Weekend Wanderings

What a weekend of relaxation! Friday, freedom came early! Psychology of Religion ended and we set out to complete a list of errands. The bookstore on campus is great! They have a used book area with books for a dollar or less. We picked up some leisure reading and some notebooks and textbooks for courses, had lunch, stopped at the ATM and bought a bag of water. I’ve finally moved on to cheap water! The past three weeks we’ve been buying 1.5 liter bottles of water in bulk, but they’re pretty expensive. A box of 12 costs 12-14 cedi, about 10 dollars. On the other hand, you can buy water in half liter little plastic bags, one for 5 pesewa, 3 cents. So, buying a bag of 30 bags of water costs 1.30 cedi… a little bit over the cost of one bottle. Friday afternoon was dedicated to laundry. Hand washing has gotten a lot less stressful with more experience. I gave up on using detergent in powder form and was ridiculously surprised at how much easier using detergent in bar soap form is!

The laundry washing area has two giant cisterns that store water and provide a nice workspace to scrub in. There’s a large rectangle of grass, between the two inner walls of the complex and the outside wall that the tanks are seated next to, that is full of huge laundry lines to hang dry clothing. So as I was scrubbing away Friday afternoon, two of the guys in ISEP sat on a bench outside, in a little patio area just off the laundry block. I walked past them, said hi and retreated to my room for what turned into a three hour nap. I finally went back down to check on my laundry at about 5 and passed the same two boys, and an additional two in the same place I had seen them last. After another hour, three girls added themselves to the boys group and they pulled a couch over with them. By 8pm, the patio by the laundry lines became the new hangout for all of ISEP. There were bottles of wine and whiskey, mosquito repelling incense and four candles. We’ve dubbed our new hangout “The Living Room,” and it’s already being used in casual conversation.

Saturday, Monica, my roommate, and I went to Medina to get some new shoes and ingredients for the main sauce in Ghanaian dishes. Even though Medina is on the smaller side of the markets in Accra, it’s easy for me to get lost! Monica easily navigated through the stalls and sellers to find a HUGE pile of shoes. She found a pair easily, but I’m too picky to settle for the first stall. We must have walked past each shoe seller in the market by the time I had finally given up. Along the way, Monica picked up tomatoes and onions, tomato paste, mackerel in tomato juice, small peppers that looked too spicy for me to handle and some stock cubes. I ran into a cup, some laundry pins and a very juicy looking pineapple. As we were heading toward the tro-tro station, I spotted a pair of knockoff Teva’s! Ten cedi (7 dollars) later, they were mine and we headed back to campus. As exhausted as we were for spending three hours in the market, we still had to walk a mile across campus from the university bus stop to our dorm. We sludged into ISH, passed the living room, ten people there now, and fell into bed. Monica taught me how to make the sauce and told me that Jollof is just rice cooked in the sauce instead of water. So now I can make Jollof! And keep it not so spicy!

Seven o’clock came and a few of us left to celebrate an ISEP birthday! We were stoked to go to a restaurant downtown that serves wild game. I was planning on having Zebra for dinner! Others were talking about ostrich and camel cheeks. It took us a long time to find the place, it was behind a large fence and there wasn’t a sign for the restaurant…because it had closed a few months before. We settled for a nice Indian restaurant a few blocks down. As long as we don’t think of how much we missed, the Indian food was great!

As for Sunday, the entire day was spent looking through homework and laughing in the living room. The boys built a table Saturday, allowing more room for congregation. We’re looking for more seating, but the floor is always available to those late comers.