Semester Reflections!

Last weekend here! 

On Monday, I am leaving Ghana. It has been an incredible experience to say the least! I have been so blessed to have seen so much of this beautiful country and even a bit of Togo. I've been thinking about all of the lessons I've learned this semester. There are way too many to list, but there are a few I’d like to share.

    1.  The importance of people and relationships. Ghana does not have all the material wealth that we experience in the United States, but there is an unparalleled richness in its culture and community. This is evident in nearly all aspects of life. A child is loved, chastised, and raised by everyone, so each person’s welfare is the business of everyone else. Thinking about the community at the night market, I see this so clearly. It has been a very refreshing break from the dog-eat-dog, individualistic society I came from, but this leads me to my next big lesson.

    2.  There is no “right” way. This has definitely been a lesson I've learned throughout the whole semester as I experienced more thing and engaged in conversations with others. The West often has this idea that underdeveloped countries should strive to be the same as their developed counterparts. However, who is to say which way is better? Ghana is a country full of friendly people, an incredible faith in God, and an ease about life. Things are more relaxed and while that may be frustrating when, say two months later you still haven’t gotten your care package, there is great wisdom in this too. I’ve come to see that contentment, in moderation, can lead to more sincere happiness. I am looking forward to going back home and experiencing all the differences again, hoping to see them not as better or worse but just different.

   3.   Be thankful for what you have. When I first came I really thought I was justified in complaining about having to take cold showers. Then the water stopped running and I found myself wishing for nothing more than a cold shower. I saw girls take bucket baths on the street and realized how much of a blessing a cold shower inside really is. This not only applies to material things, but also time with others. I am leaving on Monday and chances are I’ll never see some of my friends here again. Some people are only in our lives for a short while and we should really make the best use of that time, never taking it for granted. This is one of the hardest lessons for me, because I still find myself complaining and getting easily frustrated at times. It will be hard to to really embrace this, but I hope I never forget what I experienced and saw here. 

Well, those are some of my reflections on my trip. There are certainly many many more and I pray I’m faithful in applying them to my life at home!

Before I head home, I am spending a few days in London and one in New York! I am so excited for this adventure! I will be in London with my international student friend, Marti, and because she has friends that live there we even have a place to stay. So thankful! Then I am spending one day with my very very good friend Eliza in New York. It has been quite a while since we’ve seen each other so I am really looking forward to it!

I’ll be posting pictures of those last trips and more probably once I get home on Friday. Thank you so much for keeping up with me this semester, it has been so nice to share everything with my friends and family at home :)  

Elections! Emotions!

Ghana is holding it's presidential elections this Friday, December 7th. I am so excited to be able to witness this! No violence is expected but it is likely that there will be a few isolated cases of violence. Apparently things are starting to get a little heated in Kumasi, which is Ghana's second biggest city. As of yet there hasn't really been anything in Accra though. The US embassy sent out an email saying that Americans should stay away from the polling stations and political rallies as a precaution. I am very excited to see it and am hoping for peaceful elections. If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote plus one more vote, then there will be a second election three weeks later, on the 28th. I was talking to a professor here and she was telling me that she really hopes it won't go to a second round because if it does then the campaigning starts all over again, with full force. She said those three weeks end up being very tense times. Even though I will not be in Ghana for the second round, if it were to be held, I also hope it is decided by this weekend. There are a lot of cars and busses coming around with loudspeakers and the different parties' flags and slogans. It's really interesting to see the campaigning! Join me in praying for peaceful elections.


On another note, I am less than two weeks away from leaving Ghana and I am starting to get really sad about it. I will really miss it here. Not only will I miss all the wonderful Ghanaian friends I've made but also the other international students. We've had two people from our ISEP family leave already. It's really starting to get sad. :( Now, I am also really excited to go home and see friends and family. I will be loving the food and the cooler weather I'm sure but right now it's a mess of emotions that I really wasn't anticipating. This experience teaches me something new every day!

Finals and Togo!

Hello!

By now I have finished 3 of my 4 finals. They haven't been too difficult, but really long! My Twi one was specific for our class so that was really nice because we knew exactly what to expect. The second one was African Indigenous Religions and the entire exam was just 3 essays. They gave us 2.5 hours, but I finished after 2. I wrote 12 and a half pages!! I filled up the whole answer booklet and even had to ask for more paper! I'm hoping that at least I'll bore my teacher into giving me a good grade. ;) The third final I took was Psychology of Personality. I somehow managed to write 11 pages on this one, plus answer 60 multiple choice questions. It wasn't too difficult either, so I'm hoping I did well. I'm not sure how the essays will be graded though because we were never given any idea of their expectations. I'm hoping I got something correct in all those pages!


On Wednesday and Thursday I went to Togo again! This time it was so much more fun than the first time! I rode on the motortaxi and it was a little scary but really fun! There's not very much traffic in Lome, so that made me a lot less nervous. I don't think I would want to ride a motortaxi in Accra. I went with my friend Courtney and met up with our friends Emily, Tatiana and Jeremy, who had gotten there earlier in the week. It was very nice to have Jeremy along because he is French so he was able to communicate and translate for us. That really made a huge difference because we were better able to bargain for prices, find things to do, etc. We had a delicious lunch in Lome, a nice salad that came with the tastiest baguette! It was great!


After lunch we left for Kpalime in a small trotro crammed with 14 people. Granted, two of them were children, but it was still way more than there should have been! We made it Kpalime and randomly met a rasta man and an Italian guy who was there volunteering. The rasta guy (we never did find out his real name) said he has a children's home that we are welcome to stay at since the kids were not there now. It ended up being a whole adventure getting ourselves over there but eventually we all found ourselves at this home. The room they gave us had two big mattresses, one on the floor and one on a bed. There were quite a few spiders around and we saw a cockroach in the bathroom but besides that it really wasn't too bad. We took bucket baths but that's not too out of the ordinary anymore. That night we just went to dinner and walked a tiny bit around the restaurant then just went back and went to bed. The next morning we saw this beautiful Catholic church and walked around Kpalime. It was so interesting because the end of town by the church was clearly mostly Christian but as we walked to the other side we saw a lot of mosques. It was interesting to see the Christian and Muslim sides of town. We also went to the cultural center and got to see how the pottery is made. It was really great to just be able to walk around a quieter, smaller town and not be hassled by anyone or approached at all. I decided I love Togo! In general, the people are much less aggressive and the towns seem to be cleaner. The gutters are closed and it doesn't smell gross! It was very refreshing.

We left around noon and didn't get back to campus until around 8pm. It was a long day of trotroing, but we passed through a checkpoint on the Ghana-Togo border so I got my visa renewed with no problems. I had a really great time with some good friends :) I'm glad I got the chance to go again and see what Togo is like outside of Lome, too.

I only have one final left and it's on December 10th. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my life until then since I have so much free time. Maybe I'll just write random blog posts about life here! I can't believe how little time I have left! I'm definitely going to miss it.

Super yummy lunch :) 

This was the bed in our room...

...And this was the mattress on the floor 

HUGE anthill!

Beautiful village and friends :) 

I really liked Kpalime :)

Thanksgiving :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!

We had dinner at Auntie Theresa's house and it was soooo nice! My Twi exam went well this morning, too, so it's been a good day! That was our last ISEP event. I can't believe how fast time is going now! I am soo thankful for my experience and friends here but also for everyone waiting for me at home. I love you all and thank you for reading about my adventures. I hope everyone had a really nice day. :) 

This was my amazing plate of food! 

I ate ALL of it all by myself, except I gave half of my bread roll away!!

.... And this was the general sentiment afterwards :)

With the ISEP assistant director, Susan!

Month and a Day

Hi everyone!

From today I have one month and one day before I am home!! I can't believe it. This week has just been studying and basically not doing much more than that. Last week I went to Kokrobite Beach, about an hour and a half outside of Accra. It was soo nice! I went with my friends Victoria and Tatiana and since we went in the middle of the week it was very quiet. There were only a few other people at the restaurant/area we were at, which was great. It makes me a little nervous when there are only two or three people in the ocean, but I try to stay close to the shore. There was an accident with an international student's Ghanaian friend, who got caught in a rip tide and died! I didn't know the person, but the story was definitely on my mind. I am being very careful at the beach.

Besides studying I've been working more on my research. I've finished all the interviews-- I ended up doing 47. Most of them were international students but there were a few Ghanaian students here and there. Now we are working on the analysis of the data. Since it is qualitative, I am learning how to go through the transcribed interviews and find the major themes. It is really quite interesting! I am learning so much. I have three finals coming up on Thursday, Saturday and Monday, but after that we will meet again and go over what I've done. It's great to be able to get feedback and help as I go along.

Yesterday I was at the psychology department and I saw the professor for my personality class. We didn't have any assignments in that class at all so our final is 100% of our grade! He didn't even explain the layout of the test (whether it would be essay, multiple choice, etc) so I am feeling a little nervous. I went and asked him some questions about the test and maybe how I should approach my studying or anything like that. His suggestion to me was that I go to church and pray! He just said that and walked away! So, if anyone out there wants to join me in prayer for my finals, it would be greatly appreciated :)

I think the general sentiment around the hostel is that we are busy enough studying for finals that we can't really pick up and leave on a trip but we are not busy enough to kill our restlessness. It's been so different from what I'm used to at home with all of my finals being in the same week and only one weekend separating classes from finals. I'm just hoping all my exams here go well!

We are having a Thanksgiving Dinner at the ISEP director's house on Thursday. My exam is at 11:30 am so those of us in that class will be going afterwards. The scheduling is kind of funny because that is our Twi exam, which has only American students in it. I'm guessing no one really bothered to check when Thanksgiving is. It's not a problem though because we still get to go to the dinner, although we don't get to help cook.

Sadly I forgot to take my camera to the beach last week, so there are no pictures to share today. I'll make sure I take a lot at Thanksgiving so I can post those later! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! :)

Ada Foah

Hi everyone!

Last week I finished classes!!! I can't even believe it. We only had 13 weeks of classes and each class met only once a week, so that part of this experience has definitely flown by. Now I am left with studying for finals. :( My first final is on Thanksgiving Day which kind of stinks, but we have a big dinner at the ISEP director's house to look forward to. Then my next finals are Nov. 24th, 26th and Dec. 10th. I feel like I have SO much free time now without classes or other things going on really. I haven't gone swimming yet this week so maybe doing that in the morning will help kick start my day. I'm having a bit of a hard time getting motivated to study with finals feeling so far away still. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a very productive day. Today I went to a bakery in the airport residential area (kind of nearby actually) called Deli France. They had super expensive food so I only got a bottle of water, but they had the fastest WiFi I've had in Ghana! That was fantastic. I was even able to stream videos without it stopping every 30 seconds! I actually watched a Ted Talk about modern day slavery and a large section of the video was about Ghana. I had no idea! It really broke my heart. Here is the link to it in case anyone is interested:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery.html

Anyways, this past weekend was really great! On Friday I went to a village called Ada Foah about 3 hours from Accra. I went with my friends Tatiana and Kelsey from ISEP. It was absolutely amazing! We left at 6:00 am on Friday and spent the night at Maranatha Beach Resort. It was so so great! The resort had little huts as rooms, with normal beds and mosquito nets, but just sand as the floor!! Each hut had the door painted with the image of different country's flags. I'm not sure what country our hut was, but I'll put up the picture and maybe someone will know. Friday was unfortunately really cold and stormy so we didn't get to go swimming. However, my group was the only one there besides an Australian couple and later in the night a Belgian couple arrived too. It was really nice to talk with them and exchange Ghana stories. The Australians are medical students so they are working in a hospital here for two months. The Belgians were here on their honeymoon! Apparently the lady had volunteered in Ghana five years ago and they just loved it! We had a really nice time talking to all of them.

On Saturday the day was nice and sunny! I basically spent two hours straight in the water before we left. The waves were really big and forceful so I didn't go out too far but it was still super fun! After we finished swimming we just ate lunch and headed back. The resort is an hour away from where the trotro drops you off-- by canoe! There is a lagoon on one side and the ocean on the other, so you canoe out to the resort on the lagoon and then swim in the ocean. It was so beautiful! On Saturday we got to see the sunset even and it was so great! The best part is that everything was pretty affordable! Yay!

We came back on Saturday evening so on Sunday morning I went to mass bright and early at 7:00 am. I got to take Rejoice with me so that was fantastic! I just love this girl and it was so great to finally be able to experience Mass together. :)

Pictures from the beach:

Rejoice and Be Glad!

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I'm late on my post again this week! This past weekend wasn't too crazy! I went to Makola market on Saturday and bought some more fabric! It's super bright pink with elephants on it. I'm debating whether I should get a skirt or a dress or something made out of it because my friends keep commenting on how bright it is! I guess if I don't get clothing made from it I will just get a bag or something like that made. We'll see how bold I decide to be :) I also went to the Art Center which has a lot of really cool gifts and crafts! It was super nice and the sellers were a little pushy but pretty friendly.

On Sunday I went to another wedding! This one was the wedding of the ISEP's assistant director's friend. So at least the person I went with knew the couple this time. My friend Victoria went too and it was pretty interesting. The whole thing took three hours, including an hour long sermon on tithing. I was kind of surprised that that was the theme of the sermon during a wedding, but I think they wanted to still get a regular Sunday service message out. There were also other parts of the wedding that stood out to us. For example, they prayed over the bride that she may have the grace to be submissive, and they gave the bread to the husband to serve his wife since "she's going to be serving him a lot more now". Those were just some cultural differences that I noticed. It was still a really nice wedding and I'm glad I got to go!

Well the main thing I wanted to talk about was Rejoice. I think you all remember when I first started getting close to her and was able to share the rosary with her. She is just such a beautiful young girl. Two nights ago she called me (I gave her my phone number and I think she borrows people's phones to call me) because she needed help with her homework. I went over to the night market and she had to draw a soccer field but wasn't sure what the lines looked like! It was so fun to be able to help her and hang out with her. I was really touched that she thought to call me when she needed help! She also gave me this beautiful note about how much she loves our friendship and sees God in it. It was basically the sweetest thing ever. I am just so so happy I have gotten to know her and I can't even explain how much she's taught me. She has a beautiful spirit, she's always cheery, she works hard at school and works hard at the night market. She takes care of her little sister and cousins and even cooks for her family. I have to admit, my friendship with Rejoice is probably one of my favorite parts of Ghana :))