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 :))