? So ummm yeah we came home then and I ate pineapple and met some new people. There was this guy called called joohe who was very spritely and intelligent, he ended up asking for my adress which lots of the men do so I may be receiving some mail from him now:P I have had about 6 direct and indirect marriage proposals. and kookuas son who hasnt even met me yet is full serious and calls her phone all the time to speak to me hahaha he is a vegetarian nurse from accra. I met another guy who invited me to come to their school tomorow cause he is setting up a volunteer program there or something, so I will check that out I think. Everyone is just very friendly and if not friendly, perfectly decent and i am very lucky. I feel quite ashamed of my wealth sometimes when I walk around and am quite hesitant to take photos in busy areas, I feel like I am being patronising or something. Of course it is impossible to just blend in, but there is enough of a difference being white let alone flashing around my wealth. Its jsut a weird insecurity. I am also quite hesitant to buy things yet because I suck with all the money and am only just comign to grips with the currency -they are going through a currency change at the moment so there is old and new floating around. Even when I get ripped off I get annoyed but remind myself that come on, I am paying 80 cents for a bottle of water instead of 50, these guys dont have much - put it into perspective! Ummm anyway where was i? So took esna and mama t (shes 13 and a little fire cracker) to the internet cafe last night cause they wanted to see harry potter which they had heard about. I had to search through for clips which WERENT 'harry potthead' or some hermoine porn which was quite difficult, but we watched a few bits of footage from that and came home. I was absolutely wrecked so went to bed at 8pm. They wake up sooo early here. muslim man is harping into his mic at like 4am so bedtime is pretty damn early for me. This morning I woke up and had breakfast with the family again. Its still quite hard to stomach in the morning..had hot as chilli, those little fish and the salty dough again which is called buku or something. Kukua took me into her room and pulled up her dress showing me 2 strings of beads which you wear just above your underwear. She got me to pick some beads then made me some for around my waist too, plus a bracelet. It was nice:) She told me how much a cab would cost to asanti (20 cents) and esna walked me up and put me in cab. Once esna left the cab driver told me I had to pay 1 cedi insteadf of the decided 2,000 (which is only about a dollar anyway) but I decided I'd walk. Esna had already left and I started to doubt my memory on all his shortcuts, but started walking in the general direction anyway. After about 5 minutes, Whaddya know my faithful Esna pops up and asked me what I was doing, he then led me so I knew where I was :) i love esna. So dancing and drumming was soo good this morning. Abe (ab-eh) is the head dancer and I started off doing two hours with him. We got about half way through a dance called the CUCK-COO (im sure its spelt differently) and it was great. I had never done african dance before but he was a great teacher and we had a lot of fun. I sweated about 3 Big Day Outs worth of perspiration by the end and was absolutely dripping throughout the entire session. He moves his body amazingly and is a pretty sexual character. When I watched them perform I actually found him more sexual than 6 pack sweaty man, he just moves really well and has a big penis too..hahahah ah thats so inappropriate considering I have some family friends and relatives reading this but he does!- prooving the big black penis theory correct! haha anyway so that was great. Its really interesting how much I am learning about myself from some of these people and the things I am doing. African dancing is so metaphorical for a perfect way to live your life spiritually. I could write a whole essay on that shit but I wont bore you - ask me when I get back if you care. But yeah I felt really inspired. Drumming was good too, we only did an hour of that because I was tired out and koffie is feeling sick. But I love drumming there are many many life lessons in that too. Tita is the director at asanti at the moment and he is a nice man too. We went into town and did some stuff then I bought another pineapple, water and a bread role and here I am! Kukua wanted me to go visit her at her market stall but I dont know where it is so I might go try and find out. Tommorow I am going to do some more drumming and dance but we have to go out of town to a beach because in cape coast it is illegal to drum on a wednesday! apparently this is when the gods are having their day of rest therefor if you drum you will disturb them. The cops will full arrest you if you do, take you to the palace in town and then you have buy a cow and some goats and drinks for the cheifs if you want to get out of it.hahaha I asked them what their gods were and we had a chat that the cape caost gods are really anything you want them to be. You can go to the beach and pick up a rock and make it your god. Its your own perspective and decision to make whatever you have your own god and the power is within you etc. I liked that. Even if it is now just a bit of a scam so the cheifs can get pissed and have a feast thats much kooler than the Jesus crap in my opinion. Anywaysss I think thats all for me now! off to eat my pineapple and chill out. I feel so hot and a bit burnt. I had my first shower here yesterday. Its just a bucket of water which you pour on yourself. .rougghiin it. Im sweating so much though which is great for the skin. I hear from some of you that you have to get a google account to comment on this thing..which is shit. Some of you have sent emails which is awesome so if you can be bothered send me one!Love to hear from you. thanks for all the emails so far. and who the hell is leicum or whatever who left a comment? anyone know..? Byyyyeee!