This weekend was a fun and busy weekend. Some of us who were pretty tired decided to stay in Friday night and watch The Tourist on someone's laptop. It was weird to actually be watching a movie/any form of entertainment because that is already something I am getting used to living without. I love the fact that my days are not as consumed with technology at every corner. It gives me a chance to actually enjoy others company and get some reading done.
Saturday I decided to give one of the ladies who will do your laundry for a few cedi in the dorm across from us a chance because my sheets and towels were in dire need of cleaning and I was feeling a little lazy. I've decided that I will do all my clothes laundry by hand and then probably just take my sheets and towels to her because I know they will be dry before I need them for sleeping and its really cheap.
After laundry Kait and I decided to venture out to 37 Station and the Accra mall by tro-tro to get some fruits/veggies from the stand at 37 and to get a few grocies at the mall. The veggie stand is like heaven to me because most things are reasonably priced or you can barter a bit to get a better deal, and it is great because I can choose as little or as much as I need and then do my own cooking back at the dorm! The only thing that is frustrating here is how expensive some of the grocery store items that are cheap and popular at home are so expensive here because they are imported. It is difficlt to justify paying 10 cedi for a box of granola bars, so I have to do my best to shop from the markets and only get the essentials at the grocery store.
Later Saturday we got all decked out in our new Ghanian dresses that a lot of us have had made and head over to the Derber Festival on campus, which is basically a get together for all the international students on campus. It was a great experience with live and autentic dancing/music, delicious food, and being able to meet some more of the international students was pretty neat. My favorite part was probably when the Ghanian dancers pulled some of the students (literally dragged from their tables) to attempt some sweet dance moves. I made sure that I was out of range of getting chosen but I made sure to get some pictures of our ISEP group dancing!
Sunday was another jam packed day. About 10 of us from my group decided to make our way out to Bojo Beach, which is about 1.5 hours away from Accra towards Cape Coast. We decided to be brave and do our best to get there by tro-tro and just learn as we go. It started out a little tough as we wait about 20-30 minutes to get the first tro-tro which then took us to another station where we got on a bigger tro-tro bus. That took us Kineshe Market, which is huge and overwheleming, and we got suffiently lost/turned around until a local was kind enough to lead us through numerous back allies where we hopped on another tro-tro and just prayed that we were going in the right direction. After another hour or so we finally made it to a "road" that said we were headed towards Bojo Beach. The road was basically a string of hills and potholes but we finally made it to the beach. It was beautiful and peaceful, and much more enjoyable than the beach we went to in Accra. It was really odd too beause it sort of felt like I was just back on a beach in NC but I had to remind myself that "oh wait i'm in AFRICA!" We spent the day just relazing on the beach getting our tan on and swimming in the ocean. It was great to get away and relax for the day.
After a failed attempt to get tro-tro's back to Accra we were blessed to meet a guy who helped us barter with a taxi driver who got us a great fare back.
Later that night a lot of the american students headed over to Champ's Sports Bar (yeah they have one in Ghana, weird!) to watch the Superbowl! It was crazy to be watching it in Ghana, especially because it didn't start until 11:30 Ghana time so it was a late night after a long beach day. The only sad part was that it was streamed on ESPN so we didn't get to see any of the superbowl commercials (arguebly one of the best parts), but hey it was better than nothing! I only made it to half time before me and a few others headed back to the hostel and fell right into bed after a long but great weekend :-)
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