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.