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