Greetings from Ghana!

A few weeks ago, I had one of the most heartbreaking experiences during my time in Ghana. Since we have recently just come from break, many students have returned with changes to their appearance-- new uniforms, new haircuts, new shoes. However, about a half dozen students came back with a more startling change: drastically lighter skin. The teachers at my school were furious and called the one boy and five girls to the front of the morning assembly to confront them about their new skin color. While they were doing so, I could hear the teachers whispering back and forth, dropping my name. "They want to look like her." "I wonder if she encouraged them to do it." "She did this to our kids." And while I would NEVER encourage my students to bleach their skin and have always made an effort to compliment their skin color, I couldn't help but feel like I HAD caused it. Was my presence here doing more harm than good? Seeing me every day during cla

1. You're always chasing animals away from your door 2. There's always poop around so you've taken to staring at the ground when you walk 3. You're at the point where you buy monthly cans of Raid 4. You drink ORS packets almost every day 5. You've waited over an hour for a storekeeper to come back just to pay for something 6. You have a different sweat rag for every day of the week 7. Spiders and ants walking across your floor used to freak you out. Now you don't even flinch. Unless it's a camel spider of course... 8. Getting dark at 6pm + the electricity goes out = well I guess I'll go to bed at 7pm 9. You hear a new (American) song only to find out it's been out a couple months now 10. You've waited on a tro-tro for over 4 hours just to get to a place that's only an hour away 11. Every time you walk by a fabric shop, you have to hold yourself back before you buy a dozen yards of cool-looking fabric 12. You go to festivals to watc