"Flexing"

It looks as though I'm heading back to site tomorrow. I will sit down with Cynthia tomorrow to make sure but I feel better every day and honestly I'm getting pretty tired of sitting around in Accra.

While writing my last entry, I forgot about two interesting tidbits from my last weekend in and around Bormase.

While riding in the tro between Odumase and Adukrom (between PTA meeting and farming with Travis), I started a conversation with a Scottish couple when they joined the car. They enjoyed finding another Obruni and we got to chatting about our respective projects. I saw that the husband was wearing a Scotland shirt and spoke with a strong accent so I asked if they were visiting from Scotland. The couple replied that they were visiting from Santa Ynez, just north of Santa Barbara. It turned out that the three of us were all going to Dawu, a tiny village between to small towns. It turns out that the couple came from a high school in Santa Ynez to visit a soccer clinic in Dawu. The high school at which they teach currently has 6 Ghanaian players, all of whom have been trained in the same small town. I told them that I once had aspirations to play at UCSB and they responded by telling me that a player recently graduated and is heading to UCSB on a scholarship. What a small world!! I later looked up the recruiting page for UCSB and this Ghanaian player is one of two recruits mentioned in a headline. Go Gauchos!!!

Another small story about a common Ghanaian misconception. Months ago, when a high school aged friend named Abraham helped clear land for the Moringa field, I jokingly offered to pay him 5 American dollars rather than 5 Ghana Cedis. I assumed that he would prefer the local currency but Abraham insisted that having American money would allow him to "flex" at school. He wanted to show off the fact that he could get American money. I explained to him that the conversion (at the time) wasn't exact and that I would have to add forty pesewas to make it completely even. Abraham was very happy with the transaction while I felt bad that he did so much work and might not be able to spend the money that he earned.

Last Monday, while Abraham and I were weeding the Cassava field, he brought up the 5 dollar bill. Instinctively I thought that he realized that he would have to have the money changed and that Foreign Exchange Bureaus offer lower conversion rates for smaller denominations. It turns out that while "flexing," at school, the 5 dollar bill attracted great attention. One of Abraham's teachers continued to make offers for the money and Abraham insisted that he wouldn't part with it for any less than 10 Ghana Cedis. Thinking that Abraham was naive, the teacher eagerly forked over twice the value of the American money and walked away thinking he had pulled the wool over Abraham's eyes. When the teacher realized that he had overpaid, he tried to get the money back but Abraham reminded him that the teacher was the aggressor and had no right to revoke the offer. The teacher and I both thought that Abraham was being foolish but he managed to double his earnings simply by "flexing."

Love to all!