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 :))

Wedding Crashers :)

HELLO :)

It has been a while! I'm sorry for not posting last weekend... it was a pretty uneventful weekend. The only thing interesting thing I did was hang out with my Ghanaian friend Abigail who showed me how to make Jollof Rice! It was super complicated though so I'm going to have her write everything down before I go because I definitely don't remember everything!! It was really good! Still a little spicy but the taste was a lot better than the jollof I buy at the night market for example. It was really fun to hang out and cook with her! I forgot to take my camera to her room though so unfortunately I don't have any pictures from that. The rest of last weekend was just hanging out with people, taking a practice GRE online, nothing too crazy. No trips last weekend!

This weekend has been fun. Friday was a Muslim holiday so we didn't have any classes or anything going on. I finally had a Ghanaian show me how he washes his clothes and got some tips. I washed today and I feel a lot more confident in it! It is really exhausting though--I only washed a few of my clothes because it was too much piled up. Also on Friday Despicable Me was on TV! I was pretty excited!! It was just a nice, relaxing day around the hostel :) I hung out with Abigail again so that was fun, too!

Saturday was my adventure day! My Ghanaian friend Joshua invited me to a wedding at the church that he usually goes to when he's not on campus. As far as I know he didn't know the people getting married, but everyone at the church was welcome.Well we ended up getting pretty delayed because Joshua was waiting for someone and they were late and all that so by the time we actually got to the church the couple was already married!! They had already done the vows and the rings and all that stuff. We basically were just there for the sermon and the offertory and the ending. It was still really cool though! There was SO much dancing and singing!! It was so spirited and colorful! I loved it!

After the wedding we went to Joshua's parents' house because it was nearby. We had lunch there and it was soup that had some sort of meat in it. I thought it was fish but I kept telling myself it was chicken. My trick worked and I ate it all. Then later I asked Joshua what it actually was and he said goat!!!!! So I unknowingly ate goat soup! I'm so glad I didn't know that beforehand! Then after lunch we met up with the guy that he was supposed to meet earlier and we went to someone's house. He's going to be tutoring a boy in French and this was the NICEST house I have seen in Ghana. It was so so beautiful! I wanted to take pictures but I figured that'd be weird. The mom was really nice and she gave me pretty tasty ice cream! They even had a pet dog!! It was the second pet dog I've seen in Ghana. The boy was surprised when I went to pet it instead of running away. He asked me... wait, you're not afraid of it??? It was kind of funny.

Well  then after that we left and came back to campus and that was about all of the excitement of my day. It was really cool to be able to see the wedding, even if we did crash it and miss the exciting part. But still, I enjoyed it.  And then it was great to be able to see people's homes. I haven't really gone to any Ghanaian's houses so that was a new experience. Both houses were really nice and comfortable :)  It was a great day!

Today I'm just doing homework and the like. We only have two weeks of classes left!! I start taking my finals the last week of November and I'm finished by December 10th. Hopefully this week we have less power issues. Last week was the same story-- almost every day we had either the water or the power go out for some period of time. Supposedly my hostel has a generator, but it's broken now. I'm hoping they fix it soon! It's all part of the experience, though. :)

Pictures from the wedding!!

That took FOREVER to upload, so here is the link to the updated album with some more pictures :)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1971853938554.2054210.1309171199&type=1&l=023a493b19

Water Shortages

These past few days we've had the water at my hostel go out quite frequently. I've heard a rumor that there's a water shortage on campus, but I'm not entirely sure how true that is. All I know is that we'll go 24 hours or more with no running water. I think most of us are aware that there are people in the world who don't have running water but it's a whole other thing to experience it for yourself. The worst part is that people still have to use the toilets, especially when the water is out overnight. During the day you can try to be out of the building as much as possible, but eventually you have to come back and sleep... and use what have essentially become porter potties. It's been challenging for sure. Last week on Thursday we lost electricity all over campus for about 10 hours. I was in class when the two coincided but apparently there was an hour or so without running water or electricity!! Later in the evening it was super weird to be sitting in the dark in my room, with a completely dark building and people walking around with flash lights. Then, just when all of our electronics ran out of battery, the generator turned on! It's funny because you can hear people cheering all around the building any time the water comes back or the power comes back! It's definitely been a new experience.

I've started doing my interviews for the research project! It's been really interesting. I've talked both with Ghanaians and other international students and I just record their answers to a few questions then they fill out a questionnaire. It's been going well so far. The memory on the recorder is full though, so I'm waiting to get the USB chord so that I can download them onto the computer and keep going. For now I'm just sticking to people in my own hostel since I think the priority is to finish with the international student sample before we all leave. I have 9 weeks left here. Sometimes it feels like it's going by fast, but then for example when we have no water or the professor comes to class 30 minutes late (happened in my 7:30am class this morning) it feels like I still have forever here. I feel like I'm really making full use of the time I have here, though, learning and experiencing so so much. It really is very different from the life I live at home. I appreciate the differences and being able to see things first hand and experience them for myself. There are definitely struggles and sometimes I get really frustrated, but I think it's good for me. 

Well I don't have any pictures for this post, but considering it's largely about dirty bathrooms, I don't think you will be too upset  :) 

Aburi :)

Sorry about this post being a little late-- I've started to get quite busy here! I can explain that more later. I want to tell you about my trip to Aburi this weekend. Aburi is a village up in the hills about 45 minutes away from Accra. My roommate Kristen and I went together on Sunday and it was amazing! We first went to the botanical garden and it was soo nice! It was refreshing to be away from the city with all its people and noise and pollution. The air up there felt so crisp and clean! The garden wasn't all that big, but there were some pretty cool looking trees and plants! There was randomly a crashed helicopter in one part. We never found out the story behind that, but it was interesting. We both really wished we would have taken our journals up there because there were so many serene places that would have been perfect for some writing! Maybe next time we can do that. 

After we walked around the garden, we went on a bike tour! They gave us bikes and helmets and we set off to a waterfall! It was AWESOME!! We got to ride through a bunch of small villages and everywhere we went the kids would start jumping up and down, clapping and yelling OBRUNI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at the top of their lungs! Here in Accra the kids say obruni, but there they were beyond excited!!! We were 4 in group counting Kristen and myself and then two other Americans that joined us, so we were a little obruni parade through the villages! They seriously loved it! The waterfall wasn't very big but it was still suuuper nice! We were deep in the vegetation and had to lock our bikes up then walk down to it because there wasn't really a trail or anything anymore. It was beautiful!!! We stayed there for maybe half an hour and we even got to get in the water!! It wasn't very deep so I didn't get my clothes wet, but it felt sooo nice and cool! I was really really happy to be there, it was incredible! 

After our time at the waterfall we rode back to the rental shop and it started POURING DOWN RAIN!!! We might as well have jumped in the waterfall because I was soaking wet by the end of it! It was so so so so fun, though!! I loved it! We ate lunch in Aburi and tried to dry off a little bit and then just came back to campus. I fell asleep on the trotro on the way home, so I even got a little nap in. It was the perfect day! :) 

I will try to post this week again to tell you about my weekday activities :) 

Kumasi!

This weekend I went to Kumasi!!! Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana, with 5 million people. This was our ISEP organized excursion, so all 20 some of us went together in one bus and one small van. We left at 7:30am on Friday morning (thankfully I don’t have lectures on Fridays) and went to the Manhyia Palace Museum. Kumasi is in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, which was historically and populated by the Asante kingdom, nicknamed the kingdom of gold. The Asantes were very dominant and powerful and ruled their kingdom through chieftaincy until the British came to colonize. However, there are still chiefs today in this region although they don’t hold real political power. They settle disputes within the region and are more of a symbolic figure. If the president of Ghana comes to Kumasi, he has to greet and show respect to the Asantehene (the supreme chief of all of Asante) but ultimately the president is the one with power. Besides the chiefs there are also queen mothers, who have final say as to who is appointed the new chief. The Asantes have matrilineal lineage, so the queen mother has a decent amount of authority and women are allowed to own land, but from what I understand very few do. Anyways, the Manhyia Palace was where the Asantehene lived, but has now been turned into a museum and the chief resides elsewhere. It was really cool and I learned a lot. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures inside, but there were even wax figures of the chief and the queen mother made by Madame Tussaud! It was pretty cool!

On Saturday we went to several craft villages. There was Bonwire, which is the Kente weaving village. Kente cloth is woven by hand and has very specific symbols. The cloth is a trademark of the Asantes and the most expensive kente is worn by the chief and queen mother. The village we went to was not very big but PACKED with kente. It really was pretty expensive if you wanted to get a few yards of it. They also have smaller strips that can be used to decorate clothing made of other materials or as a scarf. These were a little bit more affordable. It was really fun to barter with the vendors and I have to admit I came away pretty proud of my ability to get the price I wanted!

Then we went to Ntonso, an Adinkra Cloth Village. Here they had those same Kente strips, but you  could pick a stamp of an Adinkra symbol and print in on the cloth yourself! The adinkra symbols are also an Asante thing and they have a ton of different ones with different meanings. There were even some already made with Obama’s face! I thought that was pretty funny. They showed us how the dye is made, which was really interesting. There’s bark from a tree that is pounded and then mixed with water and then concentrated I believe until it turns into the ink. After we left I saw that the lady who was going to keep doing the pounding was doing it with a baby tied to her back!!! There are some strong women in Ghana!!

After Ntonso, we went to Ahwiaa where there is a lot of wood carvings. The vendors there were really excited to see us and my friend and I had guys waiting for us to finish at one shop so that they could take us to theirs. It was a little overwhelming, but we got to bargain again which was fun. Then we went to the grand central market which was ginormous. I just looked around a little but our bus was parked in the parking lot of their basilica. I climbed up in the steeple and got a really amazing view of the city. It was beautiful! That night we ate “the best pizza in Ghana”…… definitely not impressed. Oh well! We also got to reflect on our goals and talk about our experience so far as a group. It was really nice because we haven’t all been spending time together since orientation so there were people I really got a chance to catch up with.

We left this morning at 6:00am and made it back to campus around noon. We stopped for a kind of long breakfast, but it’s about a 5-6 hour ride. Actually, on the way there we stopped at a restaurant to eat lunch and I had fufu for the first time here!! I had it with ground nut soup and it was actually pretty good. Marty and I had made fufu in St. Louis before I came, but we used the flour mix that comes in a box. They have that same stuff here and they call it “neat fufu”. This one was the real deal and it was a LOT better than the one at home! It still wasn’t very tasteful, but when you mix it with the soup it was not bad. The soup, however, was extremely spicy! I had a runny nose and I drank almost a huge water bottle as I was having the soup!! I’m glad I got to try it here though, finally! Overall it was a really great weekend and I’m glad to be able to check Kumasi off my list of places to see. :) 

The fufu is on the left and the groundnut soup is on the right. The bowl of water in front is for washing your hands.

I used a spoon instead of my fingers because that kind of grosses me out. I only managed to eat about half!

Manhyia Palace Museum

Weaving village 

Kente cloth

This is what the dye is made out of!

Here's the lady pounding the bark with a baby on her back.

Obama! 

St. Peter's Basilica in Kumasi 

The view from the steeple!

Togo!

This past week was really interesting! I am officially working on a research project here! I am helping two psychology professors with their research on the perception of gender roles among college students. So far I’m just finding relevant articles and literature on the topic. It actually has been really interesting, especially when you read about cross-cultural studies. The professors are expecting to have the questionnaire ready this week so then I will be able to start interviewing students.  I am really excited about this!! One of the professors is a community psychologist, which is the field that I’m interested in so it’s working out perfectly! I’m meeting with them on Wednesday this week so I hope that everything is ready to go!

Last week I went to Global Academy on Tuesday and Wednesday and it was good. Working there is teaching me so much, too. I am still working with the same group of kids, but I am realizing how big the range of abilities is. There are some students who get everything done quickly and have to sit around and wait for everyone else to settle down and get started on their work. There are also a few students who are really struggling and I’m actually not sure how they have moved up through the grades. This week I’m going to talk with the director and see if maybe I can work with those few struggling students individually instead of teaching the whole class. There is one boy who hardly knows how to read at all! It’s so overwhelming to see him struggle with words like “dad” or “bad”!! I hope I can work with him specifically and really make a difference by the time I leave. Right now he’s just sitting through classes that are way too hard for him so he’s not getting anything out of it. I’m going there tomorrow so I’ll see how it goes.

We've discovered a new restaurant that is pretty close to campus. It’s called Cuppa Cappuccino and it has pretty good burgers and really good smoothies. As you've probably noticed, I eat burgers at every restaurant I go to pretty much! I hardly ever eat meat on campus because the conditions are not very sanitary and it’s overall just sketchy, so I try to get my meat in on the weekends if I can. Now that I know of this place I can go there during the week even. By trotro its only 30 pesewas one way, which is about 15 cents! So that’s nice :) I also bought a little pot so I can cook some. I pretty much just cook a little bit of spaghetti and eat it with butter. I've also started buying plain white rice and adding tomatoes and avocados! The avocados here are very good and super cheap too! My own meals aren't very exciting, but it’s nice to break up the Ghanaian food every once in a while!

WEEKEND!

This weekend I went to Togo!!! I went with two other girls from my program and we left on Saturday morning and came back Sunday afternoon so it was a pretty short trip. We took a bus from Accra to Aflao which is the last city on the Ghana side. To cross the border to Togo was one of the most stressful experiences I’ve had here! There are people all around you calling out to you, asking where you are going, whether you’d like to exchange money, if you need a taxi, if you need this, if you need that. It’s so much happening at once!!! Nothing bad happened, but when we got the hotel we definitely took some time to just settle down from that whole circus! Besides the chaos, we didn't end up having any problems getting our Togo visa-- we even got a marriage proposal from the Togolese immigration officer! By the time we got back to Accra, I was proposed to 4 times!! Well actually one guy offered to marry my daughters, but I’ll count it still!

But anyways, our time in Togo was pretty interesting. We went to the beach, but they have their sewage system that empties out right into the sand. There is a huge pool of sludge right on the beach! Needless to say, we didn't go swimming. We also went to the market and I bought a new head scarf! It was really cool because I was able to barter in French! I made use of my French the whole time and it really helped. I had a little bit of a hard time with their accents, but for the most part I was able to communicate with the Togolese. We went to a voodoo market but they wanted to charge us way too much to go in, so we ended up just looking around for a second and leaving. It was really small and actually quite disappointing! But it’s okay. We also found the Cathedral which was beautiful! The architecture looked very French and on the inside there were beautiful paintings. It was the first time I had seen a Black Mary and child Jesus! Pretty cool!

Togo is all about the motorcycles! They are EVERYWHERE! That’s their main form of public transportation-- you just hop on the back of a moto and go! They seemed to be pretty reckless though, so we stuck to normal taxis. The city had a different feel from Accra, both better and worse! The sewers are covered there, and there are a lot less abandoned, half-finished buildings. But there also isn't really a center or much for tourism that we could find. Instead of English they speak French and instead of Twi they speak Ewe. It was pretty different and I was actually really glad to come back to Ghana.

We left early on Sunday morning and spent the morning in a small village on the Ghana side. One of our friends had done a home stay before we all got to Ghana so she went to visit her host family. She took us around the village market and we got some really cheap fabrics! It was really nice! I enjoyed seeing a little bit of life in the small village instead of in the big city of Accra. Things even seemed to be cheaper out there.  After lunch we headed back to Accra and got to campus around 3:30. I went to church at 6pm and that was basically my whole weekend! The trip was different from what I thought it would be but I am glad I went and saw it!

I just uploaded 300+ pictures to Facebook, so you can check them all out here:

 http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1955897819661.2053967.1309171199&type=1&l=f77a2d9e47

Have a great week and thanks for reading my long post today :)

Life This Week!

This week has been really nice! I went to volunteer on Tuesday at the school and it was great! We worked on conditional sentences, which got pretty tricky when it came to the past perfect tense and the past perfect conditional and all those. I also gave them a spelling quiz and that helped me realize how wide the range of ability is in the class. Some people got all or almost all of the words correct while others missed even the simple ones like "speed". I was going to go back on Friday, but it was a public holiday so there were no classes. The holiday was the first president's birthday! If he were still alive, Kwame Nkrumah would have turned 102 years old this weekend! It's crazy to think how young Ghana is as a country!

This week I got to Skype one of my very best friends, Eliza! She is studying in Chile this semester, which is surprisingly only a 3 hour time difference from me! She seems to be really enjoying Chile and it's really fun to compare our experiences abroad! I'm really really glad I got to talk to her! I also Skyped Marcia this week, who is in Denmark. Again, super different experiences between the 3 of us! It's so interesting!

I got my first package from home this week!! Marty sent me a much needed chocolate supply to refill my stash! I got some Take 5 bars, Oreos, and Hershey's nuggets!! I was so excited!! It only took a week to get here, too, which is pretty impressive!! I am sooo happy to have some sweets from home! Ghanaians don't eat dessert, so I have definitely been missing it!

I'm starting to make Ghanaian girl friends!! This week I hung out with two different girls. Here, students just go "visit" each other when they become friends. Basically you go to the other person's room and just sit and talk. I was a little nervous since that is the first time I'm talking to them outside of class, but I had a really good time both times! One girl cooked rice and stew for me and it was delicious!! I thought that was very sweet of her, too! And I got to meet their roommates, both of whom were very nice! I'm so glad to finally be making closer Ghanaian friends from classes! They said next time they'll come visit me in my room!

On Thursday I went to a play! It was called Aku Sika and it was about a king who wants to marry a girl with a physical deformity. The message that the pamphlet said and the one I got from the play were a little different, but it was still a good time. It's interesting because Ghanaians don't like to be serious about things, even plays. So for example when the main character is contemplating suicide the audience was laughing hysterically and saying "byeeee"! It was so different from what I'm used to!! I'm learning so many cultural things even when I wasn't expecting it!

Last thing from this week: last night I went to a club for the first time here! It was SO fun!!! I went with just 3 3 other Americans and one Ghanaian who drove us. The place we went to is a big hang out for expats, so they played a lot of American music. Actually the music selection was very interesting! When we first walked in they were playing Nelly!!! I was pretty excited! They also played Barbie Girl? It was funny! But it was really really fun! People here go out later than at home, so the place didn't really fill up until after 1am! We left around 2:30 and by then people were starting to get warmed up!! It was very fun though and I'm glad I went!!

I don't really have pictures of anything this week, but if anything new does come up I'll be sure to post it :) Happy Sunday everyone!!

Shai Hills

This Sunday I went to Shai Hills Nature Reserve! It is the land which was historically inhabited by the Shai people, but is now kind of like a state park. There are different trails you can go on and the one we chose took us to the top of the highest hill. They really aren't hills, but they're smaller  than what we normally see as mountains. They're kind of in the middle! I went with a few other international students from my same program and about 6 other students from Europe. Most of them were German, two Swedes and one Swiss. We started our walk to the hill and saw a whole family of baboons!!! They got pretty close to us and one even took a banana that someone threw on the ground for them! It was soo cool! There was even a tiny baby that still sort of looked like an alien! Well anyways, we saw some baboons and some ostriches on the other side of the path, but they were in a fenced in area. We ended up walking for 7 km before we reached the base of the mountain/hill! We were a little tired but pushed on and hiked up to the top. The view from the top is INCREDIBLE!!!!! The whole time we were walking we were just surrounded by tall grass and a few trees. Well from the top, that was all you could see all around for miles and miles. Up to the horizon, it was just land and land and land with nothing else on it. It was amazing! I was so in awe of it! We stayed at the top for half an hour I think just admiring it. It was very reminiscent of Lion King!! 

The ride back was kind of crazy. Of course things here always have to end with an adventure! By the time we left it was already getting dark and no trotros would stop!! We waved them all down but no luck! Someone in our group went closer into the village and found a driver who promised he would come pick us up, but only if we paid almost double the normal fare. By this time it was completely dark so we were desperate to get going. The driver took us into the a station where we would be able to get another trotro back to campus, but by the time we were pulling into the village it was FULL of people! We were stopped at a light when suddenly some people came up to our trotro and reached in through the window to try to snatch our bags, ipods, phones, whatever they could get! Even when we shut our windows, they would open them from the outside and reach in!! It was so scary!!! That happened about 5 times and the worst part is traffic was stopped so we couldn't even move! Thankfully no one got anything stolen, but we got to the station right after that happened. We were all weary of walking around in the station trying to find our next trotro so thankfully our driver found someone who took us back to Legon. We had to pay way more than normal, but at that point we just needed to get back! And we did, safe and sound! It was a nice day, and the adventure at the end made it all the more Ghanaian! 

Pictures!!!

These were pottery remains from the Shai people when they lived in these hills.!!

The incredible view!!!!

The guy in the green was our guide, the others were some of the people in our group! We were 11 all together!