Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Ghanaian Good Cheer Mandate

28 January 2010
Sure enough, rehearsal this morning started its usual hour late. I have no words.
Later today, I had a class in the Home Science department called Housing Design, which I’m super excited about, because building things is awesome. That was canceled though. I will be excited to give more updates in this area when possible.
I decided to get a kebab at a stall on the way back from my not class. It was quite tasty, consisting of beef and onion. They actually do eat kebabs right off the skewer here, which I think is fantastic, because that is what I like to do at home anyway and I get weird looks. But that’s not why I’m telling this story. As I was making my way through my snack, a man called me over to talk and said something in Twi that I did not understand. He laughed at me, as Ghanaians are wont to do and finally explained that “When someone says [whatever he said], it means you have to give me some of that.” I replied with, “No, sorry, I don’t share kebabs with people I don’t know.” He said, “Okay, maybe another time.” And I just let him go on thinking that.
Today was the Nigeria vs. Ghana football game. There are Nigerians and Ghanaians living in our hostel, and they have a tendency to not get along very well apparently. From what I can understand, Nigeria is disliked by a number of countries and is known for being unfriendly, though I have no particular experience with this. Every time a goal was scored, a roar erupted form throughout the building. That’s all I was witness to, but I have no doubt that this roar was heard throughout the country. Ghanaians get PSYCHED about their football, which is exciting for everyone involved. There are three TVs in ISH (our hostel), and people crowded around all of them.
And then we won. Students ran through the halls, blowing plastic horns, waving flags, yelling, etc. Someone ran into the courtyard with champagne for whoever got to him first. A crowd then ran out of the building and into the parking lot. We went onto the balcony to get a view. A number of people got into cars and started racing around the parking lot, doing turns, with some people hanging out of the windows. On the sidewalks, people cheered and yelled. A couple cars ran into other parked cars at times, at which point the owner of the parked car would walk out to the lot amiably enough, check out the damage and move his car. There was no chance any Ghanaian was going to be unhappy this evening.

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