Home Sweet Home

After 6 months of living in Accra, a trip home to the U.S. has been much needed. I mostly have just been looking forward to family time and enjoying the food I can't get in Ghana and the ease of daily life that I've missed (like washing my teeth with tap water and getting bit by mosquitos and not worrying about Malaria). It's been one week so far since arriving in Atlanta and I've been loving every minute. After stuffing my mouth with strawberries and peaches when I arrived to my parents' house, my days have been filled with mundane errands and shopping which normally would be quite boring and even a bother but I actually look forward to running errands simply because errands are so easy to do in the first world. I also enjoyed my 32nd birthday with my dad and good friends Delene and Killick by going out to a nice dinner (my mom had to make a quick trip last minute down to Florida unfortunately but we'll have plenty of time to celebrate).

Now, I've made my way to my brother and sister-in-law's house in Kentucky to visit them and their 3-month old Gus, who I had yet to meet. I'm trying my hand at being Auntie Em which has been great fun. Even when the little one screams at the top of his lungs, it's so cute I can't help but laugh. But, I suppose that is the luxury of not being responsible for his every discomfort. Here's us fooling around with the camera before Gus' bath the other night.


So cute...



My parents arrive today and we'll celebrate my mom's birthday and spend the rest of the week smiling and laughing with little Gus.

Kaneshie Market

My friend Marina and I decided to adventure out to Kaneshie Market this week - one of the more hectic markets in town. It's in a bright yellow structure which is 3 floors and is surrounded by vendors outside selling mostly veggies, fruits, dried fish, and chillies. Our goal was to buy some traditional Ghanaian fabric as we heard that the top floor was devoted to just this. We asked Marina's housekeeper, Elizabeth, to join us to help us sort out quality fabric vs. non-quality fabric and to help us get some better prices. We first stopped on the second floor where Marina, a yoga instructor, was looking for some plastic mats to teach yoga on. We were lucky in finding them. It was definitely tight quarters shopping and we found ourselves constantly repostioning ourselves to get out of the way of bustling shoppers around us. Of course buying from one vendor made the next door vendor very upset and she asked me why we didn't buy from her. Then she asked me for 1 cedi to get some food. I've learned that the best thing to say in these situations is "tomorrow" because that implies tomorrow we'll be back to shop from her. At least that is what Frank, our driver, always says when street beggers come to the car when we are at the stop light.

Then we ventured to the 3rd floor which was vendor after vendor selling the most vibrant beautiful cloth you can imagine. No two patters were alike which made it impossible to decide. Then inside the middle of the market floor were tailors, one after another, busily sewing traditional Ghanaian outfits, some even with detailed embroidery on them. We watched them work for a while. We also learned all about the various levels of quality from Elizabeth who was an excellent guide. Here is Marina as we try to make the impossible decision.





We did finally make a few purchases and have decided we feel confident enough in our cloth knowledge to do this on our own next time. And next time, I am definitely going to take more pictures but for the first time, it was a little overwhelming just taking it all in.