Among Friends

Yesterday I realized how true is the quote on the back of my high school sophomore class t-shirt:

“Turns out not where you are but who you’re with that really matters”

Christina, the Ghanaian girl in the room adjacent to our common bathroom visited Lesego and me yesterday morning to ask us if we wanted to go to church.  I had been meaning to see what churches here were like for the past couple of weeks- there are several on campus.  We went to the Legon Interdenominational Church, which was an interesting experience (I will elaborate in a later post).  It also took up all of the morning.

The rainy day led us to read in our room during the afternoon and eventually brought us to the decision that we needed to leave campus and go somewhere fun for dinner.  The problem is neither of us knows anywhere to go or how to get there.  Then I remembered Christina did her undergrad at the University of Ghana and is a perfect person to ask.  She was finishing a bowl of fufu when I called her, but she said she would come back to the room and talk with us.  

Christina has a big personality.  And I mean HUGE.

She and Harrison, her friend from Cameroon, decided to come out with Lesego, Sharon, and me to a place in East Legon.  She took shotgun in the taxi and proceeded to talk with the driver as if she had known him her whole life.  When he said he wanted 7 cedis, she turns to him, eyes bulged and goofily says “7 cediiis?” and shakes his shoulders.  Then she tells the radio to shut up as she turns it down, looks at him and goes, “6” then keeps dancing to the radio, which she had turned back up.  The four of us were dying in the back seat.

The chop and grill place had live entertainment all night long! It was exactly what we were looking for.  First, there were acrobats who ate fire and glass and frolicked around. Then there was the “cowboy” who sang a series of country songs.  Eventually a band came out and we danced for a good 2 hours by our table.  

                                  A little glass-eating at dinner

Really danced.  I hadn’t sweat so much since I got here.  Lesego and I got to practice some of the salsa moves we learned from a class we’re taking. 

                             Sharing a dance with Harrison, Christina, and Sharon

As Christina said in the taxi on the way back, “I have not laughed so genuinely for so long!”  Her voice is a bit hoarse today.  Apparently my dance moves really surprised her.  Lesego said, “Don’t hate me, but we tend to think white people can’t dance.” I guess that’s a pretty reasonable stereotype. Whatever.

It was such a light-hearted Sunday evening. I feel like I belong here because I am with good people. That is all you can ask for.