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!

Volunteering!

This week was very nice! I officially started my volunteering at the Global Academy! I went on Tuesday, which was the first day of school for the kids! I got there during one of their breaks so I talked to the other teachers for a little then they just handed me a marker and sent me in a room!! I was with 19 students, varying in ages but I think around 8th graders. I had one book and was supposed to teach them English. I did the best I could-- we talked about similes, the gender of words and a few other random subjects the book had. It was actually really fun!! The kids were all so respectful and considerate. They answered questions and volunteered. It was great! I left before their school day ended because I had a lecture here on campus at 5pm. Since I travel by trotro and it is pretty far to begin with, I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get back! I ended up having no problems!

I went again to the school on Friday. This time I taught English to 9 7th graders. Again there was quite a range in their ages, but they are all in what Ghana calls Junior High School 1. The headmaster told me that this is the group he wants me to work with every time I come so we can have some sort of consistency. I LOVED it! The students again were so well behaved and almost excited about class! That's a lot for 7th graders! I actually had one kid cheer when I gave them homework!! We learned about the phrases "used to" and "be used to". By the end of day they were mostly able to pick apart the meaning of sentences like "I used to swim" vs "I am used to swimming". The conditions were pretty bad and the resources few. We share a room with another class, with just a wooden board dividing the two. That made it really hard for the kids to hear me without me yelling over the other teacher, who happened to be very loud! I actually lost my voice this weekend! I also have a little cold so that probably didn't help either. But overall I am really happy with this volunteering. I think it will really challenge me but I am excited. The kids were teaching me some games and songs during recess and that was amazing!! I'm going back tomorrow so I hope it goes well again!

I haven't taken any pictures there yet since I just started and all, but I will see if maybe tomorrow I can take some of the school and my room and the kids so I will post them if I can.

I am super tired now and I have class at 7:30 am, so I will be going to sleep! I will post tomorrow about my weekend adventures!! Goodnight everyone! :)

Monday Beach Day!

Well, yesterday was the best Monday ever! I had class at 7:30am to 9:20am and then I was done for the rest of the day so a friend and I went to the beach!! We went back to the same beach that ISEP took us to during our orientation. It was quite a ride, but three different trotros and a taxi ride later we arrived at paradise! We had called ahead so we had chairs set out waiting for us and two hamburgers right up. They were SO delicious, probably the best hamburger in Ghana. Then we went swimming in the ocean and the waves are so big! It's so fun to jump over them and just play in the water. It was an absolute blast!! The best part is that the guy that owns the place is friends with our ISEP coordinator so he waved the entrance fee and gave us a really good price for our food. So our amazing day was made all the better by being pretty cheap!! It was such a nice day, definitely one of my favorite memories now!

Today was also really nice! I went to the school where I'm volunteering. It was their first day of school and it was great to see all of the kids there. They had yellow and green checkered uniforms, it was precious. The school is a primary school run by a Ghanaian NGO, so they find kids that were just out on the streets in that area and provide them with a free education. A decent education here requires school fees and oftentimes families can't afford to send their kids to school so this is a really great opportunity for the kids. It was my first time volunteering today, but they handed me a marker, a white board, one English book and 19 kids!! They were all kind of mixed in there but I think most of them were around 6th grade! I was a little nervous to  be thrown in like that but the kids were so respectful and well behaved that it really wasn't bad at all. I just went off the book and we learned about similes, genders of words and other random things. I had originally hoped to be with the little ones, but honestly I really enjoyed teaching the older kids! It was so great when they got answers right and I liked being able to pass on new knowledge to them! I talked to the director and he said by the time I go on Friday he should have a syllabus ready for me with what I should be teaching them. He mentioned grammar and spelling as weak points right now, so I am very excited to work with that!! I am going again on Friday so I'll let you know how it goes!!

For now I am just studying for my Twi test on Tuesday. I ordered my food in Twi tonight and no one laughed at me!! It was great! I also kind of had a conversation in Twi with a vendor at the night market, it was strained but I am definitely getting better!! I am excited to keep learning more. I'm on the look out for a Twi dictionary that I can carry around, since my vocabulary is still pretty limited. I'm sure it will improve with time, though!

I got a few letters from Marty last week and a card from his grandparents today! Mail makes me soo happy!!! Thank you so so much! It takes forever to get here, but it is totally worth the wait! It's so fun to write back and forth and hear about everyone else's lives back home :)

Pictures!

This is me and two of the contestants!

Frances

Sharon and I 

When we went to dinner we crammed 4 in the back seat of the taxi... 

And two in the front seat!

NEW JERSEY LICENSE PLATE!?!?!

With my new Black Stars jersey!

I found a guy with a cardinals hat!?!!

Weekend!!

Hey everyone!!

Let me catch you up on this weekend, it has been a full one!!! Well first I need to tell you about Thursday! Two other American friends and I went to the Miss Malaika thing on Thursday. We didn’t really know what to expect, but a van came and picked us up from campus and took us to a restaurant near the French embassy in Accra. There was a really nice outdoor area where all the participants were getting ready. It turns out that this competition is actually a TV show where viewers text in to vote for their favorite contestant and as it goes on some girls are eliminated! They were down to 10 girls and I think there were 20 to start off with. This week’s episode was the cultural one so what happened is that each girl gave a presentation on her specific region of Ghana. They were all dressed in their traditional clothes and they each did a dance. Some of them sang a song or brought food to show or talked about the history or customs, stuff like that. It was so interesting!! I learned  a lot, especially about the differences between each region of the country. It’s so cool because each region historically belonged to a specific tribe or group of tribes, so they have different customs, dress, even language!! This country has so much diversity, but they are all so proud to be Ghanaian! It's beautiful how everyone comes together! I really enjoyed all of the presentations. Afterwards, the host asked us what we learned and which girl impressed us the most. It was so cool! They said it will be aired on Sunday at 8:30pm, so I definitely plan on watching it!! At the end we even got to go up and the girls were teaching us how to dance!! It was a blast, I absolutely loved it!! The director said she’d give each of us a DVD copy of the episode, so I really hope that’s true! My big TV debut in Ghana!! :)

Later that same day I went to the dance show called “Dances of Our Time”. It was GREAT! There were some of the popular dances like azonto mixed in with deeper more interpretive type of dances. It was so beautiful and powerful! All of my friends and I agreed it threw us through a whole roller coaster of emotions as we watched all of the performances. There were a few Michael Jackson numbers, it was all really fun! I didn’t get too many pictures because it was dark and the flash wasn’t working very well, though. Besides that, it was perfect!

On Friday I went to dinner at a restaurant called Mama Mia’s. It has really good pizzas, but I ended up having some pasta instead. It was so delicious! I really miss food from home, so it is great to be able to go out on the weekend and eat something a little more  familiar than wakye, for example (pronounced wah-chay, it is brown rice mixed with red beans and usually served with spicy stew)! It was a really fun night and this time we crammed 6 people into a taxi instead of taking sketchy trotros that might not let us get off.  Lesson learned!

Today I went to the Black Stars game!! (The Ghana national soccer team is known as the Black Stars!) It was so fun!! Ghana played Malawi in one of the African Cup of Nations qualifier games. It was a really great atmosphere! We were sitting next to a huge section of people wearing matching shirts and they were having a PARTY! There was so much dancing and cheering and drumming and singing! It was so fun! The people didn’t really pay too much attention to the game, though. The referee seemed to call one foul on Ghana for every 15 he called on Malawi! He carded so many Malawi players, one of them even got two yellows and was kicked out!! Anyways, Ghana ended up winning 2-0! It was really exciting!! I had a great time! I even bought my own Ghana jersey so now I can officially support the team!

Well that’s about all for my weekend so far! It’s really been a lot of fun! I’m going to upload the pictures I took tomorrow when I can get free internet again. Hopefully we don’t lose electricity again! Apparently the water went out this morning, but only for a few minutes in my building. A girl from the other international hostel said theirs was out for hours! Definitely don’t want to be in the middle of your shower when that happens!! Well, I’ll put pictures up as soon as I can! Have a great rest of your weekend, everyone :)

Friends!

Hey everyone,

Nothing too exciting has been going on. I've just had classes and normal everyday things! Well I guess this morning was a little different! A few friends and I got interviewed for a beauty pageant (yes, ANOTHER beauty pageant!) this morning!! The girls that are participating are supposed to represent their respective region of Ghana and show that theirs is the best. So, they are presenting to internationals since we don't really know too much about the cultures of each region so we won't be biased or anything. The actual presentation is tomorrow afternoon but today they just asked us basic questions about where we're from and what we know about Ghana so far. They also recorded us walking in and acting like we're reading a book or something. It was pretty fun! I'm excited for the presentations tomorrow!!

The main reason why I wanted to write today was to let you know about my friend Anna's blog! She just graduated from Truman in the spring and is now starting her year of service! She's helping with a pre-K class in Massachusetts. Anyway, she has a really interesting blog called The Four Tees. She asked me be a guest writer, so I am featured in her post today! What I wrote is from a little while ago, but I'm still pretty excited about it! You can check it out here:

http://thefourtees.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/guest-post-annie-albuja/

Thanks again to everyone for your support! It really means the world to me to know how many people are cheering me on at home! Hopefully tomorrow I'll get lots of pictures from the presentation and the dance show to share! :)

Weekend Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the weekend! 

These are the plastic chair that were called "a technical difficulty" 

Hmm memories of a very interesting night.. 

Some of the girls! They always had their hands on their hips like that.. always!

Marti was soo excited she fell asleep while we were waiting for it to start.. haha

I saw these tiny little baby shoes at one of the shops in osu!! So precious!!!

This is the bruschetta we had at the restaurant.. SO good!

My lasagna... also so so delicious!!!

This is all of us at the restaurant! I bought a little scrap piece of fabric to make a headband with but then the lady showed me how to wear it as a head wrap so i did that instead!

It's kind of hard to see here, but the top of trotro was just hanging down like a tent or a canopy.. it was  pretty much only attatched at the little light.. 

Trotro ceiling.. falling on our heads..!

It was a really interesting and fun weekend!! This week hasn't been too exciting yet but I'm going to another dance show on Thursday night so I'll have lots of pictures then! :)

Weekend!

Hiii

This was a really nice weekend!!

Friday night was the Miss Teen Ghana competition. It was a very interesting experience, quite different from what I was expecting though. On the ticket it said that it started at 6pm, so we got to the theater right at 6, actually a little worried that we would be a tad bit late. Ha! They didn’t let us in the building until 9pm, and the show didn’t start until 9:40.. the first time we saw the girls was 10pm, I think! It was so crazy!! We were just sitting outside waiting and we tried to go in maybe around 7:30 or 8 and the guy at the door told us that they were having some “technical difficulties” but everything should be fixed soon.  So we kept waiting and a little while later a truck pulls up with a ton of plastic chairs!!! I guess the technical difficulty was that they had no chairs…. Hours after it was supposed to start! By that point we just thought it was funny! We were really glad when it actually started, until we realized we couldn’t understand anything!! I don’t think the people were speaking Twi or anything, but the sound system was pretty bad and combined with difficult accents, we had no clue what anyone was saying. We ended up leaving early, even before we cast our vote. It wouldn’t have been that bad if it had started on time, but 12:15am we had been there for over 6 hours already and it was time to go! I’m taking it as an interesting cultural experience!

On Saturday I went to a part of Accra called Osu. There are a lot of stands with souvenirs and is just a happening place! We found a store called Global Mama’s that is based in Minneapolis in the States, but sells handmade things from women here in Ghana! There were some really cool things!! It was so crazy to be on the other side of these fair trade enterprises, since usually I’m in the US looking at stuff that seems like it was made so far away! After we looked around a little we went to that really nice restaurant with the pool and all the trees and the nice tables! I went there originally with my dad’s old colleague but last night I went back with a few other international students! It was amazing!! I had lasagna and it was phenomenal! They gave us Italian bread and bruschetta while we waited and it was beyond delicious! After dinner we went to a bakery and I had a strawberry cake type thing for dessert! It was all so so nice! By the time we left the bakery it was already dark so we were a little hesitant but we were in a group of 6 so we decided to go ahead and try to trotro home! We made it back to 37^th station in a trotro whose ceiling was literally caving in! It looked like a canopy was hanging down on us! Then we got on another trotro to come back on campus. We told the mate, who is the person that takes your money and opens and closes the door, that we needed to get off at the next stop a few times and he was like yeah yeah….. and then the trotro didn’t stop!! We watched our stop go past even though we kept telling him no we need to get off, we need to get off! After all the ladies in the car started yelling at him too they finally let us off somewhere far from our actual stop. Thank God we were able to call one of the Ghanaian students that lives in our hostel and he knew where we were so he came to pick us up. We crammed six of us in his little car, but made it home safe and sound!! Whew! It was a really nice time and ended with quite an adventure!

Today I went to Mass at 9, like I have all the past Sundays here. When my friend Rachel and I got there, though, they were already into the petitions!! There were so many confused people! Apparently today Mass started at 8:30 or 8? We don’t really know. But we asked someone and apparently there’s a church not too far from campus that has Mass in the evening so that’s the plan for now! I think that was the first time that anything in Ghana has started earlier than I thought!!

The rest of today is just going to be used up with homework! The power is out, so our fan doesn’t work in the room and it is getting really stuffy! I came all the way over here to the International Programs Office so I could use the free Wifi, but it’s not working because the power is still out! I’m going to post this with my modem and I’ll upload the pictures later when I can get free internet again!! Hopefully soon!