Writing from Menkassim.

Today Francis, my drum instructor, and I escorted Francis's aunt while she bought things at the Menkassim market. This means sitting on overturned wooden crates staring in to bowls full of weird living things while she argued over prices. The markets here are really something, there's not much concern for hygiene, and the women who work them all sell the same things, the same fabrics, the same tomatoes, the same dry and fly infested fishes. And theyre huge! I got lost and inadvertently bicyled through one in Accra, I'd never heard of it before and it took me at least twenty minutes to make it through. Thats bigger than Walmart, and the prices are better. Where else can you buy a plastic bag full of struggling crabs for twenty cents?
Then we went back to his Aunties place and watched music videos for a while, while Anita made yams and vegetarian stew for me. Anita is 25, francis's cousin, she just lives in the house, and she has placed me in the same tricky situation that Effua, Francis's senior sister has before her. She's cooked for me, shes flirted with me and joked about us getting married (although I think she already is, to a flimsy sort of fellow), and now I feel like perhaps I owe her something. We're friends, yes, but I just met you yesterday. What do you want from me? Effua lets me feel the pressure, she often asks me for money. And earlier this evening, when I was distributing small toys to the kids around francis's house, she was begging and fighting for them harder than anybody. I said : 'for kids, for kids' but even francis's mom looked me in the eye extended an open palm to me, waiting for it be filled. Do I really owe you something? Your family has been kind to me, Francis, they have anticipated my every want and also things I didn't want, but they made me feel uncomfortable when they mobbed me like that.
Another event this evening. I had a long debate with a christian missionary from w. virginia and her ghanaian friend, although the woman insisted it was not a 'debate'. Well, I enjoy this kind of thing, and so obviously did the woman, who positively twitched with anger as she told me about her inner peace. It ended with the two of them chanting over me, the man rambling on, the woman working herself up in to a state, 'please jesus, please jesus, please jesus, save him, please please please jesus jesus.' well, im not saved, so there!