National Cultural Center Spoils

So the last couple blog posts, along with this and the next, are back-tracking a little bit because there was so much I wanted to remember from this last weekend. Hopefully I can do it all justice because it was so full of adventure and fun I just can’t bear to leave anything out.

We stayed Sunday night at the Dickson’s, and Monday morning we caught a cab to the Accra Mall. In this mall is where most of the foreign “obronis” do their shopping. There is this grocery store called Shop Rite that is basically like the American Wal-Mart grocery store. The store comes from South Africa, but we’re convinced that it actually is a Wal-Mart affiliated store.
There is also a movie theater in the mall! They will be playing Breaking Dawn soon, which we were excited about. But the one movie Spencer and I have been waiting for, The Last Airbender, is not scheduled to play as of yet. So here’s praying for a miracle :)

Anyway, after wandering around the mall and buying ourselves some groceries and snacks at Shop Rite, we headed back home to the Dicksons. Sister Dickson had lunch all prepared for us (our last “American” meal for some time) and we loved and enjoyed every bite of it.

Elder Dickson then took us out to the Ghana National Cultural Center where there are hundreds of little huts set up – each one selling some sort of native artifact for us tourists to buy. It was totally nuts! If you’ve ever walked down the streets of a Mexican tourist market you may have a somewhat similar experience, but from my experiences this was MUCH worse. Each person was out in the mud, right in your face, trying to get you to come see whatever’s in their shop (which you can glance at from the mud yourself instead of going inside and being haggled some more). It’s even more interesting because there wasn’t a single person who had an original shop. Everyone was selling something that 20 other people had. How’s that for competition in the market?

Another funny thing they kept saying to us is, “Come in! Come in! No Pressure! No Pressure! I Promise!” as they literally followed you down the path. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of that comment.

I think I found my weakness for Ghanaian/African artifacts though…

Baby Clothes! They are so freaking adorable!!! My sister, Aimee, is having a baby in December, and I couldn’t help but buy something for a little baby girl AND boy to make sure I had both options covered. I just couldn’t resist the idea of a little white kid in this darling African clothing.
We also got a couple things to hang on our walls at the apartment. Mostly stuff that would remind us of Abomosu and the people we met. I LOVED this painting, and Spencer couldn’t help but buy the mask.

Something else fun that we found were the Ghana Black Stars football (soccer) jerseys. Not only did both Spencer AND Joey get one, but they had to get jerseys for Eddie (Esther’s son) and Brother Abu’s birthdays. Eddie’s birthday was on Monday, and Stephen’s bday isn’t for another few weeks, but the Ghana game was on tonight and they wanted to make sure we were all supporting the team!

We took Eddie his present earlier this morning and his dad, Nicholas, had to put it on him immediately. He just looks so cute!




And we finally gave Stephen his jersey just after dinner so that we could all show our love and support for Ghana.

The guys are all ready for the game!




Results after tonight: Ghana lost the game, but because Australia pulled an upset and beat Serbia, Ghana still got to advance to the next round! YAY!!! But now guess who they get to play…?
THE USA!!! (Who do you think we should cheer for? We all feel a little torn)