How to be Ghanaian...JUST DANCE!

I would say that I’m not 100% integrating myself in the household successfully because the one thing that you have to do here is get up really early in the morning in order to sweep floors. I’m not sure why this is but so far I’ve taken a fairly firm stance that I’ll sweep floors when I’m ready to sweep floors. Pat (our acting housekeeper and nominal house mum) wakes no later than 6:30 each day, sweeps floors, does domestic things, then naps until she’s ready to cook lunch and then naps again until it’s time to do more domestic things such as cook dinner – I just can't bring myself to sample this lifestyle! Today is my first day off in which to observe that this is her routine, so I think that maybe if the average day is less Saturday-ish she might also go to collage.

However, there are some things that I do rather well. Specifically: eat (but not spell) Fufu and Banku. The fact that I don’t require cutlery delights the household (and is a direct result of my training eating ugali in Kenya). I felt that my first go at Banku was absolutely filthy (it’s like eating mashed potato in thin soup but the soup has small shredded vegetables floating in it) but Prince (my housemate & colleague) told me I did it particularly well, which amazed me since I had orange soup stains on my forearms at the time.

Another thing that was a great success was doing my washing. Partly because foreigners learning to do it for the first time here don’t typically do it very well and partly because I took it out to the veranda, where my housemates Prince & Vincent were relaxing, and started to dance. Before I knew it, they’d leapt to their feet and also started dancing. Turns out this is a favourite pastime! It took me 2 hours to do my washing. By the end I was absolutely drenched. I suspect equal parts in sweat and soapy water. What a workout! Washing is actually a very good time to practice Ghanaian dancing. I’ve never given my legs much thought before, they usually operate on an ‘English default’ which is kind of like a transfer of weight from foot to foot but with preoccupied hands in soapy water, one has to focus a bit more on the feet. This is constructive because Ghanaian people don’t have a default and are quite creative with their legs. I’ve been learning a particular dance move, specific to Ghana, called the ‘Azunto’ which involves standing up and doing a motion with your hands that bears a surprisingly close resemblance to washing clothes (handy). Less handy is the fact that every few beats you have to stick one hand straight up in the air, which is quite disruptive to one’s rhythm. Every time I bent to pick up another item of clothing, I kept my legs straight, and shook my bum in the air, an absolute classic in Kenya, which delighted everyone. Although we had started early, I am not a fast washer and volunteers began to show up for their day’s worth of curriculum training, which takes place at my house. They looked on at these manic Ghanaian dancers with a sort of morbid curiosity. No one wanted to join in. But it didn’t matter, at least Prince, Vince and I had bonded as a family.