I'm baaaaaaack

So it's been 2 full weeks since I've left Ghana. This is just sort of a "how it's been now that I'm back" post. Ghana was amazing and really affected me in a positive way, as you could probably tell in the most recent post. The first week I was home was sort of difficult because I was really Ghana-sick and missed everything and everyone there, especially the warm weather. That first week I was back it was absolutely freezing in Texas... not pleasant. I'm sort of used to it now, especially since it's now in the 60s and 70s. :) Everything still reminds me of Ghana: movies, TV shows, songs, even certain foods. I can't eat scrambled eggs anymore without thinking of how often I made them in our kitchen, and how Holly and I tried to show everyone the heavenly-ness of breakfast tacos. The movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, will forever be associated with watching it with the girls in Kate's room, laughing at some of the crazy quotes. 

I miss everyone I met there like crazy, even the people I didn't originally click with very well. It's hard because I know that I may not see some of these people ever again, and that's incredibly difficult to accept. Thank goodness for facebook! I love that I still keep in touch with some of the girls in my program and I feel that if we ever see each other again, nothing will have changed and we'll still get along just as great. I'm planning on trying to find plantains somewhere and making some fried plantains. yum! I also want to print off a ton of my pictures and put them all over my room. This was the trip of a lifetime! Swimming in a waterfall, hiking through rainforests, going on a canopy walkway, feeding monkeys, going on a safari (!), buying traditional cloth, bargaining in the markets, riding on trou-trous, going to the beaches, learning African history and philosophy, meeting amazing people, volunteering with the most precious children, and becoming what I hope will be lifelong friends with people who I know will accomplish a great amount in the future. This experience has taught me more about myself and the world than 4 years in the same college most likely will. I will treasure it, and the people I met, for the rest of my life. 

The weirdest part about being home is how so little has changed, at least compared to what I expected. At least gas prices are finally down... only $1.50 a gallon!! Praise the Lord!! The economy is still dreadful and probably will continue to worsen until it can improve. However, compared to this time last year, I'm happier than I have been in a long time. I'm content, which is an amazing feeling. I still want to go abroad, anywhere, after I graduate and will most likely try to find a job in which I can do so. I really loved my experience in Ghana, still want to go back for an extended period of time and truly appreciate everything in that region. My best advice that I can give anyone now is that if you have the means and the chance to do so, go abroad. Anywhere. I've talked to friends that studied all over the world this past semester and I have not once heard a single bad account. Everybody I've talked to had a great time and misses it a ton. So here it is: Study Abroad. Take the chance. Go someplace completely different than what you are used to. Gain a different perspective of the world. Meet new people who have lived and experienced things that nobody else you know has. Just go for it. Take the leap. 

Love from Sherman!

Tidbit of the day: Be polite on airplanes. You can meet fascinating people on long flights. 

me pe wo ghana

I'm so sorry that I've been so terrible about updating. We had finals this week and I had a test, paper, or performance everyday. I've also been busy doing the last minute things before I leave, which is today. Leaving is going to be so bittersweet. I'm excited to see everyone back home and have more variety in my food choices rather than pasta, rice, and eggs. I'm really going to miss all of the friends that I've made here. It'll be tough going home and have people NOT understand all my inside jokes and phrases. Everyone in my program became so close to each other. We know everyone's most shameful stories and best moments here as well as our entire life histories. It's been such a great and rewarding experience being here and being such a noticeable minority. I've really enjoyed observing such a drastically different culture and being a part of it. I definitely appreciate the States so much more. I'm warning everyone now, I have picked up a few words and phrases that I replace others with. For example, I say chips instead of fries; queue instead of line; filling station instead of gas station, among others.

Quick recap of the past week or so: 2 papers, 2 tests and 1 performance later, I'm done with finals!

Election day was Sunday. The NPP and NDC are in a runoff because there is controversy concerning the votes and the election is ridiculously close, which is cool because most people thought the NPP would win by a landslide.

We had our goodbyes to our various bars and restaurants that we frequent on a regular basis. Champs, Venus, Purple Pub, Monsoon, Osu Food Court, etc. etc. etc.

I apologize for never putting up pictures. The Internet is crazy slow and if I try at school, it's almost guaranteed that the power will go out.

I realized that I really do know a good majority of the obronis in Accra. I walked into a fair trade shop the other day to buy souvenirs and realized that I knew the cashier from Champs! Anywhere I go now, just to walk down the street, I see someone I know. I absolutely love it and I've grown to love being a "regular" at some of the restaurants and bars I frequent a.k.a. Champs and Purple Pub.

This trip has been so great. I think I've become a much more patient and independent person. It'll be interesting to go back home and try to readjust, repatriate. I'm going to miss Ghana like crazy. I love the city of Accra and loved our trips around the country. It is unbelievably gorgeous here. I can't imagine going home and not coming back for awhile. It's really sad to think about, even though I'm ready to see my family and friends. Y'all are definitely lucky to NOT be on the plane next to me on the ride home. I will most likely be bawling my eyes out. The Frankfurt airport will be the worst since most of us are going to that airport before our connecting flights to all over the States. I love the people I've met here and I love this country, despite its faults.

Well I'll be home sometime Sunday night. I'll update next week with my experiences on the flights and being home so far.

(for the last time) Love from Accra!

Thanksgiving, Volunteering, and Shopping, oh my!

I really apologize for not updating as often as I should. Things have been busy and the Internet has been flakier than usual. Anyway, past couple weeks in a nutshell.

Thursday 11/27: Had my Steve Biko presentation. It went really well and my prof said it was the most rewarding presentation of the semester because it showed her how much we all had grown! That night was Thanksgiving. At first I was disappointed that I wasn't home, but we were invited to a chief's house for Thanksgiving dinner. He and his wife provided us turkey, gravy, potatoes, corn, REAL Greek salad, rolls, and some Ghanaian dishes. Yummmm. I sat at a table with two young American boys that had moved to Ghana the same time we arrived. Their Ghanaian mother decided it was time to move the family back. They were precious little ones.

Friday 11/28: Music and Dance as usual. We ended the class with improvised solo dances. It was actually a lot of fun. Probably because my professor wasn't there, just his professional dance students. That afternoon I went to Osu Children's Home with Kate to volunteer. I absolutely love those babies. The 2 year olds sort of annoy me, but the babies are amazing. I was able to talk with an older American woman who has lived here for a few years and is trying to adopt one of the babies. I'm going to try to buy supplies - such as diapers, wipes, and baby powder - for the orphanage next week and give them to her because I know she'll make sure all the kids get them. After the orphanage, we showered and then had a girls dinner at Champs with Holly and Montana. That place has provided a lot of great times for us this semester.

Saturday 11/29: I finally went to a Saturday practice for my Music and Dance class. The prof was an hour late and then we went over and over our Final Performance for 2 hours in the hot sun. After that, he sprang on us that we'll be having our practical final exam that day. Great. Hopefully I did alright. It was nerve-racking: being in a room, by yourself, with just your serious professor and professional musicians and dancers. Ugh. Anyway, that night I went to Champs and hung out with a bunch of NYU friends for awhile. One of the girls has a bartender that's in love with her and sends her free food all the time, which means they share with me. It's fabulous.

Sunday-Monday: Nothing of significance. Just schoolwork and such.

Tuesday 12/2: I woke up incredibly early to go to the Arts Center with Evelyn to go souvenir shopping. Although I spent a bunch of money, I got a ton of stuff. Mostly wooden things, but I love being able to bargain prices down. You get a great feeling of accomplishment when you get something for half the price of what the guy originally proposed. Anyway, we also had our class evaluations in my Africana classes. It was great realizing that we were the guinea pigs for our brand-new teacher, and also to see how people's perspective have drastically changed this semester. That afternoon/evening I just hung out with the girls and watched too many episodes of Gossip Girl.

So far Wednesday 12/3: I've been at school for most of the day working on my rough draft for my philosophy paper due tomorrow. Unfortunately, the Internet has been down all day so I had to move to the Internet Cafe and now I'm procrastinating. I have to admit though, the more I study Steve Biko and apartheid, the more interesting it becomes. I've been reading a lot of old articles and books about it and it's just mind-boggling how far South Africa has come since then, and how much further they still have to go.

Rest of this week: Tomorrow I have to go to the seamstress to make sure my dress fits and get another one made. I really should stop doing things at the very last minute. There is also an NYU farewell party/dinner thing that I've been invited to, which should be interesting. Friday we have OUR Farewell dinner, but since we're so small we're only allowed to bring 1 friend each. I'm bringing a girl that lives on my hall that I went to church with the beginning of the semester. All of us CIEE girls have decided we're throwing an unofficial Goodbye party at Champs on Saturday and are going to try to get all of our Ashesi friends to attend. Should be a fun night, no matter what.

As of today, December 3, I leave in 10 days. Scary!!

Love from Accra!!

Tidbit of the day: I'm not sure if I'm completely ready to come home and leave all of the friends I've made...

You know you're in Africa when...

... at least 5 of your friends have typhoid in the same week.

That's right... typhoid. Last week all of a sudden everybody became quite ill. At first a bunch of people thought it was malaria, but once two of them got tested and found out it was typhoid, everybody else got tested. Typhoid is passed through contaminated food and drink. I was afraid I had it too because I had some of the symptoms last week so I went and got my blood drawn. Thankfully, MY vaccination worked, unlike some people's. Although when my test results came back, it showed two positives and 6 negatives. It sucked because the guy who analyzed my blood sample told me I had to see the doctor to see what to do. Well I spent 47 cedi to talk to the doctor for 5 minutes where he told me that I don't have typhoid, those two positives are from the vaccination. Grrrrr. At least I don't have typhoid. Although I'm sort of bummed that I can't be a part of the Cool Kids Typhoid Club. Obviously Africa has messed with my mind. I'm still going to tell my African Music and Dance teacher that I have typhoid b/c I used that as an excuse to sleep through our extra practice Saturday afternoon. In my defense, I truly have not felt well recently, although it may just be a virus.

Friday night was a pretty chill night. I got my blood test results back, which at first were inconclusive until my 5-minute doctor's visit today. I'm still bitter. Anyway, after getting the results with a friend, we met up with another friend, bought some pirated movies and dinner ingredients and went back to his house. It was a lot of fun. Leah and I made dinner for Josh and his brothers. We made teriyaki chicken, mashed potatoes, and boiled veggies. Yummm. We also watched the Bourne Ultimatum. AWESOME movie.

Anyway, Saturday night was supposed to be a fun experience. I had tickets to the Wyclef Jean, Eve and Mario concert and was planning on seeing it with a bunch of friends. Well we got there around 11:30 p.m. and all of the gates to go inside were padlocked. Red flag! All of the people in there were locked in. None of the artists had even gone on stage yet and it was supposed to start at 5. T.I.A. The volunteer girls and I decided there was no way we were going to be locked inside a stadium. Absolutely not. Instead we and the other people we were with decided to go to Honeysuckle where I had some chips (French fries!) and went over to a friend's house to watch TV. SNL's Best of Christopher Walken is classic.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. Just hung out and lazed about most of the day. Later in the evening I went to Champs for dinner and watched their Sunday night movie. I was exhausted though so I fell asleep 3/4 of the way through in one of the booths. The part I watched was good though! I made sure to be home pretty early that evening.

Monday so far: I woke up pretty early and ran some errands before my pointless doctor's appointment. At least my doctor was very nice and I went to a clean, respectable clinic. The perks of knowing people who have lived here for most of their life...

Anyway, hopefully I'll be pretty productive this week. I have a presentation coming up as well as some final papers. Eek! Hope everything is going well for everyone else. I'll be back in Texas in less than 3 weeks!!! What a bittersweet thought...

Love from Accra!

Tidbit of the day: 10% of the number of people ever born are alive today... according to BBC.

My week of no classes

Ok so I'm going to try to update more often. I know I keep saying that, but I only have 3 and a half (!) more weeks here.

Tuesday: since I had no class, I got up early, did some laundry and volunteered at the Osu Children's Home again with a volunteer friend of mine. We were there for 4.5 hours. This time it was a more fun b/c all we did was play with them, feed them, bathe them and put them to bed. They were a lot more pleasant and we could give them snacks! Apparently she brings vitamins and biscuits (cookies) every day. The children are soo sweet, but they definitely tired me out from picking them up and running after them so much. I also found a few that I want to adopt. After we were done with volunteering, we went to our respective homes and showered off baby filth, then met up with a guy friend of ours for dinner. He took us out to this AMAZING Chinese restaurant and picked up the bill!! I even tried duck. It was delicious.

Wednesday: Again, I had no class. More laundry by hand (holla!) and stopped by campus to pick up the lovely package my mom sent me. :) I was going to volunteer again that evening and do the night shift, but I started feeling ill after I got there so I only stayed for a couple hours. I got to do the fun stuff though: feeding the babies and loving on them. I also found out that 4 of my friends have typhoid. That's cool. After I got home, I spent the rest of the night watching movies.

Thursday: I was SUPPOSED to have my first class of the week today (my Africana prof has been in Ethiopia all week), but her flight was rescheduled again so she cancelled it the day of, which I didn't find out until AFTER I got to school. At least I was finally somewhat productive. I met up with some friends later and watched Thomas Crowne Affair (great movie), got dinner and was going to watch Thunderball (the Bond movie), but fell asleep during it.

Friday: Today was the first time I've had class all week. Music and Dance is... interesting. It never fails to give me a headache, especially since some of the people can't carry a rhythm whatsoever. At least we didn't have to go outside today and were let out early.

Tomorrow will be exciting!! A group of us got tickets to this concert at the National Stadium. Wyclef Jean, Eve and Mario will be performing along with a bunch of Ghanaian artists. I can't wait. :)

love from Accra!!

Tidbit of the day: Many people here have belly buttons that protrude much further than usual. They look like golf balls under their skin. It's b/c the women don't have time to breastfeed their babies and get them started on solid foods too soon.
Typhoid canNOT be contracted by sharing drinks, but rather by consuming contaminated food and drinks.

T.I.A. - This Is Africa

Sorry it's been so terribly long since the last time I updated. I tried to last week, but the power went out and the next 2 days I couldn't find an open computer for an extended period of time. Ohhhh Ghana. Anyway, I've settled into such a routine here that it's hard to remember what's worthy to write about. I'll try to give a somewhat brief account of the past couple of weeks.

Thursday - class and such. After class got out at 4:30, Holly, Montana and I went to happy hour at this very nice bar called Honeysuckle. It's one of those places where we can only afford happy hour-priced drinks, which means it had a nice atmosphere. After Honeysuckle, we went to Champs for quiz night. That was fun trying to answer all the quiz questions aka I didn't pay attention and socialized with some NYU girls at a different table while my team won, which means the next week we/they made up the questions for the next week!

Friday - This was my night of fraternizing with the enemy... aka white people from other programs besides my own. I met up with some friends from the CIEE Legon program and NYU kids at Monsoon's. It was really fun hanging out and getting to know new people. However, Emily and I had to go back to the hostel pretty early in the evening since we had a CIEE trip the next day.

Saturday - Woke up at 6:45 a.m. to be on the bus by 7:30 to go to Bojo Beach. This beach was absolutely gorgeous. It was clean, empty, and one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. I love hanging out with the other students in my small program so we had a great time playing in the ocean (with no trash in it!), laying out, and playing beach volleyball. Most of us obronis ended up getting really sunburned, except they were some really splotchy sunburns. Weird. I had my hair band on my wrist so I was able to see how pale I was BEFORE I got some color. Sad really. Since we got there so early in the morning we were able to leave and be back in Accra by late afternoon. After a refreshingly cool shower (I was grateful that we have no hot water), I met up with a friend and went out to eat at his mom's restaurant. One of the few times that I can truly say that I went out to eat and had GREAT food. Afterwards we went to Champ's and hung out with a bunch of people. It was a pretty empty Saturday night, which was nice. I was able to carry on a conversation with my friends comfortably and without the music being too loud. I sound like an older person. :)

Sunday - Went to a friend's beach house about 45 minutes away. Absolutely gorgeous, but not as pretty as Bojo Beach. Spent the day there having yummy food, playing in the pool and pretty much being spoiled. Lovely.

Monday-Wednesday - class and such. Tuesday was my last day of Twi and Wednesday was my last day of my leadership seminar! Yay!! Wednesday night I did a 10-hour shift at the Osu Children's Home which is an orphanage nearby. That place nearly broke my heart and spirit. I worked at the nursery. The women who work there treat the babies terribly. There was one child who was 2-3 weeks old and a woman just picked her up by her arm and handed her to me! We woke the babies at 10 p.m., fed them and changed them and put them back to bed. We then slept until 2 (but the stupid women didn't wake up until 2:30. I don't know how they slept through the screaming babies) and woke up all of the children. Holly and I held the youngest and fed them by hand, but they laid many on a rug on the floor and put a bottle in its mouth, keeping it in place by towels. After the babies were fed, they began bathing the tiniest ones and dressing them. They put all of the babies who could hold their heads up and many who couldn't on training potties and waited until they pooped before they were bathed. It was absolutely terrible. So many of them couldn't hold their heads up so they kept sliding over on the wall and falling down in their own urine and feces. I thought I was going to cry. The women were so rough with the children. This took 4 hours to feed, bathe, and dress all the babies and toddlers. They give the HIV-positive toddlers blue cups to drink milk out of and the others red cups. What the hell? Holly and I didn't leave until after 6 a.m., absolutely exhausted and filthy from our shift. It broke my heart though seeing how many of the kids were malnourished. There were some that were soo tiny. Apparently the Home gets plenty of funding, but it isn't always distributed to where it needs to be... the children. Disgusting, really. I'm going to try to volunteer again this week when I don't have class.

Thursday - Helped to host quiz night. All I did was read the first round of questions and then grade the answers every 2 rounds. They had some great categories. One such round was Brussell Crillis. Good job guys for great rounds.

Friday - The lovely day of Music and Dance. We spent an hour and a half in the blazing hot sun preparing for our final program. One thing that was cool was that I was chosen early on as one of the best bell players. :) It was like gym class all over again. Unfortunately, b/c I was chosen early, I was in the hot sun the longest with the rest of the good bell players constantly playing the same damn tune. Gannett was chosen too so we stood and talked while playing. What a great skill. Our program should be fun. I don't have to dance in front of people so I'm excited about that. After M&D, I walked home soaked in sweat and met a lovely person who asked me how I liked the weather here. Jackass. That afternoon my Twi professor planned a field trip for all of our class. Sadly, once again I was one of 3 students who went. Even worse, 2 of us were part of the 3 that went last time. It was cool though. We took a taxi out to Nungua, stopping here and there to meet some friends of his who owned various shops and such. We met some weavers in Tema before continuing to Nungua to the Chief's palace. That was amazing. We were introduced to a bunch of the villagers at the palace and then were served red red at the palace. The Chief was supposed to eat with us, but had to make a meeting so he made sure to stop by, introduce himself and take pictures with us. We received a history of chieftaincy in Nungua and were able to meet prominent leaders that work with/for the chief. After red red, they served us yams, plaintains and palava sauce. After that we were served some really good watermelon for dessert. Yum. We were supposed to go on the bone shaker - the wooden truck thing I spoke of earlier - but our professor took pity on us since 2 of us have already gone on it. A friend of us drove us all the way to Tema and then paid for our cabfare back home. Once I got home, I made the rest of the CIEE girls jealous by telling them our stories, then went out to our beloved Purple Pub for drinks and companionship. Once again, I was reminded how lucky I am to have such a small program. We know each other so well and are so close.

Saturday - Great day. A friend had a party at his beach house. I was picked up at 3:30 by a different friend so we could go out there, but weren't able to leave Accra until after 5 b/c he had to run so many errands. We finally got there a little after 6. The guy whose beach house it is provided amazing food. Yummy homemade pizzas, delicious kebabs (maybe goat meat?), miniature cheeze pies, deliciousness. His house is right on the beach too so we were able to sit by the pool and watch the tide. He also set up a projector screen on the roof of this tower building thing so some of us went up there and watched 300. Such a fun time. I never would have guessed I would be doing things like this in Africa of all places. Just goes to show, preconceived notions are usually proved false.

Sunday - A bunch of volunteer girls and I stayed the night at the house. We spent the next day hanging out around the pool, playing ping pong, and being spoiled with delicious food. I have to say though, some people are just ridiculous with their wealth. This guy has OSTRICHES for goodness' sake. Those things are mean. If you get close enough to them (don't worry. there was a fence) they hiss. They also look like they could be mythological creatures. Anyway, on the way back to Accra there was a political rally for the NPP (New Patriotic Party) so traffic was crazy. People were wandering around in NPP shirts banging on car windows and handing out flyers. Their candidate is Nana Akufo-Addo who many believe will win the election in December. After I finally got home, I had a great girls' night with chick flicks and chocolate. So much fun.

Monday - Since I no longer have Twi or Leadership, my Mondays and Wednesdays are free. Today I spent most of the day reading. I'm going to try to volunteer at the Children's Home for the next few weeks though since I've become friends with a lot of the volunteers there.



I apologize for such a crazy-long post. I understand if nobody reads this. I'll try to update more often, but once again, TIA. Internet is unreliable and it's hard having to pay by the minute. Hope everything is going well! I'll be back in Texas December 14! YAY!!

Love from Accra!

Tidbit of the day: More people are killed by falling coconuts than sharks.

well well...

So life has been ... interesting lately. Tuesday night was election night! I went to a big election coverage party hosted by the NYU study abroad program. They invited all study abroad students as well as African students from University of Ghana (Legon) and Ashesi. They had expensive drink specials named after a couple of the swing states and a bunch of food. I was even interviewed on TV! I don't have a TV in my hostel, but I'm pretty sure since I was one of my maybe 5 McCain supporters, they'll broadcast my responses to the questions asked. I think the station was called Africa Today or something like that. We arrived at the party thing at Headlines (a restaurant/bar type of place) at 10:30. Unfortunately I had been sick earlier that day so I wasn't fully ready to stay up all night waiting for the results, but I (sort of) did it! I fell asleep on the grass in front of the big projector screen around 3 and didn't wake up until people started counting down to the announcement of the results. It was 4:15 when the news was broken. :( Anyway, it was really cool to be in Ghana, in Africa even, when Obama won. Even though I was disappointed with the results, I have to admit it was somewhat rewarding to see everyone else celebrating and dancing. The next day I walked down the street to go to the ATM and grocery shopping and when we heard, "Are you from US? US?" instead of vendors trying to sell us stuff, they just yelled "OBAMA!!!" At least other countries respect us more, for now. Although I was sad not to be in the US for the election, I know I'll look back on this for years to come and realize what an amazing experience it was to be in Africa.

love from Accra!

Tidbit of the day: I'm famous!! My friend, Kathryn Sharkey, works for the SMU online newspaper and interviewed me about what it has been like being an American in Ghana during the elections. Here's the link: http://www.smudailymustang.com/?p=3270

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update. I have been somewhat busy recently with school and such and not a whole lot has been going on. In the past week I had a group presentation that went pretty well for us putting it together in 2 days. Our teacher moved up our presentation date from Thursday to Tuesday and didn't tell us until Sunday. It still went well though> i was able to present information about foreign aid in West Africa and why throwing money at an issue does not solve it.

Interesting news though: I saw the President of Ghana in person! My International Setting class went to a book launching about The Economic History of Ghana and President Nana Akufo-Addo (who's running for reelection this December) was there! He walked right past us. Pretty cool. All the American kids were really excited.

Last night was Halloween. My apartment mates threw a big cake and ice cream party for the class of 2010 and CIEE kids. It was really fun actually. They changed out the lights in the main room of the flat to colored lights and served a TON of ice cream and snacks. Yummm. Everyone was dancing to all kinds of music. I like that Halloween music in Ghana translates to Michael Jackson. It was really cool watching everyone dancing, although not so cool when they pulled all the CIEE kids into the middle of the room to make us dance to... the Captain Planet theme song. What in the world?? It was funny though. I'm sure we looked like the goofy white kids we are. They even played musical chairs which was super cute. Holly and I decided to make it more fun by dressing in our Halloween costumes for the party. She was a pirate and I was Tom Cruise from Risky Business. I even had some Ghana crew socks and Ray-Bans that I got from Tamale for 2 cedi. Unfortunately Ghanaians haven't seen Risky Business so I kept being asked why I wasn't wearing any pants or shoes. Later on, Holly, Emily and I went to a Halloween party that was hosted by a friend of a friend. More people understood my costume there. Tonight a TON of people, including most of our program, are going to this bar called Champs for another Halloween party. I'm going as a gypsy which should hopefully be a lot of fun.

Not much else has been going on. I'm still trying to plan a trip to the village on stilts and find time to go fabric shopping so I can get Africa dresses made. Oh and the weather here is sweltering. It's getting hotter and hotter, but at least it doesn't rain as often as it did when we first got here.

Ghana is still going great! I'm enjoying it so much and can't believe that I'll be back home in 6 weeks. Oh and this restaurant/bar called Headlines is having an election coverage night Tuesday night for all the American students. The NYU director planned it and they are even providing us a shuttle to/from the hostel. Apparently CNN and al-Jazeera are invited! I'm really excited. :)

Hope everything is going great everywhere else!! Love from Africa!

tidbit of the day: Many babies, especially in regions further north with more indigenous populations, receive cuts on their faces that depict what tribe they belong to. We noticed it EVERYWHERE when we did our big trip to Kumasi, Mole, and Tamale, although I'm not quite sure exactly how they do it to make it last for so long. The scars are pretty deep. Interesting...

hakuna matata

So I just returned from my 5-day travel excursion to the Ashanti and Northern Regions of Ghana. I have never seen something so beautiful in my life. If I could imagine what the Garden of Eden looked like, it would look a lot like the countryside of Ghana. This place is unbelievably gorgeous. Apparently Eastern Africa is even better according to some guys we met on our safari this weekend, but more on that later.

Friday I woke up bright and early in order to be on the bus by 6:30 a.m. I made sure to bring my pillow though so I pretty much slept the entire 5-hour drive to Kumasi, waking only for the rest stop and lunch with the CIEE Legon kids. We did our Kumasi field trip with the CIEE (my program) students that go to University of Ghana in Legon. 70 obronis? Oh lordy. It was actually fun though. We split up after lunch. 2 buses went to the cloth villages and 2 buses (including mine) went to the Palace Museum and market. The Palace Museum was ok. It used to be the palace of the Ashanti Chief until they built a new one. The coolest part of it (to me, anyway) was that the grounds of the palace had peacocks!! Sooo cool. Quick side note: Ashanti is the name of the region. Asante is the name of the people in the region. After both buses took our tours of the palace and received a little history lesson on Ashanti chieftaincy, we went to the largest open-air market in West Africa. It was pretty cool I guess. Not much different than any other markets I've been to, just on a much larger scale. I did see people selling chickens, holding them upside down by their feet. I've decided I'm not eating fish here since everyone sells it on the street, with all of the exhaust. Gross. Afterwards we all went back to the hotel and rested until dinner. Our hotel was amazing, even by US standards. The Golden Tulip in Kumasi. When Holly and I got to our room we inspected everything in amazement. Our balcony was huge, we didn't have to turn on the hot water heater for hot water, there was actual water pressure(!), there was plush carpet, and the sheets felt truly clean. It sounds like my standards have dropped, but seriously. SUCH a great hotel. Anyway, dinner was sooo good. Amazing food. The Ashesi kids split up and sat at various tables with Legon kids so we could all get to know each other. Uneventful until everyone was finishing up eating and some people started to leave. I ran over and jumped to kneel on a chair to talk to Gannett (a girl in my program). Holly got a bit overexcited and ran over too, and tackled me. She allegedly thought that I still had one leg on the ground and wouldn't fall, but I definitely ate it. In front of everyone. I have a huge bruise on my shin to prove it. All the Legon kids looked at us like we were crazy. Fun times. Anyway, ended the evening watching CNN curled up in the comfy beds.

Saturday was a LOT of fun. We woke up, got breakfast, and then the 2 buses in my group went to the Kente and Adinkra cloth villages. We were shown how they weave Kente cloth and then went around and made our souvenir purchases. Kente cloth is sooo pretty. I went a little overboard buying stuff. Oops. I got to practice my bargaining skills and for some reason a guy I bought a necklace from kept giving me free stuff! I'm sort of tired of constantly being asked if I'm American and an Obama supporter so my new thing is I'm Canadian and voting for Nader. Because Canadians can vote in the US elections and all. They never question me, though! We also met our Twi professor's son as we were leaving and were shown his house. We then went to the Adinkra cloth village and were shown how they make the dye that they put on the cloth. Some of us were able to try our hand at weaving on the loom. I have a great picture of me attempting to do that. I even had my own cloth thing made. I picked out the 2 Adinkra symbols I wanted, the cloth, and had it stamped for 5 cedi. Everyone in both the villages were very very nice. After that, all the buses met at a lake that was created by a meteorite centuries ago. We had lunch there then a bunch of people jumped in and went swimming. It was shockingly very very warm. After a couple hours of that, Mr. Gyesi bought a few bottles of palm wine for all of us to try. I really liked it. It was a lot sweeter than I expected. Before going back to the hotel, my bus stopped by the bus station to buy our bus tickets for the next day. Anyway, we got back, had dinner and then I ended up hanging out with a bunch of Legon kids until wayyy too early in the morning. It was fun getting to know new people.

Sunday we all woke up bright and early to get breakfast before getting to the bus station by 9:30. We had a long bus ride from Kumasi to the Mole Junction, then got off there to wait for the other bus to come by and take us to Mole. The bus to Mole was old and ridiculously crowded. We waited for 20 minutes after getting on the bus for it to start and I'm pretty sure I sweated out all the liquids in my body. Grossss. It was a very bumpy 4 hour bus ride. We finally got there and got our room. Not as nice as the Golden Tulip and the power was out when we checked in, but it wasn't terrible. Showering and getting ready for bed in candlelight isn't too bad.

The next morning we woke up crazy early to go on a SAFARI! Gannett and I were walking to find breakfast and a babboon walked right by us! Close enough to touch! It was just hanging out, getting scraps of food from the ground. Omg it was crazy. We also had a ton of African deer and warthogs all over the place eating the grass. We then went on our safari where we got really close to wild elephants, bush buck, African deer, warthogs and monkeys! Warthogs are my new favorite animal. They're so ugly they're cute. Anyway, we had a walking safari through Mole National Park and took a ton of pictures. Afterwards, we took a nap until this amazing lunch a woman that lived in the village nearby made for us. Omo tuo is my new favorite Ghanaian dish. It's a rice ball in groundnut (peanut) soup. Sooo good. Later that afternoon, some of us went and swam in the pool. Babboons were playing in the trees right next to us! One even walked right by me as I was laying out. Another one stole a roll of toilet paper from the hotel office. Crazy times. That afternoon we went to the oldest mosque in West Africa in Larabunga. We walked around and got the history of the place as well as information about the village it was in. There was also an NDC political rally going on right next to the mosque which was cool to see. Apparently Larabunga speaks some language that nobody else in Africa speaks. Later on we got back to the room and played card games while it rained until dinner.

Tuesday morning was another early morning seeing as we had to be on the bus by 4 a.m. Not fun. At least this time we were the first ones so we were guaranteed seats on the crazy crowded bus. We had a lovely 4.5 hour bus ride to Tamale. We had some trouble trying to get a hotel room for 5 people so we ended up lying and saying that there were only 4, but I was a friend already staying in Tamale. However, Evelyn and I were supposed to show up later as if she was the one who picked me up and took me to the hotel. It took us half an hour to find the hotel since we started going the wrong way and got lost in Tamale for awhile. Tamale is a predominantly Muslim city where I have never seen so many people on motorcycles in my life! It's surreal seeing people in traditional clothing riding motorbikes. It was hard trying to get directions to our hotel though since the few people I stopped didn't speak English or Twi. After we finally arrived at AlHassan (our hotel), I napped for a loooong time before we walked around a market nearby. They were selling the weirdest stuff. I walked by a vendor selling cow heads and hooves. Ick. I got some sweet shades for my Halloween costume. Then the 5 of us just hung out, having a good time playing cards, singing Lion King songs and playing that childhood game, MASH. Good times.

Wednesday morning we had to be at the bus station by 5:30 to get on the 6:30 a.m. bus to Accra. I bought some nice leather flip flops for only 7 cedi, which is exciting. Then we had a 13-hour bus ride to Accra. I slept most of the way and listened to Dane Cook with Emily. They played this crazy Ghanaian movie so by the time we were almost to Accra, Gannett and I had a loud, running commentary. It ended like Hamlet-everyone died. The quality of the film and the acting was sooo bad, it made it hilarious. It was not very family-friendly though. A woman sleeps with her husband's brother b/c her husband is impotent and they want children? ick.


This was probably my favorite trip so far. I went to so many neat places and had such a great time with the group of girls I travelled with. I really want to go to this village in Western Ghana that is built on stilts in the river. Apparently just the canoe-ride to the village is worth it. It's supposed to be gorgeous. I also really want to spend the night in the rainforest one of these days.

I'm sure everyone else abroad is having a great experience as well, but I honestly think that Ghana has such amazing scenery and we've had such great experiences. Waterfalls, rainforests, SAFARIS, indigenous villages, etc. I love this place, although I really want to learn more Twi. If anyone ever gets the chance to visit Ghana or Africa, do it. I want to travel around the rest of the country, although my class schedule won't allow it this semester. :( Still, I'm having such a great time.

P.S. The election is in 2 weeks! Abroad kids - get your absentee ballots in. For most of y'all, it's the first presidential election we're eligible to vote in. We need more youth to vote, no matter the candidate. People back home - don't forget to vote! I'm planning on watching election coverage well into the early morning here at a friend's house. Should be exciting!

Sorry for the crazy long post. It was just such an amazing trip. Hope everything is going well for everyone else!

Love from Ghana!

Tidbits of the day: Brofo is a fried ball of dough that is delicious and sold all over. It's like a donut, but much bigger and without the sugary covering. Yum.

There are certain Ghanaian words and phrases that rub off. For example, people call other people Charlie, but pronounce it Cha-lay. They also call people my brother and my sister (pronounced: seesta). My favorite is when somebody says something and someone else replies by smacking their lips and saying 'eyyyyy. Sort of like if someone in the States says "come on. seriously" in a fun manner.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

I have no idea the answer to that question, but I DO know that on my way to the computer lab, I saw a chicken run back and forth across a road no less than four times... and that's just when I was walking up to it.

Anyway, this week has been pretty standard. I've just had class and studied-ish. I had two mid-terms today in my Africana classes. They were both essay exams so hopefully I did alright. I watched Caddyshack the other day and had flashbacks to my cousin's wayy too long graduation from A&M and watching that movie on an ipod with my brother and cousins. Fun times.

I'm really excited for this coming weekend and week. Tomorrow morning we leave at 6:30 a.m. to drive to Kumasi in the Central Region for (at least) 5 hours. On Friday, we will go to Manhyia Palace Museum to learn about the prestigious chieftaincy institution of the Asante people. After that, we will go to the Kumasi Central market, which is the largest open-air market in West Africa and is about 90% controlled by women. On Saturday, we will visit the Bonwire Kente-weaving village to watch the weavers weave the kente cloth as well as try the loom ourselves! After that, we'll go to Ntonso, the Adinkra cloth village and taught the steps of making a certain piece of cloth. Finally, after that we'll go and swim in Lake Bosomtwi, which was formed centuries ago as a result of a meteorite.

After all this, since next week is Mid-Semester Break, a group of us will be getting on a different bus on Sunday to go to Mole National Park and Temali (sp?). We'll stay a couple of nights in Mole and hopefully go on a safari! Then we'll go to see the oldest mosque in Western Africa outside of Temali. After all that, we will finally be on our way home by Wednesday. I think it'll end up being a 10-hour bus drive if it doesn't break down. Yay public transportation!!

I'm super excited about these next 5 days and will definitely update once I get back. Hope everybody is getting excited about the election in 19 days!! I went to the U.S. Embassy this morning and dropped off my ballot so that it will for sure get mailed. I'm so excited about this because I have now officially voted in my first presidential election! Hopefully I'll be able to go over to someone's house to watch election coverage. It should be a great experience.

Hope everything back in the states is going well! I saw on CNN today that the Asia-Pacific stock market has had their worst single-day drop in history and in the U.S. stock market, they had their 2nd worst day. Fabulous. Good luck everyone!

Tidbit of the day: The policemen here carry AK-47s around. Sweet. Not disturbing AT ALL.
Burning hot oil HURTS. Be careful when frying.
Love from Accra!

Wli Waterfalls and a Monkey Sanctuary

I am so blessed. I kept realizing this as we drove to the Volta Region for our field trip this weekend. The Ghanaian countryside is unbelievably gorgeous. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. The closest I can get is a mixture between the Hill Country in springtime and Colorado in summer, but on a much grander scale. It's lush and green with such a variety of plant life. Absolutely breathtaking. At one point, we had to slow down because there were some men shepherding cows and sheep alongside the road. One guy was even holding a baby lamb! Also, most people in the area lived in thatched-roof huts. I wish I got a picture.

Anyway, we had a lovely 2-hour bus ride to our hotel, an early lunch and then off to the waterfalls! We took a 40-minute hike through the rainforest where it started pouring on us about 10 minutes into it, which is why I have very few pictures. We pretty much got soaking wet simply walking there. Had some fun singing songs from musicals and such and splashing each other by jumping into puddles. My tennis shoes are muddy and disgusting. Once we get to the breathtaking waterfall (the tallest in West Africa!) we all pull off our already soaking clothes and jump straight in. The water was freezing, but it was pretty shallow so I could walk to the falls. We ended up getting really close to where the falls hit the water, but had to walk backwards to it b/c the spray kept getting into our eyes. We probably spent about half an hour playing in the waterfall pool (I don't know what else to call it) before hauling our freezing selves back to somewhat dry land. It sucked having to put our muddy, wet tennis shoes back on to walk the 40 minutes back. Sherrick, Holly and I had a great time reminiscing about our favorite Thanksgiving foods. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pecan pie... yummmm. After we got back, we had to board the bus and had a cold, wet hour and a half drive back to the hotel. I ended up getting a hot shower FINALLY.

The next day we all woke up early and jumped in the pool at the hotel. It was hot and sunny outside so the pool felt GREAT. Got some sun. :) Then went back and had the best shower I've had in 7 weeks. We had lunch, then went to the Monkey Sanctuary! At the Monkey Sanctuary we went near this "sacred" forest and fed monkeys bananas. They got so close to us and actually peeled the bananas as we held them in our hands! Such precious little things. There are hundreds of them in the forest. There were also a ton of baby goats running around so our tour guide caught one for Sasha so she could pet it. I have never heard something sound so awful as it screamed. :( Evelyn has a picture of me on her camera pouting as I pet the terrified thing. After the Sanctuary, we had a fabulous 3 hour drive back home. At one point as we were driving, our driver slowed down b/c there were monkeys in the road! They were a different species from the ones we fed and it was about 2 hours into the trip. Soooo cool.

I am absolutely loving this country. Everyone is so nice and there are so many different things to do here! Next weekend we're going to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. I know we'll be going to see how kente cloth is created, but I'm not sure what else. It'll be a loooong trip. 5 hour drive at least... and we'll be going with the CIEE kids from Legon. Greeeat.

I also had some Ethiopian tea tonight. It was really good, but must have some caffeine in it because after I drank it, I became really hyper. Which is why I'm in the Internet Cafe at 11:45 p.m. No worries, I'm not by myself. I still have common sense... ish. :) Ghana is amazing and everyone should come and experience something like this in their lifetime.

Tidbit of the day: There is a really big Lebanese population here. Most restaurants that serve a variety of food have a pretty sizeable Lebanese section.
The whole thing about there being a dry season and rainy season is complete crap. Ghana weather is like Texas weather. It rains whenever it pleases, no matter what season it's supposed to be.

Love from Accra!!

Texas Fight! Texas Fight!

I apologize now for the really long post.

So I have officially gotten sick in Africa. I'm not sure what exactly it was. I think it was just a bad cold, but my friend Emily and I both got it within a few days of each other. It was awful. I felt like death and ended up skipping both of my classes on Monday in order to sleep. I experienced yet another example of cultural differences while sick though. I feel like back home, most people are very sympathetic if their roommates are sick and clearly look like death. Yeah my roommates got up early that morning, woke me up to ask me if I was going to class that day (to which I replied "NO. I feel terrible and really want to sleep all day with no interruptions." ha), then kept the light on while they got ready. This I still do not understand. It's ridiculously bright outside and there is no noticeable difference in the mornings whether or not the light is on. It does make my bed hotter since I'm on the top bunk directly below the light. Anyway, they kept the light on, turned on music, talked wayy too loud and sort of made me want to stab my eyes out. They kept waking me up to ask me questions too. If looks could kill.... Some random chick also came in asking if she could borrow my nail polish remover and then started looking through my makeup bag. I was livid and if I had had the energy to sit up and yell, I would have.

Anyway, that was my Monday. Tuesday we just had class. Nothing special. Tried out this place called Venus later that evening. I tried this really good generic Red Bull. It's called E-Energy. Red Bull just has a bull on the can. E-Energy has a bull, a rhinocerous (sp?), a kangaroo, and a horse. Let's just say I was bouncing off the walls after one of them. I can only imagine what the E stands for...

Wednesday was amazing. I took a field trip for my Leadership class most of the day. We left at 9 a.m. to go to this place called Village of Hope in Gomoah Fetteh. It's near Cape Coast so it took us a good hour by bus with no traffic to get there. The director gave us a basic overview of their mission and then gave us a tour of the school, houses, and nursery classrooms. Village of Hope is a children's home/orphanage that also has a school and offers a ton of other programs. We were able to tour the houses that the children stay in with their Christian "parents." It was a really impressive organization. We also peeked in on the pre-school rooms and nursery and I just wanted to take all of the adorable children home. Sorry Mom and Dad. :) Afterwards, we took a class vote to convince the bus driver to take us to the beach (our professor is at a UN Conference. She is on a panel representing Africa), but he wasn't as cooperative as we would have hoped. It was a really great experience though and I'm sad that it's so far away from Accra.

Thursday was just class and stuff. After dinner, some of us were working on our Leadership papers and decided that playing music would be a good idea. After blasting "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston, our papers were abandoned for yet another karaoke session. A girl in our program, Tomoko, turned 20 today so we did the whole birthday cake thing and then took her out to a bar called Bywel's for a lovely little celebration. When we got there it was mostly older people listening to the live music, but as the night went on, the crowd became younger and filled more with college-aged kids. I found my Texas sports-watching buddy. Even though he's an Aggie fan, we've agreed to watch the UT-A&M game in complete silence for 3 hours so that we'll still be friends afterwards. :) Best part of the night: I was able to successfully tell off a guy so that he had no response. Soooo empowering.

Today I just had Music and Dance. We learned to play some drums!! Unfortunately, at the end of class, our prof split up the girls and guys and made us do some dances. Then he made us each do a solo dance move of our own. Soooo embarrassing. I was also able to successfully finish my Leadership paper on time and made it under 1500 words!

I'm really excited for this weekend: Wli Waterfalls (that we can swim in!) and a Monkey Sanctuary (where we can feed the monkeys). It should be a really fun trip. Oh, I also got my absentee ballot yesterday! I am really excited about finally being able to vote in a major election. I just need to make sure to send it in soon!

Tidbit of the day: I don't think I will ever get used to seeing people just pee wherever they see fit. Most of the time guys will turn their backs from the main walkway, but sometimes.... ewwwww.
On a brighter note, the fruit here is absolutely unbelievable. It is delicious and sooo cheap. The bananas are tiny, but sooo much better than bananas back home.

Love from Accra

Reggae, CNN, and Karaoke

The past few days have been pretty uneventful. Wednesday night I went to Reggae Night at Labadi Beach. They have it every Wednesday. They play a bunch of music and there are a ton of rasta boys around. Even old ones. Although I did see an old white guy making out with a Ghanaian hooker. Grossssss.

Thursday was class and then Emily and I met up with a guy we met on Wednesday that goes to University of Ghana in Legon. We ended up going to the Purple Pub with him and then this place called Bywell's where we met up with a bunch of kids in the NYU program. It was fun hanging out with them, mainly just hanging out with people outside of Ashesi. I ended up meeting a guy from Texas who is in the ISEP study abroad program. That was great. We reminisced about food, country music, and the people. I'm missing steak a TON. I did find out that this sports bar called champs has a steak special every Monday night though. AND they have what they call Tex-Mex, which I'm sort of tempted to try. Anyway, met a bunch of people, made new friends, went home.

Friday I ended up getting some laundry done... exciting! I also finally saw The Departed which was very very intense. Hung out at a friend's house and was able to finally watch CNN on his TV, which I was ecstatic about. Went home pretty early and was in bed before midnight. Yesssss.

Saturday I was a complete bum. Watched two movies, two episodes of Freaks and Geeks (which is quickly becoming my new favorite show. Too bad there was only one season), and took a nap. HOWEVER, I successfully made a really great dinner. I made some chicken teriyaki and then sort of grilled green beans and carrots in a frying pan. It was soo good. I made it all by myself and everyone really liked it. I'm definitely going to make it more often now that I know how and I'm going to try to make some honey-lime marinated chicken soon. I'm actually learning how to cook! Yay!! After dinner, a big group of us went to Champ's. I finally took a picture of the Stars jersey hanging above the bar. It still makes my night everytime I see it. They also play a ton of games on Saturday night so I was able to watch some friends go up on stage and make fools of themselves. It was pretty chill for Champ's. I successfully only drank Sprite the entire night, but for some reason was still pulled on stage for karaoke to Ice, Ice Baby. What a fool.

Sunday (today) I got up at 7 a.m. and went to mass! I also was able to do some laundry, which always instills a sense of accomplishment. I'm pretty excited about this coming weekend. We're taking a field trip to the Volta Region, which I think has the monkey sanctuary. And in another couple of weeks we're going to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region with all the Legon CIEE kids. It should be pretty fun to meet new people!

I'm still loving it here. It's getting easier and easier to understand Ghanaian accents and their way of speaking. It's getting ridiculously hotter though. Did you know they only have two seasons? Wet season and dry season.

Tidbit of the day: Everybody has a mixture of traditional clothing and Western-style clothing in their wardrobe. No... traditional clothing does not mean loincloths. They are actually almost completely covered up. The men wear a loose, long-sleeved tunic shirt over loose pants. The women have a bit more variety in their clothes. Most of the time it's a shirt, over a skirt in matching fabrics. Sometimes it's a dress. It's funny, though, going to church and see families matching in the exact same fabric. That's one way to not get separated.

Love from Accra!!

Simon says....

These past few days have been sooo much fun. In Twi class on Monday my teacher brought us groundnut cakes, which tasted exactly like peanut brittle with more peanuts and less caramel. yummm..

Tuesday was the end of Ramadan, which is a national holiday so we got off from school. Yay!! It was an incredibly relaxing day. I woke up early and alternated all day between doing laundry (by hand!) and sunbathing on this 2nd floor balcony of our hostel. It's really big and gets a ton of sun so Emily, Holly and I laid out and listened to music on Emily's computer. We definitely had quite a lot of Ashesi students watching us, laughing at our obroni selves. We just kept telling them that we're trying to get rid of our obroni-ness. After doing that for a few hours (only an hour outside), I watched Freaks and Geeks on Emily's computer for wayy too long. It's become one of my new favorite shows. Thankfully there is only one season so it won't distract me for too long. Tuesday night a bunch of us cooked dinner and watched a few episodes of Freaks and Geeks. Then Holly and I decided to have an impromptu dance party after a few people left so we blasted music and grabbed Busola (my Nigerian roommate) from the room and made her dance with us around the living room. We live in the middle apartment on the third floor by the stairs so we definitely had a bunch of people walking by laughing at us. It was really fun. Pop, rap, oldies, country - all were good enough for karaoke and silly white girl dancing. Good times.

Today was the best. In my Leadership Seminar we took a field trip to this school about 30-45 minutes away. We all split up into various groups depending on what we wanted to be involved in. I joined the teaching group and ended up teaching some 3rd graders math and science for a couple of hours. They were soooo adorable and so sweet. It was so much fun. The school system is quite a bit different here. Three of us walked in to what I thought would be observing, but the teacher gave us some chalk, had us introduce ourselves and told us to get started. He didn't offer us a workbook until after we told him that we had no idea what level they were and what they had learned so far. The kids were so smart though. Everything we came up with to question them on, they knew the basics of. Multiplication tables, fractions, division, bones, taste buds, etc. Evelyn and I brought the game of Simon Says to Ghana. We played Simon Says with them a few times to help them review their different body parts. It also helped in getting them to be quiet and sit down. An Ashesi guy, Nii, came in later on and helped us too. We took a field trip outside to observe the different animals around us and whether or not they were herbivores, carnivores, omnivores. The children were absolutely adorable. I just loved it.

Tidbit of the day: the way people pronounce their English here is the British way. For example, Americans pronounce water without enunciating the t. Ghanaians and Africans in general pronounce the t in all words like that: water, bottle, etc. I had a guy make a comment on my American English when buying water sachets today.

Love from Accra!!

Elmina Slave Castle and the Rainforest!

So this weekend was really fun. We had a field trip to Cape Coast in the Central Region. Contrary to Ghana's geography, the Central Region is actually along the coast in the southern part. It is called the central region b/c 1) the original capital of Ghana was Cape Coast and was the center of Ghana's commerce and 2) This region was the Central Region before the Ashanti Region joined.

Anyway, Saturday we woke up super early to be on the bus by 7:30 a.m. so we could leave by 8:00 a.m. sharp. I ended up sleeping almost the entire 2 and a half hours to our first destination: the Elmina Slave Castle. I would like to preface the following statements by saying that I never knew the extent of what occurred in the slave trade and feel guilty for never attempting to learn more. We arrived at the Castle and took a tour of the Men's and Women's Dungeons as well as the chapel and the living quarters for the soldiers and religious leaders. It's shocking how close the soldiers and missionaries lived to the slaves. We were discussing at dinner later that night how atrocious it is that people could actually see the living conditions for these people and still allow it.

Later on in the day, after the tour of the Elmina Castle, lunch, and a nap, we drove to the location of many slaves' Last Bath: the Assin Manso Slave River. This is where the soldiers and slave traders herded the slaves that were to be traded soon for their last bath. Right before they got to the river where they bathed them, they inspected the slaves and if they had any cuts or injuries, they were killed and thrown into a mass grave nearby. If a woman was carrying a baby, they smashed the baby's head and threw it in the pit as well. They then herded the slaves to the river, shaved off all of their hair and rubbed oil on them to make them look more attractive to potential buyers. Our tour guide told us that there were 25 million non-Ghanaians involved in the slave trade, and those were the ones that lived. He also told us that the path on the way to the river used to be a virgin forest so many Africans were bitten by snakes, eaten by wild animals, or stepped on thorns. Even though it started raining while we were by the river, nobody minded and told him to continue his spiel. It was a really interesting and emotional day. I knew close to nothing about the slave trade except for the diagram they show us in the history books of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Apparently Ghana was one of the major trading posts. There is also a Cape Coast Slave Castle that we were supposed to tour, but Mr. Gyesi took us to Elmina at the last minute b/c Cape Coast is supposed to be much more emotional. According to Akuba and Akosua (2 of our U-Pals), you can see on the walls how high the piles of human excretion rose to - about waist-high in some areas. The castle was probably a third of Elmina's size, but housed nearly twice as many slaves. It's disgusting really.

After our tour of the Last Bath, our tour guide took us to a house and showed us how heavy the chain was they used on the slaves as they led them to the bath. While he was doing that, some of the local children followed us and were chattering to us. They held our hands and kept asking questions. It was fun to practice our Twi with them. They were sooo adorable. Later that night, during dinner, Mr. Gyesi asked us our reactions to the field trip that day and Ghana so far. We shared some great stories about our interactions with the locals and had a lot of laughs, as well as some deep discussions about how our trip today related to other atrocities in the past and today and what we can do when we get back home. It definitely made me think.

On Sunday we went to the Rainforest! We had breakfast at the hotel then drove to Kakum National Park. Once there, we hiked through the rainforest to a canopy walkway, which was incredibly high up. Yes!! Kate and I had fun scaring other people by bouncing up and down on the walkway. Don't worry, it's pretty much a bunch of two-by-fours nailed together as the bridge with nets on either side and is strung between some really high trees. There are 5 separate ones you have to walk on until you get back on solid ground. It was a lot of fun. Apparently 6 Ghanaians and 2 Canadians took 6 months to build it. The rainforest is absolutely GORGEOUS.

Speaking of gorgeous, it is so... unreal to see the disparity between the lush, beautiful landscapes of Ghana and the poverty that surrounds it. On the bus ride to Cape Coast, the view of the countryside and seaside was amazing, but there were shantytowns everywhere. Barefoot children running in the dirt with the goats (speaking of, this trip goats were everywhere instead of chickens like in Accra) is something that you don't see as often in Accra. When we were driving up to Elmina, the fishermen had just brought in their catches of the day so the city was filled with people buying and selling things. Once again, women were walking around carrying the most absurd things on their heads. I saw the ultimate multi-tasking mom: She had a baby tied on her back, a baby on her hip, and was carrying I don't even know what on her head. I was impressed. I am still intent on learning how to carry a baby on my back before the end of the semester. Aileen - one of our program directors - promised she would teach me one weekend while I babysit her twins and she'll cook me dinner. :)

This weekend was great. We were able to leave Accra again and do the whole touristy, informational stuff. I took some great pictures, but unfortunately still can't figure out how to load them on here/don't have enough time to do so. Also, Tuesday is the end of Ramadan, which is a national holiday! That means we get off of school!! I doubt I'll do much more than sleep and watch movies, but it's better than going to my Africana classes.

Tidbit of the day: Children love pens b/c they can sell them for 2-3 pesewas. It's also getting tougher thinking of things that are drastically different from culture back home.

Love love love from Accra!!

"basketball," karaoke, and Ga

This weekend was definitely a blast. Friday night I ended up going to an Ashesi "basketball game" with some girls from my hall and other CIEE girls. There was a team from each year and they all played each other. "Basketball" is in quotations because that was the saddest game I have ever seen. It was like watching 3rd-graders play. No joke. We at least had a good laugh at their expense. One of the Ashesi girls is trying to set all of the white girls up. She picked out a boy for me that's technically my age, but a "fresher" (a freshman). Greaaaat.

Saturday was pretty productive. I woke up early and cleaned the apartment with my roommates. After that, I went grocery shopping with Busola (my Nigerian roommate) and Evelyn (CIEE). I ended up getting a TON of groceries, which was much needed. I also got my own, reasonably-priced bucket to carry my shower stuff in. Hooray!! Our cab driver helped us negotiate prices. Once I got back I went to some shady-looking Chinese restaurant that actually had really good, really cheap food. Later on that evening, a big group of us went to a sports bar called Champs. 10 GHcedi all you can drink on Saturday nights. At first I thought that was crazy and wondered how they made any money from Saturday nights until I realized that Ghanaians and Africans in general usually can't drink that much. Bars would go out of business in the U.S. if they tried that. Let's just say I felt sorry for the boys that came with us. Two drinks and they were done for. However, I ended up meeting a ton of great people there. I met who I want to be in 7 years! She did the Peace Corps for 2 years in Togo and is now living in Ghana with her adopted 9 year old daughter. She also has a husband back home so it's a legitimate family she's started. She's getting a job with UNAID while she's here. Can you say my future dream? Anyway, became friends with her and her Canadian friend.
Quick side note: in this sports bar I saw a DALLAS STARS JERSEY!!! I semi-freaked out and once again, nobody I hang out with really watches hockey. Sad day. :(
Anyway, I ended up doing karaoke only once to Madonna's Like a Prayer. It was originally supposed to be only my friend Emily and I, but the new friends I made as well as all the Ashesi guys we came with jumped up on stage. What a mess. No worries, I didn't sing into the microphone, but I did keep it away from one of the guys who was intent on screaming the lyrics into the mike. Crazy.

Sunday I went on a field trip to Tema with my Twi professor and a couple of other CIEE girls. We went to a town called Nungua and met the First Lady of the town as well as a lot of the lesser chiefs. We also went to a coffin shop. They make the COOLEST coffins here. They shape them into anything you want pretty much with a hollow part in the middle for the body. We looked through books of pictures of what they've made. I saw a chili pepper, lots of birds and cars, an elephant, and even a statue of Samuel Adams holding the United States Constitution. We also walked through an indigenous village. Unfortunately my Twi lessons didn't help at all since in this village they spoke Ga (another local language). We were able to ride in a wooden truck thing. It's hard to describe. It's like a truck, but in the bed of the truck, it's wooden with some benches that people sit on. I realized that some of the national sports here are dodging potholes and bargaining. After our trip, Evelyn, Tomoko and I navigated the trou trous back home. Even though I should have done laundry and hw all day, I'm glad I skipped out because honestly, when else am I going to get these experiences?
One of the saddest things though is I saw my first severely malnourished child in person. Her limbs were virtually stick thin and she had the protruding belly. :( Once again, I heard the word obroni everywhere I went.

Tidbit of the day: When people say "I'm coming" they actually mean they're going somewhere.

Love from Accra!

this white girl CAN'T dance

So I've been feeling a lot like Bridget Jones all day. First off, when I was climbing off my bunk bed this morning to get ready for school, I accidentally smacked my head on the ceiling. Ouch. It's also been raining all day so I've nearly wiped out about 4 times. As long as the time I wipe out it's not in front of anyone I know, I'm fine.

This morning I had my African Music and Dance class a.k.a. my Absolute Mortification and... I can't think of a synonym that starts with D. Anyway, today we learned a lot of little routines. I am awful at keeping track of all of them and putting them in order. Two of the white girls in my program are the best in class by far. The guys were freaking out. At one point we had to split up into pairs so those 2 were a pair and I paired up with an African American girl from NYU. After all of us performed, including the Africans, the guys deemed the other 2 the best and said my group did pretty well. I'll accept that, especially since I had no idea what I was doing. hahaha. It's an amazing workout though. Everybody was dripping in sweat after class. Tasty. Maybe I'll have some sort of rhythm, or at least more coordination by the time I get back!

After class I ended up stepping in a huge puddle of mud and nearly losing my shoe. Eww. Also, you know in movies where someone is about to step off a curb and a bus or a big truck drives by and splashes a huge puddle of water on them? You know how it's really funny and cute in the movies? Yeah well it's not. Not funny. Not cute. It pretty much sucks. I didn't even have a nice cab driver to take me by a shop and help me pick out a new outfit! (Bridget Jones' Diary reference)

I've been quite full of movie/pop culture references this week. Somehow I went on a tangent in my Africa in the International Setting paper about Howard Beale and his instant catchphrase of: "I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore!" (from the 1976 film Network. come on people!) How I got on that subject, I have no idea. I do know it was relevant to what I was discussing in my paper though. Promise.

Anyway, that's about all that's significant this week. A girl in my program got her hair braided a few weeks ago and we finally took it out the other night. We made a big party out of it. I accidentally cut some of her original hair off so instead I was put in charge of setting up the movie. Oops.

Tonight will most likely be a chill night since it's so rainy outside. I'm thinking movie night. Tomorrow a group of us girls will probably go to this karaoke bar with the guys that live upstairs. That'll be interesting. I'll make sure NOT to sing. I don't want to hurt anybody's ears. :) We also have a field trip with our Twi professor on Sunday. He's going to show us around a Ghanaian village. Should be fun!

Tidbit of the day: If a little kid comes up to you yelling "obroni! obroni!" and you respond with "obibini! obibini!" it'll definitely shock them into silence. Obroni means white person. Obibini means black person. bahaha.
Another tidbit: If you tell your roommates you're bad at cooking, they won't try any food that you offer them unless you assure them you did NOT cook it.

Love from Accra!!

Opportunities Galore!

Sunday was a very busy day. I woke up really early (6:30 am!!) in order to go to mass by 7:30. Although the basic structure was the same as Catholic masses everywhere (imagine that!), there was more music and some clapping with the music. I spent a lot of the time looking at all of the women's traditional Ghanaian outfits. Aileen, one of our CIEE program directors, told us girls that she'll connect us with her seamstress so we can get some outfits made. It's pretty cheap for both the fabric and labor so I'm excited about that. I'll just need to go fabric shopping soon. All of the women at church had such interesting patterns and styles of dress. The children, of course, were adorable as well. However, even though I spent a great amount of time studying the dresses and outfits, I couldn't help but think about how the only reason there IS a Catholic church in Ghana - and in Africa for that matter - is because of the European missionaries that invaded the villages in order to convert as many people as possible from their "heathen" ways. Thank you Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart.

After Mass, I tried to do hw, but instead fell back asleep until it was time to go to the lunch at my professor's house. The 5 selected students took a half hour cab ride to McCarthy Hills. 4 of us were squished together in the back. Hot and sweaty half-hour cab ride before a lunch with faculty? Fabulous. Anyway, we got there and were introduced to a bunch of professors and others who work at Ashesi. I ended up spending a great amount of time talking to the Economic Development prof from Germany and his Mexican wife. They were so sweet. It's interesting. Most of the professors are from all around the world: Norway, Germany, Ecuador, etc. I was also able to talk to my Africana professor, who I'm liking and respecting a lot more now, which is good. She gave me some ideas about where I could try to volunteer that helps children and is a legitimate organization. We spent a good 4 hours there eating traditional Ghanaian food and conversing with everyone. We then took another half-hour cab ride home with 4 people in the backseat. So much fun. :)

Later that night, I watched The Kingdom with some people. It's a really great movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I would definitely suggest it. Unfortunately, I studied for my Twi test I was supposed to have today instead of reading for my Africana classes so I have that to do tonight as well as write at least my Philosophy Critical Response. Yayy!!!

Tidbit of the day: Most of the cabs and trou trous have something about God or Christianity on their back windows. Decals that say God's Gift, etc. Each one is different. It reminds me of how people name their boats.

Love from Accra!!

Ok I cannot figure out how to do this picture thing. Whatever.
Anyway: another update. Yesterday was a somewhat relaxing day. My 8 a.m. Music and Dance class was cancelled. Unfortunately, we didn't find that out until after we showed up for class. It's my only class on Friday so I went out to breakfast with some of the girls then went home to go back to bed. I had a lovely long nap/slept all day. Once I finally woke up, a bunch of us decided to go to the Labadee Beach. We took a trou trou (pronounced: tro tro) which is a 15 passenger rickety van. It was... interesting. The beach was fun I suppose. It was really dirty. Definitely makes Port Aransas look like a 5-star resort and the Bahamas look even more like paradise. I'm terrified of the ocean so I was put in charge of watching everybody's stuff while they played in the ocean with all the trash. Montana lent me her crossword puzzle book so I could have something to do while sitting there. Later on, a kitten that was wandering around came over so I played with it for a bit. The girls wouldn't let me take it home b/c apparently those things have diseases. Who knew? haha. I took a few pictures with it though and when I figure out how to upload pics, I'll post them. We ended up staying at the beach until 7, then took a bus back home.

Since I slept all day, I was definitely ready to get out of the hostel and do something. A few of us girls went to dinner and then to the pub. After about an hour, some guy friends of ours showed up (which was good in case those sketchy guys came back). We all sat around talking and goofing off while a few of them played pool. Later on, they decided they wanted to go to a club, so a few of us went with them. This is where I become lame. We get there and I sort of danced for awhile, but got really tired since it was so late and didn't want to be around the crowd of people and music that was too loud. The guys wouldn't let Gannett and I walk home by themselves and told us to wait 10 minutes on the couches with them. Long story short: we all ended up falling asleep until 5ish then woke up and went home. I felt like such an old person (no offense) - I did crosswords at the beach instead of laying out, complained about loud music, and fell asleep in a club (it was wayyy past my usual bedtime here). It was fun. I'm excited because I'm actually making friends with a lot of Ashesi students. I feel like I'm in first grade again.

Tonight will be my chill night watching movies or Friends reruns. I have mass at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow (ouch. That's ridiculously early) then lunch with some of the faculty. I'll probably do research between mass and lunch. Lame, I know, but I want to make a good impression.

Hope that the storms from Ike aren't too terrible!!

More Ghanaian tidbits: Everyone LOVES spicy food and will eat all of a fish, including the bones.
Rice is a staple here. I have had more rice in the past month than I have in my entire life.
They import EVERYTHING, even their toothpicks. However, random things are extremely expensive. I saw a package of baby corn in the supermarket the other day for 33 cedi.
We're in the minor rainy season right now, which means it'll rain for about an hour every once in awhile. It's like Texas. It'll pour for an hour or so and then all of a sudden be sunny again. My umbrella has become my new best friend. :)

Love love love from Accra!!

lost wallet and political views

Accra has definitely been full of adventures. I lost my wallet the other day. Thankfully I only had 20 cedi in it, but my closet and room key were attached to it as well as all of my credit and ID cards. However, the library lady told me that some guy called Ashesi (my Ashesi ID was in my wallet) and said that he found my wallet, but refused to tell her the contents or give it to her to give to me. He said he would meet me in person to give it to me either at Ashesi or Frankie's. Sketchyyyy. I brought another CIEE girl and the token CIEE boy to meet him with me b/c he would only meet at 10 p.m. When Montana and I walked up, the sleazy guys were excited it was a couple of girls, but changed when they saw Sherrick, thinking he was Ghanaian. Anyway, the guys tried to talk to us for awhile and see if we would go hang out with them at a bar or something and were very determined to get our numbers. Long story short: got my wallet back, minus the cash that was in there. Even though they were sleazy towards us, at least he was nice enough to make an effort to give it back. :)

Also, I have a little rant:
Wednesday night I went out with 4 other girls to the Purple Pub to try it out. For some reason, all of a sudden I was attacked for my political views. I was completely outnumbered b/c they were all voting for Obama and decided it is a travesty and a sin pretty much to vote for McCain and actually like him. No matter what I said they didn't listen and kept shooting down my arguments, convinced that there is only one way to believe. I'm going to say right now: People need to shut up and stop trying to convert people to their beliefs. It is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when someone tries to change my opinion about politics or religion. I will have civil conversations about it and share ideas, but when someone tries to convert me, it infuriates me. I finally stopped talking b/c there was no point. Thankfully Holly shut them up by cheers-ing me for standing up for my beliefs when I was outnumbered and not succumbing so easily. Even though she believes differently, she can respect that. Emily told me the same thing and apologized for just sitting there while I was verbally berated. Note to everyone: do NOT try to change what I believe in. I will have a conversation about politics or religion, as long as we can agree that people have different opinions and there is no clear-cut right or wrong view. It's NOT black and white and if you try to change my beliefs, it will only infuriate me and make me lose respect for you. For the love of Jesus Christ, get off your high horse and accept that people think differently than you. Just b/c I agree with more of McCain's policies and not Obama's does not mean I'm a horrible or uneducated person. I don't think that Obama fans are horrible or uneducated either. Ughhh. Ok, I'm finished with my rant. Everyone: keep that in mind. I have my views, you have yours, let's agree to disagree and get over it. The end.

Everyone in Texas and around the Gulf Coast: Please be safe. Hopefully Hurricane Ike won't completely demolish everything. That is one good thing about Katrina and Rita - we as a nation learned from our mistakes then and can prevent it from happening again now.
Also, I'm going to try to upload some pictures from my flash drive either tomorrow or Sunday afternoon. :)

Love from Ghana!!

Crazed Chickens and more Adventures in Accra

OK so obviously I'm not very good at keeping up with this thing. Here are my updates from the past 4 days:

MONDAY: After I updated, I went to my leadership seminar where we had a very.... interesting conversation about women's roles in society. Let's just say that many Ghanaians and Africans are under the impression that 1) Women have too much freedom and should stay home after they have kids, and 2) Women in America are too free and "have wings". I have no idea what they mean by wings, but apparently it's a bad thing. One guy even said that women should be the submissive ones in a relationship. Let's just say the rest of the CIEE students were freaking out about that sexist comment. A girl in my program turned 21 on this day so we had a little party at the hostel with pizza and cake! Some people ended up taking her out to a bar to celebrate in true form, but we all had a ton of hw and reading to do so not as many people came.
TUESDAY: Twi, Philosophy, and Africa in the International Setting. All fun-ish classes. Not much happened that day, although my two critical response papers turned out a lot better. Blah... boring. We had no running water all day. That was a great time. Also, there was a group of us white kids walking back to the hostel from campus. We walk through prison guards' barracks where they stay with their families to get home. When we were walking home on Tuesday, a bunch of little kids started singing this song in Twi and following us. The only word we understood was obronis. OH! And later that night I was watching Friends episodes with some of the girls and we started hearing this chanting/singing thing that was really loud. I walk out on the balcony and realize it was the guys apt above us. I go upstairs to return the speakers I borrowed and started crying laughing b/c it was a group of about 6 guys sitting around a table singing at the top of their lungs this new R. Kelly song. Definitely not what I was expecting when I walked through the door.
WEDNESDAY: This was actually a good day. In my Leadership class, I was one out of 5 that got the highest grade on our test/quiz. I'm really excited b/c it means that we all go to our professor's house for lunch on Sunday where other faculty members will be!! She's sending her driver to our hostel to pick us up and everything. This same professor will be gone a few days in October b/c she was selected to be on the Africa panel at some UN thing. She's an expert on many social problems occurring in Ghana, especially when it comes to street children. I'm loving that class. After class, Gannett (a CIEE girl) and I went on an adventure to find the post office to mail our request forms for our absentee ballots. We ended up getting terribly lost so we had to take a cab and were able to successfully bargain!!! Afterwards we took a 20 minute walk back to campus in the blazing hot sun. Grosssss. I was excited b/c when I got back, we FINALLY had running water so I was able to take a shower. Rejoice!! Later that night a group of us found a NICER bar than our nasty one we went to for a couple of weeks. It's clean, the music is not blaring and obnoxious, and it's not swarming with Rastas and hookers. Yayy!!! We were able to just sit around, have a couple of drinks and bond.
THURSDAY: Went to Melting Moments today for breakfast with some of the girls and had my philosophy class. I'm missing my hot pink rainboots. It was really stormy outside when I woke up. Definitely one of those days that I just want to curl up in bed in my pj's with a good book. Unfortunately school gets in the way of that. Tomorrow is Music and Dance so that should be fun/embarrassing.

Fun little tidbits: I do not feel bad in the least bit for eating so much chicken. Those things are EVERYWHERE. For some reason I thought that roosters really only crowed when the sun rose and that was it. Not here. Those things don't shut up. I'm pretty sure one of my greatest fears here (besides being hit by a car and falling off my bunk bed) is being attacked by a crazed chicken. I want to start making bets as to a) who's going to be the first to kick one, and b) who's going to be the first to get bitten/pecked by one.
Also, I tried goat meat for the first time last night. Not bad. Very chewy. Sort of like deer meat. Oh and I'm horrible at cooking. I burnt myself when trying to fry french fries the other day. The oil splattered and it hurt like the dickens.
That's about all I can think of. Life here is pretty boring. Same as in the States, minus the fact that I have to take a malaria pill every day and it's consistently hot. If you have any questions about anything about Ghana, let me know!!
Love from Accra

history, adventures, and pie! oh my!

Soooo here's another post. I'm trying to post as often as I get the chance so I don't go too long without one. As I mentioned yesterday, I did quite a bit of laundry. I am becoming somewhat good at washing all of the soap out of my clothes. I tried to do some hw, but unfortunately my African philosophy reading is extensive and boring. I love my International Setting reading, but for some reason we don't have as much. We're learning Egyptian and Ethiopian history right now. I may check out a book from the library about Egyptian history once I finish another book I'm reading right now.
Last night was full of adventures. After the Internet Cafe, I went to get dinner with Kate and Holly (2 girls from my program). We decided to find this Chinese food restaurant that is supposed to be really good. Well we walked up and down a bunch of streets in the area where we heard it was. Unfortunately, one of my roommates called while I was doing that b/c I had accidentally locked her out of the room. I had to run back to the hostel to let her in. Oops. Bright side: I was able to lock and unlock my door on the first try!! I have a skeleton key for my lock so it was a bit difficult for a bit. I went back to the Chinese food restaurant that Kate and Holly settled on, which was gross. Then came back to the hostel to do some more reading for class. Unfortunately, almost right after I finished a chapter for my leadership class, an Ethiopian guy in my Music and Dance class decided to come visit us and stayed for a few hours. It's really fun learning about different cultures around Africa and the world. He also has an oven in his off-campus house so Holly and I are going to try to make an apple pie one day.
So far today I have had my Twi class and have my Leadership Seminar in an hour and a half. Classes are going really well and it's fun meeting more Ashesi students and getting to know them. Oh and my Twi professor is this tiny little man. His name means big warrior, which is funny because he is a teeny pacifist. Anyway, I'll try to update again. Here are some more tidbits about Ghana and some Twi vocab.

me pe wo - I love you
wo ho ye fe - you are beautiful
maakye - good morning (pronounced: maa-che)
maaha - good afternoon (prounounced: maa-ha)
maadwo - good evening (pronounced: maa-jo)

life expectancy is now estimated at 60 years compared to 54 years in 1988 and 57 in 1998.
the current occupancy rate in a house is about 7-12 persons per unit.
in 1995, there were 10,000 street children registered in Accra. It is now estimated to be 15,000.

Cheese is ridiculously expensive and I haven't seen any broccoli in any of the grocery stores. Fruit and rice are abundant. I never thought I would ever have a craving for salad and broccoli... and steak. Yum!

Ok, I must review my text for my next class. Me pe mo!! (I love y'all)

learning my A B ... D's!!

Sorry I haven't updated in such a long time. I haven't had much reliable Internet access in the past 5 days or so. Anyway, everything is going well in Ghana. We started our Twi classes last week and learned the Twi alphabet. They have most of the same letters, but it doesn't include c, j, q, x, z and some more but I can't remember. It's been fun practicing. Classes are going well. My Africana classes with the American teacher is going a lot better, which is great. She's figured out how to control the discussions so it's not just a free-for-all with everyone's opinions. In African Music and Dance on Friday we learned how to play on this bell thing. I can't remember what it was called, but we banged it with a stick and played different tunes. It was funny, the American girls in the class did a lot better than some of the Africans!! They can still dance better than us though. haha.
Everything is going great back at the hostel too. I can only take cold showers, but I'm getting used to that. I just run around the apt for a bit right after I wake up so I get all hot and sweaty and then jump in the shower. It wakes me up too. hahaha. Cooking is somewhat difficult here. We only have a gas stove, no oven, no microwave, no grill. I'm getting alright at cooking things in a skillet and one of my apt-mates has a rice cooker she said we could borrow so I may try to cook some rice tonight. Both of my roommates said they would teach me how to cook. One is Ghanaian, but was born and raised in the UK and the other is Nigerian. Thursday night a bunch of the CIEE girls got together and had a pasta dinner. It was fun.
Friday night was the all-school Akwaaba dance for the "freshers" (the freshmen. isn't that a fun word?). Before the dance, a bunch of us wanted to go shopping and find some cute going-out clothes. Well, that was an ordeal within itself. Kate, Holly, Montana and I shared a cab to the mall, but for some reason the cab driver didn't understand us or didn't know where it was so he took us to a big market place... 30 minutes away. He tried to drop us off instead of taking us to our destination so we finally got out, gave him half the money we told him we'd pay to take us to the mall and got in another cab. We paid that guy 5 cedi to take us 45 minutes back to the mall. He was really nice though and put in a mix CD that was perfect white girl music. Fun times.
Anyway, at the akwaaba dance here were some performances and a fashion show for us. There is a guy here that has a fashion line called noon moon. It pretty much consists of various t-shirts and polos that he's decorated himself, but they're actually good quality. I'm definitely wanting to buy a few to take home. After the dance, we went to this club called Cinderella's, but most of us weren't let in b/c there is a dress code - no flip-flops and no shorts. Instead we got cabs back to our regular bar that is affectionately called the hooker bar. The first time we went there, we saw a bunch of girls walking around in tight, skanky clothes and thought "hey, our clothes aren't bad at all! ghanaian women go out!" and were later told that they are hookers. It's technically called Purple Pub, but i like the term hooker bar better. Anyway, we went there with some other Ashesi guys that we've become friends with and just hung out for awhile.
On Saturday we had a field trip to the W.E.B. Dubois Center, Omanye House, and some museums. I ended up having my first trip to a Ghanaian hospital. Don't worry, I wasn't diseased. I just didn't eat enough with my malaria pill that morning and got sick. Aileen, one of our program directors, got really worried and made 2 of our U-Pals take me to the hospital where I saw the doctor and got some tests done. Again, DO NOT WORRY. When they took my blood, the guy took the STERILE needle out of a package. All of my blood tests came back clean so I'm going to look at it as a check-up to make sure I don't have malaria yet. Yay! The doctor said that my tonsils were large (I need to get those out btw) and I may be coming down with something so he prescribed me some antibiotics and painkillers. I've taken the antibiotics, but the painkillers were a bit excessive. It only cost a little over 60 cedi for the entire trip - doctor visit, blood tests, meds - which is AMAZING. If only healthcare in America was that cheap. :) Later that night I just hung out with a bunch of the girls. We got pizza since everyone was exhausted and didn't want to cook then watched Cruel Intentions.
Today was actually somewhat productive. I did my laundry (by hand! yay!!!) and some hw. I still have a ton more reading to do, but I finished one of the books that I needed read by this week. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is an amazing book. I read it freshmen year for class and really liked it. One of my apartment-mates has a book that includes three of his so I'm going to borrow that from her later.

I'll try to update again sometime soon!! Oh, and interesting tidbit about Ghana: they drink water out of bags here. It's much cheaper than water bottles and same quality. 90 pesewas for 30 bags vs. 50 pesewas for a small bottle. sweeeeeet. ALSO, the AIDS rate here is 3%, less than New York City. What an interesting little fact to chew on. :)

Love love love from Africa! If you have any questions or want more details on anything, don't hesitate to ask!

a whole new alphabet

Last night we had our Akwaaba (welcome) Dinner. It was an absolute blast. We were served real Ghanaian food such as banku, fried plaintains, and jollof as well as a ton of other things that I have no idea how to pronounce. Then we all went outside and watched a performance of traditional African dances. They showed us 3 of those and then 1 modern dance. Afterwards, the dancers dragged us all on stage to teach us a few moves. Let's just say there is a reason that many say that white people can't dance. Hopefully my African Music and Dance class this semester can help me with that ... or my apartment-mates. Once we got home, some of us were talking about Ethiopian dancing (there is an Ethiopian guy in my Music and Dance class that showed us how he dances back home. Lots of shoulder moving.) and we asked our Ethiopian apartment-mate to show us how it's done. Holly (the other CIEE girl living in my apartment) and I probably looked ridiculous, but it was a ton of fun.
This morning we woke up bright and early for our very first Twi language class. It's held every Monday and Tuesday at 8 a.m. Greeeeat. Our professor is this tiny Ghanaian man who is very happy all the time. He taught us how to say a bunch of the basics. For example, Ashesi means beginning. He also explained the reasons behind naming a child. One of their names is either the male or female name for whatever day of the week they were born. For example, I was born on a Monday, so my name would be Adjoua something something something. Afterwards I had my Leadership Seminar where we talked about the reasons many people get into leadership positions, especially related to politics. It's interesting comparing the American and Ghanaian views. I also sort of made some rice tonight, although Kate and I put wayyy too much rice into the rice cooker. Oh well, I'm still learning. I think Holly and I will make a huge batch of breakfast tacos for dinner tomorrow. They were a hit last time and this time we'll make them properly.
Tomorrow I have 2 Africana classes with an African-American professor that I (as well as most if not all other students) am not very fond of. We'll see how this week goes. It's very frustrating to take a class about AFRICA and have to constantly have it related to the African-American experience. If I wanted that, I would take African-American studies back at school. That is not the reason I chose to study in Africa for the semester.
Ok. Enough venting. Positive thinking is key. Hopefully it will get better. Everything else is going well. It's been fun getting to know other Ashesi students and the CIEE students have another field trip this weekend! Once I get my computer hooked up to the internet, I'll post pictures.
Hope everything back in the states is going well!

Love from Accra!

p.s. here's a youtube video that sort of shows ethiopian dancing. notice the shoulder movements! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoAaTcPQnxs&feature=related