Visit to the Mampong Babies' Home

On Friday I was invited to travel to the Mampong orphanage. Betsy and I had donated to crafts to the orphanage thinking the children would be able to create their own crafts to keep. Little did we know that the orphanage was made of only babies from newborns to four year-olds. We still left crafts but hope they are not too advanced.

The babies’ home was around two hours away from Agogo and the drive was beautiful. The drives took us up through the mountains where there were many breath taken sights. The van of travelers was: three teachers (Betsy could not attend due to travels) six APTC students, the driver, and myself. I felt like I was aboard Santa’s shield with gifts of rice, milk, juice boxes, candy, and crafts.


When we arrived the director was so friendly and welcomed us nicely. She told us a brief history and explained what they did there. None of the students or teachers had been there before (every year it is the second year students that visit) so none of use knew what to expect. The director made us feel right at home and was very thankful for our donation.

After introductions we visited the babies. They were adorable and seemed to be getting great care. The babies left here are rarely (if ever) abandoned. The babies here are orphaned from their mother’s death during delivery. They come to this place to be taken care of a nourished from the first years of life and then are taken home to their extended family. Taking care of a baby is a full time job, and many extended families have jobs that wouldn’t allow them to be able to care for the baby as well as this home.

I am happy for the work they are doing at the Mampong Babies’ Home and am happy that they are have many sponsors to keep it running as smooth as it is.

Kumasi Post Office Run

Thanks to leaving my back on the STC bus and my friends Robin, Aubry, Ellen, Tracy, Matt, Kevin, Danny, Jeannette, Genna, and Sean sending me a package- I had to travel to Kumasi on Tuesday.
This was some of the stuff in the package!


The most excited thing of the day was the great package (don’t worry grandma (yoga book), Linda and dad (meds and People magazines) and Frieda (homemade tea) your packages were amazing as well and I didn't have to travel two hours to get yours :-)), but the second most exciting thing of the day was finding a vegetarian stand with porch seating right next door to the post office! Since I can’t really eat and travel I got my food to go and headed back to Kumasi with a box filled with wrapped gifts- how fun!

So went I got home I ate my delicious vegetarian meal of joloff rice and something “meaty” that was very wheat gluten-esk. It was so yummy and cheap. Only 1 cedi 50 peswas. It made me forget that I left ten cedis worth of food on the STC two nights before.

Random Post #1

Here are things I just want to show you guys:

Funny Ghanaian medicine for headaches that claims to “blow your pain away”.


A coworker buying grass cutter for dinner

Before
Now I have been working in the library to straighten it up.

After


I had beans and rice in taco shells the other night- with soft “shells” and Lousiana hot sauce from Koala.


This kids is awesome- he is Kofi. He is Josephine’s grandchild and he speaks great English. The other day I came over to the house and he was crying and whipping his eyes. His mom and grandma were trying not to laugh- then I realized his mom was cutting onions and his eyes were just burning. Josephine had him wash his eyes with water and he was back to normal. Then he came back in the kitchen and started tearing up again. We told him to move away from the onion. This was so funny, but it is hard to laugh at a kid that is crying.

Here is Gloria, my new running partner, and Kofi’s baby sister. Isn’t she the cutest?

There are two dragonflies that hangout on my back porch. One is black and I have named him Roger. Then he has a girlfriend named Franchesca. Here is a picture of her hanging out on my drying line.

Visitors from KNUST

Here are Besty, Mariama, Papa, Nana, Ma, and I at our meeting on Monday.


Over a month ago Betsy and I visit Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and met with the Art Education department. This was due to an art teacher I am friends with back in Atlanta named Cissy. She told me that she had a friend that living in Kumasi. She hooked us up and the rest is now going to make history.

So at our meeting in Kumasi Nana, Mariama, Betsy, and I decided that they should visit our TRC in Agogo to get some ideas for their students TLM assignments. They called last weekend and told us that they would be coming to the TRC Monday, December 15 at 10:30. We were so excited. So we cleaned the house and laid out examples of what our students had made this year so far. It was so nice to see what Betsy and I had accomplished so far this year. Our girls are so creating more and more exciting things.

Nana and Mariama came, meet Ma, meet Papa, visited the TRC, and visited our house for snacks and lunch. It was a great visit. Mariama was adorable as she snapped pictures in the TRC and Nana wrote titles of books down from the collection that Schoolbox shipped. It was a great afternoon. The art education students will be coming here next semester to see what we have going on and hopefully we can send some students to visit KNUST. We are even planning for an international conference that will be held in Kumasi in July. They have asked us to stay on to present at the conference and I am very tempted. Being able to put that on my resume would be fantastic and the experience would be even more exciting.

This will not be the last post about this wonderful partnership.

Shopping for Groceries in Accra

Sorry gang, there aren’t many pictures this week. I guess once you get use to a place you don’t see the need for pictures. I guess that means it is starting to feel like home around here.

Well Friday night was what I like to call the “Never Ending Tro-tro ride”. I am thinking about turning in to a movie. I must start by telling everyone that I love riding on tro-tros and plan to keep riding tro-tro until I leave. They are a good deal and you meet great people. Now back to my saga.

Betsy and I started to walk out the door to the tro tro station (around 1:45) and her favorite basket salesman showed up. Once he left 10 minutes later we started walked to the station. Then I realize I forgot my cell phone, so I had to walk all the way back home then return to the tro-tro station (13 minutes later). Finally we get on the tro-tro to Konongo. Once we arrived in Konongo we walk around and finally find the Accra tro-tro, but it was full so then we get taken to a larger bus that isn’t full. We assumed we would need to what for it to fill up, but off we went. We got good amount of seats to pick from- how exciting. Within an hour and a half we have stopped enough times that we have filled up all 19 seats with passengers and the floor space with 5 bag loads of oranges. By this time I am still having a great ride until I notice that the pace we aren’t traveling isn’t that quick and I start this think this 5 hour trip to Accra will be much longer. The next thing I know I hear a strange pop that reminds me of when my tire had blow out- well that was what happened on the road to Accra at a beautiful space with green fields of corn. So we get out and I hit the bush for a rest stop and then back to water as the driver followed by 6 male passengers change the tire. We are back on the road about 15 minutes later. By now it is getting dark. We finally get to the pothole part of the trip. It was funny to watch the head to the passengers bob around like bobble heads and the driver on his cell phone. During this time is when Betsy and I decided that her chair had issues. She was sitting in from of me and every time we hit a pothole her seat would lean back a little more and some dust would fall out on my feet. I decided to hold the back of her chair up with my tired head. I also don’t eat a few hours before traveling so I am starving as the exit the potholes and enter a ….gas station! So we get in cue behind other tro-tros filled with customers. We get the gas and get back on the rode it is about 6 pm by now. The good thing is now we are in one town away from accra, but that doesn’t mean much because on the main road between Kumasi and Accra they are building a new road, but since it isn’t finished yet it is all dirt with many potholes. It also doesn’t matter what time you come or go it is always a busy road. So we spend about an hour or so on the dirt road and finally make it to the dropping point! This is a point out of Accra centre that I always get dropped, but Betsy told me she has gotten dropped further in, so I stay alone for the “better drop”. Our driver turns down a back, dirt road that I had yet to go down in Accra, but I knew about where we were. I assumed that is was another short cut- I love short cuts! Then I noticed tons of tro-tros parked in front of use and realize that we are at the huge Kumasi-Accra tro-tro station. This would be fine anytime, but at that moment it meant we had to walk through all of the many tro-tro to get to the taxis. Which we did, and it only took about 8 minutes. We find a taxi and tell him to drop us in Osu, a part of Accra, and he set a fair price. Then our taxi driver stops the cab and said, “Hold on, I just need to give this man something”. He was only out of the car for seconds, but I was laughing my bottom off because I felt like I would never get to my destination. But he did get me to my hotel safe and sound by 8:30pm. That was a long day.

And that wasn’t even the end of my day. I went out with my South African friend I meet in Accra weeks before. We went out for sushi at a place called Monsoons. It was so delicious. I had vegetable fashion sandwiches. They were like vegetable rolls only cut to look like sandwiches. Only down fall was that I had to wait over an hour for my food. I thought I might just die, but I didn’t. I got back to my hotel three hours later go into bed and crashed.

When I awoke at 6am, I can’t sleep in any more, I watched CNN for at least 2 hours and then got ready to hit Osu. I went to breakfast at Frankies. It is a really nice restaurant located at the hotel by the same name. I had baguette slices with jam, orange juice (that I think was really pineapple juice), and hash browns and ketchup. Yum. Then I started the most shopping I have done is over a year. I went to two fabric shops, bead street vendors, a bookstore, DVD street vendors, and Koala. Every time you read the word Koala I would like to hear a choir of angels singing, because to an American living in Ghana Koala (insert singing angels) is a home away from home. Koala is a two-story superstore with friendly employees at every corner. They have vegan Skittles, Soymilk, A1 sauce, paper napkins (rare in Ghana), cleaning supplies, and tons of household items.

After shopping the morning away I ran into Betsy in Osu and we had lunch at this great restaurant called Sunshine Salads. If you are vegetarian you should try this place on your trip, because it had so many vegetarian options and they weren’t all salads. I had a great veggie wrap and a vegetable samosa.


Two of Betsy’s new friends met up with us. Laura, an American that is from North Carolina, but went to school at Emory- crazy, and Christine, a Canadian that works doing marketing in Ghana now for a great shop called Global Mama’s. Both girls were so friendly. After lunch we walked to Global Mama’s.

Global Mama’s caused me to loose all my sense of saving money. It is a store with beads, clothing, potholders, bags, etc etc etc. Woman of Ghana makes all of the items in the store and it is a fair trade store. So I spent more money than I would have off the street, but I have more warm fuzzy feelings from shopping there. After spending at least an hour in the store I went back to my hotel to chill and watch more CNN. I love the news.

Later Saturday I met up with some friend to eat and ran in to two of my IFESH buddies. It was great to catch up and hear how their experiences are going. I am happy that everyone is settling into their new surrounds well.

Sunday- oh Sunday- it is one of those days that you think, “Am I on a TV show because this is too funny/sad that this is happening to me”. I woke up around 7am and watched some CNN. Got dressed and decided that I would pack up and just chill out at the hotel until the 9am then go catch the 9:30 STC bus. This plan seemed to work until I arrived to a very empty bus station because the next bus left at 12:30pm.

Since I had already checked out of the hotel I asked the taxi to take me to the Accra Mall. I have a love and hate relationship with the Accra Mall. I hate it because it is so overpriced and doesn’t help Ghana where it needs help, but I love being able to shop in a store that reminds me of home and many American things. I had planned not to come to the Accra Mall this weekend, but it was the only other place I knew would most likely be open on a Sunday. So the driver drives to a part of town that is not near the mall and I see a building with the word, “Mall” on it and I was like, “No, Accra Mall- Shoprite, Game…” I have no idea why he thought an Oburni would want to do to a clothed down Mall on the backstreets of Accra on a Sunday? Seriously- taxi drivers in Accra need to have classes with maps or just learn the big Oburni attractions- Koala, Accra Mall, Champs, and Ryan’s Pub. You have no clue how many times I have had to give directions to the BUS STATION(???) seriously.

Finally, my driver made it to the Accra Mall and I got out, after having to pay him more for getting lose- I fought him- don’t get me started. I didn’t know what shops would be open, since it was Sunday, but I had a good feeling that Busy Internet (my favorite internet place is Ghana) would be open. It wasn’t. So I brought my HUGE bag filled with stuff and dropped it off at the bag check outside of Shoprite. What is Shoprite you may ask? It is like Koala (remember those angels signing), but is a worst location, only one story, but way more food products. Here I browsed the frozen fake meat sections and bought veggie sticks and chicken nuggets. Then I found (drumroll please) VEGAN BUTTER!!! I was so excited that I almost lost it in the store. On the countless aisle I got Mexican seasoning, corn flour, can of chick peas, can of red beans, instant mashed potatoes, and tomato soup.

After shopping I returned to the bus station to wait. While I was waiting, Ma called. She told me she was in Accra too and wanted to see it I wanted a ride. I told her that I already bought a ticket. Then I called Betsy and told her Ma was in town- incase she was wanted to hitch a ride in her private car.

So, I couldn’t fine a cooler to buy so I just wrapped my frozen food in a few plastic bags and put it in between my clothes in a small bag I carried on the bus. Mine you, the bus left at 1pm instead of 12:30pm. Usually STC are very punctual. The driver was very nice and even told us that if we needed him to stop just to ask him. I felt great. The air conditioner was on. My big bag was under the bus, my bag of soymilk was at my feet, and my frozen foods and butter was up overhead.

When my stop in Konongo came I got my red book bag of soymilk and said goodbye to my friendly neighbor and got off to be my bag from under the boot. I found a taxi and realized as the STC left- I FORGOT MY BUTTER!!! I was heart broken. This is the second time I have bought frozen food from Accra and I haven’t gotten to eat it. I called the STC station in Kumasi and told them my situation. She was VERY helpful. She told me that she was find the bag when the bus arrived. Later when she found it I told her to eat the food because otherwise it would spoil. I don’t know if she did, but I hope she did.

I get to back to my house and no more than five minutes later Betsy arrive with Ma. They left hours after me, and arrived 5 minutes later. I moped about and then something amazing happened. The power went out. Why is that amazing? Even if I had gotten the food back to my place, it would have spoiled. So I am happy I “donated” in a sense.

I had a good time in Accra, but what a crazy weekend.

More Election Weekend Events

There wasn’t much going on in Agogo during election weekend so the Canadians and Americans joined forces for fun. After my trip to the waterfalls Saturday we all headed out to a Chop Bar. Chop Bars are usually a stand on the side of a road. Usually a table with a wire “sneeze shield”, if you will, covering the three feet above the table. Basically they are a vendor like you would find at a fair. Some Chop Bars are more like a restaurant thought with seating for their guests and they even play music.


On this night we were more interesting in the stall-like Chop Bars. Most of my Ghanaian friends have told me that I can’t get vegan food at Chop Bars- but I wanted to prove them all wrong. So during my hike to the waterfall I kept repeating the Twi phrase for “I don’t take meat” or “no meat”. Which sounds like Men-pin-nom, but is probably spelled totally different. We three oburnis walked to downtown Agogo that was half closed up due to elections and looked at a few stalls. We decided on a stall selling rice and stew. I have no idea what was in the stew. I told the server “Men-pin-nom” at least 3 times. She said, “No meat, no fish, no egg” I said “Yes no meat, no fish, no egg”. I assumed that she would give me just white rice plain, but instead she also gave me the stew. I still have no idea what was in the stew. It was spicy and brown- seriously- what was in it? Everyone else got the same with the meat or fried eggs that was on the side. I also walked down to another stall for fried yams. Each was 50 peswas. I bought five. I ate them with Heinz ketchup as if they were fries. After dinner we watched a movie.

Sunday was another chill day of ironing, watching the movie The Lake House, and reading (yes I read now- who knew). The Canadians brought over pasta sauce and we donated the pasta and drinks. Have I said recently how much I love lemon-lime Fanta? It is so darn tasty. After dinner we watched another movie- Snatch (from The Lake House to Snatch- that seems odd).

Monday was more of a workday. I went to the TRC and cleaned out more of our new office room, a room that had been locked until Thursday. We took everything out of it, cleaned the room, and reorganized it. It is amusing that every year since I have been teaching I have had to move classrooms: second year of teaching we moved school buildings, third year of teaching I changed schools, fourth year they wanted to have me move closer to the other second grade teachers, fifth year I moved to the third grade hall, sixth year I moved to the fourth grade hall, seventh year I moved to Ghana. So once again I spent a day covered in dust and dirt, cleaning up things another teacher left for me. I found many treasures in this room: phonic slide posters made by teachers, woven baskets, and a mop bucket!

After a hard day at the office I made dinner for the Canadians “farewell”(they are not leaving Ghana, they are just starting a trip that will last over a week and we will miss them). It was salsa, plantain chips, rice, black-eyed peas in more taco seasoning, and garey. What is garey you might ask? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to prepare it well yet either. Josephine had made it for me in the past (by the way- Josephine stopped cooking for us months ago, but is always up for doing a cooking lesson when we want one), but I put far too much liquid in them and they turned out like cold grits with a taco seasoning after taste. I ate the garey, but just mixed it with everything else.

After dinner the Canadians watched one episode of the Flight of the Conchords (the one when they get mugged- “please remove these cutleries from my knees”) and then left for a good night’s sleep before their trip up to Mole Park.

It was a nice chill weekend in Agogo.

Waterfall in Hwidiem

This weekend Betsy and I stayed in Agogo. It was nice and peaceful since the students on our campus went to their hometowns to vote (this meant no 4:30am jogging/singing fest). On Saturday Betsy worked around the house while I went to Konongo. As I was leaving Konongo a white girl got on the tro-tro to Agogo with me. This was weird because I know what all 5 of the white people in Agogo looked like- and this girl wasn’t one of them.

She then asked if I knew Rabina, my Canadian friend, and I realized that she was Shanti, a friend I had heard them talk about. I ended up talking to her none stop on our ride home and took her to Laura and Rabina’s door step. Later that day Betsy, Rabina, Laura, Shanti, and I took a tro-tro to the town next door, Hwidiem. This is town that lost their Chief this year. We went there to see its waterfall. We went to the Chief’s palace and got a friendly guide who goes to college in Agogo. It was a beautiful trek through tall grass.


Many preteens decided to walk along with us to the falls. The falls weren’t very large since we are now in the dry season, but I thought it was beautiful.

It is worth seeing if you are in the area.

Election Weekend

I don't have much to report this week. Classes with my Agogo girls are going well. My students are getting more and more creative each week. Friday and Monday we have as a holiday so that students could leave and go home to vote. The Presidential election is this Sunday. I haven't left town though. I have stayed put to clean up the TRC and hangout with my roommate and the Canadians. Today we are going to go to a waterfall near by and are going to take pictures of a beautiful mountain nearby. Later tonight we are going to eat out at a Chop Bar which is the name of food stands or resturants here in Ghana. I haven't eaten at one yet because I wouldn't know how to ask for food with no meat, but today I am going to come with a bit of Twi to make sure my food is meat and dairy free. Wish me luck!

Sorry no pictures this week.

Mexican Food Ghanaian Style

I have been craving Mexican food for a while know and finally attempted to create a Mexican meal with the things I can find around. So I used one hot pepper (only one and it was really hot) sugar, salt, cooked tomatoes and onions, and raw tomatoes and onion to create a great salsa. I used plantain chips in place of tortilla chips. I brought a pack of taco seasoning from the US and I used it to spice up some cooked black eyed peas. Then I placed the black eyed peas on top of a bed of lettuce and cooked green peppers and onions. Sort of like a taco salad with no shell. It was a yummy meal.


For dessert we had no back vegan cookies (oatmeal, peanut butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, and soy milk). I got the recipe from Vegan A go go website. Which was funny since I am a vegan from Agogo.

Christmas Wish List

I remember the days when I would create a wish list for Santa. If Santa showed up in Ghana I would like him to bring:

Complete's Blink and Clean contact solution for my roommate
More Craft Books for my Agogo students to get ideas from
Fiction to read (I brought a ton of nonfiction)- something fun like a Chuck Palahniuk book
Old Navy tan tops in small (any color) because my laundry lady has stretched everything out
Vegan goodies (cliff bars, box mixes, etc)
Running Water
World Peace- that would be nice

The Totals

Matriculations attended: 2
Funerals attended: 2
Weddings attended: 0
Text messages from America: 8
Cards received: 11
Bags of fried plantains eaten daily: 2 ½
Bags of groundnuts eaten daily: 1
Sacks of water I drink a day: 4 to 7
Dresses/skirts made by my tailor: 4
Books began: 7
Books completed: 2
Monkeys seen after going to wildlife preserve: 0
Crocodiles seen after going to wildlife preserve: 0
Times I have gotten to use my new rain boots: 3- we are in the dry season now
Marriage proposals: 8
Cliff Bars left: 1

Thanksgiving in Agogo

Yesterday, Thursday, November 28, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Agogo. I woke up at 5:30am to prepare for church and my 7am class. After class I ate breakfast and headed to town to buy a table. We have been eating meals at our coffee table and that is just getting a bit old. So I found a plastic table for 18 Ghana Cedis. It looked great on out back porch. Then I taught two more classes and had after school open hours where we had around 40 girls working on creating posters for their classrooms. It was a great workday, but very busy. At 4:30pm I headed to the house to start our Ghanaian Thanksgiving feast while Betsy set the table with a fancy tablecloth and candles. Around 5:45pm the Canadians came over to our banquet dressed so nicely I felt like a slob. For our feast we served: Betsy’s Famous trail mix, fried plantains, red red, rice, vegetable samoas (I got in Kumasi), olive oil, tea bread, watermelon, fried bread, and lemon Fanta (my new favorite soda). It was nice to sit outside under the stars and candle light with good food and great friends. The weather felt like a cool summer night and the conversation was just what I needed. It was a great evening and I look forward to many more nights under the stars with my new friends.

THANK YOU SCHOOLBOX!!!

I finally got the chance to travel to Kumasi on a week day to visit the post office to-FINALLY- pick up my package from the SCHOOLBOX. The Schoolbox has been my employer for on and off for four years. It is a great teacher supply store with locations around Atlanta (although they also have a store in Tennessee too). You can also check them out at www.schoolbox.com. They were so excited about my trip to teach in Ghana that they told me that would be happy to ship any supplies I would need. I was so excited that I purchased a bunch of really great teacher resource books. The top three books I would highly recommend were:

The First Days of School by Harry K. Wong and Rosemarry T. Wong
-every teacher should have this book!
Look What You Can Make With Dozens of Household Items by
-unfortunately out of print…but worth looking for- my favorite for Arts and Crafts
Alternatives to Worksheets: Motivational Reading and Writing Activities Across the Curriculum by Karen Baur and Rosa Drew- Creative Teaching Press
-fantastic way to get away from worksheets and have the kids make something fun and educational- I use this on a weekly bases throughout the year

I felt like it was my birthday as I opened my package of books, markers, rulers, crayons, and stickers on the post office counter. Also- the employees in the Kumasi general post office are so, friendly! I was astounded by their politeness and helpfulness.

My students at Agogo Presbyterian Training College are very grateful for this donation. I have already logged the new books into my Teacher Resource Center Inventory and have decided to save some of the goodies for a Teacher Learning Materials competition that I am going to hold next semester. I can’t wait!

Also- you should check out www.schoolbox.com because they have a link to a page about my adventure here. There is also a video clip of me before I left the US. Enjoy!

Bomfobiri Wildlife Reserve

On Saturday, November 22, Laura, Rabina, and I chartered a taxi to take us to the Bomfobiri Wildlife Reserve. It is so close to Agogo, but you have to drive around in almost a complete circle because the direct road to it is far to bad. It too a bit over 2 hours to get their.

Above are Rabina, Laura, our guide, and our cab driver before our hike.

The guide told us about the Bomfobiri waterfall, monkeys, crocodiles, and how to get their. Once we arrived at the office to get our guide the pricing was just like Bradt said (a first). It was very beautiful. You could see mountains everywhere, long grassy plains, and the beautiful waterfall. However- no crocs and no monkeys. Our guide, who carried a loaded shotgun for our protection, or maybe his, told us that we should come in January in stead. Oh well- it was nice.

Above we hid in the grass- can you find us?
Below is the picture our cab driver took. I don't think he should quit is day job.


On the way back we stopped in the town of Bonwire, that is home to Kente cloth- seriously- this is real Kente cloth- (History fact: the people of Kpetoe claims they started it and Ashanti added their own style later). We went to a Kente cloth manufacturer and had the chance to see a weaver in action. I didn’t take pictures because I would need to pay extra and I was strapped for cash- so I will come back when I have money to spend.

Then we headed home. Below is Laura with Betsy special recipe trailmix (raisin bran/plantain chips/ground nuts).

But before I forget- when I left the Bomfobiri Wildlife office I say a bunch of turkeys hanging out near a tro-tro. I thought of how happy this turkeys should be they don’t live in America. Although I am sure they will be someone’s dinner soon. It makes me happy to see turkeys just hanging out with their friends waiting to get on the tro-tro.

Rabina's Birthday Party and Funny Story

Betsy and I have made friends with two other Oburni’s in Agogo from Canada- Rabina and Laura. Pictured here.

Wednesday night, the day after Rabina’s really birthday, Betsy and I had them over for DVD watching and snack eating. Betsy brought home ice cream and cake from Konongo. I just watched since the ice cream and cake aren’t vegan- no worries I ate cookies. Here is Rabina at her birthday “party”.

While watching a DVD on my computer in our dark living room I felt a bug land on my mouth. This is not too uncommon here, but as I went to swat it away I realized it was HUGE. It was literally covering my lips. As soon as I brushed this GIANT bug off my lips I began to scream. The bug then hit my leg and next landed on Laura’s, who was sitting next to me. I pulled my feet up into the chair I was sitting on and waited for Betsy to turn on the lights. I didn’t see anything at first, but then from under the seat cushion I saw a long antenna. I jump off the couch only after squealing, and yelling to Laura “Open the Door- Open the Door”. By now Betsy had seen the antenna as well so I grabbed the cushion and ran for the door. I hurled the cushion out on to the porch. This event happened around 9:15pm and all four of us were talking loudly while the rest of our neighbors were quiet for once, seriously. I turn over the cushion to reveal the largest grasshopper I had ever seen. It was about as long as a deck of cards and this just made me scream a bit louder. Finally we all started laughing at my fear of this harmless grasshopper. About this time I heard Nicholas, my neighbor, calling to me to see if everything was alright. He was in the middle of putting on a shirt and running over to my front porch. I said, “I’m fine”, feeling embarrassed to be screaming my head off at a grasshopper. He found it funny as well. He said he heard the screams and thought if must be a snake (which would have been my worst nightmare) so he jumped out of bed, got dressed and ran over. It is amazing that Nicholas got to my house so quick- within seconds. He may need to quit teaching and become a firefighter with that response time. I thanked him for his heroic deed and he sweep the grasshopper into the yard and we went back inside to watch our DVD.


Seriously the grasshopper was on my lips- it was scary at the time.