Happy Birthday to Me!

Oh my gosh I turned 20 years old in Africa! Not many people can say that they spent a birthday in Africa! I am extremely blessed & it was quite an amazing birthday! So from the beginning...

We had a very eventful day today. We were up by around 4:30 this morning, and left the house a little after 5am to head to Accra. It was a bumpy 3-4 hour drive and most of us slept.  When we arrived, we went to a grocery store and did some shopping for meals here in Abomosu.  While people were finishing up grocery shopping, Leah, Kayla, and Lindsey went and did a little shopping on the street vendors and bought some really cool stuff! Yaw (our driver), Paige, and I went and found fresh coconuts on the street.  He cut open the coconuts and we drank the coconut water straight out of the coconut! It was pretty darn disgusting!

From there, Yaw drove us to the Accra Mall so that we could get more groceries for the week.  We also did some gift shopping there and everyone got some really fun things!  Including bowls, keychains, bookmarks, fabric, and I got a cool book cover! We had lunch in the food court, looked around a bit more, and then headed out to another African market.  They had a lot of really cool things, like carvings, paintings, bags, keychains, and jewelry! Everyone had a really good time seeing everything and bargaining with the workers!  And I have to say, most people were pretty successful! The people selling the items were definitely forceful which was kind of intimidating, though.   Paige & Lindsey both bought bow and arrows which was really cool. We will be back in Accra next Tuesday, so we mostly just looked around and will buy things when we come back later. 

After the market, we started our journey back to Abomosu. There was a lot of traffic so it took a lot longer to get home! Reika had an experience with sunflower seeds that was pretty hilarious.  Since she is from Japan, she has never heard of sunflower seeds.  Scott had brought some and everyone took some, and she was just completely baffled that we were eating seeds from a flower.  She even said she was going to have to tell her mom that she was eating seeds.  It was hilarious! An interesting sight we saw on the way back was the home of Bob Marley's wife so we pulled over and took a few pictures!

When we got back, Darcy got together all our leftovers from the past few nights (fried rice, chicken gravy, bread, etc) and we had dinner.  As dinner was ending, the lights went off and everyone started singing happy birthday and out comes Darcy with a cake with 20 candles on it! I was completely surprised.  Our oven doesn't really work very well and I really wanted a birthday cake and I was worrying that I didn't get one, but turned out they bought one at the grocery store and surprised me! It was awesome and I really appreciated it!

After dinner, Darcy, Scott, Leah, Reika, and I did a 5 25 workout again. It's tough but it was good.  Afterwards, Darcy, Scott, Leah & I walked into town just to go for a walk. It was around 10pm, so it was dark.  There was loud music so we checked it out and there were quite a few people around and some people were dancing!  We just kinda checked it out and everyone was excited to see us and were dancing with us and pulling us away, so we got out of there. We walked back to the house and told some of the other students, and everyone wanted to go check it out! So we got most of the group together and went back so we could join the locals!  We danced and had so much fun! Everyone wanted to dance with us because they rarely get to dance with, let alone see, white people. The place where everyone was dancing was basically a bar, but there were children in there as well, which was kinda weird.  It was just a super small room and not very many people were there at first, but when they heard all the white girls were there, they flocked! It was definitely an interesting experience. Scott is the only guy on our trip and since he is an administrator he basically played daddy while we were there and made sure no African boys were dancing all up on us.  They were at first, but whenever Scott came around, they would stop.  There were quite a few creepy drunk people, probably about our age, but there were also some pretty darn attractive men as well. Darcy says I found my "prince" because he kept wanting to dance with me.  His name was Yaw, just like our driver, and he was super tall and attractive. He wasn't really creepy and didn't dance creepy and he taught me a few dance moves that the locals do and it was fun! He kept talking to me in English, but with his accent and the loud music, I could barely understand anything he said.  At first glance, he seemed like he could be a creeper, but he ended up being a lot more respectful than the other guys, and he was a lot more fun.  A lot of guys would touch our butts, and I figured it was because they were looking to take something, and Yaw told me that the people that do that are thieves, so my suspicion was confirmed. I put everything in my front pockets and luckily, nothing was stolen! It was pretty odd and there were some interesting characters, but it was definitely an interesting experience because their culture is so different.  Scott was absolutely hilarious.  He taught some locals the "Usain Bolt" and they loved it! Everyone dances with everyone there, so some guys were backing it up on Scott and he was just going along with it! It was hilarious watching my PhD professor in a situation like that! It was definitely a fun night. & no one needs to worry! I won't be coming home with a husband or anything! But I wooouuuuld like to snatch up one of the adorable babies... *wink*

Darcy, Lindsey, Reika, Leah, Kayla, and I while walking to the village

Today was a super busy day and it is currently  2 in the morning (only because I have been catching up on my blogging and birthday posts on Facebook), so I have been up for a while! Luckily, we get to sleep in tomorrow and have a lazy day! But it was an awesome day, and an awesome birthday for me! I appreciate everyone who made it so amazing!