Done.

I've finished my semester (including my last trip to Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso).
Highlights from the trip:
-My incredibly kind Burkinabe friend, Moussa
-Livestock on top of tro-tros (chickens, goats, cows)
-Mosques
-House painting and mud and stick architecture
-Bicycles and motorbikes
-Attempting to speak French
-Riding on the back of a long bed truck for 4 hours after my bus broke down

Anyway, it's been an amazing semester. I've learned a lot (most of which I'm still processing) and it's definitely going to be strange going back to my old life. Ghana, yebeshyia bio (we will meet again in Twi).

photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohdearbyrachel/sets/72157605752577090/

A long overdue update!

I've got less than one month left before I return to the states!

I've been up to a lot since the last time I sent an email update! I've done some travelling. I went to Kumasi, which is the capital of the Asante (or Ashanti) region in Ghana. The Asante is the largest ethnic group in Ghana and was historically the dominant group. Here I visited an Adinkra village. Adinkra is cloth stamped with Adinkra symbols. I also went to Bonwire Kente village, kente is the woven colorful cloth that Ghana is famous for. At both of the villages I saw the that is used to make the cloths. Then I went to the old Asantehene (Ashanti chief) palace, which is now a museum. There were awesome peacocks, and the tour guide was hilarious. But seriously the Ashanti are a really interesting people, especially because the amount of resistance to European colonization. They fought four wars against the British between 1823-1896.

Then two weekends ago I went to the twin cities of Takoradi-Secondi. The cities are on the coast about 4 hours west of Accra, halfway between Accra and the Cote D'Ivoire border. I went on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I walked around town and talked to people, which was really nice. The center of town is a crowded market and had much less oburonis (white people/foreigners) than most other places that I've visited. Accra can sometimes be crazy and hectic and frustrating but Takoradi (which is the 3rd largest city in Ghana, behind Accra and Kumasi) was actually really pleasant. Then on Sunday I went to Secondi and visited Fort Orange, which was a Dutch slave fort. There's a brother and sister who live there and the shipyard workers that they sometimes house. The brother, Robert took me on a tour of the fort, then I went to the fishing harbor, then Robert and I walked to town and hung out at his friend's wholesale soda business and talked for a few hours. It was Sunday so most people in town were at church.

My internship has been going really well. Some of the highlights of things I've done has been: a meeting with other women's rights groups and the Minister of Women's and Children's Affairs about the progress of the Domestic Violence Bill, compiling stories of domestic violence and child abuse from people that have come to The Ark Foundation for counseling, putting together a facilitation manual, going to a rural police station to talk about coordination in domestic violence cases, attending a counseling training, and so on.

Last Saturday I visited a friend, Fiifi's (Fiifi is the Fante version of Kofi) family in Achimota (which is on the outskirts of Accra), and then we went to visit his brother who is going to school in the Eastern region. I met his mom, dad, 11 year old sister, and uncle, and then his brother. On the way back we saw the biggest tree in West Africa.

This week has been Revision Week, which is a free week with no classes so students can study for exams, which I have on May 27, June 2, and June 14th.

Right now I am about to leave for Togo! I'm going to Lome and Togoville and I am thinking about going to the north and Burkina Faso for 2-13th of June. Hopefully soon I will have uploaded the rest of my pictures (there are a lot!). I hope you are all well and please write me!

Huge Update

Hello all!

I've hit the two month marker, which means that my time here is half-way over, which is weird. It's been a while since I sent an update, so naturally there's a lot that's happened.

Paragliding, Kwahu Mountain, Obo

I went to the Eastern Region on Easter weekend. We stayed in a town called Obo on Kwahu mountain, it was pretty, lots of goats, a view of the mountain, and faded old concrete colonial buildings in different colors. We stayed in this run down boarding house type thing. We went out dancing with a cousin (Brenda) of one of the members (Abena) of the CIEE staff, and Brenda's friends. We sat in the back of a pick-up truck on the way to the place, and a taxi full of dudes pulls up behind us and they start saying something about "oburoni" (white person/foreigner) and Brenda and her friends start laughing at them, shouting, throwing up their middle fingers at them and I just sat there feeling amused and awe-struck about this encounter. I ask Brenda what they're saying back (this exchange being in Twi) and she tells me, "They are saying that they're good", which convincing Brenda and her friends of kinda seemed like a lost cause by that point. The next day we went further up the mountain to go paragliding (there was paragliding festival on the mt. for Easter weekend), none of us brought enough money, so we went back the next day, and paraglided. It was actually not scary like I thought it would be, it was really beautiful and peaceful. Also, the tro tro, which I just learned is also called a trosky--- I assume whoever came up with that one is a Trotskyist, on the way up to Nkawkaw (pronounced Nkoko, the main town on the mt.), featured a mint oil traveling salesman who asserted, for no less than an hour and a half, that this mint oil would solve all our various woes and ailments, all for 50 pesewas (equivalent to 50 cents).

Food: So I realized that I haven't really mentioned what I've been eating.
waakye: beans and rice cooked together
red red: beans in red sauce
plaintains: usually fried, sometimes roasted, also made into chips
rice: fried, white, or jollof (made with red pepper sauce) --- rice is everywhere
kelewele: spicy, gingery fried plaintains -- so good
lots of fruit: oranges, apples, bananas, mangoes, pineapple
egg sandwichs: I have no idea why these are everywhere. Called simply "egg and bread".
and I recently started cooking for myself, which has been great because now I actually eat vegetables.

Week of March 24th-28th
I got a little homesick, hung out with other CIEE-ers and the Nigerian kids in Pentagon, my dorm (who are awesome) and met some sociology/anthropology majors from Burkina Faso who were at the U of Ghana playing some West African games, which brought students from Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, other schools in Ghana, etc.

Volta Region trip
This is one of the weekend trips organized by CIEE, we went to a waterfall (called Wli) and a monkey sactuary, then we just hung around the ridiculously nice hotel and swam in the pool and took my first hot shower since being here. I kind of wanted to do more, but the waterfall was really cool and the drive up was super pretty.

The week of 31st-4th:
My roommate, Ohomi's birthday dinner, the start of the rainy season, and the last week of my twi class, more hanging out with my Pentagon crew.

More Accra exploration: James Town and Osu

So with an absence of weekend travel plans, I decided to explore some areas of Accra that I had been meaning to. The first was James Town, which is a poor but historical beach town a little SW of the city center. There's a lighthouse, James Fort (currently being used as a prison and so not accessible to the public), and Ussher Fort in the way of historical things to see. I'll put the pictures up from that stuff soon hopefully. There was also a Ghanaian version of the Special Olympics going on so I hung out and watched football and table tennis. Then I went to Osu, which is an area that is usually visited by oburonis (myself included up to this point) by night, for mostly clubs or restaurants. It's cool by day, there's bookstores, an actual neighborhood, and a vegetarian supermarket.

Finally started internship!

I know I mentioned getting an internship probably a month ago, but it just started this Monday. It's at a place called the Ark Foundation and it's this NGO concerned with feminism, the empowerment of women and children, domestic violence, etc. Here's the website: http://www.arkfoundationgh.org/ So far I've done some data entry, some reading, and attended some meetings--- it's been pretty low key. But I may get to do some trainings, maybe in facilitation or campaign strategy, and some research. They have a battered women's and children's shelter in the Eastern Region, so it'd be cool to volunteer there when/if I'm able to go (the location is secret to protect the people at the shelter, so I may not be allowed to go). I'm still not sure exactly what I want to work on. I lost my wallet on the way to work on Wednesday, which sucked, but other than that everything's been great. My coworkers are nice and I just borrowed "Feminism is for Everybody" by bell hooks from their library.

A short update

When I wrote my last major blog update, it was the day before Independence Day (which is March 6). So I'll just quickly update you all on the things that have happened since then. I went to the Independence Day parade, which was just members of the armed forces, police, and schoolchildren marching around Independence Square. That weekend I went to Kpong on Saturday and we went to a bead/metalworking factory and they showed us the process of bead making and metalworking. Then on Sunday, we went to Shai Hills (named for the Shai people who used to inhabit the hills) to hike. We hiked for about six hours on two trails, the first to a small cave and the second to a larger bat cave. The rest of the week, I visited my (possible) internship, went out for two CIEE-ers birthdays, hung out with the Nigerian kids in my dorm, and went to classes. Then this past weekend our program had a trip to the various museums around Accra, the Du Bois Center, the Nkrumah Masoleum, and the National Museum.

Photo highlights from hiking in Shai Hills

Some favorite business names

So most businesses here are named in reference to religion and the ones that aren't are still almost always ridiculous/hilarious/nonsensical. Some favorites (I promise I didn't make any of these up!):

King Jesus Motors
City Homies Fast Food
Englishman: Who is that Guy?
Lover Boy Provisions Centre
Same As Yesterday Chop Bar
Don't Forget Jesus, Nothing Late When Life is Long
Boyz to Men Ventures
Jesus Victory Salon
"U" Got Served Wear House
By God's Grace Frozen Food
Sober Spot: Drinking Bar and Food Joint

Photo Highlights from Acrra, a wood carving village, and Aburi Gardens

Football, Classes, Tro-Tros

Hello all!

So, I finally have all my classes and an internship. I'm taking two sociology courses ("The Context of Development and Underdevelopment" and "Penology", as in penal systems), a Religion course ("Religion in the African Diaspora"), and a Twi course. My internship will be at a place that works on domestic violence and women's rights issues.

Two weekends ago, everyone on my program went to Aburi Gardens and a nearby wood carving village. Aburi Gardens was cool, our tour guide was a chief who does this as his day job (most chiefs are something else in addition to being a chief). I'll have pictures of this up on facebook/flickr hopefully soon. The woodcarving village was also nice, someone talked to us about the technique and history of the wood cavings. Then last Tuesday I went to Madina market and took a tro-tro (a van that is super cheap and acts like a passenger taxi) for the first time.

Then last weekend, I went around Accra during the day and tro-troed and walked around and found out where things are. I went to an art gallery and Makola Market (which is the huge, well-known market in Accra). And then I got lost, which was kind of fun/funny. I was trying to get to Ussher Town to see Ussher Fort, so I took a tro whose mate (this is what they call the person who sits on the right side and hangs out the window yelling where the tro is going) was saying what sounded like "U-town", but he was actually saying "New Town" so I ended up in this kind of desolate neighborhood that isn't even in Accra. The people in town were really helpful and guided me back to where I should be to get a tro and gave me directions. This is something that is pretty cool here, people will go out of their way to help you, they'll often
walk you to the place you need to go instead of simply giving you directions. Then on Sunday, I went to a football game. It was Accra Hearts of Oak (a local team, also the name of a Ted Leo album) vs. a team from Gabon. People here also really like the British teams, Arsenal and Manchester United. There was a game yesterday and people seemed as excited as they would be about the Black Stars (the national team).

So hopefully next blog post, I'll have updates about the internship, pictures, independence day, and an overnight weekend trip!

First Blog Update from Ghana!

First three things I noticed: the heat/humidity(I'm always a bug-spray, sunscreeny, sweaty mess) the dust, and the enormous size of the CIEE program (seriously there's about 50 of us). Also, Jesus is everywhere in this country. And things move very slowly compared to the states, but in the heat it totally makes sense.

For the 11th-15th most of what we have been doing has been orientation and class registration. The registration process here is mind boggling. You can only take courses if they are all one level (i.e. all 300-level, or all 400-level), you can only take certain subjects together, (Linguistics and Sociology conflict, for example), you have to walk to each department building to look at which courses are being offered that semester, some buildings do not have this information available and some do not have the times/ places for classes. Also, walking to each building is a bit of a challenge because the campus is enormous and the heat sweltering. And the University of Ghana is the best West African university, and one of the best in Africa, period. Legon is in the wealthiest region of the country. This example is a teeny glimpse of how under-resourced this country is. Even the best here doesn't compare to the comfort that we're used to in the states. It's not frustrating when you resign yourself to the fact that it's going to take forever, and I definitely recognize that I have the privilege of leaving in four months.

We've been broken up now into different housing, I live in the Nairobi Court building in what is called the Pentagon or the Ghana Students Hostel. I'm really happy with the group of CIEE-ers in Pentagon and the Ghanaians and Nigerians have been really nice too. My roomate, Umi, is Nigerian.

I've been going out as well, to Osu (a subsection of Accra), the beach and a bus tour that CIEE arranged of Accra. I'm looking forward to taking trips over the weekends, we have one coming up this weekend, although I'm not sure where my group is going.

Twi lesson:
eh teh sen: how are you?
eh yeh: I'm fine.
meda ase: Thank you.
obruni: white person (I've completely integrated this one into my vocabulary)

First post!

I leave in four days! And also the blog looked really dull without any posts!

But, more importantly friends, let me know if you want email updates and/or postal mail, and be sure to keep me updated on what is going on in your life!