Aburi Trip

Yesterday was our CIEE trip to Aburi. First, we went to a bead-making village and saw how they make glass beads. This involves smashing glass bottles into powder and mixing the glass powder with powder dye. The powder is put into a mold and then into an oven. Once cool, the beads are hand-painted.


Our second stop was at a wood-carving village, which had about 600 people carving and selling items. It was really cool, but very overwhelming with everyone trying to get you to come into their little stalls to look at/buy the carved things. Each one kind of had the same stuff, and there were just so many of them.

The final stop was the Aburi Botanical Gardens. It was such a relaxing place with amazing, huge trees. There were all kinds of plants and trees that I've never seen before. Our guide told us what that each were and the purpose they each served. There was a cinnamon tree and and all-spice tree and they smelled great. There were these little fern-like things in the grass that close up their leaves when you touch them.


Overall, it was a very fun trip, and I'd really like to go back to the gardens. We just didn't get as much time to relax as I would have liked because we had to be back in time for an event for international students on campus with dinner and performances. I had a very full day yesterday, but it was nice. Today is Sunday, and so it is a very lazy day... very little is open and most people were in church all morning. I've heard that the services here are 3-4 hours long, but I haven't been to one yet. I'm sure I will go eventually though.

I'm not sure what else I have to do today besides hang out with some friends I have in the program. Hopefully classes will start for real this week, so I can begin to get in some kind of routine here. Tomorrow I have History of Western Medicine in Ghana. And the others that I've registered for are

Geography of Gender and Development in Africa
African Pop Music
African Myths and Symbols
Intro to Twi

I don't know that I'll be able to do the drumming class anymore, but I have until Feb 6 to have a finalized schedule, so if I decide to add a 2 credit drumming course, I will do it at the last minute. For now though, these 5 classes are the ones I'll be taking.

Some Photos

My pink room!

Balme Library on campus

View of Accra from the highest point on campus (sorry about the fuzziness...)

The fancy hotel they had us in for orientation

See the bats hanging from the tree?

A New President & A Power Outage

For Obama’s Inauguration yesterday, we went to the W.E.B. DuBois Center in Accra. There was a huge crowd of people from all kinds of countries gathered around a screen that had CNN’s coverage of the event projected on it. It was quite a moving experience, watching Obama be sworn in from Africa. Everyone clapped and cheered. Afterward, people on the street wanted to talk with us about it and to ask how we voted and how we feel about it. People here seem really happy about Obama being America’s president.

In fact, when I first moved into my room (before my roommate was here), there were 2 women in the process of moving out who had been taking winter break classes. They each had a little baby. (So, the first thing I saw in my new room was 2 little babies on my bed. I was so confused… would my roommate have a kid? Do they let students live in the dorms with babies??) One of the women left with her child, but the other took longer to pack up. She let me hold the baby, and told me he was 4 months old and his name was Barack. I did some babysitting that day, as she had to go downstairs and left me with the baby. It was a pretty strange experience. People in the US I don’t think would trust a total stranger with their baby while they left the building. But anyway, nothing bad happened, and I gave her an Obama pin and she was so happy. Women here use a big piece of fabric and sort of tie their babies onto their backs; it looks so efficient and much closer than pushing a baby in a stroller.



So I meant to post this yesterday, but I instead experienced my first power outage. The power went out first in the afternoon, and then we were running on generators. Around 11pm, those too turned off, and I was in the dark. Apparently, the internet goes down when the electricity goes down. The running water was fine though, luckily. When I left for class today at 9am, there was no power, but it was back on when I got back around one.

I think this trip will make me so much more thankful for the things that I used to take for granted at home. Like, fast internet and 24/7 electricity and air conditioning. And also make me more aware of the things I have that I don’t really need. People here get along fine (and I’m getting along fine too) without those things…

Yay for Internet!

I finally have consistent internet access in my room. So, it seems like a good time for a blog post.

I’ve been here for less than 2 weeks now, and I’m becoming more comfortable. It is still so hot, but I’m getting used to it. The pace is also much slower here, which makes a lot of sense, considering the heat. It is just so difficult to move too quickly in this weather. Things like start times are also more flexible than I’m used to at home. For example, classes “started” today. However, I’ve been told that no one actually goes to classes for the first 2 weeks, not even the lecturers. The add/drop period ends on February 6^th, so everyone has to have a final schedule by then, but in the meantime, classes don’t really happen for the first 2 weeks.

Registration was a little strange to me, but effective I suppose. Say I want to take a history class… I walk to the history department building on Thursday and put my name on a list for the class that I want. But then they say that they won’t have the schedule up until Monday. So, on Monday, I find out when the class meets, and then depending on if it fits in my schedule, I can drop it or keep it. To drop it, I have to go to the department building again and make sure they cross my name off the list. I actually signed up for two history classes. (The History of Western Medicine in Ghana, and Economic History of West Africa from 1800-1960) We were advised to sign up for more classes than we need so that we can see if we like them and then drop them before Feb 6. However, if classes don’t meet before then, I don’t know how that exactly will work… But anyway.

The classes I’ve registered for (of which, some will be dropped) are:

Poverty & Rural Development

History of Western Medicine in Ghana

Economic History of W. Africa 1800-1960

Geography of Gender & Development

Drumming for Foreigners

West African Popular Music

I have to take a 6 week course on Twi (the language spoken in this area, pronounced like CHWEE), and I definitely want to take the drumming course and probably the lecture on popular music, so I get to pick two more.

The scavenger hunt from orientation was a good crash course in how to manage the public transportation in Accra, which was so overwhelming at the time. I’ve since been out independently with 2 other girls in the program. We went to the beach, and got a little lost on the way back, but everyone was so nice and showed us the right direction. So, a tro-tro is a large van that has a driver and a “mate.” The mate opens and closes the sliding door and calls out the tro-tro’s destination, so you know which one to get on. It’s pretty hectic, but so cheap. A ride costs less than a cedi. A Ghana Cedi is about $1. And the coins are called Pesewas. So, for example, I can get a meal of fried rice and plantains for one cedi or rice and beans for 50 pesewas. It cost us 3 cedis to take a taxi from campus to a place in East Legon (which isn’t too far), and we had 6 people in the car. Once you decide on a price for a taxi, it generally doesn’t matter how many people you have.

The drivers are crazy here, and there aren’t really any pedestrian rights. I mean, pedestrians have rights, but cars don’t usually stop. It makes crossing the street quite an adventure, and cars (esp taxis) are always honking. I don’t know if they’re honking at me because I’m white and I stick out, or because they just honk at everyone, but the streets are never calm.

This campus is huge. It has 30,000 students, and it took me 20 minutes to get to my Twi class. The other dorm where the rest of our group is staying is about a 30 minute walk. There are taxis on campus who charge 1.50 for a ride anywhere on campus. This is a good thing because it’s really not a good idea to be out alone after 7 or 8pm. The sun goes down at 6pm here, and the streetlights aren’t exactly consistent, so being in the dark alone could be dangerous. I haven’t felt unsafe here, though. Don’t worry.

A woman came to my room yesterday and said that she wanted to do my laundry. So, she came this morning to pick it up (and my neighbor’s too) and did it in my building. I got it off the line tonight. It cost me 5 cedis. I’m going to look around and see if anything is cheaper, but for now, this will work for me. There aren’t any washing machines here; everyone washes their clothes by hand. Well, I think there are some washing machines, but you drop your clothes off and someone else does it and then you pick them up. I’m sure I will have my roommate instruct me in proper handwashing eventually, but I don’t think I’ll be very good at it.

The fruit here is delicious. Today I had an orange, some papaya and bananas. My friends can each eat an entire pineapple, but too much pineapple hurts my tongue. It’s so delicious here though… they call it sugarloaf. And I love the oranges. They peel the top layer of the peel so that the peel isn’t so thick. Then they cut off the top and you squeeze the juice out and eat it that way. It’s so awesome since I really don’t like all chewy pith of an orange. I usually have an orange everyday.

This is a sufficiently long post for now I think… I will write again soon. New things happen to me everyday.

Orientation

Today was the first day of orientation, here in Ghana. There are about 50 of us in the CIEE program (Council for International Educational Exchange), and they have us staying in this fancy hotel called the Coconut Grove. It has air conditioning, running water and a swimming pool. I hope this dispells any myths about life in Africa.
We covered culture shock, malaria, money, transportation and some politics, among other topics today. I also learned that I will be living in the Ghana Hostel on campus. (Not the homestay that I had hoped for, but I'm sure this will be equally rewarding in its own way.) I understand that this "hostel" - dormitory - is suite-style living with 2 people to a room. We move from the hotel to our more permanent housing on Monday.
For tomorrow, they have planned a scavenger hunt through the city of Accra, in which we will be split into groups (each with a leader) and sent out to find certain locations. This will mean we have to put into practice the public transportation techniques they taught us about today. Tro-tros are the cheapest and most efficient form of transportation, and I will wait until I've actually experienced it before I try to explain it.

People here go to bed earlier than I'm used and they wake up earlier too. So, I will have to be going to bed now...
Goodnight!
Kate

Flight in Four Days

I will be leaving on January 8th for Ghana! My flight is scheduled for 6:30pm from Dulles airport, but I still have much to do in the next couple days. I can't really believe this is already here. I know that so many exciting adventures are waiting for me, but I will also really miss special people in my life while I'm gone. The next five months will certainly be unlike any others in my life.

However, seeing as my life is still same old-same old for a few more days, I will leave this post here. The next time I write, it will be from Africa!

Peace