March 25

On Thursday night we went to a place to hear high life music but instead it was more jazz music, but it was still really fun and they had amazing musicians. On Friday night we went to the Pan-African Orchestra concert. They had about 30 musicians and I even knew one of them through a friend! They are going on tour this year around West Africa and will come to the United States sometime next year. On Saturday we went to Makola Market - the biggest market in Accra - there was so much to see and so many people. People hiss and touch us a lot walking through the markets and little children have tried wiping my skin to see if the white would come off - that was entertaining. The men selling men’s jeans I have found to be are the most aggressive and persistent. The men say they would look good on you, I always say I don’t wear men’s jeans, thanks - but apparently they don‘t think that is a good enough reason not to buy them. They sell everything at these markets - we passed a woman selling snails the size of my foot! They were trying to crawl away and she had to keep grabbing them and putting them back on the mat - it was disgusting! Some people believe that if a woman eats a snail if she is pregnant the baby will drool a lot. Some also believe that if a baby eats eggs they will become a thief. At the market I bought more fabric, I justify buying so much fabric because it is only 1 cedi (dollar) a yard and who knows when I will be in Africa again! My dad went to high school with a girl who’s sister is now living in Ghana so I spent Saturday night with her and her husband. It is such a small world! They work for the US Embassy so they live in Embassy housing which means air conditioning and hot water! Spending an evening with them in a Western style house eating tacos and cheese was amazing!
There has been no electricity in my home stay from Friday night to Tuesday morning but it came on this morning! The nights are hard to sleep with no fan but we get used to it. The sun goes down around 6:30 so the past couple of nights we would just sit outside and Auntie Vicky would tell us stories, it was really nice.
My parents sent me a package and it finally arrived yesterday so I will try and teach the kids about snow with the children’s book I received.
This weekend our program is bringing us to the Ashanti Region and we are going to a museum and a market - the largest in West Africa apparently- and then we will have the option to go to a Black Stars football game, it is a qualifying game for the World Cup.
Driving has been another thing to get used to here. There are no speed limits or stop signs only speed bumps to control the speed and very few stop lights. There are driving ‘rules’ that are completely different for me to get used to - if you are taking a left hand turn the oncoming traffic stops for you. People sell things on the side of the road and then when traffic is stopped they rush in between the cars with baskets on top of their heads full of anything from TV antennas to men’s ties to huge paintings of the Virgin Mary. Anything you can find at a gas station is on people’s heads weaving in between cars!

March 20th

Beauty and Beast was excellent! They added some African dance to the songs and had a more upbeat bass in the music than the one we are used to!
On Friday night we were supposed to meet at 11 pm to go to the stilt village with the Business School, however after waiting until 3 am with no sign of leaving we decided not to go on the trip. A few of our friends have gone to the stilt village a few weekends ago and told us how to get there and where to stay. Even though we did not go with the student organized trip we are still planning on going there on our own. We have now found the organization of student groups trips leaves a little something to be desired!
On Saturday we spent time around Accra going to different markets and we even found a smoothie shop! It was a very exciting afternoon!
We are at our halfway point for a program and I can’t believe how fast it has gone. Some friends and I have sat down and planned where we still want to go and when we should go. The rest of the weekends are mostly planned with trips or things around campus.
This weekend is still a little up in the air with planning, but we will definitely go to Sarafina - another play on campus and then hang out around Accra. The area around Accra has so many things to see from markets to antelope and bat caves! We keep hearing from other friends where they have gone in previous weekends and there is so much to see!
This semester is definitely different than anything in Morris. We go to our two lecture once a week and take notes word for word and than leave. I have not had any papers, projects, or assignments other than reading. Books are not bought here, we buy photocopied packets that are used for textbooks. Some of the articles are very outdated, for example in my Human Rights in Africa course an article stated, “Currently, in 1977 …”. We don’t know if there are not any new articles written about the topic (I highly doubt that) or if the professor just has not selected new articles. Talking to international students that were here last semester have said that the final is entirely based on the readings and not as much on the lecture notes.
Sorry these have not been more often, having fast enough internet to upload these entries is hard to come by in Africa!!

March 13th

Having Auntie Vicky home has been good, but we are still adjusting. I think she is trying to do things that we would have liked to do the first week when we arrived.. It is nice to eat meals with her, usually it is just Talia and I at the table for meals.
This morning (Friday) I went to a school in Adenta, a small town outside of Accra, with some friends to help at the school. There were 5 volunteers w\and we split the children intro groups of 8. We had them read a story and then answer questions and then had them write about their childhood memory. The kids seemed so interested and participated in all the discussions we had and also seemed to appreciate having more one on one attention with a teacher.
This weekend I am going on a trip sponsored by the Business Department to Nzulezo (a village built on stilts on top of the water), Virgin Island and to Ankobra Beach. Taking trips sponsored by different groups is really nice considering we are able to meet new people and having transportation provided to these places is a lot easier!
Also this weekend we are going to Beauty and the Beast, I am excited to see how it turns out. One of my friends is in it and said the rehearsals have been going really well but everyone seems to be tired with all the rehearsals.
If you have any questions or are wondering any specifics about Ghana or anything just leave a comment and I would be happy to tell you. I will continue updating my blog with the trips I have taken but please don’t hesitate to ask questions, I would love to tell you, I just would like to know what interests you!!

Elephants!!

Going on a trip planned by a student organization was interesting to sat the least! With some delays and massive confusion we were able to go to Mole National Park. We arrived around 8 am on Friday morning after a 12 hour bus ride - the last two hours of the bus ride were so bumpy - I honestly thought my window might break and peoples cheeks were shaking on the bus. Once we arrived we had rice, fish and chicken for breakfast and then started our tour. We had 2 tour guides that brought us on a 3 kilometer hike. We were able to see about 7 elephants really far away at a watering hole and then we saw antelope and warthogs. Later on our walk we saw elephants so close, I would say about 10 meters away!! The tour guide had a gun - just in case. They said elephants are the second fastest mammal for short distances, if a lion is not able to catch an elephant in the first 100 meters the lion will never be able to get it! We were only at the park for a few hours but we saw all the animals that we could have seen so it was definitely worth it! We then went to the Larbanga Mosque - in the same town as Mole National Park. The Larbanga Mosque is the oldest mosque in West Africa and was magically built - one morning it was just in the middle of the village. We then drove to a waterfall about 3 hours away. The group we were in were all Ghanaians or Nigerians and then the 5 of us. I don’t think a lot of them have ever been off campus with ‘oburnis’ - white people - before, so that was very interesting to see their reaction when everyone made comments towards us or touched us. At the Larbanga Mosque there were a lot of children that all wanted to hold the oburnis hands and the other students didn’t know how to respond to all the unwanted attention we were getting.
On Sunday I went to the orphanage to say goodbye to a few of the kids who were leaving. When I go during the week I am helping in the classroom but on Sunday I was able to play with the kids. It was a lot of fun, we played tag, hide and seek, jumped on the trampoline and then they thought it would be a good idea to braid my hair! I definitely had to use a lot of conditioner in my hair when I got home! I brought my camera to the orphanage and all the kids loved it, I would take one picture and they would say, “Let’s see it, I want to see it.” They really enjoyed having pictures taken of them!
My host mom came back!! She apparently came home on Saturday night but I didn’t see her until Sunday evening. It will be really nice to have her back. On Sunday night we had a long conversation about the places I have been and she recommended other places to go in Ghana, it was really nice to be able to talk about what I have done and what I still want to do while I am in Africa. My host mom goes to villages in Ghana and teaches them about hygiene and cooking and said that I will be able to join her on one of her weekend trips, I think that would be a great experience.

March 5

Last weekend some friends and I went to Aburi, a small town with wood carving and a bead store. Our group of 50 students had gone one of the first weekends but a smaller group of us wanted to go back and look around some more. The wood carving town has little booths (for a lack of better term) about 10 feet by 7 feet, that line the road, with no space between them. Inside each booth an artist displays his work and urges anyone that passes to come in, “It’s free to look,“ is a common phrase. There are no stet prices, so it is up to the buyer to negotiate a reasonable price. We have learned that they try to charge us triple the price, so we have learned to start low and then work our way to a reasonable price. It is definitely becoming easier to bargain, sometimes it can be very frustrating, but the feeling of accomplishment when you successfully bargain is great! On Saturday night we went to the Vagina Monologues put on by students at the university, it was very well done. All the plays put on by the theater department are directed by students and are accomplished in only 6 weeks! On Sunday a group of friends went to an area of Accra, Osu, to find a Chinese restaurant. It turns out that the Chinese restaurant we were planning on going to opens at 4pm on Sundays. We were able to find another restaurant so it all worked out in the end. Maps don’t really exist in Ghana so getting the feel of the area has been difficult but I am familiar with the most common tro-tro stations so that makes getting places a lot easier.
Different organizations on campus plan trips to different parts of Ghana that are open to all students. This upcoming weekend I am planning on going with the Computer Science students up to Mole National Park. The park is in northern Ghana, about a 14 hour bus ride. We are leaving on Thursday and driving straight through and then going to the park and driving home. Not a lot of time at the park but I am really excited to see elephants! Mole National Park is the largest wildlife sanctuary in Ghana has apparently the best viewing of wildlife! The most common attractions our elephants, hippos, antelope, baboons and different bird species. I am planning on traveling to the northern part of Ghana again and to Burkina Faso (the country north of Ghana) at the end of April or beginning of May. In the later trip I will be able to stop at Mole National Park again if I feel there is more to see.
The orphanage has been a lot of work but so rewarding. My parents are sending me picture books about snow and one of my friends from the program has a snow globe, when the package arrives I am going to teach the kids about snow! I think they will really enjoy that. Two new girls arrived at the orphanage last week, they speak a northern language and not a lot of English, so communicating with them has been interesting. Thankfully some of the other kids at the orphanage are helping with translation. Some of the kids are being adopted next weak, on Sunday there will be a goodbye party for them and the volunteers are invited. One of the kids, he is about 10 years old, was a little sad on Wednesday and we found out that he was being adopted and moving to America on Monday. I can’t imagine all the things going through their heads, leaving the country they have grown up in, leaving 30 kids that have been like siblings to them and leaving for a country that they have no idea what to expect. He told me he was going to either Tennessee or Indiana, and I told him how great those states are and that they are not too cold! He seemed to appreciate all the things I told him about America. Also yesterday all the students formed a circle and they had to pick partners, one girl ran across the circle and hugged me and asked to be my partner. Of course I said yes and then realized we had to dance in the middle, when it was out turn all the kids started laughing that ‘the white girl’ was dancing! It was so much fun and all the kids seemed really excited that I participated and joined in on their dance.