All in the Family

I have been at my homestay in a little town called Anyinasin outside of Kukurantumi for almost a week. I have a mom, Ya, and two little brothers, Prince and Brice, that are adorable and so much fun to play with. It makes me even more excited to be an aunt when I come back to the states. I also have a grandmother and granfather. Mom and grandma both speak Englsih, while grandfather is helping me perfect my greetings in Twi.

The home consists of a two room concrete building, one room for the family and the other room is all for me. I have electricity, but my light bulb is blue as is my walls, so I still wear my head lamp at night to write and read. There is no running water, but I don't mind the latrine and I really love the bucket bath. It's so refreshing to pour a bucket of cold water over your head when it's so hot and humid out. The kitchen is just a small wooden structure with a dirt floor and a small wood fire surrounded by little stools that are used for both sitting and chopping things on. The one time I hung out in the kitchen I watched my mom pluck a chicken. She asumed correctly that in America we have a machine that does it for us, but she was surprised to hear that we buy prepakaged meat that is already cleaned and filleted. It just brings home the fact that just day-to-day living is so much more difficult and time consuming in Ghana.

I have a mosquito net over my bed and I would not be able to sleep without it, not least because of the mosquitos. I could actually care less about mosquitos, but it's the big scary spiders on my walls that I want out of my bed, amongst other creepy things. The other night I came home, flipped on my blue light, and nearly died as I watched a rat run up my wall and into the roof. The net gives me such peice of mind, though when I get to my site I am keeping my bed about a foot from the wall on all sides.