From December 6, 2010: Cultural Differences, Bonku on Farmers Day

From December 6, 2010:  Well on Monday my apartment and the other missionaries in our zone (Elder Edgington, Larson, Maughn, and Farnes) came over to play American football. It was fun, but it was really draining on us. We were sore for the next few days. Our investigator Na is really solid and it's fun to talk to her. Elder Orchard and I have been working hard, but because we are keeping busy we are staying energized.
 On Thursday Elder Orchard and I were ordering food and we realized there was this boy who was deaf waiting for a line of 20+ people to leave so he could order. We were able to get him to the front of the line where he was able to order his food. It was humbling to see him because unlike the states where there are people to help people who are handicapped, here they are left to fend for themselves. That morning I woke up around three to people sweeping the compound and our neighbor scrubbing the gutter behind our room. I was talking to Elder Boyd about it and he said that the families in the compound have house servants (one of them was the girl scrubbing the gutter). He said that they are taken from the villages and the families look at it as a service to them because they bring them into the city to live in exchange for serving the family. After hearing this my respect for Ghana dropped a bit. Though people here in general have a harder life than me they spend their days sleeping and give up on projects when it becomes too hard for their lifestyle while they have servants to do their work for them. It seems like the culture is really the thing that is holding Ghana back.
 It was Farmers Day on Friday (kind of like Thanksgiving). We had a meal prepared by a family too. It was Bonku, pepper and fried egg with tomatoes and onion. it's my favorite meal here.
 On Saturday the two church wards (different meeting times) got together to compete for a Soccer game. Elder Orchard and I brought two investigators Nash and Prince who play football for some club teams. We (Teshie 2) ended up winning 5-2 thanks to our investigators. It was a lot of fun to watch the game and seeing the reactions from the crowd. While that was fun, there was a special needs girl who was there as well. Africans view them as people who did something to deserve their condition so they were bullying her and hitting her. The Americans were really upset so we took her to sit next to us.
 In addition to the game Elder Boyd hit his year mark in Ghana. We burned some old clothes of his and lit some fireworks too.