Dear Blog,
Today is Saturday. We were stuck in some brutal road work construction on our way to the board meeting to deliver our written report. The roadside merchants saw this as an opportunity. When they saw two "obroni" or "whitemen" in the car, they saw this as a "blessing from God." We only know about twelve words and phrases so far in "Twi" - the local language. Ghanaians don't expect the obroni to know any of their language. As the merchants came to our car we were able to say to them Twi phrases such as "How are you?" "I am fine." "What is your name?" "My name is Yaw Barry"(terrible name), "Yes - it is good, but no thank you," etc. The reaction is terrific. The person always stops... in surprise. Then they have a good laugh at the obroni's pronunciation. They want to know how much of their language we know. Where did we learn it? Then they stay and we talk in a combination of Twi and English.
The children - selling all sorts of things from baskets on their heads - started shrieking in fun yelling "The obroni are speaking Twi!" Afterwards, they hung around the truck talking to us and laughing for a long time. One woman asked that I take her to my home in Canada. I told her that Ramona wouldn't be pleased. The traffic moved on and so did our day. The Ghanaian people are wonderfully friendly and generous.
Gene, my CCA partner, also has a blog. The main difference between his and mine is that he has pictures of our adventures and travels. My blog has better stories. My blog is generally better. However, if you would like to check his out - his blog address is www.opensourcecu.com
Tomorrow we rest.