Morgans Current African Status

Morgan is splendidly grateful for her well organised, simple living budget, after witnessing a Dutch roomates $650 Euro phone bill.

Good call on the cheap phone cards dad!

A Consensus is Born

The urge for simplicity was the challenge beneath my nose in those very moments.
Would it be enough?
My thouhts would exist over opting for more, or, in the case of immediate need... sacrifice my own.
And even so, if it was enough, were we all agreed on a form of action? size? tempurature? condiment?
The questions remained unanswered, tensions reaching boiling point, and, with the most regular One World awkward we could muster...

A consensus was born.

"Maybe... we could put the bread on the table... ", Said the innocent One Worlder, "... and then we could see how much there is... and then we could decide?"

And so, we took the bread and we ate it. The hearty-some meal it was that was delivered justly and beautifully. We sealed the meal with groundnut paste, with eggs and with crunch and munch.
And then back to the drawing board to consensus for lunch.

Life has become a calender day

"The reason death sticks so closely yo life isn't biological necessity- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possesive love that grabs at it what it can." (Yann Martel)

I'm finding myself caught between counting the days left and lossing my breath because there may not be enough time. It happens. But for me, it's happening, and despite my failed attempts in the past to make this end faster, it's actually happening too fast.

The feeling on normality was evident when i started this. Normality in the sense that wanting to go home was the expected eighteen-year-old mind consuming homesickness. But is it?
I mean, what part of being here is really hard? When i try to put my finger on something that i couldn't work through or make light of a situation, i can't find anything.
This is so easy, but in reality, why does death remain to stick with the life of me?

I labelled it normal when i first felt it. And that was the main problem and my main point today. I chose to make the feeling of death being a part of this "normal", but i could have chosen not to.
And things are damn well changing in that department now.
A traveller seems to not be their own person here. They are a traveller, and they may as well have it stamped between their eyes and where the sign on their back with answers to some of the only questions they will ever get asked by both locals and foreigners. Right under the sign that says "kick me", that the asshole taxi driver delivered with a pat on the back of new found friendship, after cheating you 5 cedis instead of 2.

The sign that remains a checklist of your visit to 'the beautiful country':

• I'm from Canada, no that's not in Holland.
• Sure, i guess the weather here is good for me.
• 6 months.
• Yes, i have gotten sick, and yes... I 'try' to pound the Fufu, laugh it off.

I've fallen victim of wearing my travellers shirt, but i really don't understand the purpose. I wanted to come to Ghana to understand the culture and really make myself a part of it, and i have... only so much of my thoughts have clearly been consumed with what's expected. The excpected homesickness, intestinal problems, skin change, travel wounds, anything really to make a mark that you were here. Just throw me in the nest barber shop to get my hair braided and i'll fit the part perfectly to go home.

I chose to experience what everyone else promised would happen, because it happened to them. A silly choice. I'm a different person, i have been for my entire life, and it's no exception for being somewhere new. I'm finding life in the death of my experience at Shekhina. It's a beautiful place with beautiful people and i can understand. But i have forced myself to be consumed by it for reasoning that everyone else was.

So, in this mixed up fashion of trying to conjure up some sense in explaining, i can get it now. I can find the death that's chasing me up the stairs and choose to leave it. I'm no longer expected of anything. I choose whatever i want to feel, and i'm sick of it being the norm. Because what's considered the norm, isn't. The norm is what you create for yourself, your own reasoning of where your at in your life, and how you choose to respond to something new. Sometimes change can suck and anyone who tells you it doesn't is lying. But the most important intrution of change is finding the adventure in it to strap you in for the ride. My ride has just been 4 months long, with a little bit of roller coaster sickness.

Despite it all- The coins remain in my pocket to buy 2 more months of tokens.

Check my flow, UH.

It's sad when Ghana gets to the point that you find yourself counting how many anti-malarials you have left until your going home as soon as you wake up in the morning.
Lately my head has been more in my personal home life and the people that i would kill to see rather than what i'm wanting to do and see here in Ghana.
I'm mad.
Can i have time for both and not really be aware of either because both are so tiring and i'm just so irritatedddd.
I just got over the deathly trap of homesickness for my mommy and daddy after 3 awful months of it.
Yay for being okay with it!
Now i'm scraping against concrete walls to stay out of that hole but my nails are getting worn down and i miss my friends.
I miss muldoon and my girls and how awkward jared is. I miss my prom date throwing up all over the bathroom doors and pretending he wasn't with me despite our matching. I want to make fat jokes with ash, comment on how big erins boobs are just to be a brat, hug meliss despite her kicking and screaming, and shaunas immediate needs to party. Kelly's such a dumb cutie.
I want to go to Dylans sweet parties and sit in writers craft with cartier and laugh so damn hard.
There are so many people in my life at home that i took advantage of when i could see them everyday, and when i have no choice but to be away from the amazing people, i want them the most. I miss you guys.
I'm still friggen cool though, i mean i'll see yousoon but they're all just super awesome and make me totally happy. Who would have thought that someone could remain homesick for their life at home for 6 months. Me!
I'm the luckiest girl in the world to leave something unexplainable at home and still get something in Ghana just as good. If it's like this now, i can't wait to see what i can do for myself in making the rest of my life. My creativity is patching each day, i'm more and more happy each day that i get to be in charge of whats going to happen in my life because i'm theperfect person for the job.

i'm going to make my life like when something is so fun surrounded with people making the best jokes that you can't breathe anymore from how happy you are. i'm full of life from the people i know, i'm going to go home and live for it.
See you girls when it happens.

leaving my village, i began crying two days before the day actually came. When the time that i was forced to be tied down in the car by my oldest brother Gershon came, i completely lost it.
I had never evaluated what it was like living in the country that i am, and how completely normal it is. Nevermind assessing what i'm learning and what "moving forward for a better Ghana" means in literal terms.
Before writing this i read a past One Worlder's blog who is currently in Ghana visiting for a second time and i am completely speechless to the words he could string together as to what i am exactly feeling.
"The dirt on the ground is as real to my touch as anywhere and when I feel hot there's nothing especially "African" about it."
What Colin has written in his blog is more than what i'm feeling in this experience, but some of that is forcing me to think that i'm somewhat disillusioned about how i'm going about this.
We can't forget that i'm just an 18 year old, and i think about it everyday. I don't know for sure if i have the understanding to evaluate things here as i would if i were older with some understanding and education behind so many of the things they neglect to give me information about. I would like to learn but i can't control there hoarding of information, all the way down to "why do you keep the rest of the palm nut after you use it for the soup?"

I will come back here when i am older. And i am going to start my blog with, "I'm 18 again in Ghana." And maybe something below the surface will spill onto the page.
Here's to hoping.

This is polar opposite of a sob story

This place is so awesome and its something that i can't ever explain to anyone i'll ever meet who wasn't here to see it.
So many people know Africa as their "Pity Continent".
I don't pity these people at all for the economic, environmental and cultural issues i find so different and suffering. If anything i pity my own city where everything is stupidly easy and everyone's a slow coach.
I have a really hard time hearing comments from friends and family back home of the following:

"Your so strong, i could never do what your doing."
"How's Africa?"
"Hang in there"

What does me being here have anything different to do with living at home, the people here do it and make it look almost fun.
I need people to know the following:

1. I'm not just in Africa, i'm in Ghana.
2. I have not lost my sense humor, if anything it has only become stronger and more immature.
3. I'm not the humanitarian that's changing the world, i have done absolutly nothing to change anything here, they are changing me.
4. Yes, Africa is hot.

I want people at home to know that this place isn't sad for me, i am learning how to laugh harder and dance better and sing in front of crowds without being embarrassed. I'm learning how to buy good fish, sweep in a patterned fashion, carry water on my head for a far walk, spell jesus with my butt, wash my clothes, make coco, love banku, whistle a real song, sing ghanaian music, catch pigs, find news ways of laughing at pheebs.
So on that note, i'm not pitying anyone here. They use what they have extremely well and i want to be them more and more everyday. Laugh with me while i'm here, im not suffering in the least bit, i'm smiling more than you imagine i am and i'd like to do it with you

Just think of it as a 6 month camping trip with 5 women about to travel Ghana with no parental supervision. Fill in the blanks Pamela! danger.
Travel time is like when your a small girl in the grocery store, and you walk by the mince meat isle and poke smiley faces into the packaging just to be a brat.

Just another night i Ghana with amazing people and limited resources for fun.

Let me tell you how i have just recently sprung back from my rut of loneliness in Ghana.
Her name is Chelsea Ingrouille, just one of the amazing women i get to spend everyday with.

Last night, we were having an ordinary check-in/spiritual reflection and as per usual we got most distracted and ended up with 5 cokes sitting around the table preparing for a burping contest. Sorry Pamela, we can never focus.
Note: Sugar factor.

We thought it would be a great idea to put shame on the person that couldn't drink the entire coke in one sitting so that immediately put each of us in game mode.
The games begin.
Something is always funny about when the entire table throws back their bottles but it always works out that someone has the coke dripping from their chin because they can take the burn going down.
I obviously laughed because that shits hilarious.
Chelsea laughed because i laughed.
I laughed harder because she was laughing.
She began laughing mid-swallow, choked and gladly allowed her refreshing beverage to exit through her nose, into her hands and all over the table.

SO funny. But she kept going.

Chelsea then began to burp, choke, laugh for the amusement of all viewers, really. Kaity could not talk from laughing, but only make the motions on herself of what was happening to Chelsea.

Then Chelsea thought it would be super awesome to throw up a portion of what she ate on the table, rather than try to escape to a safer area.
"I knew i was going to throw up, i just didnt want to make a trail of it to the washroom... Tables good for me!"

Just another night i Ghana with amazing people and limited resources for fun.