My African family

On Thursday the 15th I met my host family, the people who will be my world for the next 10 months.  I was dropped of at my mothers work in Cape Coast, she is a manager of a laundry cleaner place.  I was so overwhelmed with meeting my mom that I completely forgot to give the other exchange students hugs good bye, sorry guys, I did wave good bye though.  My mom welcomed me with a hug and immediately explained to me that I was her daughter and would be loved as much as her biological daughters, the only difference would be that I am white.  

       We went to the bank togather and while she was inside one of her workers who had come with got me a coconut, which was amazingly refreshing in the heat.  We then went to an office place were we went in and my mom talked, after we left she told me that she had told the men at the office to not ask me to marry them because it was my first day and she did not want me to feel overwhelmed.  

       Then we went to my host sisters school were my dad was doing paper work because my sister Grace is applying for the YES abroad program to the USA.  When my dad saw me he walked towards me with open arms and and big smile until he gave me a big hug, saying "My daughter, my daughter, she is finally home."  We were just picking my dad up and I could not talk to Grace because at her boarding school which is all girls you can not talk to her unless it is visiting hours, I was not even allowed to wave to her when I saw her, but she did give me a huge smile.  

       Finally we went home, mom parked the car at a gas station by the road where many small shops are lined up.  To get to our house you have to walk around a small cement wall over a creek of sewage and up a hill about 150 yards.  The house is in two parts, one half is just a skeleton that they are working on finishing to have guests stay in.  The house we live in is one storie tall, you come in to the living room/dining room which has a table and chairs, there is no furniture but that is fine.  There is the kitchen which had all sorts of exotic food in it.  There are three bedrooms one my parents and little sister stay in.  My moms little brother who is going to college in Cape Coast stays in the room right next to mine.  My room is small but nice, there is fan and light.  There is a bed with a bug net over it, a closet with cloths hangers, and a table and chair.  There is a bathroom and shower room right outside my room, though so far the water had not worked so it's been bucket showers and pouring water down the toilet to make it flush.  

         Once I put some of my stuff out in my room, I took a nap to which I woke up to my little sister giving me a big hug and talking my ear off, her name is Gladis.  Later that night  I met my host uncle who usually does not get home until 9 because he had to work.  He is very nice, he stays with his sister (my host mom) while he goes to college.  I don't know when I will really meet Grace but I can't wait.  I really like my family and I think they will make this year an exceptional experience.

Hajj

    This blog is based on what I learned, some of it may be false or different, I don't mean to insult any one, I just want to share my experience.  

      On sept. 12th in the middle of our week long orientation in Ghana, all the exchange students wherevable to experience Hajj, which is one of the biggest holidays in the Muslim religion.  Hajj is one of the five pillars of the Muslim religion.  It is the pillar about sacrifice.  Hajj is a day celebrated in rembrence of Abraham who was told to sacrifice his one and only son.  Since Abraham worshiped Allah (God) he was going to fallow through with his instructions, until God said no, do not kill your only son you have proven to me that you are loyal, sacrifice a goat instead.  

      So on the 12th we woke up early and put on the cloths AFS had given us to wear.  For the girls that was a full length dress with long sleeves and a hijab.  The boys wore long white shirts.  Once we were ready we ate breakfast which was hazardous because the guys where waiting white and least one of the stained there shirts.  After breakfast we took a bus to very large market in Accra that had been transformed in to place of worship by removing every thing except the tents and adding prayer rugs.                 

      When we arrived not many people where there yet so we set up chairs in a circle, and for some reason decided to play frog detective.  Which is game where one person is a frog in a circle and when they stick out there tonge at you pretend to die, then there is one person in the middle who is trying to figure out who the frog is.  Any way we were playing that while waited for people to arrive and then when people started arriving they were staring at us like we were crazy, when we were pretending to die (usefully with sound effects).  It was quit hilarious especially since we were the only white people and wearing religious clothing. 

      Once there where a lot of people there one of the female AFS volunteers who is Muslim led the girls through Abulations while a male volunteer led the guys through it.  Abulations is spiritual washing before you perform prayers.  We used water from plastic water bottles which seemed out of place in a spiritual ritual, but that was the water that was available.  You start by washing each hand three times, right hand first.  You then rinse your mouth 3 times, then wash your nose and face both three times.  After the face you rinse your forearms three times each, right side first.  You then do each foot once, the right one first. Lastly you run wet hands through your hair, which is alittle difficult when you are wearing a hijab.

       After Abulations we all sat down on prayer rugs.  Women sit in the back of and prayer area so they don't distract the men, who all sit in the front of the prayer area.  Once we were all situated the leader started prayers which where in Arabic, so none of us understood it.  During the prayers we would stand up, lean over, put our foreheads on the ground, and do some arm movements, which we all figured out by watching what everyone else was doing.  After the prayers there was the sermon which was also in a foreign language.  Most people got up and were talking during the sermon, people came through with charity boxes so I put in 20 cedis.  Then people handed out food I got some biscuits and this really good icecream that came in a bag, so you just bit the corner and sucked the icecream out.  

       When we stood up to walk around, I felt like I had become some sort of celebrate because everyone was taking photos of us or asking if they could get a photo with us.  It was mind blowing how many people wanted pictures with us, we could barley move more than 2 ft at a time.  It really showed how the world shows white people because that was the only thing that was interesting about us, we were white.

      Since Hajj is about sacrifice there was a cow and a goat  sacrificed.  Some of our group decide not to watch, because it is a hard thing to watch very large and powerful animals get killed.  I watched the cow get sacrificed and I've never seen anything like it.  There where so many people there that I actually could not see the cow get its throat cut but I saw the man with the knife and I saw the movment he made to kill the cow.  And then there was so much blood, and the powerful animals muscles moved it legs for a few more minutes.  After the sacrifice we were again the center of attention, so many people wanted our picture that we barley were able to get back to our bus.

     Once we left we headed to a mosque in a poorer area, at the mosque a man explained Islam in a simple way (sort of).  It was very helpful though in our understanding of other religions.  When we left the mosque  I saw men on the porch chopping up lots of meat, which I assume came from a sacrificed animal.  Our next stop of the day was another mosque that was very, very nice and expensive though when you looked out the window you could see the people who had very little, the contrast was shocking.  In the second mosque the woman who designed it gave us a tour, the mosque had only been finished 6 months ago.  We were very lucky to have the person who poured their heart and soul into the building to give us a tour.  And like she explained the community around the mosk was very proud to have such a nice building especially one of worship.

       After leaving the mosk we were driven to one of the members on the mosque who was kind enough to have us for lunch.  We got to try so many new foods, one was this corn dough that you put in slimy soup and then when you ate it you just swallowed you did not chew.  Finally after our very full day we headed back to our hostel, on the ride back I think every one fell asleep, we were so tired.  It was thanks to AFS and the volunteers that we got to experience such an amazing celebration.

Travel days and arrival

      The last few days have been filled with lots of travel and little sleep.  For me it all started on the 5th of September when me, my family and Tim drove out of McCarthy to Anchorage. We had wanted to leave early but in typical McCarthy fashion we ended up moving two large boulders for about an hour and a half before heading out.  We stopped along the way and said good bye to some good friends.  Owen and I drove with Tim which was a lot of fun, we listened to great music and ate lots of food for our 8 hour trip.  

      On the 6th which was also the day I was leaving AK I woke up early to be with dad before he went to work.  For the rest of the morning it was doing laundry, running around the house with mom making sure I had every thing I needed. At noon dad came home early from work to spend the rest of the day with me.  I finished up packing around 2 and then we went and picked Owen up from school.  After finally getting the whole family together including my 2 dogs we went to baskin robins for my pre departure ice cream.  After ice cream at around 3:15 we headed to the airport with all my stuff.  I had to say good bye to my puppies in the parking garage, which was probably the most emotional part of the day.  After checking my bag we took lots of pictures and I gave lots of hugs to all my family members, surprisingly no body cried at least as far as I know.  Finally around 3:45 I new I must go so I said my final good byes and headed through security to my first flight.  My flight from anchorage was univentful and right when I arrived in Seatle I boarded my plane to New York.  

       I finally arrived in New York at 6am but actually 2am Alaska time.  Once on the ground I got my luggage and then found my way to where the hotel shuttles pick you up.  I caught my shuttle to the crown plaza which was where the pre departure orientation was taking place.  When I arrived at the hotel none of the AFS staff where there so I sat in the lobby for about two hours trying not to fall asleep.  Finally some one came and gave me a room, once I got to my room I was so exaughsted that I collapsed in to bed and did not wake up for many hours.  After my refreshing nap I went to lunch where I met many kids who were going to places like Italy, Spain, Panama, Argentina, Paraguay, and Egypt.  Later at dinner I met up with all the other kids going to Ghana, there were more than when we last met because 4 of the kids who had been chosen to go Turkey where with us because going to Turkey had became to dangerous.  The next day we did group activities in the morning.  Then at 1pm the Ghana group and the Italian group got on a bus and headed to the airport.  We had a chaperone who was travling all the way to Ghana with us, so with him we got through security then waited at our terminal for 4 hours!  At 5:30 we got on our plane and took off.  We arrived the next morning in Ghana after a 10 hour flight in which I did not sleep at all, and also we had some pretty scary turbulence that made me cry in fear but in the end all was well.

       Once we arrived we got our luggage and headed out.  Some AFS volunteers picked us up and we drove about 1 hour to our hostel on the way we saw goats and chickens in the road.  We saw so many people selling things all over the streets and almost all of them carried their goods on their heads with ease.  We finally made it to our hostel and ate our first and very delicious Ghanaian meal (it was a little spicy though).  We were all so glad to finally make it to our exchange program.

 

Alaska to Ghana

In December of 2015 I applied to an exchange program called YES abroad which stands for Youth Exchange and Study.  The mission of this program is to bring Muslim kids to the US, but also to send kids from the US to countries with a prominent Muslim population.  The YES abroad program has 11 countries in which they send kids, these countries are:Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Jordan, Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, when I applied Turkey was also on the list but has since been removed because of how dangerous it has become.  In the YES abroad program applicants do not get to choose there host country so it is an mystery until you are accepted.  The YES abroad program only sends 65 kids from the US to these countries and all of them get a full scholarship so when I applied I did not think that I would be chosen as one of the few kids in the entire US to get to experience this amazing opportunity.  In March of 2016 I got the email saying I had been chosen to go to Ghana through YES abroad, I was very exited and nervous.  At the time I was away at Junior Nationals for skiing so I could not really talk with my parents about what I should do.  Especially when I was in the middle of so much skiing with all my friends and awesome coaches I did not know if I was willing to give up skiing for a whole year.  After calling my parents and some good friends back home as well as talking with my ski coaches I decided a year abroad in Ghana was worth missing skiing, and know I am so very glad I made that decision.

 

The orientation in DC

         I am now one week away from leaving home for 10 months and living in a country where I don't know a single person which is very exiting but also scary.  I have been getting ready for this all summer and am very impatient to get there already and strangely enough I am not nervous (I am guessing my nerves will kick in when I'm on the plane).  In preparation for this trip my program had an orientation in the beginning of the summer in Washington DC with all the out going(as in leaving) kids in the YES abroad program, including all the kids I'll be going to Ghana with, who are all really awesome people.  Another big thing I did this summer in preparation was I cut all my hair off which was really fun, but will also be really helpful.  In Ghana almost all girls my age wear there hair really short so maybe with short hair I may stick out less, but probably not much since I am white.  Another bonus to short hair will be I will hopefully get less overheated, but again probably not because I am from Alaska and it is an average of 80 F in Ghana.  I think I have organized all my stuff that I will need in Ghana, but really my clothes are not really made for Ghanaian weather so hopefully I will get some cool new clothing in Ghana better suited for the weather.

 

         With all this getting ready to go I have also been learning about where in Ghana I will living, my host school, and my host family.  I will be living in a city called Cape Coast, which is about the size of anchorage maybe a little bigger.  I also have my school which is called Aggrey Memorial it has 2,300 kids which will be shocking for a kid like me coming from a school of 250 kids.  I will also get to wear a uniform to school which I am very exited about because it means there is one less thing I have to think about.  The uniform will be a dress but I am not sure what it will look like yet color wise, though the school colors are purple and gold.  The most exiting news for me came four days ago and that is about my host family.  I will have a host mom and dad and two sisters, one sister is my age and the other is 7, my family are poultry farmers, which I think is so cool.  My host moms little brother also lives with the family and goes to college in Cape Coast.  I am so exited to meet my host family and learn about a culture that is so different then mine.  My biggest adventure will start in 6 days and I can't wait to begin.