Wednesday--time to get your African culture on!

OK. . .today is African culture Wednesday! My challenge to you. . .use only your right hand for the rest of the day. Here, it is unacceptable to shake hands, wave, gesture, or eat using your left hand. This will be especially difficult for you left-handers! You can still write with your left hand, that is acceptable, but try to do everything else with only your right hand. It has been somewhat of a challenge to remember to eat only with my right hand. The other day, we ate fufu (a mashed sweet potato that you dip into soup) and you need to make it into a ball with your hand to dip it into the soup. Of course, I did this with my left hand, not even thinking until AFTER the meal. . .whoops! Good thing I was in a. . .well, half-American home. If I had been in with a group of village elders. . .whoa. . .I would have been in trouble! Let's see how well you do! And if you especially want a challenge, eat food today that you don't use silverware for! Often times our meals are eaten with our fingers, so give it a try!

As for today's update, it was Caleb's birthday today! He is the Omorefe's middle son, and he turned 4 years old. We had a small celebration this morning and after teaching lessons at the Freedom Center, we went into Accra for more celebrating.

We had to stop by the Immigration offices first to get started on my work permit and to get the Omorefe's started on their residency paperwork. I turned my stuff in, but apparently, my Dr's note wasn't detailed enough, so I don't know if they'll need more information or something. We'll see what the process for that ends up looking like.

We went to the Accra mall for Caleb's birthday dinner. It was like walking into a mall in Orange County! It was very western, and very expensive. It felt so weird to have something that felt so much like home in a place that doesn't feel much like home to me normally. But, it was a fun trip. We had pizza and frozen yogurt. Yummy! Pretty much my first meal with any milk products since coming and my (as Stacy put it) "American food fix" for the month. Caleb was a pretty happy camper.

Because of our trip to Accra, I didn't get to do music with the kids today, but we'll try for it tomorrow. I'm going to try to teach them "We Are The World". We'll see!