End of Training

Yikes! It's real now. The past month has been packed full!
First I would like everyone to give me a little pat on the back for passing my language test!! Thats right, according to my interviwer I am "intermediate med." level in Dagbani (which also means I barely passed). If you guys will recall my language skills in English are pretty lacking...so I was a little worried about being able to have a 20 min. conversation in Dagbani with a stranger. But luckily I have down how to say "can you repeat please" (labi yeli) and speak slowly please (dim suglo, yelmi bela bela). So i somehow made it through...
Aside from trying to cram language in my head, the last couple weeks of training weren't so bad. The art people got to go and learn traditional crafts, so we practiced Kente Weaving, Batik, Kalabash art, and making glue from kasava. It is interesting going to the shops because there is not only the craftsperson, there are a ton of apprentices who are all in little uniforms to help out. The all got a kick out of watching white people trying to do it and thought it was funny how we kept making things our own way because they have it drilled in to them to do everything a specific copied way.
I don't know what it was that was so draining about training, but I'm glad it's done. Last week I said goodbye to my homestay family and gave them all a crate of minerals for a gift (that means pop- the choices are coke/sprite/orange faunta) and then headed off to the good ol Dery Hotel were we all stayed a couple of nights before swearing in. Swearing In was entertaining...i dont know about fun persay, but definitely interesting. We all were decked out in clothes our families had made for us, some people matched both parents hehe:) And then everyone had to do some sort of presentation in the language they had been learning the past 3 months. Mine was a poem and it went like this: Shikiru, Shikiru, Shikiru - Shikiriu changi viella - A yi chang shikiriu - A ni nya bangsim ni kpem - Dinzugulo, Sokam cham shikiru! > School, School, School - Its good to go to school - If you go to school you will be wise and powerful- So, everyone should go to school!
Quality, I know :)
Swearing in night was a good time. We just danced all night and made merriment :) After that everyone went to their sites! I decided to help my friend Tim move into his site down at Cape Coast and visited a few other people on the way back up...now its time for the real deal. Today I go to site. Get Excited :)