"Take me to Obama!!!"

and "Obama's sista's are welcome here!" were common phrases at the market this morning.  If any of you did not know, the President of the US visited Ghana last month and the Ghanaians LOVE Obama. I had no idea just how well he was received here until today.  There were signs greeting Obama still up all over the city - "Akwaaba" is Twi for welcome.

Several members of the PTO guided us through the Makola Market in downtown Accra today.   It was super nice of them to take time to show us around the city! We started with a culture meeting with them this morning at the school.  We picked up a seamstress, named Gertrude, on the way to help us pick out fabric.  Having dresses made here is much cheaper than buying them off the rack! So, we all picked out nice Ghanaian fabrics for her to make us dresses with - I loved the batik fabrics - I skipped over this fabric with Obama's face, and choose a nice teal and green fabric instead!

I was amazed at the amount of people in the market - It was similar to one I had been to in Beijing a few years ago -- the biggest difference was the A-mazing women who could carry the most A-mazing things on their heads!  Which made me wonder what I would want to carry on my head.....

I am going to attempt to post a video that, I think, captures walking through the market today.  There were women all up and down this alley with sewing machine in the tiniest spaces just working, right there in the middle of all of this.  I was also very surprised to see people sleeping in the middle of all of this chaos.  Supposedly, Ghanaians can sleep anywhere!

 

After the market, we went to eat at a hotel on the beach – it was so freeing to look out onto the ocean after the market experience!  I went down to the beach to take a picture – it was not like Destin – the beach did not (as most of Africa that I have experienced does not) smell particularly delightful.

I came home to the Korrums for peanut soup and a rice bowl tonight, yum.  Because it gets dark here so early (around 6:30) we are beginning to be more creative with our evenings.  Several of us played Catch – Phrase, it is nice to have bonding time with my new family overseas.  Please pray that we don’t get on each others nerves too soon this year!