Sooo now that I finally have found internet on campus I can update this whole blog thing!
Tro-Tro Travels:
Starting on Sunday the 23rd we began our day with another yummy breakfast at Tasty Treats and then me and some of the other students in my ISEP group headed over to the inter-denomanational church on campus with one of our ISEP volunteer students. The women were all so beautiful in their Sunday best and somehow even though they were in floor length dresses they weren't even sweating while all of us were drenched! Church was about 2 hours which I have learned is a minimum here because most service are around 2-3 hours long. The preacher was charasmatic and easy to understand and gave a great sermon about the importance of God sending Jesus to earth so that we could relate to and understand our Savior. It was great to be able to worship with believers anywhere in the world who simply didn't care where we came from, we were just all there for the same purpose.
After church ISEP took us on our first Tro-Tro ride, which is the most common and cheapest form of transportation around the country. They are basically 12 passenger vans without AC, that are falling apart and usually have 20 or so people crammed in them. Defeintely a new experience! I have decided after riding in the Tro-Tro's and seeing the way that people drive her that I would NEVER even attempt to drive. Turn signals and traffic signs have no meaning, honking is used in place of this, at best.
As we rode there I was again amazed by the men and women that sell any and everything in the streets from phone minute cards to plantain chips, to mattresses with the cars swerving in and out! We took the tro-tro over to Labade Beach, which is a local beach in Accra and although it was awesome to be in the beach it was incredibly crowded and interesting with vendors, performers, and horses strewn along the shore. I joined in a little beach soccer game which was awesome! It was surreal to remember that I was on a beach in Ghana touching the same Atlantic waters that I have been in so many times on the east coast but now so far away from home.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday our days were mostly consumed by orientation meetings with all the international students with info sessions on cultural adjustment, class/university inforation, and all the little details. On Monday we went to the Taco Bell on campus for lunch. I know what your thinking they have taco bell in Ghana?! Yeah defintely not the same thing...they do not sell taco's nor do they have any idea what they are. Lets just say that Ghanians really do think "outside the bun."
One thing that I am working on getting used to is being stared at contstantly, its defintely odd and humbling to be the minority in a completely new place. I think it is good to be able to experience what it feels like to be out of place or uncomfortable at times to better understand what some people constantly deal with, and to also realize that most of the time people are just interested and not starting in a melicious way. This has especially been evident when I run on campus because appartenly girls really don't do that here and so I stick out like a sore thumb. In addition to the inquring looks, we are also addressed as "Obruni, Obruni!" This translates directly to foreigner and its what the Ghanians say to get your attention, especially in the markets or with the kids. I have learned to not take this offensively because its just simply a way to get your attention. This along with the kissing/hissing noises that Ghanians make as a way to get each others attention were odd at first but have already started to become the norm. Furthermore, it is becoming the norm to be in a constant state of sweaty/dirty because it is simpy unavoidable here. With the dirt and the wind, combined with long walks to class I am a lovely shade of orange by the end of the day. Instead of having a chaco suntan I have lovely Chaco dirt tan. Although you get dirty just walking around I love the fact that every place I need to get to is walkable and that that is my most common form of transportation. And in all the walking that we are doing everywhere you have to be careful not to fall in the gutters that line both sides of every road and are everywhere! I am very proud of myself that I haven't fallen in yet and that I haven't lived up to my "clumsy casey" nickname :-)
Food!:
During the first two weeks I have had a good amount of the local Ghanian dishes including Banku, RedRed, Fufu, fried plantians, and all types of rice. It has been a learning experience and a little difficult to try to avoid meat/fish because I am realizing that nearly everything is cooked with or in a meat base, espeically a lot of the spicy sauces. So far my favorite meal has been sweet fried plantains and rice, and RedRed when it doesn't have a really fishy taste (beans in a spicy sauce with fried plantains). It is also amazing because we can just walk down from our dorm to the market across the street and get fresh fruit and veggies, or dinner for almost nothing! I had my first fresh mango from the market which was AMAZING. The only you have to be careful of is to make sure everything is washed off really well because sanation standards are def. different, but its just something you get used to.
One thing that has saddened and suprised me is the amount of trash that is everywhere and unavoidable. I expected this to some extent as I knew we would be in a city/urban area and in developing countries the laws regarding trash and recycling are obviously going to different, but the extent is difficult to handle sometimes. I have the urge to just get a huge trash bag and go crazy trying to pick up as much trash as possible, but unfortuantely that wouldn't even make the smallest dent or help in solving the problem.
Medina Market (Thursday, 1-27):
After finishing orientation meetings we were able to tro-tro over to Medina Market and 37 Station (a huge vegetable stand). Medina is one of the biggest markets in Accra and is absolutely overwhelming. I honestly have no idea where it really stops or begins, all I know it that we probably only walked through 1/50th of it and that took about an 45 minutes. The market sells anything you could every imagine and somethings you probably couldn't even think of. I got an awesome Barcelona jersey for 12 cedi (~$8) along with a marriage proposal...two for one! I tried to practice my bartering skills a little bit but it is still a very odd thing for me because I feel like I am being rude in a way because you just simply don't do that in the states. Hopefully as I get more comfortable with it I will stopped getting ripped off so much for being an easy Obruni target!
Cape Coast & Kakum National Park (Friday-Saturday, 1/28-1-29):
On Friday the ISEP group headed towards Cape Coast which was about a 3 hour ride on an air conditioned bus and the roads were good most of the way so it wasn't too bad. It was really nice to get outside of the dustbowl that is Accra for a bit and head towards the beautiful and tropical coast. I forget that there is so much more country that I have yet to explore and I think it will be really interesting to see how different the climates/landscapes are as I got from region to region. I knew we were getting close as the dirt and dusty buildings turned into roadside villages and lush tropical plants. It was beautiful to see the villages emerge out the hills and built completely with the earth.
As we approached Cape Coast Castle I was taken aback by the contrast of natural beauty and yet had to remind myself that within the castle so much evil and pain took place. Even as we walked into the Castle it took awhile for me to realize that I was walking in the steps of so many people before me and that I was surronded by so much history. We began our tour in the male slave dungeon. We descended down into the different rooms, and there were about 35 of us in one of the rooms but he said they would have hundreads of people crammed in there with terrible conditions. It was hard to believe because even at 35 people it was pretty crowded. After the tour of the women's quarter we walked through the "door of no return" where so many had began their journey towards the America's and realized how unimaginable it must have been. After we were outside the door our tour guide explained to us the the "door of return" back into the castle was put there to remind people that come of their past to allow everyone to absorb it but then to move past it and realize how far Ghana and the world have come since then.
After the tour we headed to our hotel for the night which had an alligator lagoon and was pretty cool. The next morning we went to Kakum National Park and got to experience one of the only two canopy tours that exist in Africa. It was amazing and much longer/more intricate that I expected it to be. It was also 40 km. (120 ft.ish) off the rainforest floor, and we were basically standing on a skinny wood plank. I was too amazed and in awe of the natural beauty to be scared/realize how high I was. Unfortunely we didn't really see any animals because our guide said that they only come out at night at this forest.
Overall it was an amazing weekend and definitely experiences I will never forget :-).
First Week of Classes...sort of:
After doing our best to be thrououghly confused by the registration process and trekking all over campus to sign up for classes I got my schedule which is currently Monday: 9:30-11:30, Tuesday: 5:30-6:30, Wednesday: 9:30-11:30, 1:30-3:30, and 3:30-5:30, Thursday: 5:30-6:30. Its a pretty awesome schedule because it leaves me the whole day on Tuesday's and Thursdays to volunteer and then no classes Friday so that I can travel. My first class was a political science class called Strategies for Development in Africa. The professor was really interesting and the class seems like its going to be great.
It is a very odd thing to get used to though because appartently a lot of the students get to class really early but then the professors can come on time, 30 or more minutes late, or just not show up at all. A lot of the Ghanian students don't even go to classes the first week because so many of the professors don't show up or the classes simply aren't ready. It is very different from the stricter and more organized schedule we have at home, while Ghanian time dictates the pace of life here, meaning time is more of a suggestion rather than a fact. haha The rest of my classes went pretty well with 2 out of 3 professors showing up and the classes didn't last the whole 2 hours. I'm also really excited to take an introductory language course in Twi which is one of the common dialects spoken in Accra. I didn't realize that I would have trouble with the language barrier around campus, especially at markets and more rural areas, so I hope to learn more of the language and practice in the markets and with the children.
On Thrusday we had a few local NGO organizations come and talk to us about volunteer opportunties in the area. I am incredibly excited because I am most likely going to be teaching/coaching at one of the local primary schools started by a former study abroad student that takes in street kids and orphans and gives them a free education because currently Ghana does not provide free national education. That was incredibly humbling and sad to realize because there is so much need and desire for education but a lot of places simply lack the support and funding to make it possible. I am also planning on volunteering at a local orphange which I will visit next week. I just pray that God will be able to use me to the best of my capabilties and allow me to be placed where I can both learn and teach.
Coming up...
I'm also really excited because apparently last spring a lot of the American students got to go to the US Embassy to watch the superbowl and we are doing our best to hook that up! That along with the fact that it is Bob Marley's birthday on Sunday and the word going around is that Bob Marley's wife and Ziggy Marley are supposed to be celebrating his birthday in Accra at one of the local beaches should make for an exciting weekend if all goes well!
Love from Ghana!
Casey
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