When it rains, it pours: Rainy Season 2015

Having grown up in the southeast United States, I am no stranger to summer flash thunderstorms. And in fact, moving to California, where 90s R&B told us it never rains in the southern regions, and the drought is a frightening reality, I honestly missed storms and rainfall. 

But I do not remember storms like this when I was here in 2012-2013. 

The view from my room during a storm

Thunder and lightning are not a requirement in these Abidjan storms; instead, the bloated dark grey clouds unleash gallons and gallons of rain all over the city, turning paths into rivers and clobbering makeshift homes. The resulting clatter is impressive and lasts for hours. Children still play in the rain, but adults seek shelter wherever they can, or women wear plastic bags to cover their hair. Abidjan has faced precarious rainy season problems in the past, with major flooding throughout the city. But our neighbor, Ghana, has seen much worse this year: An explosion at a gas station resulted in hundreds of deaths, partially because people were seeking shelter from the rains under the awnings of the station, and the rescue effort was impeded by flooding. 

A nearby shantytown in the rain

The upside is the lower temperatures post-storm and overcast skies preventing the sun from baking the earth. Soon the storms will dwindle and the warmth will return. But for now, I will try not to forget the “Hajj 2013” umbrella a colleague lent me and hope that things will calm down before I travel into the interior of the country where the likelihood of washed out roads is much higher. 

Being black in Africa

I have often been asked the question, “what’s it like being a black American in Côte d’Ivoire?” so I figured I would address this here.

Sometimes it’s like this:

In a taxi on the way to a Saturday morning yoga class with two (white) American friends, the driver kept referring to me as his “sister” to back him up in a discussion about how Ivoirian women prefer girl children. Exasperated on my behalf, my friend said, “She’s not your ‘sister.’ She’s from America like us!” The taxi driver expressed shock and then excitement; he turned around and asked if he could shake my hand. “I’ve never met a Black American before! I see them on TV, but never before in real life!” He proceeded to chuckle and shake his head in astonishment the whole rest of the trip.

Or it’s more often like this:

Taxi driver: “is she [referring to me, even though I am in the car] American like you?”

Friend: “Yes. But, you can ask her yourself”

Taxi driver turns to me: “but really where are you from? Everybody knows where they come from… your ancestors are from which African country?”

Me, incensed: “Do I really need to explain the whole slave trade to you right now? They didn’t ask the Africans they took off the boat which country they were from and write it down. The slave traders didn’t care (I might have used more colorful French here, I was in a bad mood)”

Taxi driver: “I guess that makes sense…Well I heard Michael Jackson traced his heritage back to Guinea. So you could be from there too.” (Guess which country the taxi driver was from… go figure)

I get it. I represent an anomaly for many here, because when they meet Americans, eight times out of ten (or higher) they are white (i.e. aid workers, embassy folks, etc). From first glance, I don’t particularly stand out – I have been told that I have Bété (Ivoirian ethnic group west-central part of the country, Gbagbo’s ethnic group) legs – though my accent to a good ear has English tones. When a taxi driver discovers this and I am alone, I lie and say I am from Ghana. Why? Because I don’t want to deal with people asking me to help them get a visa to the US (i.e. help us, my sister. We are both black you should help us, etc). Only once has this plan backfired when the taxi driver knew Ghana a little too well (Oh, what village are you from? What language do you speak? etc). If I am with some of my lighter skin (read, white) friends, I become even more noticeable because I am speaking English. I once had a dude chase us down the street because he was sooo interested in talking to the Black woman who spoke English. Saw the same dude less than an hour later when I was alone; he didn’t take special notice of me. 

I guess it is frustrating because I don’t want to be the exotic token. It’s true that I can answer, after being asked four times in the same conversation, really where are you from, my grandmother is from Cape Verde (though also born in America), which I do sometimes. They nod their heads and say ok, that makes sense (because me being from America doesn’t make sense…); But I am only a quarter Cape Verdean, don’t speak the language and minimally identify as such. I don’t want to diminish the rest of my history that is directly tied to the slave trade and American history, and yet I find myself sometimes having to do this. It’s equally frustrating when they say, “but no he or she [referring to a white colleague] is a real American.” My people have been in the US for longer than every one of my white Fulbright colleagues here, who are descendents from European immigrants that arrived in the late 1800s, early 1900s. From what my grandfather has researched, the Davis side can be traced back to at least the 1790s! Argh!

On the other hand, it certainly has its advantages. The people I work with love to show me off as “Obama’s cousin” (though, they know good and well Obama and I have little to no chance of being related considering his background). I have embraced my “Bété”-ness, even adopting a Bété name: Ouzua (which now some colleagues only refer to me as). I blend in when I walk down the street… maybe they see me as different from Ivorian women, but for all they know I could be from some other West African country… in other words, I don’t usually get harassed for money or to make “new” friends any more than an Ivoirian would, compared to my white colleagues.

But the “discrimination” (maybe too strong of a word) doesn’t just apply to West Africans ignoring me or being intrigued by me. In Ghana, I have a memory of sitting in the cafeteria alone eating lunch one day. Some UCLA study abroad students (some of whom I had actually met earlier) came in. They saw another white study abroad student, and immediately went to sit with him. I sat there, appalled. I wanted to stand up and shout “hey, I am American too!”

In short, living in and travelling around West Africa has made me think about my identity as a black, African-American, woman. I would like to learn more about other African-Americans’ experiences here, and maybe one day I will write a book. In the meantime, I try not to get too annoyed when asked where I come from. I try to feel out whether the taxi driver (because nine times out of ten, they are the most interested) is going to ask me for a) more money, b) a visa, or c) if I know Beyoncé; or if he is just going to have a nice chat with me about how cool my country is. That’s when I decide to claim my American-ness or pretend to be from someplace else. 

Electric Sliding, What is Literacy?, Sine Saloum, Marabout fun

A lot has gone on since I last wrote. Pictures are to the right and I also posted the link to Lizzie’s Spring Break pictures, because she took better ones than me.
The Saturday after spring break was International Student Day at Suffolk. All of the students at the University prepared food from their native countries, displayed traditional clothing and dances, and also participated in a talent show. Lizzie, Andrew and I made chocolate chunk cookies, which tasted kind of funny, but they were still good. Another professor brought cheeseburgers (Senegalese style though…which means they had a huge egg on top). Countries on display included Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, Benin, Ethiopia, and the Gambia. Our “American” dance was the electric slide, haha. In the middle of the talent show, a pretty famous singer came to perform his extremely popular song “Blocaz.” He invited a bunch of people on the stage to do the blocaz dance with him; it was a lot of fun. Much later in the evening we went with him to this very nice discotheque.
The following week my Education and Culture in Senegal class went to an adult literacy class on a field trip. The class consisted of maybe fifteen women over the age of forty and who almost all held jobs as a vendeuse (seller). They did not speak French and their first language was Pulaar (Fulani in English), but they could also speak Wolof. What I found most incredible was the fact that their literacy class was not in the National language (and therefore most written and utilized language in the country) of French. Instead the women were learning to write Fulani, a language that has only been written down for 60 years and in which nothing is written in this country. Our class was faced with this conundrum: what is the point of learning to write in your native language if it isn’t the language that signs, newspapers, etc. are written in? One classmate of mine said it was difficult to learn an alphabet, so it was better for them to learn the alphabet of their own language before moving on to French, which is foreign to them. Yes, this would make sense if there were adult literacy classes in French, but there are not. Most of those women will live their entire lives without ever learning French. Another classmate said, well at least they will be able to recognize letters and numbers on street signs. But does that really help? At the beginning of the literacy class, the women repeated the saying that those who are illiterate are lost and do not know themselves. Perhaps the literacy course is only to empower these women, whose children probably speak French that they learned in school. The women will be able to better handle their commerce through having the ability to keep documents of sales and balance the numbers, as well as help their children with their homework to some extent. I also think it is a pride thing; the Fulani are a large group in Senegal, but Wolof is the most wide spoken language. Through teaching literacy classes in their native tongue, they are protecting their culture and language.
Last weekend we went to the Sine Saloum delta. That is where the Saloum River meets the ocean. It was a most relaxing trip; we took a pirogue down the river, a horse cart tour of the local village, and got to chill on the beach. Saturday night we went to a traditional wrestling match. The pictures aren’t very good (there wasn’t much light), so you are going to have to use your imagination. Think Sumo wrestling, but with thin, muscular black men (in other words, the only thing the two have in common is the little thong/underwear thing they wear). There were many participants in this particular match, so the ones not wrestling walked around the circle and danced to the drumming and singing. It was quite a spectacle; especially when our lovely “toubabs” joined in the extravaganza. Three boys and two girls from the USA wrestled Senegalese people in the middle of the match. All of the boys won and one of the girls defeated her opponent quickly.
Finally, on Wednesday of this week we went to visit a Marabout in Madina. Marabouts are religious leaders in the community and the one we visited, Thierno Madu Tall, was one of the top Marabouts who oversees many Marabouts below him. We were entertained in his enormous sitting room, the same sitting room, he proudly told us, where he had just meet with the Israeli ambassador. We discussed almost everything under the sun: how many wives he had (two, but always was considering a third), his role in the community (he blesses all weddings and funerals and people come to him for financial advice or even to ask him if the mate they have chosen is right for them), his opinion on beating children (he believes that adult criminals were not beaten in their childhood, so the students under his care are beaten), and of course, his thoughts on talibes begging for their Marabouts (he said it was practical because the parents abandon the children in the Marabout’s care and the Marabout cannot take care of all of those children by himself, so they beg to re-pay their teachers; however, Thierno said he does not have talibes begging for him). It was a rare experience because he was not surrounded by his “posse” and was able to answer all questions honestly, even though he did have a very round-about way of avoiding the questions at times.
My birthday is next week, and happens to coincide with Senegal’s Independence Day celebrations. This Saturday we are going to a water management plant for environment class. The following week we will be going on our rural visits to stay with either NGOs or Peace Corps Volunteers out in the bush. In other words, my time is flying by really quickly! There are only three weeks or so left of class, five weeks until I go to Cape Verde, and two months until I come back to the U.S.

Senegal versus Ghana: A generalized comparison

Disclaimer: I am going to make a lot of generalizations in this particular blog, but I want to paint a picture of what I can see are the visual, cultural, climatic, etc. differences between Accra and Dakar. Hopefully, no one takes offense to anything I may comment on.

Climate: At the current moment, it is very chilly in Senegal (I’d say 70s, which is cold if you ask me). I have had to wear long pants and long sleeves to bed every night. I think that this is because of the dry season, but it is a lot colder here than it ever was in Ghana. It feels more beachy here than it did in Ghana. We are like right on the ocean, too. Because of this, there is sand all over the sidewalk and it feels much dryer (i.e. I have to put lotion on my ashy legs everyday) than the humid Accra.

Education systems: We visited the Université de Cheik Anta Diop (the largest one in Senegal) last week. Apparently, the school is hardly in session due to strikes by students or professors. Sometimes there will be whole years (termed “année Blanc”) where the students never go to class because of the strikes. Also, the students have to pay tuition to the university, but often they get scholarships based on their performance on the extremely difficult baccalaureate tests in high school. The test is hard because there is only so much scholarship money and/or room at the university for the students. This is quite different from the university system I encountered in Ghana. There are three large university campuses (and a host of smaller, training institutions) – University of Cape Coast, University of Ghana, and Kumasi University of science and technology. There is no tuition; instead students pay fees and have to essentially pay back the government through the national service required to be completed after the student graduates.

Dakar vs. Accra: Dakar is much cleaner than Accra. I can see why it has been called “the Paris of West Africa.” It seems like Dakar was a planned city; laid out a certain way to avoid urban sprawl and with all the government offices located together. It also has green spaces, gorgeous statues, lovely town squares (like La Place du indépendance). This is much different from Accra – open sewers, trash everywhere, no rhyme or reason to lay out, sidewalks covered in people selling their products, etc.

Political system: Comparatively, Senegal has been more stable politically than Ghana. There have only been three presidents, no coups, and for the most part, those three were democratically elected. The presidential elections are coming up in February, but they should be pretty secure and stable, excluding protests and rallies. Still, Senegal is a poor nation that sees thousands upon thousands of its young male workers illegally immigrating to Italy, Spain, France. It also still is dealing with the political strife in the Casamance region.

Transportation: There are more options in Dakar when it comes to transportation. Your choices are: a DDD (the equivalent to the metro buses in Accra; government run, large buses with a fixed rate. Sometimes you will get a seat but most of the time you are standing in the aisle), a Ndiaga Ndiaye (pronounced Jaga Jie) which is most similar to a tro-tro (a large white van with seats rigged in the aisles, a driver and a mate.). One difference is that there are no side doors on the Ndiaga Ndiaye, only front or back doors. The mates often hang out the back. The other mode of transportation is the car rapide. These are highly decorated vans (painted yellow, red, and green, with Wolof and Arabic phrases all over them, and with ribbons of various colors hanging from the back, sides and mirrors). In many ways similar to the ndiaga ndiaye, these car rapides don’t have glass in the windows, they have benches instead of seats, and every time I have seen one, there is at least two people hanging out the back door. In a tro-tro, one would never stand up. In a ndiaga ndiaye and a car rapide, standing is the norm. Also, in a tro-tro, one is guaranteed their own seat. In a ndiaga ndiaye or car rapide, someone else’s butt may be in your lap. There is also the taxi, but these are the same as taxis in Accra.

Every day life: Hawking is less prevalent in Dakar than Accra, but it is still there. Tigo, a phone company in Accra, is also used in Dakar.
In Senegal there is something very intriguing called a “joking cousin” (suma kal). These are people who essentially make fun of others, all the time. For example, if your last name is Ndiaye (which is my last name here) than your joking cousin is the Diop. When you meet a Diop it is expected that you make fun of them in some way. It isn’t serious; it’s just sarcasm and petty jokes (comme ca: "Diops eat too much, they are lazy, etc.) However, if you don’t make jokes, that is considered offensive. There are also joking cousins among ethnic groups i.e. the Peulhs versus the Wolofs. The government used this popular cultural practice when they were attempting the peace process in the Casamance, using the joking cousin of the Jola people to encourage resolution.
Many people speak English, which was a bit surprising, but if you think about it, not really. Many students learn some English in school in hopes of migrating to the U.S., teens listen to American songs and to cater to tourists, vendors know the basics (“please, miss, come look at my items. How are you? I am fine.”) The U.S. embassy is much more heavily guarded here than in Accra; tons of barriers and a ton of gendarmes (police) patrolling the area.
Stuff is a heck of a lot more expensive here than it was in Accra. (500 cfa = about 1 dollar). Juice, for example, costs more than a dollar for a tiny bottle. Fruit is a lot more expensive as well (orange in ghana = less than a nickle, in Senegal = 20 cents), but we get a stipend so it’s okay.

Interesting info: Wrestling (la lutte) is more popular here than soccer. The sport is very traditional, with sumo wrestling-esque diapers and a huge circle. Two lutteurs battle it out as such: first they slap each other, girl fight/cat fight style. then someone throws a punch, and it's on. There is a lot of grabbing,kicking, punching,and then finally the winner is able to throw the loser down on the ground. I watched a battle yesterday with my host family and they were really into it, yelling, taunting the opponents, excited.

tomorrow....

Well, my semester in Ghana is drawing to a close. Tomorrow I will leave the hostel forever at 4:30pm, head to the airport and leave Ghana at 11:30pm. Sad times...

The last few days I have just been rushing to finish things up before I leave. We have also been going out a lot on people's last nights in town. Indian food twice in one week, Italian restaurant, the Baze bar, Tyme Out on campus for Chinese. Saturday I had lunch at Prof's house with the other CDD interns. Sunday I went to Tema with my roommate to visit her family. It's interesting how cyclical life is...when we first arrived in Ghana, the dorms were empty, the campus a ghost town because we arrived two weeks before registration. Now, since we are leaving four days after the semester has ended, we are once again the only people on campus. Night market has even ceased to function except for a few stalls. The silence in the hostel and campus is deafening. I am not packed yet, I have not finished souvenir shopping, and I still have a long list of things to do before I leave. Hey I still have all of today and a lot of tomorrow. ;)
I will be spending almost 18 hours on a plane, which I am not looking forward to. In addition to that I will be spending two hours in London and four in JFK. I will be home more than 24 hours after I leave, but hey I will have a good book and a host of movies to select from on the British Airways flight.

Things I won't miss about Ghana:
1. Open sewers
2. the honks of taxi drivers
3. sweating all the time
4. no water
5. no power
6. men harassing you (I love you, I want to marry you, etc.)
7. pepe
8. men urinating wherever they please
9. being woken up in the middle of the night by my over-studious roommate
10. hand washing clothes

Things I will mos def miss...to be continued I am sure
1. Tro-tros
2. Lights out as an excuse to hit the town
3. Puuuure Water
4. Plantains
5. "oh! eh!"
6. a nice cold shower after sweating all day
7. music blaring everywhere, especially Celine
8. walking to where you need to go, and people staring
9. Night market
10. Burgers or Snappy's groundnuts
11. Kelewele
12. hawkers
13. "i'm coming."
14. the friendly people
15. cedis
16. traveling on weekends

I am running out of internet time, but I will probably think of more to add to the lists...

Why I love Ghana part 2: Kumasi

Last Wednesday was my last day at CDD…I can’t believe I will be leaving in one week! I still have so much to do!

Friday, We left ISH around 9 to the STC bus station to catch a bus to Kumasi. The next bus, however, wasn’t leaving until 4, so we had 6 hours or so to kill. So, Karen and I found a used book store, bought some classic literature for two bucks, then sat in the Paloma Hotel’s air conditioned lobby until 4. We left Accra at around 6, got to Kumasi around midnight. Stayed in the Guestline lodge right around the corner from the STC bus station, slept in a dorm room with an Australian girl and a Scottish girl for 55,000cedis per bed (which is kind of pricey, since the fan didn’t work).

Saturday, we left the hotel around 8, and following the map in the Bradt guide, began to walk to the cheaper hotel in the center of town. Travelers to Ghana will soon know that the Bradt guide is horrible, especially the maps, so of course, we got lost wandering around Kumasi, but it was okay because we got to see a lot of the second largest city in Ghana. Our hotel, Nurom Annex, was nice for 70,000cedis per room, very centrally located and had a nice clean toilet. We called the Anglo-Ashanti Gold Mines in Obuasi to see if they were open. They didn’t answer the phone, not at all a surprise, so we decided to head there to see if they were open to give “free” tours, according to the Bradt guide. We take a metro bus for about an hour south of Kumasi to the mining town. We get to the reception a little after 12 to just find out that the visitor’s center had just closed, but come back Monday for a tour! So we head back to Kumasi, check out the cultural center and Prempeh II’s museum there. We then attempt to check out the Ashanti sword, which is stuck in the ground at the place where the golden stool fell from the sky and if it is removed from the ground, the Asante empire will fall. The sword is on the grounds of this hospital. When we enquired about the sword, they said it was closed. Feeling pretty unproductive, we consult the Bradt guide map again to make our way to the Asantehene palace, Manhiya. In order to reach the palace, you have to either cut through or circumvent Ketjita market, the largest open air market in West Africa. And let me tell ya, I have never been somewhere so overwhelming before in my life! It was around 5, so it was extremely crowded with millions of people pushing you, pulling carts full of stuff, dragging sheep through the crowd, driving and honking in their vehicles, there was little to no sidewalk to walk as people were selling goods on the walkways and shouting prices at you (10,000 10,000 for shoes). I can’t even count the number of times I was wedged between people and a stack of crates, between a moving vehicle and the open sewer full of …. I didn’t feel like I could escape the hordes of people in the market. Whoa, it was insane! Not to mention, we were walking in the wrong direction to reach the palace, so we had to turn around and were fortunate enough to circumvent the petrifying market, but we never found the palace. We ate dinner at an Indian owned restaurant, Vic Baboo’s, which was really delicious and not too pricey.

Sunday, we got up and headed to Ejisu, Yaa Asantewaa’s hometown, to visit her museum and the shrine she prayed at before going to war with the British. We walked about 2km down the road to the shrine, which was small but interesting with a funny little man as the caretaker. We then went back to Ejisu and began to trek the 2km to the Yaa Asantewaa museum. According to the Bradt guide, it was a small orange building to the right of some cocoa boards. We saw a building that was orange but didn’t have a roof, and I didn’t see any of the so called cocoa boards, so we kept walking. A man in a car pulled up and asked what we were doing. We told him we were looking for the museum, and he said we passed it, get in he will take us there (now, I know we aren’t supposed to get into cars with strangers…but, he seemed okay). When we arrived at the building we had passed, he told us the building had been destroyed by a fire a few years back. He asked us where we were going next, we told him Lake Bosomtwi, and he said coincidently he was headed that way, he would take us. The lake is in a crater created by a meteorite. It’s pretty sacred, you aren’t allowed to use canoes on the lake, you can only use a piece of a log and paddle with your hands to fish. The man, Maxwell, hired us a tourguide who showed us around and told us the legend of the lake. We then ate lunch at one of the lake resorts. Maxwell said he would like to show us around and took us to a Kente weaving village, Bonwire. It was overwhelming as well, since it is the most touristy Kente weaving village in the Ashanti region. We pretty much got assaulted by boys trying to make bookmarks with our names on it or sell us a piece of Kente. Maxwell then brought us back to our hotel, problem-free.

Monday, we get up early to head back to Obuasi, but the bus took forever to arrive at the station, so we waited an hour, then it took an hour to get there. Upon arriving at the visitor’s center, we were told that we needed a car to take the tour (not a taxi, a car). Since we didn’t have one, we were kind of disappointed. We told the security guard our troubles, and he said that when he closed at 12, his brother would bring a car and he could drive us as long as we paid the petrol. We were very excited about this prospect, so we waited for Budu to close. He told us that we would need to get a guide from the visitor’s center, then we could leave. We went back to the visitor’s center, and the woman told us it would cost $15 USD per person, to have a tour guide. We were like what the….? Bradt guide said it was free, and we most certainly didn’t have 15 dollars to blow on a tour. Extremely disappointed at the waste of time and effort, we headed back to Kumasi. We didn’t have enough time to do anything before we had to be at the STC station at 4, so we headed there to wait an additional 2 hours for our bus (STC is never on time). When the bus arrived, it was an ordinary bus instead of the luxury bus it was supposed to be, which is fine by me for a couple reasons, A) no A/C at full blast, B) its cheaper. But apparently the Ghanaians were not happy about this. They really wanted A/C, so our bus only had five people on it. We each stretched out in our own row for the 6 hour drive. It was extremely bumpy (the Kumasi-Accra road is horrible and under-construction for the majority of the ride) and I was almost thrown from the seat a few times. We got to Accra at midnight, to darkness in the hostel, so we just went to bed. I love Ghana because, even though our plans failed, there was always a nice Ghanaian there to help us out.

Updates on campus life: for the past two weeks or so, we have felt the effects of water rationing the rest of Accra has been suffering through for months. The girl’s bathrooms rarely have water, so you either go to the boy’s (which apparently isn’t very acceptable by the African females) or all trek downstairs where the whole floor is girls, so there is a girls’ bathroom. We also were spoiled because we always had lights due to exams, but recently they have been taking the power a few nights, because of the rationing. I also learned that it is a kind of taboo for girls to eat at night market, as it shows that they can’t cook for themselves. They are supposed to be discreet about it, if they order food there, and get it take away. I always wondered why only Obruni females were sitting out there eating…

Autumn in Ghana: Tales from the North

Saturday the 18th of November: We arrive at the STC bus station a little before 8 for the bus to Tamale that is supposed to depart at 9. Of course, we don’t leave until 1pm. It was the “ordinary” bus, which means no A/C, no loud Nigerian movies (more on this later), and the dreaded middle seats. These are seats rigged in the aisle that have backs that are permanently reclining and are mighty uncomfortable for a 12 hour bus ride. And lucky us, two of our four seats were middle seats. We tried to rotate, but someone always got screwed with the middle seats. I was really uncomfortable because I was having some sort of allergy/sinus attack and was sneezing/blowing my nose the entire trip. We stopped four times: once about 2 hours outside of Kumasi at a very nice rest stop with a restaurant and nice clean toilets, once in Kumasi with okay toilets, once in Sunyani (I didn’t get off the bus, but it looked nice), and one last stop in Techiman. The toilets in Tamale were the worst I have yet to see in Ghana, and that’s saying a lot, I think.
First and foremost, it was Freezing on the bus once the sun went down. I tried my best to bundle up, but its hard to do when all you have is t-shirts and a skirt. We arrived in Tamale at 2am. It was too late to get a hotel room, since the bus to Mole left at 4, but too early for the bus. So, we found some nice benches and slept until the bus arrived.
Sunday the 19th of November: It was a bumpy ride to Mole, but we were so exhausted we didn’t care. It was a long dirt road that ran through the savannah. Actually, I felt like I was in East Africa or some other country other than Ghana, haha. It just felt so different! We stopped in Larabanga, which is where the oldest Mosque in Ghana is located. Twin brothers run this hotel in town and they gave us a tour of the village and mosque and took us to a place where we could eat some rice and eggs. We also met the chief of the village which was cool. From here we took a taxi (which was a big hassle; the brothers wanted us to take bicycles or motobikes with them, but there was discrepancies about prices and whether or not we were getting ripped off or not) to the actual park. We sat out on the look out which is right above the two main watering holes in the park and saw elephants bathing and a ton of deer like animals as well. It was really relaxing. The hotel was nice, 70,000 per person per night, which is the most I have paid for a hotel here, but it was nice with our own bathroom and a fan and a pool. Unfortunately, I learned that the age old rhyme “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” was something you should actually wish for. Our beds for filled with bed bugs so we were all covered with tiny red bumps that itched like no other for a few days after the stay. At least the beds were comfortable, right? What was weird was the temperature change. It was extremely hot during the day, yes, but at night it got really cold. There were a ton of warthogs that wondered around over the park and many times they would appear out of nowhere in front of our room in the dark and scare the crap out of me.
Monday the 20th of November: We got up at 6:00am for the guided tour of the park. We hiked down the hill to the water hole, didn’t see any elephants, hiked some more, saw some monkeys and antelope type animals, no elephants, saw a ton of army ants making a highway of sorts, but still no elephants. We hiked for two hours and the guide was disappointed about elephants. As we started to climb back up, we saw two elephants in the bush. We rushed down to take pictures of them, so we were really close, which was cool (of course, my batteries picked this time to die, and I stupidly didn’t bring any extras). We went back to the room and slept, during the hot middle of the day hours, then chilled that evening.
Tuesday the 21st of November: Woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4am bus out of Mole back to Tamale. Tamale was a very dusty town, but it wasn’t too bad. I did notice a lot of beggars, but that is probably just a trait of big cities anyway. From Tamale we took a metro bus to Bolgatanga (four hours) which is in the Upper East Region. Bolga, as it is fondly called, was different from Tamale. It was drier, number one, and I could feel my skin dry up and my throat and nose become parched. That is a big change from the extreme humidity that plagues us here in Accra. Second, it wasn’t as hot and it actually felt a little bit like fall. Leaves were even falling from the trees, so it felt only appropriate we were celebrating Thanksgiving up north.
From Bolga we took a metro bus to Zebilla (one hour, stood up the entire time). When we got to Zebilla it was market day, so we went in search of fresh bread, vegetables, and other necessities for the next three days (market is every three days up there). Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any eggs (apparently in the dry season guinea fowl and chickens don’t lay eggs…what kind of crap is that??) They speak Kusal in Zebilla, so we picked up a couple of words, such as hello (tima tima). Maura, who is the reason we went to Zebilla, is doing research on well water and ground water and soil (she is doing geology research on a Fulbright). We stayed in the former MPs house with his neice, Emilia who is a seamstress, and another graduate who is working on a clinic in Zebilla, Katie. The former MP wasn’t there, of course. It was a really nice house with running water, electricity, an oven, and a t.v.
One way I could tell we were not in a large city was the reaction villagers had towards me. First, they asked me where I was from. When I said the US they asked why I wasn’t white, or how I was black. In fact, they were really confused most of the time (“So…she is African?” “No, American, African American.” “But she’s black?” or “If you are American, why are you black?”). Then they asked me why I was fat. I am not sure how to answer that one. I have started taking it as a compliment…haha.
Of course, because I am a dork, I talked politics with the people in the house. Haruna, who helps Maura out by giving her rides to her wells on the motorbike, believes that NDC will win the presidential election in 2008 and change the constitution so that Rawlings will be president for life. He contends that President Kufour has done nothing for the North; only helping out the rich south. ( I am not going to bore you with my extreme interest in Ghanaian politics, but I just want to note here that the North and the Volta region vote as a block for NDC, Rawlings’ party. It is really interesting, because the parties have no platform difference; they are just divided along ethnic lines. AND if you didn’t know, Rawlings was a military dictator for 18 years who killed a lot of people, but was charismatic, held democratic elections in 1992 and stepped down after serving two terms which is admirable, I guess, and he also did a number of good things for the country…its one of those, which is worse type questions.) Also, to keep along the politics line, I went to Parliament the week that we left to go up north, which was really cool, especially because we got to see the budget for 2007 (as in the budget for the entire country) as proposed by the party in power. NPP, the majority, were all shouting and excited whereas the minority, NDC, was sitting quietly on the other side of the room. The minority leader called the budget a “monotonous soliloquy.”
Back to Zebilla.
Wednesday the 22nd of November: We got up and headed to Tongo, one of the villages where Maura is monitoring wells. It is interesting…there is a reservoir, where a dam stopped a small stream to make a small pond that people use for washing. The reservoir affects the ground water which is used to provide water in wells. During the wet season, the wells are full, but soon the wells will dry up. Maura is trying to look at whether the wells near reservoirs have water longer and also looking at the type of soil that is around the wells. Water access is really politicized; chiefs will request a borehole (a covered well with a pump, which is more hygienic and safer than an open well) in their village, but will want it built right by their house. A mechanic in town has been monopolizing the equipment to fix wells and has charged ridiculous prices to fix it with old equipment. He actually accused Maura of tampering the boreholes and she had to go in front of the district assembly to tell them she is not there to do harm.
The best part of Tongo was the four hour donkey cart ride. All of us, four, couldn’t fit on motorbikes, so we hired a donkey cart, which traveled at the same pace as us walking, but was fun nonetheless. The funniest part was the stares we got from the villagers (imagine, a bunch of obrunis on the back of a donkey cart which is supposed to not have human cargo…).
Thursday the 23rd of November: we bought two guinea fowl…which one of the guys in the house had to kill and pluck (yuck). We roasted them in the oven, mashed potatoes (they were purple and really sweet), roasted some vegetables, and had fanta for Thanksgiving dinner. We had no bake cheesecake for dinner. It was cool. The people in the house called it the “food holiday.”
Friday the 24th of November: Karen and I headed back to Bolga around 12:00pm. We boarded the OA bus, which was much nicer than STC, right on time at 2:00 and left around 3pm. When we got to Tamale, we switched buses, and this is when the Nigerian movies started. The first movie was about a woman who was in a love affair with what appeared to be an 8 year old boy. The Ghanaians loved it; it was a comedy that kind of made fun of African American “thugs”, but really made the little boy the hero. After this came one about a girl who treats her mother and sister as a slave (I fell asleep during this one). Around 2am we started watching Terminator. The bus was, no joke, 30 degrees. The A/C was on full blast. My teeth were chattering. We were wrapped up in sheets, it was so cold. We got to Accra at 6, took a tro-tro to campus, I went to sleep for a few hours, and then started studying for my finals.
Finals: As of now I have completed two out of three “papers.” The first one, conflicts in Africa, wasn’t bad at all, just a lot if writing and a lot of information. I was a little worried about the second one, African Literature, but it wasn’t too bad. Two and a half hours to answer 2 or 3 questions that are extremely broad and I hate to write so it was not fun. I am glad they are over with, though.
Sorry about the length of this blog, I tried to keep it short. I have three weeks left in Ghana…and a ton of stuff to do!

What's in the News?

I thought I would inform you about some things that have been going on in Ghana since my arrival in August.
P.S. New pictures are up on the Ghana webshots link to the right.


Graduate Teacher’s Strike
In September, the graduate teacher’s of Ghana went on strike. Graduate teacher applies to those who graduated from university, not a teaching college. These teachers teach Senior Secondary School (High School). The strike is an appeal for higher wages (they make less than $200 a month). Last year the nurses and doctors went on strike, but the strike didn’t last long because people are dying. The government quickly complied with the doctors (bought them some cars, too) but the compliance is much slower with the teachers. Its really only hurting the students, who are in public school and missing classes but will still have to take the entry exams for university at the end of the year whether they had class or not. Classes are still held at public schools and some teachers are having private night classes for a hefty sum. Those who can’t afford either of these options are not going to school at all. It’s a sad story.

The Cocaine Scandal
This particular story has dominated the front page every day since August. It all begins with a ship that came into port with 17 kilos of cocaine. When they inspected the ship, all the cocaine was gone. People who have been accused/suspected range from the police and security guards at the port, sailors and even the Asantehene’s name has come up.
Rawlings’ Attempted Coup
President Kufour accused former president/military dictator JJ Rawlings of attempting to stage a coup against the current government. He said that Rawlings was in cohorts with an un-named oil rich country to get funding to stage the coup. Rawlings called Kufour an idiot for thinking that he would do something like that. They don’t like each other. Hopefully Rawlings doesn't stage a coup...although he is really liked in certain regions of the country, despite is human rights violations when he was in power and his lack of democratic rule until 1992.

China’s New Imperialism
If you have been following international news, you would note that last week China had a series of meetings with African leaders about absolving debts, investments, and development endeavors. Ghana was one of these countries, where China has promised to participate in a number of development projects and invest in technology development. Hopefully, this isn’t a one-sided exchange, where Ghana gets nothing and China gets everything.

Tofu, a minority again?, No turtles, the harmattan, the police

Thursday night, we went out to a vegan restaurant near circle. It was delicious; primarily because of the lack of oil and fried food. I had tofu kebabs on a pita (essentially pieces of tofu with seasoning on brown bread) and half of a garden salad, with real vegetables and three different kinds of peppers. It was like heaven. And I am not even vegan. Haha. A creepy man painted from head to toe to look like a white person wearing a t-shirt which said “telecom phones Osu and Adenta,” came up to us and stood at our table and stared. It was awkward and slightly frightening. Afterwards we went to Champ’s, this American owned sports bar, for quiz night. It was an interesting experience…I walked in…I was the only black person other than the employees. I felt like I was back in the states. The menu at champs even had Mexican food and buffalo wings. It was a strange sensation. The place is a popular hang out for the marines that protect the embassy, the people who work at the embassies, and volunteers and NGO employees. I could see how if you went there every night you could easily forget you were in Ghana. We also went Friday night, for a friend’s birthday celebration. It was karaoke night and Laura and I sang “Wannabe” by Spice Girls haha. It was really fun; there were some talented people and some good sing-alongs. Saturday morning (after two hours of sleep) we headed to Ada, where the Volta meets the Ocean. We took a tro-tro to Ada Foah, then we took an hour long boat ride down the river to the estuary. We got to the hotel, or camp or whatever you want to call it, at around 12. We sat around for a bit, lazed on the hammock, walked the beach. That night we ordered dinner and enjoyed a “cultural night” which was clearly just for the obrunis entertainment. Then we attempted to find some sea turtles, but it was too cloudy for the moonlight so there weren’t any. There were some NYU kids there who told us a little about their program: they live in a compound with a/c, hot water, cooks etc. and take only a few classes at the university. Sometimes I worry about the kids in the programs and whether or not they are having the best experiences while they are here (not to mention, in Senegal I am in a program and I hope that it isn't so sheltered as most of the programs here are...)
The next morning we got up had pancakes that were fluffy ( I swear they were made with bisquick) and Laura and I headed to Togo. We got to Togo at 2ish, found a restaurant that served couscous and spaghetti, which was delicious. Then we rode motos (they are so sweet!) to the crossainterie where we had pain au chocolat. Then we took motos back to the border, crossed and got our stamp and jumped on a tro tro by 5. unfortunately, traveling by tro-tro at night is not the best idea. There are a ton of police check points on the way. We stopped at at least five, two of which we had to disembark the tro-tro. Its annoying…the police are essentially just looking for some way to tax the drivers and get some money. But at the same time I feel bad for the police…I learned that they make less than $100 a month, get a 200 cedi (about 2 cents) budget for uniform, and they work ridiculous hours. Its corruption, unjustifiable, but it’s a shame that they have to resort to it in the first place.

It is getting hot hot hot. And the days are no longer beautiful, as the Harmattan has settled in to stay until January. The Harmattan is a wind that brings sand from the Sahara every November. It makes the days extremely hazy and sometimes even blots out the sun and the moon. The sky is now a nice tan color, instead of blue, and I have heard rumors that it gets so bad that you can’t breathe.

three months, monkey paws, Where do all the tro-tros go?, Eba and Bitterleaf stew

Thursday night we went to aphrodisiac for ladies night. It was a really crowded club with tons of scantily clad females and sketchy men. It was a good time, i guess, because it was free but the music wasn't that great.
Today it has been three months since I left home; I have 6.5 weeks til I return home. Its kinda scary...I mean I am excited about coming home, but I don't want to leave because I really like it here.
Saturday we went to a fetish market in Jamestown. We drove past gorgeous buildings like the supreme court building, the barclays bank and even a woolworths with a parking deck ( I felt, for a fleeting moment, like I was back in a US city) and then we hit Jamestown. It is more or less a slum town of Accra and it was run down and decrepit and slightly depressing, especially after seeing those buildings. We found the fetish market, located in the lumber yard, where they sold anything from monkey paws to dog heads to thunder rocks (rocks that come from the sky when it thunders?) to fertility dolls to dried chameleons. It was interesting to say the least. from here we headed to the Arts Center, which was a big mistake. At the Arts center all they do is harass you..." my sistah, please come look at what I have. What are you looking for? I have paintings, mud cloth, ghana shirts. Please just for a second, no pressure. How much would you want this painting for? How much do you have? Its very nice!" etc. every stall you walked past, and there were a lot of stalls. Not to mention the stuff there was overly expensive. I bought some fabric and some bracelets and then my money was spent, so we headed back to campus.
That night we got dressed up to go out and eat Nigerian food at a restaurant (Uchi's place) in east legon. I mean...it was a cultural experience...the food was...TOO SPICY. I ordered Eba, which is a big lump of doughy something but it tasted a lot better than fufu. With the eba I got bitterleaf stew, but it wasn't a stew, it was full of dried fish (which I must admit I can't stand) and probably three pounds of pepe (no joke). The good thing about the stew was the goat meat.
by justinesghana

It was pricey for something I didn't want to eat (50,000 cedis) but CJ, the birthday boy, was really happy we all came to eat his native food. We watched some Nigerian music videos, drank some home-made gin (5,000 cedis for a shot), and had a good time until midnight when some went out dancing and the rest returned home to sleep.
Yesterday, Karen and I decided to jump on a random tro-tro and see where we ended up. Stupidly, we got on a tro-tro to Adenta which wasn't far from campus at all. But we walked around the town, which was a pretty nice development area, and drank some fanta at a relaxation spot in a garden owned by a former botany professor at Legon. It wasn't anything too exciting, but it was a change from campus.
Last night we went to see a play about Yaa Asantewaa and the golden stool. the story is as such: the golden stool is very important to the Ashanti people. It unifies them and if someone else were to possess the stool, they would go into turmoil. Well, when the brits came in, they wanted the golden stool and wanted to rule Ashanti because of the gold that was under the earth. So, the british arrested the Asantehene (chief) Prempeh and took him to Cape Coast. They were also given a fake golden stool to take home to the King (the real one was dug up accidently when they were building around Kumasi and it now is in the palace there). Yaa Asantewaa, the queen mother, rallied the people to fight the British in a long resistance. The play was amazing...there was more than 100 people in the cast and at least 50 people on the stage at all times, so it was far from boring. Half of the play was in Twi, but you could understand what was going on without knowing the language. The play was narrated by a story teller, had real obrunis playing the british, and had really great dancing, singing and drumming. I was really glad I went.

“An African in Africa,” kissed, luxurious life, and a very happy Halloween

On Friday night I went to this African-American owned restaurant/bar called Jazz Tones with two South African gentleman. One of the South Africans had been living in Ghana for three years, but said that he was initially shocked. He said that he would title his autobiography, an African in Africa. He said he was frustrated with the laxidasical lifestyle of Ghana, the lack of attention to times for meetings, and most interestingly, the way that Ghanaians interacted with people of a different class. For example, he said that the “upper class” Ghanaians would never interact with the lowly street worker. He said that in South Africa, things were totally different, everyone interacted with everyone despite their race, creed, income. Things down there were also a lot more fast paced and timely. He also said it was extremely difficult to date Ghanaian females because they were shy, or never invited you anywhere.
Saturday we took a day trip to Boti Falls, in the Eastern Region. We rode to Koforidua (affectionately, K’Duah) which is the capital of Eastern Region in a tro-tro which took about 3 hours. Then we waited for the metro bus to take us to Agogo, the town right outside the falls. When we arrived at the falls, we paid an entrance fee of 15,000 cedis, then we began our three hour hike. It was a nice hike through the woods to a rock called the umbrella rock. Basically it is two enormous rocks on top of each other. We climbed to the top on a rickety, slighty sketchy bamboo ladder (it wasn’t attached to the rock and it was held together by string). It was nice and relaxing on top. However, our relaxation and attempt to enjoy the climate, clean air and quiet was interrupted by a group of Muslim Drama students (therefore, its not just annoying Christians here…). When we reached the cave, the Muslim boys wanted to take our picture. It was like we were park mascots or something…they all crowded around us in a huge group. Every minute someone new would show up with a camera and get his friends to hug us or put their arms around us to take a picture. One boy even had the audacity to kiss me on the cheek and practically climb on top of me in one of the pictures (actually the picture probably ended up being me pushing the guy away from me with an extreme look of disgust). We avoided them at all costs for the rest of the trip, bypassing the areas they were visiting with our tour guide leading the way. We also saw a cool looking three headed palm tree. Then we headed to the falls, which was down a walkway with 250 steps (we tried to count but it was too much effort). The falls were really nice…there were two, a man and a woman. Legend has it that an Ashanti man came to the river and saw a woman who could braid his hair. While doing so, they fell into the river (Boti means braid in Twi, I think). The male fall was of course larger and more abundant than the woman falls. I watched as my friends frolicked in the water for a bit, then we decided to start heading back to Accra around 4.
We asked someone if the bus would be coming soon, and they said yes, so to be proactive we started walking down the empty road towards K’Duah. We walked, and walked and walked, but still no tro-tro or bus. Then, it starts thundering and the Ghanaians on the road started running down the street, right before it started to pour. We hide under a tree in front of this house, and the people in the house told us to come sit with them under the porch. They were really nice and “invited” us to their yams. They didn’t speak much English, which is a first encounter for me. So we sat and waited for the rain to let up and still no bus/tro-tro. At 5:30 we headed back down the road, and at this point it started getting dark so we found a cab who took us to the tro-tro station where we hopped on a tro-tro to Achimoto, where we had to get a cab because it was too late for tro-tros going to campus. It was a nice trip, but we did almost get stranded, haha.
Sunday was a day of luxury. It was really hot, so we headed to Shangri-La ( a hotel) to lounge by the pool. It cost 45,000 cedis to get into the pool and we stayed there from 12 until 6. We ordered a delicious pizza with mushrooms and ham (85,000 for a medium) and then decided to go to Maxmart for coffee (cappuchino 15,000) and croissants (8,000 chocolate filled). So, despite its expense, it was a good relaxing day.
Monday night we bought a watermelon (40,000 cedis, it was HUGE) and carved it. We had to eat all the watermelon inside, so not to waste, of course, so I don’t think I will want to eat watermelon ever again. Tuesday night we dressed up (I was a gangsta, Maura was a pirate, Laura was a fairy, Karen was a witch/dead/scary person, Siri was little red riding hood, Kayla was a gipsy, Ryan was Indiana Jones/murderer with two machetes, Charles was Arthur, Arthur was Arthur, Weston was a red neck, Joel was a roman/people thought he was jesus ( I am not sure why), Melinda was a bat, Ryan was a Viking woman?) and headed down to night market to liven up the spirits there. We marched around, a bunch of white people, me and a couple of Asians dressed strangely, shouting happy Halloween and passing out candy to the ladies that worked at night market. Mavis, a teenage girl who supplies us with our sweets addiction, thought I was being a “nigga” and marched around with us yelling happy Halloween. We probably freaked out a lot of people, but that was our intention I think. Then we had a bonfire in a field behind ISH and told ghost stories, or something, before heading back. There were two carved watermelon and one cocoa fruit jack-o-lanterns, which looked very nice. Karen and Siri experienced their first Halloween here in Ghana and we Americans upheld our centuries old tradition of trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. :)
Saturday night is C.J.’s (one of our Nigerian friends) birthday, so we might be doing something fun for that. Tonight we are going to Jazz Tones for cheesecake (hopefully) and then to Aphrodiasiac (a club) for ladies night. I have two more weeks left of class, then I am heading to the North for the week of Thanksgiving, then I have exams, then I head to the Western Region, Ashanti Region and maybe Brong-Ahafo region for what has been deemed the “Whirlwind Tour.” Then it will be time to leave. Essentially, I have three weekends left in Accra, and next Saturday I am going back to Togo. Time is going by TOO quickly!

shower sell-out, conferences, botanical gardens, etc.

It has been a while since I wrote, so its time for an update. p.s. for togo pictures, please click the ghanawebshots link on the right side. I haven't put up the Cape Coast ones yet.

Nothing much has happened, I haven't been traveling or anything too exciting. October 16-17th I went back to Cape Coast for a conference on decentralization and district assemblies' ability to generate revenue for CDD. I was the designated reporter. Since Cape Coast is a bit of a distance from Accra, we stayed overnight at the Elmina Beach Resort (this is where the conference was hosted as well). I felt like a sell-out...We were in an air-con car with a driver, stayed in a nice hotel with air-con, satelite tv, and...hot showers. I guess i felt like such a sell-out because I felt like the uppidy people i am totally against here. and the hot shower...it was just okay (i.e. it was a nice addition, but not necessary). Anywho, I am really grateful I had the experience of attending the conference. There was a presentation on the Cape Coast Municipal assembly and how they are attempting to generate revenue (tax collection is hard, especially with so many people in the informal economy not contributing to the tax base, so the assemblies have a hard time implementing successful development projects, such as trash collection.).One suggestion was the construction of student hostels, since the University of Cape Coast doesn't have enough housing for their students (the same applies to the University of Ghana, Legon...where I have heard rumors of one room with 13 people in it...a room meant for four). At the conference was the Central Region minister(he had a personal bodyguard too), some professors from UCC, members of the district assemblies, the Director of the Non-tax Revenue Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning from the central government, and a host of other prominent people as well as students and those involved in NGOs such as CDD and one of its chief funders, FNF. It was a really interesting conference...the director from the ministry of finance gave a presentation on street naming and house numbering. You just never think about how something so basic as this can really affect the infrastructure and development of a city. Anyway, as the reporter I had to write down everything that was said during the Q&A session, which was difficult because some people were mutterers, others were mumblers, others didn't really make coherent arguements, and still others were bringing up interesting topics that had nothing to do with anything. I went to the conference with Prof, Buntu (South African who is CDD's international fellow), and Joe, who has become my boss here at CDD (and who got me invited in the first place). We talked about US Foreign Policy (popular, eh?) listened to the BBC Africa on the way back, ate some pineapple, and had a wonderful time. I think that the internship thus far has provided me with the greatest experience, because I am with Ghanaians and learning so so much about the Ghanaian government, the innerworkings of a NGO, and getting to go to interesting conferences (like the one I attended today about women in the reconciliation process, how the reconciliation process should take on a more gendered approach to consider women who were abused, humiliated, or oppresed during the military regimes and the totalitarian governments of Ghana's past).
The following weekend my roommate's mom took us out to eat at a popular chopbar called Asanka's. I had yam and palava sauce (boiled yams and a spinach sauce) which was pretty tasty. My roommate's mom is a professor of finance at UofG and she is trying to get a fulbright in the US to study international finance at NYU. She is from Nigeria and has four kids, one in the US studying engineering in Georgia. She took us for icecream afterwards.
The next day we headed to Aburi botanical gardens, about an hour away from campus. It was built by the british and houses a ton of trees and flowers from all over the world. There is this one tree that got eaten by some crazy plant and the tree is completly hollow inside. We climbed in and it was cool. The gardens were small, but it was a change because it was a higher elevation than Accra and the air didnt smell like noxious fumes from cars. That week marked the official halfway point, and now its all downhill. I am not ready to leave...I mean i want to see everyone, but i think that you should come here, so i can see you and enjoy my lovely life in Ghana!
Last weekend (20-22) was also laid back, but sunday I went to prof's house for lunch. I met some of prof's friends, a chem professor from UofG that studied at duke, prof's ghanaian-canadian neighbor, a lawyer working in NY for international transitional justice, a woman on CDD's board of trustees who is a professor in communications at UofG, and a female lawyer who studied in London and is a non-sitting district judge. Prof's real name is E. Gyimah-Boadi, he is a professor at UofG in political science as well as the head of CDD. He doesn't want people to know what the E stands for. Anyway, he is a great guy, funny, smart, religious neutral (which is a "God-send" (no pun intended, haha) in this OVERLY christian society). Just sitting there, listening, i learned so much about Ghanaian politics. Granted, sometimes I had no idea what they were talking about (idk what it is with Africa and its 100 million acronyms for everything i.e. CHRAJ, PM, CCMA, AMA, CPP, NPP, NDC, etc and those are only a few of Ghana's million acronyms), but I got the general gist, like their views on chiefs and their desperation to hold onto power i.e. the Asantehene (the chief of the Ashante) who recently issued a fatwa on some journalists who wrote an article where his name came up in discussion about a cocaine scandal. Chiefs play a critical role in Ghana's democratic development, but it is interesting to see how they interact with the central government (in other words, they do what they want).
Speaking of religion, tonight we are going to a singles/relationship conference on campus. We are mostly going because we want to learn about things such as 10 things that are wrong about sex, 15 reasons not to marry your classmate, but to marry your CLASSMATE (whatever that means), etc. It will be an interesting experience, even if we don't believe what they tell us. I have no problem with Christians, mind you, but here in Ghana it is a bit on the ridiculous side, with someone left and right always preaching to you about something. Not to mention, one of the first questions in conversation is are you a christian? because that really matters if you are only trying to get the lecture notes from class. They are way too "holier than thou" for me.
This weekend we are hopefully going somewhere...p.s. only three more weeks of class...crazzy.

high heights, chilling sights, chocolate spread OD

Last thursday I went out to eat with a colleague at CDD. We went to Redd Lobster. Haha. Oh Ghana. Jay-Z came on friday for a concert, tickets were 600,000 cedis ($60). It was a big deal here, especially amongst the students on campus. I didn't go.

This past weekend we went to Cape Coast. We left Saturday around 7, taking a tro-tro to Kwame Nkrumah circle then to Kaneshie and there we caught a tro-tro for 25,000 cedis to Cape Coast. As much as I love tro-tros i have to admit that was a very uncomfy ride. First, let me explain the anatomy of a tro-tro. A tro-tro is a mini-bus which has been rigged with a number of seats. In the back, normally can sit four people across, three people in the rows in front and then the driver and two people in the passenger seat. But thats not all. All of the tro-tros have rigged extra seats into the aisleway, so that from window to window in every row it is full. Your aim, therefore, is to sit near a window, so you will have the most space and not get stuck between two people. Also, it is not fun to sit in the back seat because you receive all of the bumps. The space between rows is very minimal and is even cramped for short me. I have no reason to complain, however; i feel horrible for my Norweigan friend who is 5'10 and has to cram in the same space I can barely fit in. The trip to Cape Coast was particularly bad because A) there was a ton of traffic and the temperature has been steadily increasing so it is quite warm at 9 in the morning. B) the seat back wasn't comfortable at all. C) I was sitting on top of the wheel which made for little space for my legs. We got to Cape Coast and immediately hopped on a tro-tro to Kakum National Park. Kakum is the home of the tallest canopy walk in Africa (maybe I made this up?). Kakum is also the most touristy place I have been in Ghana. There were two gift shops, a restaurant, lovely decorations. It cost us 45,000cedis to go with a group of Ghanaian students to the canopy walk. There was one student who was hiking to the walk in heels. (Oh, Ghanaian females ;) )When we got to the walkway, the guide told us that we couldn't fall because there was rope netting all around the walkway, it was reinforced with metal and wood, but despite this information, a ton of the Ghanaian students (all women) refused to cross the canopy. It was like 100 feet up and there were seven separate walkways each separated by a viewing platform. It was really lovely. Kakum is a real rainforest and it was cool looking down on it. we didn't see any animals but there were a ton of butterflies. It was also fun to rock and bounce the walkway to freak out the Ghanaian students (oops, did I do that?). It was a cool experience, but it wasn't that great. It was kinda an over-rated tourist place, but whatever.

The people on the trip were me, Karen (Norweigan) and Ryan (Iowaian/Californian). Ryan is a "drama kid" and knows a bunch of songs and can sing really well, so we often entertained ourselves by singing the soundtrack to Rent and other musicals. This was also very entertaining to Ghanaians who laughed at us alot. Karen and I thought it would be a good idea to bring chocolate spread with us, since we wanted to be cheap and eat bread for lunch. Well, all i can say is i totally overdosed on choc spread. I think I don't want it ever again, haha. "you are invited" - Ghanaians say this when they would like you to enjoy their food with them. We kept saying this as we passed around the choc spread (haha...). We met a Polish guy at Kakum who had hitchhiked his way from Poland all the way through west Africa to Ghana and was intending on making his way to South Africa by boat to Argentina/Brazil, then to the US then to Canada in the next four years, all through hitchhiking. Can I just say, Europeans do crazy stuff.After lunch in Kakum we headed back to Cape Coast to stay the night. We checked into Sammo's guesthouse, which is highly acclaimed by the guide book and our friends, and I would say it is quite a nice place, for 30,000cedis each. However, as we were sitting talking with the fan on, the power went out all over cape coast at 6pm (we get screwed, we can never escape the power outages). So we went to the rooftop bar and talked about various topics ranging from God to gender roles to US foreign policy. We hit the sack, got chewed up by mosquitos and woke up the next morning at 6.

We ate breakfast across the street, banana pancakes and tea (yum!). Then we walked to Cape Coast Castle. This castle was built in 1653 by the swedes then taken over by the danes then taken over by the british. Its place in history, however, is with the trans-atlantic slave trade. While there it was easy to distance yourself from its dark past. it was a gorgeous building, architectually, overlooking the ocean and beautiful beaches. but then you remember, thousands and thousands of Africans passed through this castle en route to the west; some going onto their inevitable deaths at sea or to forced labor in South America, the Caribbean, and of course the US. The museum at Cape Coast was impressive: did you know that the US recieved the least number of slaves compared to South America and the Caribbean? The dungeons were the most powerful aspect of the tour. Imagine, so many people cramped into a tiny space, with hardly any ventilation, defecating, urinating, menestrating, vommiting, everything on each other, terrified of what was going to happen, beaten, shackled, starved. What is most unsettling was that my ancestors could have passed through this very castle, through the door of no return.

From here we headed to Elmina Castle, which was built by the portuguese in the 1400s and is the oldest european built structure south of the sahara. It too was part of the slave trade, but mostly by the hands of the portuguese and dutch. Here the governor of Elmina would stand on a platform, force all the female slaves out of their cells into the courtyard and choose which one he wanted to rape. If she became pregnant, she was allowed to stay in Elmina and her mulatto child was allowed to go to school. Elmina was bought by the british and was used during periods of rebellion as a prison for Africans. For example, you can look into the story of the Ashanti queen-mother Asantewa who encited war against the british to protect the sacred gold stool. She was kept here as well as the Ashanti king Prempeh. After the castle we headed back to Cape Coast and then back to Accra. The tro-tro was uncomfy once again, but I didnt care, I slept most of the way.

Ghana? It's very nice :)

I forgot to note in the previous entry that while in Togo I only got one marriage proposal, which is pretty good since I was averaging much more than that a day when I first arrived in Ghana ;).

I thought I would let you know some language funnies that I have encountered in my two months in this country.
Rubber - a plastic bag, often used to carry food. I was passing food out at a conference at my internship and a man kept asking me for a rubber. Now...in the U.S. this means a condom and I was really confused until he pointed at the bag holding the boxes of food...whoops. People were really adament about getting these "rubbers" to carry their take-out trays...I didn't really understand why they needed a bag, but everything here in Ghana is placed in a bag (sometimes two bags, I have to stop the egg sandwich lady everytime before she gives me two, seemingly pointless bags).
Dust bin - trash can. The photographer at the conference kept asking me for a dust bin, which i thought meant dust pan, which I didnt know where that was so I just said no, I don't think we have one.
Balance - change, often used to get the "mate" (he is the one that yells out the window where the tro-tro is going and the one who you tell where to drop you off) to give you back your change.
Salad - cole slaw, typically with a ton of mayonaise, and often with ketchup.
Fast Food - fried rice, fried chicken, french fries, and anything else essentially fried.

"I have to urinate" - Indicates, please tell me where the toilet is. Only men have said this to me; the women asked where is the bathroom. I wasn't really sure what to say to the men who announced their need to relieve themselves.
"I'm coming" - used to indicate that the person is hurrying or getting close to something, like if they are looking for your folder or if they see you are in a rush and need to get your change.
"It's finished." - example: "Do you have fried rice? No, it's finished. "
"small, small" - means I only have a little or done a little; example "I have studied small, small french."
"How did you see it? How did you take it?" - Did you like it? How does it taste?
"fine, okay, nice." - All synonyms for good (although good is used much less often than those three). Women selling plantain chips say "nice chips." If you think someone is cute you might say "he is okay." When something is really good, they will say "it is very nice." How did you see it? it was fine. etc.

I love it. Not only are the accents great, but so are the great things they say and the way it is said. I am trying to imitate, because I was told I look like a Ghanaian until I open my mouth.

Le weekend au Togo

I am way behind on my blogs, so I appologize.
This past weekend I travelled to Togo, Ghana's Francophone neighbor to the east. It was a three hour tro-tro ride to the border from Accra. The first sign that we were nearing French influence were the baguettes being sold on the street (yum). The border crossing was easy, but it was crazy that immediately there was a change in language. We hailed a taxi to Lome and our hotel (Hotel du Boulevard) for $2. I think we might have gotten ripped off, but it was in CFAs and we were just begining to understand the conversion (we would first convert CFA, 500=$1USD and then convert that to cedis $1 = roughly 10,000cedis, in order to determine what was a good price). The hotel was $10/room/night, which I thought was a bit much for the dusty, slightly decrepit hotel with a rickity fan and kinda dirty bathrooms, but whatever, we were in the capital. We went in search of food upon arrival and ate spaghetti with an omelette on top (weird, but tasty) and baguettes for $2. When walking the streets of Lome you cannot avoid the tons and tons of motorbikes. It was like a bike rally, there were so many. These are used for local transportation (i.e. no tro-tros in lome, only bush taxis and scooters/motorcycle). The next morning we got up early and headed to the crossainterie next to our hotel. Wow. If the french did anything in Africa that was positive, it was the introduction of French cuisine. I had a crossaint with cheese and ham and a chocolate crossaint ($2) for breakfast. Then we headed to the grand marche. this wasn't particularly special, just a typical market with vendors of various objects (watches, jewelry, peppers, fabric). A couple of positives about Lome...less harassment (maybe they knew we spoke english?) and no open sewers! It was alot less busy and a lot more relaxed than Accra. The beaches were uber clean as well. When we were walking along the beach, we watched some fishers check out their catch. Then we noticed that they had a huge object caught in their net that was moving...it was a sea turtle. it was really depressing watching it thrash. They said that they were going to eat it, but it was sad. Then we found a man who spend two weeks making art on sand mounds with sea shells. We attempted to check out the presidential palace, but the walls were too high to see over. We then traversed the rue de 13 Janvier, got our luggage from the hotel and caught a taxi towards Lake Togo.
We stopped in Aveposo to stay in a bungalow on the beach called Chez Alice. Alice is a nice swiss woman who runs this funky, african decorated hotel with two monkeys, a baboon and a ton of cats/dogs. And the hotel was cheap...$2 for each of us to stay in a bungalow with fan and mosquito nets. We chilled at the beach for a bit and found a place for dinner called Pumpkin Fast Food. It was incredible. REAL butter on REAL baguettes and couscous with delicious sauce ($2). The owner of the restaurant liked us and wanted us to come back for breakfast. So we did. And it was also amazing. Omelettes, cafe au lait, baguettes (with REAL butter, haha), and pancakes with chocolate sauce ($2). From here we got a taxi to Hotel le Lac on lake togo. We took a canoe (une pirogue) across the lake for a pricy $5/person to Togoville, the first city in Togo that the Germans visited and also the place where the cheif signed the rights to Togo to the Germans. Togoville is also extremely proud that the pope visited in 1985. Some men tried to swindle us for a tour (they wanted 5 euros ($8)/person for a tour of the tiny village!) but the man that brought us on the canoe took us around, showed us the cathedral built by the Germans/Spanish, his house, and his friend's house who tried to get us to buy his art. Conveniently, our last stop at Togoville was the gift shop. On the way back across the lake I got soaked. We headed back to the border Sunday afternoon, got what we came for (a new stamp that would extend our sixty day stamp until December), and then headed back.
I really liked Togo...mostly because I got to practice my French. The first night there I was really rusty and had a horrible time trying to convey myself. However, By sunday I only wanted to talk to people in French. That's when I realized..hey, i can survive in Senegal. We were two french speakers on the trip and two non-french speakers, so it was a bit hard to practice because we kept having to translate for the others. But it was still a great experience. The only downfall was the lack of tro-tros, so transportation was pricey (like $1-$2/per person/per ride). We will be heading back to Togo in three weeks because the Norweigans' visas only last for a month whereas ours last for 6 months, so to make multiple entry worthwhile we want to go twice and because I am leaving in 80 days, not 60 so I need to once again extend my stamp (such a hassle). We won't be going to Lome again but instead to the mountains/valley that border Ghana.

PICTURES

finally I have uploaded my pictures. Unfortunately, they are out of order. I appologize, but I spent thirty minutes trying to re-arrange them to no avail. I hope you enjoy.

by justinesghana

Development, Hezbollah, Obrunis

Thanks everyone for all of the lovely comments. I really feel special that people take time out of their days to read my blog.
Last week was an eventful one of sorts. I was invited by one of my fellow interns to a cocktail at a German NGO's office (FNF). It was very classy...waiters bringing you drinks and little hors d'ourves. I munched down because it was free and A) wasnt spicy and B) very tasty. The organization, FNF, supports and partners with organizations in Ghana that want liberal government. Liberal, p.s., means something completely different here than it does in the states. Liberal means privatization of businesses and the economy, de-centralization of the government, democracy. Conservative, on the other hand, is equal to socialist. To explain further, conservative means keeping the status quo. The status quo in Ghana has always been socialist, authoritative regimes. Liberalism means change from the status quo. You can apply these simplified definitions to the US as well, just the opposite (the status quo has been capitalism, privatization). Anyway, the reception was nice and I met some interesting people. A lawyer who studied at Tulane told me that she thinks that Ghana should be able to play a larger role in its development. She complained that when the West comes to "develop" Africa, they send over a consultant who tells the governments what to do, then takes 10% of the "development" budget. Though this may be an exageration, it made me think. I have become increasingly discouraged with the idea of Western Development. A) I don't want the world to be like the US. B) What right do we have to tell another country how to develop? C) who determines what is development? Honestly, I don't think we should play a role in it at all. The only problem is we have all the money. And you do need money to do things. Its a tough dilemma, but i have decided that i don't want to do international development as a career. I don't feel right telling people how to live their lives or how to become developed.
Friday night I hung out with a South African fellow who is working at CDD also. He taught me some Xhosa (the clicking language), how Christianity is totally different there than it is here, how he got to hear Ian Smith speak(former white leader of Zimbabwe during the War of Liberation...yes I was telling him about my SURE research, oh i am so proud! ), good African books to read. I also tried palm wine, which is huge in West Africa. It was a bit sweet and unlike anything I ever tasted before.
Saturday started with a bang...literally. 7:30am, there is singing and yelling and chanting outside of the hostel. Then there is someone shooting an air rifle. It was startling because i had no idea what was going on. I look outside and there are 30 guys trying to get into our hostel, yelling something about Hezbollah, dressed in traditional outfits and shooting the air gun. Sound scary? Well, its actually kind of funny. The group, "the Republic," is infamous for their renaming of new buildings. Since our hostel was new, they had to "christen" it and the recently re-opened Night Market. Our hostel was named Torog, a cocaine dealer prominent in Ghanaian news, and Night Market was named Hezbollah. They name buildings on campus, and require that every student only call the buildings by those names. So that was my wake up call. Everyone was outside watching these crazy kids. Then a Christian parade marched through our hostel. They were singing and playing trumpets and other instruments. Then a man stepped forward and began to preach about how even though we are international students, we can still accept Jesus.
So, my saturday morning was extrememly eventful. Since we were tired, we decided to just chill on saturday and visit...MaxMart. Yes, I said it. I went to the dreaded Western grocery store. And, some of the items I saw...they made me very homesick. Like Duncan Hines blueberry muffin mix. Salsa. Cheese, real cheese like cheddar, sliced and shredded. Ben and Jerrys (get this...$10 a pint, good joke!). We went to the coffee shop and had cappuchinos, sandwiches with vegetables and mozarella on wheat bread. It was the greatest. But it was kinda depressing because it was only Obrunis (foreigners, mostly white) in the whole place.
Saturday night we went to a bar that was opened up by a friend of a friend's. It was a very nice establishment in Osu. Then we went to a night club that apparently only lets in Lebanese or non-African people (the friend we went with, TJ, wasn't allowed in until the owner of the bar (an Asian guy) told them he was with him). It was kind of strange, but I met the co-owner of the club who was African and she studied in London and wanted to be our friend. Everyone in Ghana wants to be my friend. haha. Crap. the purpose of this blog was to talk about the hospital visits of this week. um...I will write one on that tomorrow. haha.

Why I love Ghana, part 1

Last thursday, we attempted to get to the Indian restaurant in Osu (nice part of town, near the US embassy, tons of overly expensive restaurants) however, while we were searching, it began to pour. We run into the closest restaurant, Tsing Tao Chinese, to look at the menu. Meals were like 100,000cedis (a little more than $10) - too much. So we get up to leave but its still pouring so we stand outside waiting. The co-manager of the restaurant, Steve, comes up to us and asks us why we are leaving. We explain to him that we are students and 100,000 is too much for us to pay for a meal. He says, don't worry about it, sit down, enjoy the food and drinks and its on the house. Sweet! So we got food for free and it was amazing.
Friday we leave for Hohoe. We take a tro-tro from Legon to Tudu station and find a tro-tro that is almost full (so we only sit for an hour waiting to leave). The tro-tro ride to Hohoe was an interesting experience. Right before we got to the bridge that crosses the Volta river, the tro-tro pulls over, about half the dudes get off, and then we are attacked by women and children selling various items. 2o women were shoving bread in our faces, one girl was shouting "puuure water" and a couple of boys were selling what looked like small squids on sticks. Then the driver got back on, and we left. It was crazy. We arrived in the dark town of Hohoe after a 3.5 hour ride. Thinking we were going to avoid the power outage by departing from Accra, we were disappointed that Hohoe also didn't have power from 6pm to 6am. A guy on our tro-tro directed us to the Grand Hotel, which didn't have any rooms, so we start walking towards the Pacific Guesthouse. We ask someone for directions and instead of giving them to us, he hails a friend with a car and asks him to drive us to the hotel for free. We get to the hotel, its 100,000/room/night, which would have been okay if there was power, but since there wasn't it was kind of obsolete to have to pay for a fan. There was a bathroom in the room, however, and that was nice. There was nowhere to eat except this Lips bar place who totally ripped us off (40,000 for chicken and rice). Saturday morning: We found a nice woman selling egg sandwiches on the street (3,000 cedis) We bought a loaf of bread from her (5,000 cedis) and bought some chocolate (9,000 cedis) for our journey up the mountain. We checked into the Grand Hotel (61,000/night/room) and then found a tro tro to Mount Afadjato and Liati Wote (the city at its base). We get on the tro-tro at 12:00pm. We sit. We play cards. We sit. We eat chocolate. We sit. Its 2:00pm and we haven't left yet. We are worried, because we don't want to hike in the dark. The tro-tro is waiting to fill up. The driver asks us to pay for the other four people so we can leave (8,500/person). We didnt want to pay for it all, so we paid for three and the other Ghanaians already on the tro-tro paid for the fourth. Then all hell broke loose. Five people got on the tro-tro, which would indicate that we paid for someone to ride the tro-tro for free, and the Ghanaians flipped out ("these girls paid for three, we paid for one, you are scamming us!") There was multi language yelling and we were just sitting there, totally in awe. The ride to the mountain was really bumpy and we stupidly sat in the back and kept wacking our heads on the ceiling. We get to the mountain, finally, and start hiking at 4. Its a short mountain (800 m), but it was sooo steep. I almost died. I think I was dehydrated, but it was horrible. It only took us an hour to hike to the top, even though we made stops every five minutes. It was a beautiful view. The Volta Region is so green and lush and beautiful in comparison to dirty, dusty, dry Accra. We hike down, but at this point we are a little nervous. Apparently, there aren't any tro-tros that run from the mountain back to Hohoe. All our stuff, and the hotel room we paid for, was in Hohoe. We were slightly concerned we would have to stay in Liati Wote with nothing. Luckily for us, there was a church group bus headed to Accra and we came down the mountain in time to bum a ride from them to another town where we could catch a tro-tro. We were extremely lucky, because we would have been stranded had it not been for the church group. We ate street food (rice, beans, boiled yams) for 6,000 cedis and hung out at the hotel with a Swede who bikes the world and a Canadian from Burkina Faso.
Sunday: Woke up at 6 because the hotel played LOUD gospel music. Headed to the same breakfast lady, bought some more bread from her, and ran into some british girls we had met at Kokrobitey beach. Found a tro-tro going to Wli falls (6,000) and weren't ripped off this time. Got to the falls, was asked if I would marry this guy and was told that I wasn't going to leave Ghana because this is my home ("one of our lost sisters returned") by the staff at the park entrance. Hiked for forty-five minutes to the falls, ate some cocoa straight from the tree (tastes really sugary), met some Californians studying at UofG as well. The falls were massive and gorgeous (pictures soon). There were a ton of fruit bats flying around, as well as soldier ants (gigantic black ants) all over the ground.
We caught a shared cab back to Hohoe (shared meaning, five people in the back seat and two in the front for 7,000 each) ate more street food (rice, beans, spaghetti and salad for 6,000) then found a tro-tro back to Accra (40,000). We got back to accra around 7 after a three hour, slightly uncomfortable and a bit cramped ride, and arrived back on campus a little after 8.
We were really surprised by our luck...always finding rides, always arriving on time, and not spending too much money (except for that one meal). That's why I love Ghana. because everything works out. and people are always friendly and welcoming (except for scammy tro-tro drivers and sketchy taxis).

"America is oppressive"

So as of today I have been in the country for a month. YAY! How am I celebrating? I had class at 7:30 and now I am at my internship. Maybe tonight we are going to get Indian food for dinner. mmm. Things for me have been good thus far. No sickness (knock on wood), classes are good, food is good. My top ten favorite foods so far: 1. Fried Plantains 2. Red Red and Plantains 3 . Waykie and rice 4. Fried Yams 5. Ghanaian chocolate 6. Omelette and plantain pancakes 7. meat pies 8. Burgers ground nuts 9. butter bread 10. banana cake. Two nights ago I fried my own plantains. they were amazing.
After a month of solitude in my room, I got a roommate. She is a med student from Tema, in Accra, and her mother is Nigerian. She wants to go into either hematology or surgery, i think. She wants to go out of the country so that she can specialize in something and she was thinking about the states. But she had quite an interesting view of the states that I wasn't expecting to hear. She said "America is oppressive." I ask her to explain. She said that in America she couldn't walk down the street and say "homosexuality is wrong." Here she could say that and everyone would agree with her. I think she means oppressive in that if you said that, someone would disagree and probably argue. I told her that there are people who would agree with her, but that just as she has the right to say that, someone else has the right to tell her they disagree. On a divergent note, can we discuss this homosexuality issue. Since you probably don't follow Ghanaian news, you wouldn't know that this has come to the fore front as a big issue because a group of gay advocates were trying to host conferences in Ghana and the government wouldn't allow it. It has been in all the newspapers, radio and tv. Homosexuality is not accepted in ghana, point blank. Politicians and church leaders have said that gays have horns and will ruin society if they come here to have their conference. There is no point arguing, it is totally unacceptable. So that is why my roommate knows that if she said it in the streets in Ghana, everyone would agree.
She also said that if she was in America she wouldn't be able to spank her children. This made me laugh as I told her I was spanked, many a times. I told her what I believe, that spanking will always be accepted as a mechanism for punishment in black homes (haha) but that yes, if you do it in a public place, you could get in trouble (I also found out that spanking is illegal in Norway). She also doesn't think that America is very Christian. She didn't think that she would ever be able to find a boyfriend because the boys in America don't go to church and wouldn't be able to challenge her and help her grow spiritually. She also didn't think that black men in America were very attractive, since they put all the attractive ones on tv. Americans, or white people as she said, are cold, unappreciative, unfriendly and selfish. She said that if a white was walking from a store that was closed and she was walking to the store, the white wouldn't tell her it was closed. I don't necessarily see this as rude, because how would you know she was going to the store? But I do agree that we are very individualistic and we try to figure out things on our own and as a whole we aren't very willing to ask for help and sometimes not very accepting when it is offered to us. We also don't pay for each other when we go out to eat (which is really common here, one person pays to take their friends out and doesn't expect reimbursement) and we will harass you until you pay us back if we do pay for you.
She also told me that she would NEVER approach a boy if she was interested...it was his role to approach her (she said that approaching him would compromise herself and send the wrong message....).
This conversation really enlightened me about Ghanaians. It also drew attention to issues that I wouldn't think about, but are very important to her where America is lacking. It is tough though, because I am holding my tongue on many things that she has said because I don't want to insult her or her culture. I do try to offer her some insight on my beliefs and thoughts without encroaching on hers.
This weekend we are going to Hohoe in the Volta region. We are hiking up the tallest mountain in Ghana (which is supposedly a hill, not much of a mountain) and going to Wli falls, the tallest waterfalls in West Africa. Hohoe is right on the border with Togo and is a five hour tro-tro ride from here. We are leaving tomorrow afternoon. I am excited, its the first time we are going into the country and not to the beach.