Africa to the extreme!

I have officially survived my first month in Africa. Phew! It has been a long month of constant learning and adjusting, but I have enjoyed almost every minute of it. Besides sweating everywhere I go and power outages that happen as frequently as 5 times a day and the water line being cut for two days at a time, preventing any hand washing or showering at the house, life is good here in Africa. It’s important to keep a positive attitude here, because many things go wrong. It’s definitely better to embrace this fact than to let it get to me….ok, I was debating whether I should tell this story or not, I don’t want to scare anyone, but I think I will tell it. It was a pretty epic event for me. So, a couple of nights ago, someone tried to rob me and my friend Carrie. We were walking home at around 9:30pm after going out to get something in town. All of us walk out there hundreds of times, even at night, and sometimes alone, but that night, someone approached us very swiftly. A man, probably in his 20’s, and at first I didn’t know what was going on, but then I saw him reach for Carrie’s purse. My first thought was not to be scared. I was surprisingly calm once I realized he wanted to rob us. With my already paranoid personality, I am surprised at how calm I was. Luckily, I had put on my travel safety belt that night that had all my money safely tucked under my shirt. It was the first time I had ever used my travel belt. It looks pretty nerdy, but I am so glad I wore it. Anyway, so Carrie pushed his arm away and we started to try and walk away. He said something about not wanting to have to use his gun (I knew he didn’t have a gun. I saw him holding his hand behind his back in the shape of a gun) We were the only ones on this road and it was really dark. All we had was a flashlight. Next thing I know, this guy comes up behind me and puts one hand over my mouth and the other hand around my throat. On instinct, I kicked him as hard as I could. It was the craziest feeling being in that position. Every self-defense lesson I had ever had came right to the front of my mind. I started making really loud noises and Carrie flashed her flashlight right in his eyes. As soon as we did that, he backed away just enough for me to run free and we sprinted to the nearest hotel and told the night guard what had happened. He escorted us back home, and when we got back home, and told our night guard at the house what happened, he immediately grabbed his machete, stuffed it up his sleeve, and took off into the dark to find the guy. He didn’t find him, but our program director has notified the police and they are going to be guarding the area for the next couple of weeks. Now, don’t let this story scare anyone. I am ok, and luckily didn’t have anything stolen, but I learned to travel in big groups wherever I go from now on. I haven’t been able to go out at night since it happened, but I think if I go in groups of 4 or more, I will feel fine. I am told what happened to us is very very uncommon and if it does happen, they are eventually caught pretty easily because it is such a tight-nit community and people know who hangs around where. Somebody from here told me that the last time something like this happened that he knows of, it was two years ago, and the guy was caught and put in jail for 3 years. It’s generally a very safe town. I am sure if I was in America on a dark road just two girls, the same kind of thing could have happened. It just takes using common sense. Like I said, I definitely learned my lesson.
Anyway, besides that incident that really shook me up, I had a great week. I got to go to church this week! I traveled to a city about 2 hours away by tro tro (also something I don’t think I will do alone again after what happened the other night) and met up with a senior missionary couple who I had gotten in contact with before I came out here to Ghana. It turns out they are from Washington! They are so nice. They cooked me a deliciously American meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and chili and koolaid. I haven’t had cheese since being here. It’s virtually impossible to find. But she found it! Koolaid was also amazing to be drinking. We chatted for a while, and then I got to go to institute in the evening. We drove up to the church building, which is a little run down, and the sign that says “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints” was hand painted, but it was a church building nonetheless. We had a doctrine and covenants lesson. I felt immediately at home being among so many members of the church. There were probably around 15 of them that were all around my age. They were so friendly and all wanted to shake my hand and meet me. It was fun. After institute, the couple dropped me off at a cheap hotel we had found that belonged to the Evangelical church, so I felt safe at a hotel owned by a church and it was all gated and safe. I stayed in a hotel room for the first time by myself. Hotel rooms here are hardly hotel rooms though. The beds never have sheets or blankets on them because it is too hot to even have one. So my room had one twin bed with no sheets, a ceiling fan, and a small lightbulb hanging down from a wire in the middle of the room. Haha. I didn’t mind it though. It was a place to stay. I woke up the next morning and the couple picked me up to go to church at 9am. There are around 300 people in the branch in this town, but there are no other branches or wards for atleast 2 hours all around. Most of the members in Ghana are concentrated near the Southern coast. When I walked in, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, but again, everyone was really excited to come up and shake my hand and learn about why I was there and where I am from. One of the Elders in the branch is American, and we got to talking. It turns out his dad was my professor at BYU for a Substance Abuse and Addictive Behavior class I took last semester. How crazy is that? I can’t describe how great it felt to be able to go to church after a month of not being able to go. It was so nice to be surrounded by members of the church and to be able to go to sacrament meeting. It amazes me how similar everything in the church is, even 8,000 miles away from home. People dress very differently to go to church, atleast the women, but besides that, everything is the same. Women usually wear a dress made by a local seamstress made from brightly colored and patterned fabrics, and usually tie a big piece of fabric of the same pattern as their dress over their hair. A lot of women have their babies strapped to their back by fabric, even when sitting. The branch president was a very friendly guy. I am so happy I got to go to church! We stayed after for about an hour and I talked to a bunch of different people. After church, I went over to the missionary couple’s house and had lunch. They fed me beef stew and the best Ghana Cocoa chocolate cake I have ever had. Wow, I ate two huge pieces. I definitely miss sugar here. There is not a lot of it besides in the fruit. Dessert seems to be unheard of after meals. After lunch, we had to wait a while because it started raining. When it starts raining here, it pours, and since the roads are made of dirt and very pot-holey, they are impossible to drive on when it rains. They are nearly washed away every time it rains. I took the tro tro back and arrived home safely.
Before this post gets any longer, I will briefly touch on the rest of my week. Placement is going well. The children at my school get to air on the radio tomorrow morning. We have been practicing all week. They get an hour on the air to sing, recite poems, bible verses, and show how fluently some of them can read (only the much older kids of course). There are probably only 3 or 4 children in the whole school who can read proficiently. The headmaster of the school wants me and the girl I volunteer with to say a small blurb about ourselves and how much we love the school and love the kids there. He told us that having white volunteers attracts people and will make parents want to bring their kids to this school. I thought that was kind of funny.
Everything else is going well. I have been working on my internship papers that are due when I get back a lot this week in my free time. I hope everything is going well at home. I love you all and miss you tons! I tried to post on Monday, but the internet has been down a lot lately because of the rain causing power outages. Goodbye!!