Ya Just Gotta Laugh!

The morning started out EARLY!  Even before the drums and roosters began, Elder Thayne sat straight up in bed and said, "Something's in our room!"  I was still groggy and told him it was his imagination and to go back to sleep.  Then we both heard a definite rustling sound and both of us were standing on top of the bed.  Gary very carefully peeked over the side to the floor.  Nothing in sight, but then we heard it again and up on the bed we both jumped again.  Kwaycoo, the gentlemen helping us get our new house ready, had told us just yesterday that he had seen a very large snake (a Brown--very poisonous) in the ditch just outside our wall.  I'm sure we were both envisioning it under our bed.  We had to laugh when we realized it was just "Rylee", the largest of our house geckos.  They are usually very quiet and we hardly ever see them, but she had gotten caught in the drapes behind the bed and was trying to get out. We had a good  laugh and then proceeded to go for our morning walk.

In Sunyani you hardly ever see any dogs and never a cat.  The dogs we do see all look the same--an ugly small mongrel type.  But they have hundreds of goats, chickens and lizards--they're everywhere.  Goats are outside every house and shack, climbing on little hills, butting heads, downtown wandering through traffic--everywhere.  I guess they are the pet of choice because you don't have to feed them: they eat everything-garbage, whatever, and when there get to be too many of them, you just kill them, skin them, and throw the meat in the fufu stew.  The chickens are much the same; they are everywhere and they find their own food, lay eggs and you can always kill them, pluck them, and throw them in the fufu stew as well. 

On our walk, behind our compound on a dirt road that winds between the shacks, we passed a large tom turkey.  We had seen him a few days before and it was no big deal.  He looked a lot like "Mr. BoJangles", the turkey we had on Dimple Dell.  For some reason, this day, he decided he hated Elder Thayne and began charging him.  This created a small problem, as all of the natives were in their front areas, sweeping garbage and lighting their fufu pots.  We didn't know who or if the turkey belonged to any of them.  We didn't want to offend by just kicking him so we just kind of scampered out of the way.  The turkey would have no part of it.  He didn't mind me but he HATED Elder Thayne and kept charging.  Gary was doing a funny little dance trying to stay away from him.  The people were all laughing hysterically, watching this obruni getting chased by a turkey, and I nervously began laughing too.  A young man who was fetching water at a nearby well, picked up a few rocks and chucked them at the turkey.  It didn't help and the turkey just kept coming.  Finally, an older woman walked over, picked up an empty plastic bottle that was on the ground (remember garbage is everywhere) and started smacking the turkey with it.  The commotion had gathered quite a little crowd and everyone was laughing and cheering as she saved the funny obruni from the angry turkey.  Come to think of it, birds have never really liked Gary.  Mr. BoJangles didn't like him, the geese hated him and even Arco, our parrot, would chase him around the house pecking at his toes.  Needless to say we won't be taking that route again.

After breakfast, Elder Thayne was doing the dishes (in the clorox water), while I was "trying" to make tortillas from scratch.  President Owusu, the Branch President of the Branch that we share the building with, stopped by.  He is an older gentlemen (probably a good 5 years younger than we are) but the average life expectancy in Ghana is only 57 years.  He is great!  He is Gary's little buddy, is a big whig in town, helped Gary find his bike, and takes us all around and shows us where we can find things.  He took us to the Wednesday Market and is our protector.  He's lived here in Sunyani for almost 50 years and everyone knows him and he always knows what we're doing and where we are.  It's kind of comforting.  He owns a carwash--they wash the cars (taxis and buses) on a dirt lot.  He took one look at Gary doing the dishes and came unglued.  "No, no!" he yelled.  "That's woman's work!"  We both laughed and President Owusu promised Gary faithfully he wouldn't tell anyone.

He then took us downtown to a little hole-in-the wall shop to show us where we could buy canned soup.  It was really crowded and the shopkeeper and President Owusu were checking me out.  In Africa everything is natural.  As I said before, it's not uncommon to see people urinating on the side of the road and the young mothers just feed their little ones wherever, in church, etc.  It's also very common if a guy has an itch in a private place or needs to adjust something, they just reach down and do so without even giving it a second thought. It's not sexual, just comfort. They all do it and usually I just try to pretend not to notice.  However, it was so crowded in the shop and the shopkeeper must have really had an irritation because he was really "adjusting" his crtoch and then Owusu started in and Gary was at the door and now it was his turn to laugh, watching me trying so hard not to notice.  Will I ever get used to Africa?

We have 1 or 2 baptisms every week, but we only have one makeshift font which is a big blue plastic water container, that looks like a big garbage container.  We have to get it from building to building depending on where the baptism is, because most of the people don't have cars and it's hard for them to get across town.  The font wouldn't fit in the back of our little truck so the Elders put it on top of the car.  Two of them sat in the back and two of them sat in the back seat and they all just hung on to it as we drove.  It was quite a sight--the white obrunis carrying a huge water trough on the top of the car and we had to go through the downtown which is a taxi nightmare playing bumper cars.  We made it though, but I guess we'll have to do it again next week.

In Africa we have several given laws:

Everything is "Africa Time".  They might tell you 2 o'clock but it can mean 2 that day, or  20 minutes after 2, or 2 tomorrow, or even next week.  No one is ever on time.  They just shrug and say, "Africa Time".  For those who ever ran or biked with Elder Thayne, you are very familiar with the "2 Minute Rule" which means if you are more than 2 minutes late, you get left. (And sometimes, he would even start early and leave 2 minutes before the designated time.)  Our time in Sunyani is proving to be a great lesson in patience as everyone is oblivious to time and it drives us absolutely nuts!

Africa directions are about the same.  They will never tell you they don't know where you are talking about.  They will just make up directions and they also have no concept of how far things are.  It doesn't help that there are no street signs and of course no house numbers.  You just have to wing it.

NIN = Nothing is New.  Everything is broken, rebuilt, rewired, or redone and held together with wire or whatever.  They don't even have duct tape!

Elder Thayne decided to make me an art easel so I can paint a little and perhaps make a picture for our new apartment.  We gathered up a few boards, which were really rugged and not very straight, and found a bolt and nut to hold it together.  We were working on the front verandah, when Effah, a young man who works in a little shop down the road came by.  He asked what we were doing and when we told him, he said he could make one for us.  Since we didn't have a saw or any tools, we gave him the boards and off he went.  He came back in a couple of hours with two of his buddies.  They had chucked the wood (given it to Auntie Mary for firewood) and made me a wonderful metal easel fom the scraps they had at their tin shop.  It's really quite ingenious.  They laughed and laughed and told me I was their obruni mama and they were my bibini sons.  Young women in Africa are considered not much better than a work horse.  A lot of the men beat their wives and the young women work very hard.  However, older women are much revered and respected.  It's not uncommon to have a young man stand out in the middle of the very busy downtown streets and stop traffic for an older woman to cross.  It's kinda neat they way they really respect them and I guess I fit the bill now as on "older woman".