Cecilia is an all-star client despite having trouble repaying. Talking with her group on the beach is always satisfying.
I haven’t had much in the way of wild adventures in the past week, so I’ll fill you in on what I have been doing. Most of my time is spent either meeting with cooperatives or entering their repayment info into our online tracking system. Doing data entry for a good chunk of my time isn’t an idea situation, but it’s a bit inevitable until we iron out the software that we’re using and then train our employees on it. In the meantime I’ll be clicking away, through the numerous dialogue boxes and confirmation screens that litter the path to recording a client’s payment.
The fishermen take refuge from the sun at our meeting spot in Dakordzi
The group meetings themselves, however, are a real delight. Maybe I’m just a people person, but I love people! It’s really nice to talk to our clients about their businesses and give what help I can. It also gives me plenty of opportunity to develop my still pitiful Ewe skills.
About three weeks ago I learned a few crucial words that opened up my Ewe skills to a great degree, so I’ve been a bit better at saying what I want to say. Still, I have a lot of work to do and need to put in more time studying from my books. One of the first things I want to be able to do in a language is make jokes, and at least I can do that in a rudimentary fashion.
For instance, the other day as I returned from work I approached a group of about twenty schoolgirls. They were animatedly chattering as schoolgirls are wont to do. We were both walking in the same direction, but their pace was suffering by their constant joking and gossiping and I started to pass them pretty quickly. As soon as I was beside them, the focus of at least a couple conversations turned to me. God only knows what was said, but they were confidently discussing something about me at full volume.
I listened for anything that I could pick out, but couldn’t understand a word until one member of the group hissed at the others and said something discretely. One of the more brazen girls replied confidently, “E mese vegbe o,” which means “He doesn’t hear(understand) Ewe”. I turned around with a smile and with a wave of my hand said, “Mese vegbe kengkeng,” meaning, “I understand Ewe completely.”
Oh, did they howl! The brazen one ran off in shame and the others just laughed and hollered at one another. As I walked off I could hear them repeating my words and laughing. Score one for me, Ghana!
Well, that was a bit of a tangent but let’s ride it out. On the topic of Ewe, I’ve been working on getting a few simple lessons together for the site. To put them up, however, I’m going to need to put some time in on the site. The point is, my next post will be an Ewe lesson, and it might be a minute until I get the lesson pages set up to my liking. I’ll try to be swift!
Until then, here’s another gratuitous sunset picture!
I tried to eavesdrop on a couple of Japanese girls the other night. I could pick out that they were using certain grammar but otherwise I couldn’t understand a thing. Fortunately I’m fairly sure they weren’t talking about me!
Yeah… it’s good when you get to the point that though you can’t understand what they’re saying, you can at least tell that they’re speaking Japanese. Otherwise you feel, as one of my friends here put it, “at sea”
hahaha that is awesome. I bet those girls are still talking about you. How much longer do you plan to be in Ghana? I absolutely LOVE that sunset picture. If you ever run out of interesting things to blog about, you should just post a bunch of photos
Well the point of my new Flickr account is that I’ll be able to post photos even in I don’t have a big post to write, so I’ll try and borrow Duffy’s or Abbey’s camera and take some good pics! Also Mama and Papa Skeers are helping me get a nice camera sorted out, so the pictures will really start cruising when they arrive in late January.
I’ll be staying here until late June or early July, then I’ll be on my way to visit you! Luckily Ukraine isn’t that far away from Turkey, which is one of the cheapest places to fly to from Ghana. So I think I’ll fly to Istanbul, check out that scene a little bit, then hitch-hike up to wherever you are.
Play on playa!
It’s all I know how to do. Sorry about our Skype snafu, and thanks for the comment, brother!
That was a good story. I bet she’ll never hear the end of it. Best of luck with the humor, although I’m sure things will be even funnier because they know you are learning!
Yeah it’s pretty easy to make people laugh when you are confidently saying things that make absolutely no sense.