Thanksgiving in Candy Land

Hey friends and family:) I cannot believe I have been here close to 6 months! Teaching has been both fun and challenging. Right now I’m actually dealing with some issues at my site; I haven’t been able to find out a way to make it work with me and my Ghanaian housemate so I plan to move into a different place in town. It will be nice to hopefully have some more privacy so I’m excited for the move. I’ll keep you updated but for now things are still being arranged.

On more fun news, I just went to Accra (the capital) for Thanksgiving! It was a blast. I stayed in a guest house in a part of Accra that is super nice and foreigner friendly. There were small coffee shops, bars/spots, restaurants with Thai, Chinese and Indian cuisine, fast food (gasp!), cute little stores for shopping and more. It definitely did not feel like the typical Ghana that most of us Peace Corps Volunteers get every day. There even was a grocery store! It was splendid to see so much cheese in one place. The only bad part was that it was uber expensive and most of us blew a decent amount of our monthly living allowance in a few short days. But it was worth it; I have no problem eating rice and simple stew for the rest of the month if I got to have a nice big cheeseburger and fries one day of the month. My holiday would have been ever better if I had RSVPed earlier for thanksgiving and had gotten to stay with one of the ex-pat host families. There were 120 volunteers that came down to Accra for thanksgiving and there were only enough host families for 80 volunteers. So the lucky ones got to stay in nice houses with hot water, air conditioning, couches, big TVs, internet, American CABLE (Ugh one kid bragged about watching new episodes of the jersey shore and I was jealous), yummy food, etc. It was basically like being back in the states apparently. It was a little depressing that I didn’t get to stay in a nice house but there really wasn’t much to complain about this weekend. Ignorance is bliss?!

But to get to the best part (I know you are thinking “what could be better than boat loads of cheeeese?!” but I promise this is), all the current PCVs were invited to spend thanksgiving at the Ambassador’s residence! He has an amazing place; I’ve been to it before when we were first welcomed to the country at his house with drinks, appetizers and dancing. He has a big lawn and veranda where we hung out most of the day and he opened up the pool for us to swim and relax in the sun. He had a traditional thanksgiving feast prepared with 12 turkeys!!!! Oh it was spectacular. I had mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, salad, rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, pecan pie and pumpkin pie! Oh I stuffed myself more than I ever have in my past 25 years of turkey days and loved it. It was also really nice to hang out with all the volunteers all in one place. I feel that we’ve all become pseudo family for each other in country (I’ve called at least two other volunteers crying hysterically, and if that doesn’t mean we’re family than I don’t know what does) so that feeling of acceptance was an added bonus. I am incredibly thankful the ambassador opened up his home for this holiday; it definitely would have been hard to stay at site and WORK on one of my favorite American holidays!

To finish a great weekend (it just keeps getting better), a bunch of us went to the mall in Accra and saw the new Harry Potter movie! The mall was again, just like any mall back home with a bunch of clothing stores, a huge Wal-Mart kind of store, food court, children’s play area, etc. It really felt like I stepped right out of Ghana and warped into America or something. I actually had a wee bit of culture shock from it all. It was a lot to take in after 6 months of living out “in the bush.” Everything was so clean and nice that I felt almost too dirty to belong there, haha. I figure if I make semi-regular Accra trips during my service that I can minimize the culture shock when I return home after I’m done; though I’m not sure I have the money for that!

So all in all the holiday weekend was a great time and has left me now refreshed and ready to return to site and get my hands dirty. Miss everyone! If I can I might try to send some fun Ghana stuff home for Christmas, so look out for that.