There is definitely a lion on the loose near my village

I should 1st warn my mother not to read this blog posting, because I know she'll just be worried, so Mom, "stop reading this".

Last week was quite interesting. Lets see, Wednesday a little rock slipped into my shoe as I was running it cut the skin around my achilles tenuous and left a nice blister/cut, Thursday I fell sick again with a fever and pains all over my body (I went to get a malaria test but the lab was closed for the day), Friday, right before I went in my room to go to bed for the night, a bee came up and stung me on my face (I haven't been stung by a bee since I was probably 4 or 5), Saturday morning as I attempted to jab a knife into a can of cream to open it, I missed the can and stabbed my hand instead (I thought all my blood was coming out of my body it was bleeding so much). Then Sunday I heard the news on the radio that there is a lion on the loose near my village (there aren't even lions in this region but they're saying he came from Togo) and actually it attacked someone last week. With the luck I was having, I figured next thing to happen would be the lion attacking me. LOL. I even started to think that someone in the village put a curse on me (Speaking of curses, I'll say more about that later on in this blog). But even with all this, I am not ready to come back to America. Even yesterday I had to go in my room because my eyes started to tear up thinking about saying good-bye. I just love the people here and the peacefulness of the village life.

On a more upbeat note, yesterday I went to a dinner party at my German friends' house (the older man and his wife). The food was amazing! I wanted to be greedy and just keep eating until I couldn't eat anymore. At the dinner party was some Germans living and working in Ghana, some native Ghanaians working with them or married to the Germans, and then me, the one American. It was fun. You know I love to talk to anyone, so I just sat and talked, and ate up the good food.

Oh, so I told you I would tell you more about the curses people are putting on each other in the villages. At 1st I didn't know if I believed it or not but after hearing all the stories and even witnessing this woman who was normal when I first got to the village and now she is mad, I know that it's really happening. The mad woman is always visiting me. Last week she came to me with no shirt on, but she had placed band aids on her nipples and was walking around singing and smoking cigarettes. The kids tell me not to talk to her, but I feel bad for her. This pastor lady I know told me that the woman will be normal and then maybe once a year or once every two years she'll go mad for a couple months. The pastor said someone proposed to her a while back and she denied him and after that the man disappeared and people believe he put a curse on her. Crazy stuff.

Time is ticking away too fast. If I didn't have to come home and get a job I would definitely stay here longer. I wish everyone could come life in my village for a couple weeks and understand what I'm talking about. One thing that I think is so funny is the perception most of us as Americans have about the African continent. (That's our 1st problem is that we generalize an entire continent.) I can even say I had my own pre-notions before coming here that I quickly realized where absolutely incorrect. We buy into the stereotypes way too much. I know that one of my jobs now that I've lived in Ghana, is to share with people my experiences so they start to understand one of the African cultures better. It's a beautiful country and a beautiful culture, I hope more people take the opportunity to come see for themselves. Even last evening Guenther's wife (she's a native of Ghana) was telling me that in Germany she was taking care of an 84 year old man. He would always say to her that Africa was uncivilized and say all sorts of things that showed he believed in all the negative stereotypes. She always would tell him to come with her and she'd show him it wasn't that way. So at 84 years old, the German man decided to come with her. She said he was speechless in disbelieve when he drove around the country. He even apologized to her for all the things he had said to her about Africa. I'm not saying there isn't poverty here or children who are starving. What I am saying though, is it's not everywhere, and it doesn't make up what this country is. If someone only looked at the negative aspects of America and based their idea of our country on that, we would look pretty bad too.

Okay I need to run, so until next week I will talk to you all later.