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!