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