Normal Life!

Hey everyone,

I feel like I don't have quite as many exciting things to tell you all about anymore! I'm really getting into the swing of everyday life. My classes are all going well although I feel like we still haven't gotten too deep into anything just yet. I have a lot of reading to do for them though, so that has been the most interesting part so far. Last week at the beginning of my psychology class my professor took a little bit of time to say a prayer before we started. I thought that was very interesting and pretty different from what would happen at public university in the States! He seems really interesting and I'm excited for the class!!

I have still been hanging out with Rejoice and a few other kids when I go to the night market. I taught them the song "Waves of Mercy" which they seem to really enjoy! They love doing the hand motions! Rejoice and I pray together every few days, but just quick prayers not a full out rosary. It's hard to find time to pray that with her since she basically works all day everyday. Last night she gave me a note that was extremely sweet! She just told me how glad she is we're friends and how much she cares about me, it was the nicest thing ever! I am so blessed by her friendship and thankful for the experience!!

I don't have too much else to talk about. I am going to Miss Teen Ghana this Friday! The daughter of the porter in my building is a participant, so that's how we found out about it. I am pretty excited to see what it's like! It's at the National Theater, so that will be nice to be in the city instead of on campus! I'll make sure to take lots of pictures!

Speaking of pictures, I just uploaded 500 some pictures to Facebook. Even if you don't have Facebook or we're not friends, you can check out the album here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1930859153710.2053470.1309171199&type=1&l=6abcc87676

I hope you like them! There's a ton!!!

Picture book!

 Hello everyone!!

It's been a little while since I update my blog! My internet modem ran out and I had a little bit of a hard time getting it set again. I should be pretty okay now, though. But instead of making this a novel update on my life, I thought it'd be better to make it a picture book! :) The photos are a little out of order, but I got a lot to load so I'll take it!! 

These are some pictures from the lower falls at Wli Falls. This is the trip from last weekend, with all the trotro troubles... It was so beautiful!! 

This weekend I went to Nzulezu, which is a village built on stilts!! It was 7 hours away and we were all under the impression that it was 2 hours away, so it was quite a different experience than we thought. It was incredible to see how people live this way.. My favorite part was the canoe ride out to the village.. It was the most peaceful and serene place I have been to,  I think.

These are some of my night market friends!!!! The first one is Sarafina, then in the next picture it's Rejoice, Sarafina, and Priscilla. We've been learning some worship songs and practicing reading bible verses! I love every second I spend with them!!!

 

 

I went to a traditional Ghanian dancing show at the school of performing arts!! It was soo colorful and lively!! I loved it! I took a million pictures, but sadly no videos were allowed!

Well that is all for tonight, tomorrow I will try to find some free internet and try to upload more pictures! This past week was really really great! I am finally getting into some sort of rhythm. I hope to start volunteering soon, but I think I'm going to have to wait a little longer until classes start. I also found out the Catholic church has an Adoration chapel that's open all the time! I have been going there a lot and I'm starting to make friends with the people that hang out there! I'm very excited about that!! I hope this week is also as great as last week was!!

Let's go to the beach, beach..

Hello! 

Yesterday was a great day! It was a public holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan. (Although Accra is SUPER Christian, there are a lot of Muslims in the northern parts of Ghana.) A few of the other international students and I went to the beach since we didn’t have classes! We first tried one beach but it was so full of trash that it was impossible to even put your towel down on the sand. It was really sad to see so much trash but there was one guy raking some up so that was hopeful! We decided to try another one and it was a lot better! We ate at a nice restaurant right on the beach and I had a cheese burger!! I was so happy! It had its own Ghanaian twist, like cucumbers, but it was really tasty! Then I curled up in my chair and took a nice nap! It was great, the sun was nice and warm and it made a little blanket for me. I loved it. I don’t think anyone in our group got in the water but it was still great to be there and soak up the sun, hear the waves, watch the soccer games happening right in front of us. It was a lovely start to the day. 

After that my dad’s old colleague, who is Ghanaian and now lives in Ghana again, came and got me and we went to Oxford street. There are a lot of shops and clubs and restaurants and just a lot going on in that part of Accra. It was great to see it all! She showed me the little stand where her mom buys her dresses and I got a dress, too! It’s orange and blue and beautiful!! I wore it today but it was a little tight in the top so I talked to a seamstress and she said she would fix it for me by tomorrow! Yeah! Then we went to this super nice restaurant that had a little lake/pool thing and outdoor seating and American music!! It is an Italian restaurant, but we just got something to drink and talked. It was really great! I definitely want to go back, even if it’s just to hang out a little outside. Then we came back to the hostel and I showed her my room, which she thought was nice. Overall I think I did a fine job of celebrating my first Ghanaian public holiday!

Today I washed clothes again! I had the genius idea of listening to my iPod while doing it.. made it so much better!! Who knew that singing along to Shakira would make you want to scrub all your clothes clean!? Tonight I have my first Twi class. I’m really excited to learn and actually be able to communicate with people that don’t speak English. Sometimes it’s the kids that haven’t learned English yet so it’ll be cool to impress them all with my Twi!! The class is for the international students, so I hope they take it nice and slow for us!

Hohoe and Wli Falls

Hi everyone!!

This weekend was GREAT! On Friday I went to The African Child, which is a Ghanaian NGO that I will be volunteering at. They have a school called the Global Academy that provides free, quality education to street kids from the area. They also have other projects, such as a Spelling Bee with other area schools, a malaria free project that tests kids in rural villages for malaria and provides medication, and other initiatives. I am hoping to work with these projects by raising funds, planning events, researching needs, etc. I need to talk to them more, but it seems that they are also in great need of teachers, so that is probably something else I might be asked to do. Getting to the place gave me the chance to try out the trotros by myself for the first time! It took me an hour and a half to get there, but with  the help of some nice Ghanaians along the way I got myself there and back! I loved meeting the kids and the program director, everyone was very friendly and welcoming. I know a few other people from my program are going to volunteer there too so I’m excited for all of us to get to work soon!

After visiting the NGO, three friends and I left for our trip to the Volta region!! We ended up taking a trotro, which was packed with a million people and one live chicken!! My friend Ariel looked down at her feet at one point and was very surprised to see the chicken! We were all laughing about how crazy that was but then a little while later she turned back and whispered “It’s ALIVE!!!” It was all very comical for us!! We took quite a few potty breaks, which meant that we stopped on the side of the road and all the men got out and peed then and there! Then began our trotro troubles.. we stopped once because there was something in our exhaust pipe but that got taken care of pretty simply. Then, we got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere!! It was completely dark and we had no clue where we were but we had to get out and wait about a half hour for them to change the tire! Surprisingly the four of us were pretty calm and just thought it was a funny story! We got to Hohoe (pronounced huh-hoy, rhymes with chips ahoy) at about 10 and got to our hotel easily. We found some food with the help of our kind of creepy receptionist but went to bed with no mishaps! The rooms were a little less than luxurious but it was clean so we were fine! 

On Saturday we went to Wli water falls.  We hiked for 2 hours up to the upper falls! It was very long and strenuous, but TOTALLY worth it!! We hiked up 800 meters of elevation, but at the end we got to the base of the upper falls! It was so beautiful, especially since we had been seeing it from afar since we started the hike! And the best part is we got to go swimming in it!! It was sooo fun!! It was incredible to look up and see the water falling about 10 feet from you.. it was incredible! I loved it!! Then we hiked for about an hour and a little on the way down and went to the lower falls. Also so beautiful! The lower falls were bigger but you didn’t have the reward of just having hiked for hours to get to it. We went swimming a lot more in the lower because it was deeper, even if it was colder. It was really really great! I tried to take a lot of pictures and some turned out pretty cool but it’s hard to capture that type of beauty on camera! 

After that we wanted to see the monkey sanctuary but it started POURING DOWN RAIN! So we decided that it wasn’t worth staying the night since we wouldn’t really be able to do anything else that day. Our trotro ride home was much less eventful than the other one. We made it home around 7pm and just grabbed dinner and relaxed. It was a super great trip! It was not quite how we planned it, but we have some great memories and I’m really glad I went!! I can’t wait to do some more travelling!!!

My internet is too slow for me to post pictures right now but I will try again tomorrow!

First week of classes!

Hello hello!!

I have finished my first week of classes at the University of Ghana! (I don't have any on Fridays..woo!) There were a few classes that I went to and the professor never showed up, so I haven’t exactly had all of my classes yet, but it’s a start! I think half of my classes have met already, and they all seem pretty interesting so far! I went to The African Diaspora, History of Ghana and a social work class called Community Organization this week. Actually, it turns out that my professor for the social work class is a Ghanaian woman who got her masters from WashU in St. Louis and worked in the city for some time! What a crazy coincidence!! Talking to her was nice since we had something so familiar in common. She seems like a great professor and I’m really excited for that class. The others will be a surprise next week! I met some nice Ghanaians my classes so I’m excited to become friends. I’ve also met a lot of nice people at church and one of them offered to take me to his village in September!! I’m so excited!!! 

Today I did laundry again! I’m still getting the hang of washing clothes by hand so I think I’m going to try to keep doing a little bit at a time every few days. No more waiting till I’m out of socks like I did in the US! The weather has been beautiful today so that should help dry my clothes pretty quickly! It has been mostly cloudy and gloomy the time we’ve been here but these past couple of days have been nice and warm! When the sun comes out it is REALLY hot! I’m hoping that will make me more excited for my cold showers! I did tell myself that if I went ahead and joined the swim team then I would buy a kettle to heat water with and take a warm bucket bath after those cold morning swims. 

I had a lot of people tell me they were touched by my experience with Rejoice and I’m really glad I could share it with you all! Last night I went back to the market and I showed her my prayer journal, which she thought was pretty cool. She told me more about her life and how she thinks her mom and her grandpa will be so proud of her when they hear she learned how to pray the rosary! I showed her some of the verses I have written in my journal and then another vendor from the market came to read them too! I ended up taking my bible out and reading it with Rejoice and another girl that came up. Again, it was amazing! Even just hearing about Rejoice’s life and seeing her excitement to see me and to read the Bible was awesome!!!! I just feel so happy and blessed to be a part of this experience! 

LETTERS!!! Between yesterday and today I got three letters!!! I was SOO excited!! I got a nice card from my parents, a letter and a few pictures from Marty and a nice card from his grandmother! It was such a great surprise! I’m so thankful for all the support back home. It really means a lot to me. Thank you so so much! I miss you all very much and I think of home all the time! Good luck to all my Truman friends that are about to move back to Kirksville! And a big good luck to my friend Marcia, who is going to Denmark today!! This is her blog, in case anyone is interested in hearing about her semester abroad: mklopf.tumblr.com I can’t wait to start exchanging letters from Denmark to Ghana!

This weekend I am going on a trip with 3 other girls from my program to the Volta Region here in Ghana. We are going by bus and plan on seeing the famous waterfalls there, as well as climbing a mountain and going to the monkey sanctuary! I am really excited! I will take lots of pictures!! Wish us luck!!

Best day ever!

I know I haven't written in here in a few days, but I really have just one story to tell. (I can do more updates tomorrow!) I had probably my favorite moment of Ghana this afternoon at the night market!

I was buying pineapple from my favorite little vender, a 12 year old girl named Rejoice. Let's just say her name is VERY fitting. She's the happiest, most sweet and caring girl I've met. She saw my bracelet with different images of the saints and of Mary and she asked me if I was Christian. I told her that yes, I'm Catholic and she was so excited! She said she's Catholic, too, but she just moved to Legon from her village and here she can't go to Mass. She also told me that back home she had been learning about the faith but there's no one to teach her here. She then asked me if I knew how to pray the Rosary and asked me to teach her!

So I came back later with my Rosary and she was so happy! She pulled up a chair for me and out of nowhere all these other kids came up to learn too! I ended up writing out the Hail Mary and the Glory Be and teaching them how to say those prayers. I also taught them which prayer you say on which bead, which they really enjoyed. It was amazing!! There were some kids that were too little to read the words on the page but everyone stuck around and each Amen was so triumphant! I got more than one weird look from all the people passing by my little group of about 6 kids chanting Hail Mary's (remember we were in the middle of the night market!). I absolutely loved teaching them! They were just so happy to learn and to pray together. We ended up saying about 3 decades and Rejoice even prayed out loud for all the sick people in the hospitals. My heart pretty much melted right then and there. It was my favorite experience so far and I can't wait to go teach them some more! Rejoice asked me to come every night so we'll see what this leads to!

Thank you to everyone for all of your prayers. As you can see God is certainly working here in Ghana! I feel so happy and blessed after that time with the kids!

Cape Coast!!

Hi everyone!!

Our trip to Cape Coast was awesome!!!!! We ended up going to Kakum National Park yesterday in the afternoon. We took a pretty quick hike up to the top of this huge hill where the canopy walk began. The canopy walk is a series of very very narrow wooden bridges held up between trees by rope. As you can imagine they are at the canopy level of the rainforest, so when I gathered up the nerve to look around I was literally looking down at the tops of the trees. It was SO cool!!! It was pretty scary at first but after a few bridges (there are 7 or 8 total) I got a little more comfortable. You did have to be careful to step in the middle because if you put too much weight on one side it would kind of start to lean over, which was pretty scary! Supposedly they can hold up to 8 tons, though!!! I didn’t take very many pictures because I don’t have a draw string on my camera and I was afraid of dropping it! It would be a very long way down! 

After the park we went to a really nice hotel!  The rooms were simple, with two beds in each one pushed up right next to each other! I roomed with my same roommate from here so that was nice. There was a lake thing around the restaurant with crocodiles in it!!! And some of them were just hanging out by the side.. we saw one lady that was sitting on one!!! And there were SO many birds!!! They were all chirpin away, making there little spherical nests. It was actually really cool to see, I kind of felt like I was watching a nature video or something. It took way over an hour for us to get our food so we did a lot of hanging out in the meantime. Then we ate and after we played cards, listened to a live band and went swimming in the pool! It was all really really fun! But the best part of the hotel came in the morning.. a hot shower!!! I was so happy! I just stood under the hot water for a little bit taking it all in! It was glorious!

This morning we went to Cape Coast Castle, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had. It was used by the British during the slave trade to house the captured Africans before shipping them to the Americas. We got a tour of the dungeons where they kept the slaves and got to see the cells where the troublemakers were sent. There was a tiny room for the women that resisted getting rape and a bigger room for the men that had tried to run away or had tried to rebel. In the room for the men they fit 50 people and there were no windows or anything, just a concrete room with 3 shut doors. The men in there weren’t fed or given water and no one was taken out until all 50 had died. We went inside and felt the stuffiness in the room. Our guide turned the light off to give us a better idea of what it would have been like in there (he didn’t shut the door, thankfully). It was extremely powerful. Knowing that countless people had needlessly died in that room, under such terrible conditions, it was hard to even comprehend. Even though it is so sad, I am glad I got to see it.. it’s a whole different thing to be there and see it than to read about it in a book.

We got back to campus this afternoon and I went for a run! I kind of felt like a blob after sitting so long on the bus! So I ran a little, but not much since I am not exactly in shape. At night we went to eat at the night market! I got an egg sandwich that was pretty tasty! I also bought fresh pineapple from an adorable little girl named Rita. I’ll have to get a picture of her soon because she’s precious! Tomorrow I am going to Mass and then going to try to find the gym! Yeah! And the definitely need to figure out where my classes are seeing as how they’re supposed to start on Monday.. haha.

Lots of updates!!

Hello hello everyone!

I’m really excited I was able to post some pictures last time! The internet I get from the modem I bought is not too bad and its really nice to be able to have it in my room! A few exciting things have happened.. we went on our first tro-tro ride!! Tro-tros are what Ghanians call busses. But really, they’re just REALLY OLD vans that are packed with people and always in a hurry! It is the most commonly used public transportation to and around Accra. (Just for clarification.. the campus of the University of Ghana is actually in Legon, which is a town/neighborhood that’s part of Accra. It’s kind of like how Eureka, Wildwood, Ballwin, etc are part of St. Louis) Anyways, our lovely student guides helped us along on our first ride and I was definitely thankful for them! There’s a trotro mate, who is hanging out the side and yelling the location of where that one is going. So the key is understanding what he is saying and finding the right one, then beating everyone else that’s rushing to get on!! It was an adventure and once I know the names of places I’m sure I’ll be a swift trotro rider!

We took the trotro to the Medina market.. which was a whole other adventure! It was probably the dirtiest place I have ever seen! There are these huge 3 foot wide gutters on the side of the street that were FULL of trash and stagnant water. Needless to say, the smell was less than desirable. There were soo many people and people trying to sell you things and the smell of sweat and of fish and of garbage. It was very overwhelming! Anything you wanted at all could be found somewhere in that market, I’m sure. I’m glad I got to see it, but I’m not planning on going back anytime soon. They told us to be very careful with our belongings so I didn’t take any pictures after we got off the trotro!

Here you can kind of see the huge gutters.. super nasty when they're full of trash! Definitely don't want to fall in!

These are pictures of the market I took from the trotro.. it's hard to capture it on camera, but trust me, it was crazy!

 Yesterday we got to tour the places that we can volunteer at. There was one orphanage, two schools and an AIDS clinic. The first school was really interesting to me because it's a Ghanian NGO, totally supported and run by Ghanians without any foreign aid. The other school was also cool because it was started by a previous international student!! The AIDS clinic didn't seem to be super exciting, but that may have been because we were too big a group to get a tour. The first school has outside projects like testing for and treating malaria, organizing events with other schools, fundraising, grant writing, etc. All of those things sound pretty cool to me! Once I get my school schedule figured out I can talk with the directors and get a volunteer schedule too! :) 

The first picture is from the school that has the cool outreach programs, and the two kids at the bottom were a brother and sister in the orphanage!

Today we registered!! I got my official University of Ghana ID card! Yay!! We also were supposed to register for classes, but everything is backed up because the computer technicians were just on strike. So we walked around to each department and tried to see the timetables of when classes were being offered. I was only able to register for 3 classes: Psychology of Personality, Religion in Ghana, and Indigenous Religions of Africa. I have the information for a few interesting sociology and history classes, but I don’t think we’ll sign up before classes begin on Monday. IF they begin on Monday! The late president’s funeral was yesterday and today, so we heard rumors that classes would be starting late since the professors have not been able to prepare. We’ll see what next week brings! 

Officially students!! yeaaah!!

In the afternoon two friends and I went to the pool!!! It costs 2 cedi to get in (about  $1) and you can stay as long as you want! We met a guy who graduated last year but used to be on the swim team. He told me I would most likely be able to be on the school’s swim team!! I definitely need to practice a lot, but that would be a great opportunity. Apparently a past international student was on the swim team and got to travel to Nigeria! That would be awesome!!! 

My friends didn't have swim caps, but theyre required at the pool. Those lovely pink ones were sold to them! :) The one on the right is my roommate!

 Tomorrow we are going to Cape Coast! There we'll go to a national park and see a slave castle! We're staying there overnight and coming back on Saturday afternoon! I'm very excited!! :)) 

Just some pictures today!!

 This is just one of the streets in accra.. this is pretty much what the whole city looks like!!

This is me and Rachel with our new Nigerian friends after mass! The one in the middle was the priest!

We had delicious grilled pineapple at the beach!!!

this is the south afican wine!!!

Our delicious lunch!!!!!

some boys we met at the beach!!

These types of communities with concrete little houses were all over on our way to the beach.

That looks like a sandal tan but actually its dirt from walking around so much today!!! Red dirt roads!

Beach!!!

Hellooo :)

Well, I have a few days to catch you up on! My internet here is worse than I was expecting. The hostel that I am staying at has wi-fi but it has been out for the past week because the gardener accidentally cut some wires or something. There's free internet at the International Program Office, which is a 25 minute walk, something I am not willing to do after dark. It gets dark here around 6 pm, which is weird for me since I just came from summer! We are in the rainy season here right now, but I have yet to see it rain. It's mostly just cloudy, with the sun poking through every once in a while!

So in the past few days, we got a city tour of Accra which was pretty awesome! The city is full of people and little tiny house type things made of cement. There is a large amount of unfinished houses sitting everywhere, which was surprising. We were mostly on the bus but we got out for a little while and made lots of new friends with people that were playing soccer. Its funny how if kids or teenagers see you with your camera, everyone wants a picture! (If my internet were better I would upload them, I shall continue to search for faster internet!) But we got to see the British part of town and the Dutch part of town. It was really interesting!!

Then yesterday I went to mass! It was really cool! All the songs were in Twi, which is the local language here. The sermon was really good and super long, and with some extra twists added in the whole thing took about 1 hour 40 min! By the time we were done meeting new friends (and taking pictures, of course) it was 2.5 hours later!!! It was a really cool experience, I'm looking forward to going back! Then we hit the BEACH!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome!!! We got really good food and complimentary wine! It was South African wine called Obama of Africa! Hahaha! The beach was nice, the sand was soft and the waves were huge!!! There was a good amount of trash (mostly clothes and plastic bags) in the water but once you got over that it was really fun to play in the waves! I loved it!!! Can't wait to go back!!

Today we had an orientation with the other international groups! Everyone was really friendly and it was very informative!! Tomorrow we are doing some more of that and starting to pick out classes!! I'm excited to see what I will take!! Okay, well it is midnight here now so I should go to bed!!!

Talk to you all soon!

YAY I GOT A FEW UP!!!!