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  :)