The Other West Coast

Shai and Boti

2008-06-11T08:07:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that you guys are still reading this, but well done. I am, at this point, also happy to just be keeping records for myself. Much has happened since I last posted, and I'm going to try to play catch-up, but I want to put everything in context first: We just yesterday had a program good-bye lunch, and that evening five of my friends boarded the international programs office bus to the airport. I miss them already, and people are slowly filing out every day. It's like a slow bleed as campus empties, which is awfully unsatisfying because nobody likes to drag out good-byes. I have one last final on Saturday, and on Monday I will board a 24-hour bus to Burkina Faso, beginning a six week tour of three west African countries: Burkina, Mali, and Senegal. I may have severely limited internet access, so the short version is: laidback capital of Burkina Faso, northeast corner to see a sprawling market and ride a camel, head to southwest corner to hang around, hike, rest, continue into Mali's capital, follow the Niger river to the Dogon country (the home of the Dogon people, arguably the least impacted by colonialism, who have retained traditional beliefs and lifestyles, including- I've been told- highly ritualized human sacrifices), brief rest, attemt to get to Timbuktu (it's really here), moving back to the capital, passing by the largest mud building in the world. My friend Sarah will head overland back to Accra while I attempt to brave the 50 hour train ride to Dakar, Senegal. I will hang around the city, lay on the beach on the nearby Ile de Goree and north a little to St. Louis, mostly recovering from so many days on the road. All plans are subject to change, but that's your overview. Now back to our original broadcast:

My plan to go to Benin was temporarily foiled when I found out my friend Sarah was at her dorm quite sick. After a sleepless night for her, a group of four of us went to a new hospital (she'd had a bad experience at the closest one), and she was seen by a doctor. There was a lot of downtime with an IV plugged into her, and I was mostly in charge of making food runs, until we eventually all fell asleep, Sarah in her bed and the three companions on the floor. We awoke quite early the next day (they had tried to kick us out, but we didn't want to leave Sarah alone in a new hospital), she was discharged after a few hours of waiting and we went out to breakfast (the hospital was located in a part of town with tons of restaurants). Tired and worn down, I decided to take the day off to do basically nothing. Two days later, I took off with my friend Raia to go to the nearby Shai Hills reserve, a few hours north of Accra. We walked into the park (we had arrived a little late, but the guards took pity on us), and got our guide: a friendly man who had just moved into town from Mole, the large park in the north. We talked a lot about wildlife management issues (there's a quarry that has opened across from the park, and it has scared all of the animals far inside the borders, threatening to move them outside of the protected zone), and enjoyed the nice views. It was so green. This is a picture of our guide standing next to a four-trunked baobab tree. I have mentioned these trees before because I have loved them ever since I read The Little Prince. Things that come in fours also remind me of my siblings, and I always self-consciously check the third thing to make sure it's up to snuff :-)

After we'd hiked for a while, we started going up and down relatively steep slopes until we got to the highest point on the reserve. Shai Hills is named for the Shai people, who lived relatively peacefully in this area, but moved into caves to avoid Ashante slave-raiders. They lived largely in caves like these ones for a very long time until the park was established and they were relocated. I talked to Raia a lot about how it would be to be raised in a cave. I'm sure they spent plenty of time outside, but I have a very dark and mysterious view of caves, so I can't imagine calling one home. The spaces looked a little cramped too.

We were then introduced to the strategic advantage of this cave in particular when we hiked to its top. It was interwoven with these beautiful veined leaves from bushes, and presents an incredible panoramic view. This was used as a look out post to warn the Shai about any advancing armies of slave-raiders. Raia and I are both from San Francisco, so the idea of no hills on the horizon was pretty spectacular to both of us. It's so flat!

After resting on the cave-top for a while, we walked back to the entrance, spotting a far off baboon on the way, we got back to the main road and were thwarted by the local inn that had doubled its prices since our copy of the guidebook was printed. We caught a tro-tro (large minivan) going up the main road to the next town and got a swanky hotel room for the night. We ate a nice meal, but couldn't finish our food, so we tried to use the air-conditioner to refrigerate it to no avail. I attempted to study for my first final, but Raia tempted me with an extra copy of the New Yorker.
The next morning we awoke and traveled by tro-tro to the large bead market in Koforidua. It was cool to see, but since I'd already been on a Twi field trip, I found a shady spot to sip a pure water and study for real. I got through a few lectures when Raia found me. We wandered through the market looking for crepes, which I'd found last time, and ran into one by chance. We then took a tro tro to Boti Falls, and met the man in the office at the front gate, Ben. He represented the slowness of Ghana to me. Each word was carefully drawn out and he left large pregnant puases between each sentence. This served to be more of a welcome than a put off and he seemed genuinely excited that we would stay with him and his brother. We were shown into our small room next to Ben's with no water or electricity, and one window on the far side. When I opened it green light poured in through the massive leaves on thin stems around us. We both laid down for a while and then eventually took a short trip down to the waterfall. It was so magical, and I fear these pictures don't adequately portray it. I sat there wondering about fantasy for a long time, because I had just started a Harry Potter book in Legon. I wondered, looking at the falls, if fantasy helps or hinders people's ability to see the magic that exists in this world. I realized that I am clinging to the fantasy genre here not to escape hard times but because in so many ways life in Ghana is like a fantasy story. I have landed in this place with so much mysticism in the scenery and in a culture that I surely don't understand. So many things are close to the same as at home while being so incredibly, incomprehensively different.
We returned up the concrete stairs in the dark back towards our room and were called to dinner, which we ate under a tin roof as small nuts fell on it making it feel like we were in an incredible rainstorm. The darkness was absolute, and you could see the sphere of light our small lantern made. Tired from a long day, we returned to our room, read, (studied) and slept. The next morning we ate breakfast, I studied more and we wandered around the grounds, saying goodbye to the falls. Raia informed me that waterfalls bring good luck when studying for a hydrology exam, and that eased my mind about studying. We caught a tro-tro back to campus.

***

I then found out that my roommate had gone to the hospital. I brought him all of his necessary possessions from our room and we had one of our longest conversations with the BBC news in the background. Neither of us had seen news in months, so it was fun to just chat. After sunset I caught a car back to campus.

***

The next few days were rather uneventful. I took my first final. The way that works is like this: you know what day and time your final is based on the exam schedule they posted about a month ago. Each day at around 6pm they post green sheets in the dormitory lobbies that say which building each exam will be in. That's right, you couldh ave a final at 7:30 and not even know which building it's in unti lthe night before. You then arrive at the building early with nothing but your idea and a pen or they get upset. Half an hour before it starts, they hand out the exam questions and booklets and you're allowed to scribble on the question sheet. The exam starts, and you fill up these booklets answering the questions (all essays for me), and if you need extra sheets you tie them on with string in a very romantic kind of way. The exams are moderated by Invigilators (sounds like a super-villain if I've ever heard one...), and during the course of the 2.5-3 hours at least two of them and, if you're white, somebody from the international students office come around to check your id against your picture that they have on file, and ask you to sign in. That's the story with those. The following day I packed my bag in the morning and headed off on a solo-trip to Benin, a story in and of itself

The beginning of the end

2008-05-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Today I gave an oral presentation in one of my classes on the factors that influence access and utilization of health resources ("If a hospital is farther away, people are less likely to use it") and then ran out to go on a field trip in my Twi course (the language class I'm taking here) to a large bead market, a large everything market, and a plant reserve. It was the final day of lectures here. Usually at home I feel sentimental about the last day of lectures. Gathering so much material into my little head is a long and often tiring process, so I feel deeply connected to what I have studied, whether or not the class was enjoyable. So far here, lectures have served more as a tether, but in a good way. I have, as you no doubt know, had a lot of fantastic weekend jaunts through Ghana, and the purported reason I have always come back to the traffic, smog, nice people, relatively clean streets and friends is because of those lectures. I feel less relieved and accomplished now that they have ended and instead feel an overwhelming sense of freedom, with the accompanying fright and anxiety. I have a lot more traveling to do, but it has always been fun knowing that I have a home here to go back to at the end of a few days on the road. The longer trips are starting.

I am about to go to a program dinner, the last gathering of the California + Indiana crowd here in Ghana. I hope to do a few more reflections about what classes are like and what it was like to live here as well as to keep you updated on the travels as they happen. Thank you for reading.

To get started, a short list of things that are different about Ghana:

Honking your car horn does not signify anger. Taxis honk to get your attention (every taxi, whether full or not, has honked at me hoping I need a fare), and cars often honk to the beat of the music on the radio
Hard candies taste like cough drops
There is always noise. If you go to sit down somewhere, there will inevitably be a stereo hammering out intense high life music. People don't talk to each other very much (there's no such thing as an awkward silence here), but there is always noise
Hard work is not hard. The work ethic here is unmatchable. People believe that their purpose in life is derived from doing work, whereas I sometimes feel like my purpose comes from avoiding it
You can buy anything you would ever want from the window of your car, ranging from food to newspapers to belts to those colander-like covers you put over sinks without garbage disposals
You can ask anyone for directions at any time, and they will often walk with you to get there even if it is out of their way. There is no finer feeling than wandering, lost and dehydrated, only to find somebody to walk you directly to where you need to go

I will save some big topics (Race, Religion, Gender, Time...) for another more thoughtful post. Now I can't just turn down a free dinner, right? See you soon

Festival

2008-05-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

During the next week after Wli, I ate at a really good Lebanese restaurant that made me miss the diversity of food in the Bay Area (I've gotten attached to Ghanaian food), and spent a lot of time at the International Students Hostel visiting friends there. Other than that, no real highlights.

The following weekend (last weekend), I ended up in Winneba visiting my friend Senam (remember him?) for the annual festival in town. It is one of the biggest in Ghana and has happened for 300 years (not a long time here, but before the US was the country we know it as today). My camera unfortunately ran out of batteries, but I'll try to get somebody else's pictures to put up later. Because we don't have pictures, I'll try to give you the thousand words. I had a crazy trip there, again traveling by myself to meet some friends who had already gone. I left campus at 5, eventually got to the station and there were 3 buses, none going to Winneba, but one going close by. I joined the mob outside of it and didn't do well trying to push myself in. I eventually was standing on the steps in the bus with a woman named Cecilia who told me to follow her. We walked into the aisle, bought tickets and sat down. Immediately a cop wearing an "Inspector" jersey tapped me and told me the bus was full and I had to leave. Sandwiched between him and Cecilia (who told me not to move), I got a little nervous. I had made friends with a man near the front also and while protests erupted because the bus was over-crowded, and probably a little because I'm white, that man called the Inspector forward. The ticket man began yelling at the Inspector also, and eventually assisted the friendly man to just push him off the bus and then we took off. Everybody in the front wanted to talk to/tease me because I was pretty visible as a source of trouble and the only white person on the bus. Eventually we got to the junction and I hopped into a taxi with Cecilia towards town. We met Senam, Elaine, Natalia, and Thien Vinh as well as Senam's friends Charles (who I met before) and Cypress. We went to a bar, and Cypress offered to buy me a drink. I said I'd have what he was having and he left and walked away. He came back with two shots of clear locally produced rum ("apoteshie") and a small bottle of 8pm (cheap scotch/whisky combination). He poured the 8pm over the two shots and handed me one, calling it an "African cocktail". It was less painful than it sounds, but still pretty rough. We drank and danced and then hopped a taxi to our hotel- the Rocktop, the same place we stayed in Winneba last time. It's owned by a woman named Shelley who's sweet, comes from Jamaica and built the whole place with her husband. I'll definitely get more pictures of the hotel. We woke up early the next day, taxi-ed into town and saw the preliminary parades. The gist of the festival is that two "teams" one painted red and the other white go out into the forest and have to find, hunt and kill an antelope with their bare hands and bring it back to the town. It is paralyzed from fear, paraded around the whole town as music blares and people cheer, and a libation is poured over its head. The chief then sacrifices it on Sunday (I've heard both that he kills it in his palace and that he kills it on the beach), and the whole town celebrates at the beach. We saw the preliminary parade as the warriors left to go into the woods and there was an eerie growing police presence. I later found out it was because the President was coming to speak, but I sadly missed hearing him. We got some tea and egg sandwiches on the street (they were buttery and very good). After waiting for a long time we eventually went back to the hotel, though we hadn't seen the antelope being paraded around. Just as we laid down to nap at the Rocktop, music started blaring from a pyramid of at least 16 large speakers. It made my bones rattle, but I slept through it. We hung out there for a while and then came back into Winneba for dinner and drinks and more dancing and another blurry taxi ride and putting myself to bed. We woke up the next day and half of the group headed back around 11. The rest of us stayed, had some eggs, bread and tea on the roof of Shelley's hotel and went for a swim in the nearby estuary. We ended up on a deserted beach with an old guesthouse it looked like. The roof was falling in and there was no front, but there were toilets and sinks that looked relatively new. We explored it for a little while and swam back across the estuary to the hotel, got a taxi, met Senam to say goodbye, and then took a taxi to a nearby junction. We tried to stick together to catch a tro-tro home, but got split up because none of them had four available seats. We coincidentally met at the station outside of campus, got some dinner and ice cream while talking about the foreigners experience in Ghana and then lazily walked home. I fell asleep shortly after.

This week I finally began my field research and went back to the Lebanese restaurant, where the owner treated us to a free lunch which we ate with him. He's a really nice and interesting fellow, and I'm sure I'll see him again. There was a cinco de mayo celebration that day, but I was stuck in traffic on the way home so I missed it.

The blog is updated! Congratulations on sticking with it so far!

Wli Falls and Caves

2008-05-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

The next week was very uneventful, except for some general musings, but those will come soon. I ended up the next weekend on a trip with a relatively big group (10 of us, 1 Ghanaian named Capito, the third Salia brother from Larabanga) and 9 Californians. I left in the mid afternoon between two groups, and traveling by myself was refreshing. Everyone I asked for directions was very helpful, and I ended up eating lunch with and talking to the two men in my row of seats. I also saw the sunset from the car over the Volta Region, which is the most beautiful area in Ghana. I arrived in the dark, walked to the hotel by a woman who is from Wli who said her name was either Gloria or Vivian. I arrived at dusk to see the crowd at the table. We had a few drinks, hung around and heard a lot of music coming from town. Somebody asked what it was for, and one of the hotel workers said the middle school students had just finished their exams, so the whole town was having a large block party. We gathered into the hut they had rented, waiting nervously for the other half of our group to arrive. We made tea, had some biscuits, and people slowly started falling asleep. I made my way to the other room and settled down right under the fan. The others came in the middle of the night, and settled quickly. You can imagine my amazement, after arriving in the dark, to find this beautiful view right outside of our guesthouse bedroom. The large bedroom was inside the main house with the kitchen and bathroom. The early-arrivers had taken a hut on the grounds. In the middle of a large tropical garden was the large gazebo, perfect for gatherings in the shade.

Bordering the gazebo was this little fella, much better behaved than the parrots at home. He occasionally eeked out a "hello" even though his owners are German, but was mostly very quiet. He looked like he was being kept as well as a domestic bird in a tropical jungle could be.

We took our time with some tea, coffee and bread for breakfast

And identified some cool insects including this preying mantis before we caught a tro-tro to the next town and stopped at the tourist office. This area is a national park, so they require you take a guide with you. We were happy to do it because the goal for the day was exploring some historical caves in the area used by early settlers in the region as well as hideouts during slave-hunting raids.

It felt so good to be hiking again, moving around, and we had plenty of water with us, fortunately. The pace was nice and leisurely, and offered a lot of time to appreciate the gorgeous view of the valley

From there we hiked through a series of caves. The first was a conference room for important members of the tribes that settled in the area. The second was a hide-out with a sky-light, the third was a look out, the fourth was deep and full of bats (which, we discovered, some people are terrified of. They were actually really cool looking, but it was eerie to be in a dark cave and feel the flapping of leathery wings on your cheek, catching the occasional glimpse of a pair of glowing eyes). The fifth one was the chief's residence and allowed cool air to sweep through towards the entrance (remember, it's really hot in this country), and the sixth had openings on both ends. I don't remember if it had a particular use, but I think we just walked through it.

Yay! Caves! They were connected by a slippery trail, mostly supported by ropes, and we did a little clever hopping and climbing to get through the last long upward cave tunnel until we reached a path toward the top of the hill.

We paused at the area just below the top with a big tree swing and then continued to the top to break for lunch- mostly just snacks we bought on the side of the road including crackers, cheese, cookies, and peanuts. We hung out there for a while, looking occasionally toward the Togo border, and down into the Volta River valley.

As we made our way down the mountain, we heard drumming from a few different towns. It had echoed up during the hike, and endured the whole day. Celebrations everywhere. When we made it down, our guide took us to a small waterfall that he knew about. To get there we had to walk through a grove of mango trees bearing dozens of ripe orange mangoes about the size of your fist that you can peel and shove into your mouth. Katie and Thien Vinh each ate 8. We then walked through a grove of orange trees, avocado trees, and the cocoa trees. It was basically heaven. We'd gorged on so many mangoes that we were relieved to find the small waterfall and wash off underneath it.

We played for a long time before our guide took us back to the village. We waited patiently on the roadside, and an old man walked by at one point greeting us. He invited me to play football with the village, but I could barely move. I hadn't hiked or exercised in months, so I was happy to rest on the roadside. We eventually negotiated an expensive tro-tro back to the resthouse and were greeted by fog over the glorious vista. The sun was setting and that sparked a debate about where to eat dinner. Some of us stayed even though the food was expensive because it started to rain and we were starving. The other half of the group headed into the rain storm. Shortly after they left the lightning began. It started relatively far away, but the crashes were big, and I saw one bolt hit the ground about 150ft away lighting up the surrounding area. You could clearly make out several objects each time it struck- this flower bush, that car, etc. It was a rough storm, but we happily played Uno under the gazebo eating and drinking. The other group eventually returned and had apparently eaten antelope (endangered in the region) and stew. We all played around for a while before moving towards the showers and beds once the rain let up.

Kelli and I had agreed to wake up to see the sunrise the next morning. It was small, but there was a bright patch of sky among the green hills that glowed from gray to a creamy gold. It was beautiful, and there was fog around the hills. We enjoyed it silently, and then went back to sleep curled under sheets under the ceiling fan. When we both woke up an hour later, it was dumping rain outside. Elaine and Natalie woke up too, and we made rolls with PB and J for breakfast and ordered coffee from the kitchen next door. I sat in bed for a long time reading the New Yorker (that I had inherited from my friend Raia), sipping coffee, eating a roll with PB and J (I haven't had jelly in weeks either) watching the rain fall through the open door in front of the bed. It was a perfect morning. We ran out to the gazebo after a while to join the rest of the group and the rain died down. Everybody had different ideas about the day, so we split up. Natalie and I hiked toward Wli Falls, one of the biggest tourist attractions in Ghana. The hike was beautiful, punctuated by occasional butterflies, and we arrived at the largest waterfall in West Africa

It felt like standing in front of a giant fan. It was actually cold. I couldn't believe the sensation. The spray of the water made it feel like the sea-side. The walls adjacent to the fall were covered in foliage and napping bats. We were the only ones there, except for some benches and piles of garbage that others had left, it felt like we were out of this world. It was an amazing site to see...

and to swim in! I couldn't help it. I love waterfalls, a love more inexplicable than that for elephants. They are so simple, but very ecologically and geologically complicated. Their simplicity also evokes a natural beauty that you don't often see when dealing with super complex ecosystems. It's just water falling, but it's very powerful (I was breathing hard under there!). It felt very cleansing and nice.

I donned my raincoat and we walked back toward the entrance meeting Katie, Capito and Elaine on the way up. We met the rest of the group at the bottom, and although we had planned to stop for lunch because we were starving, we decided it was best to stay with them. We all hopped in a tro-tro and Natalie and I despaired about walking all day eating nothing but white bread (mine is a love for vegetables, hers for meat, so we were both unsatisfied), but we survived. The tro-tro came in a while after sunset and we made it home, exhausted from another long day. I again unpacked, showered quickly and fell asleep knowing my early class would probably meet the next day.

Mole

2008-05-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

The weekend after Cape Coast, the nature adventure continued with a trip to Mole National Park (pronounced like the spicy chocolate sauce, not the small blind earthworm-eating mammal. The park is the most famous in Ghana for elephant spotting, so put on your Australian crock-hunter or British David Attenborough accents and let's go out in to the bush mate.

Ah but wait. This is Ghana, so getting to the Northern part of the country is an adventure in itself. I left with a large group (9 people total including 6 Californians, 1 Oregonian and two rastas from Cape Coast) from the Legon campus to the bus station where we caught the 8 o'clock bus northward. Note that "The 8 o'clock bus" is just a euphemism for the second bus to leave for the day and it really took off around 9:30 or so. We hopped in and endured the grueling 12 hour trip to Tamale. Fortunately, we were in what appeared to be a vehicle from the future, because we had air conditioning and padded seats albeit ones set at awkward angles. Also, after a few hours of trekking the driver turned on a set of Nigerian soap operas on a screen in the front. They included several loud and disturbing rape scenes and because the sound plays from the screen, they're particularly hard to tune out. We made a few pit stops on the way, but mostly the trip is a blur of ipod music, books, chatting, and the slow transition from tropical forest to dry savanna out the window. When we arrived in Tamale pooped from all the driving at 9:30pm the rastas, Stone and Obiba, took us to their friend Elee's place, and we slept on his floor. The next bus to catch was at 4:00am and we were not allowed to buy tickets the day before , so we dutifully got up at 3 and hazily walked to the bus station which was not open. We sat under the ticket window and when somebody finally showed up at 5, we asked to buy tickets on the first bus only to be told that the first bus was filled. "But" we protested "we've been sitting here waiting. We're the first in line. How can it be full?" Ah, these are the questions that have no answers, that you must just accept. So we gathered some food from the hawkers at the station and sat waiting for the next available bus during which time a fist fight broke out next to our bags and various chickens strutted by. Finally we were told to join a mass of people around one ticket seller, we got tickets and hopped on the bus. Half an hour later we were told that everybody should get off and switch to another bus. After that we were told to switch back to the first bus. Then we left, got to a junction, and paid a ridiculous taxi fare to get to Larabanga, the gateway to Mole.

Larabanga is a beautiful town. We arrived hazily and checked into the place we were staying, the Salia brothers guest house. The Salia brothers (Al Hassan and Hussein, who are basically identical twins), are very sweet. Al Hassan was reminiscing with us about the time he spent in Berkeley (!) on a trip through the US. We hung out with them for a while and then got some lunch.

After lunch some went to nap while some of us signed up for a tour of the mosque in town, which is hundreds of years old and really interesting. The legend has it that when a Muslim leader immigrated to the area, he wondered where to build the mosque for the town so he threw a spear into the air and where it landed he found a foundation already in the ground. He and his people then built this mosque. It has a large baobab tree on one side too, and those always add an element of magic to any scene. The tour guides were local high school kids, and the whole program is part of an ecotourism project set up by a Peace Corps volunteer some years back. They were really intersting, articulate, knew a lot about our culture from interacting with American tourists, but seemed really in tune with themselves, not damaged by the relationship. Fatau and Yaa, two of the brothers, kept in touch with us the whole time we were there, and we ate dinner with them that night.

We also saw these mud etchings, which are mystical and incomprehensible to me. This design was used as a calendar.

After the mosque tour (I'm still not a devout Muslim, so I was not allowed inside), we spent more time with the Salia brothers at their place chatting and bringing mattresses up to the rooftop. It was maybe 10ft off the ground (the ladder was a thin tree trunk with small notches in it), but because the surrounding land is so flat, you could see out for miles. It was the best sunset I've seen since I arrived in Ghana:
Although we had planned to sleep on the roof top, those clouds kept piling on and eventually were coal-black right over us. We sat outside waiting, and the heavens sure enough opened dumping rain on us. There was no drizzling involved. We ran around like madmen bringing everything inside of rooms and then in large groups laid on the beds listening to the rain hit the tin roof and the occasional lightning strike. The sound was soothing, the bed was soft and we were all tired from the many bus rides, so we very quickly fell asleep.

When we woke up the next day at the break of dawn, Hussein met us and gave us a ride into the park, about 8km up the road. We passed by the big sign at the entrance and onto the hotel. We were too early to check in, so stored our bags in the room of some friends from Legon who we happened to run into and then signed up for the morning tour. The way the hotel is managed, there is a large watering hole by its base that is artificially sustained throughout the dry season, so all of the animals are drawn to it as a source of water. Because it rained so much the night before, water in puddles on the ground was in abundance, so we didn't see any elephants. We did manage to make out some warthogs and a collection of kob as well as many birds that I can't name. It was also nice to get a walk in the fresh air outside of the city, and the savannah landscape is beautiful. We had an armed guard, as per the rules of all national parks in this country, to protect us from the animals. I didn't get his name, but he seemed a little sour on the idea of so many tourists hanging around. I wish I could have talked to him more about it, but he took off quickly after every tour was done.

It was so peaceful to observe the wildlife. Our group got a little noisy at times, but it was good experience looking for signs of animals and appreciating the landscape for what it was. It was quite hot to be walking around in the sun too, so we were all happy to take a little break by the watering hole and watch the birds flying around overhead.

After the morning tour, we got back to the hotel and utilitized its many amenities. It was really good for a pretty cheap deal (we each paid about $5 for a room), featuring a restaurant and pool with a view of the large watering hole from above. Yaa came over from Larabanga that afternoon and asked me to teach him how to swim. The water felt so nice in the mid-day heat after hiking around. Because the wildlife was taking a break from being gawked at, we decided to skip the afternoon tour.

Here is the pool and Sarah reading by the pool side watching the water hole

After swimming we enjoyed some lunch from the Mole Motel restaurant with some European dishes, but mostly featuring chicken and rice (they were "out of vegetables" the whole time we were there). It was more expensive than the nearby staff canteen, but it was worth it for one hearty meal.

Yaa took over the camera for a while, and posed with my sunglasses. He was a lot of fun to have around, but left soon after. As we all hung around the poolside, we talked about the trip plan.
Originally we were going to leave the next day (Sunday) to get back for classes, but we hadn't yet seen our elephants. To be sure our priorities were straight, we stayed an extra day, which left everybody at peace. We napped and watched the sun go down over the water hole, topping even the sunset from the roof of the Salia brothers.

Not much else happened that day, but a bunch of us met by the pool at night and ended up talking over drinks. Our friends from Legon Ivy and Megan (who are not Californians so are in Ghana on a different study abroad program) were there. We ended up having a very interesting discussion about privilege as it pertains to living in a developing country. How much spending is excess? How do you justify on a daily basis your material wealth in the face of extreme poverty? We settled, on the somewhat dissatisfying but in my opinion true idea that the best you can do is to be thankful for everything that you have and to give some of your life to work for change, even in the smallest actions like buying sweat-shop free clothes when you can, trying to get sustainable food, donating to appropriate organizations, etc. It was a relief to talk about the issue of privilege it is a big deal to all of us, and I think we were all suffering from bottling up our thoughts. After that, we crammed six people into three beds and four in a tent outside and fell asleep.

The next day we woke up early again, hopeful because it had not rained the day before. Most of us grabbed a quick breakfast and then set off on a walking tour again. We met some bushbacks and waterbucks in the forest (they all look much like deer), and they scattered. Although Mole has been around for a little while, the animals there are not fully habituated to the presence of people, which gives a really cool atmosphere to the park and stops it from feeling like a zoo.
As we curled around a bend in a small hill, we looked toward the water hole and saw what we had been looking for that morning: an African elephant. I don't know how many of you know this, but I happen to believe that elephants are amazing. They are extremely social creatures. They use their trunks as snorkels, they bury their dead (even if being pursued by hunters), and they can remember the location of a small water hole for emergency situations 50 years down the line. Beyond that, they have an incredible physical presence. They are so big and powerful, but also graceful. They sway rhythmically from side to side and their movements are punctuated by the bass of their feet hitting the ground leaving big indentations. They use their trunks for everything, and an elephant trunk has more muscles in it than the entire human body. That allows them to pick up pennies off of a smooth surface with their noses! We were in a group of other Ghanain and European tourists who would do things like shout at the elephant or try to walk as close to it as it could to get it to mock-charge us. It wasn't terribly pleasant during what amounted to one of the biggest spiritual moments of my life (I was inside "Planet Earth"!), but sparked another interesting discussion among my group about how humans react to the idea of "wild" things. Virtually everything in urban areas is under human influence or control, and these elephants, significantly bigger than we are and in their own homes, were certainly holding the cards for this interaction. For me it's always fun to be in a situation where I have to recognize the power of the natural world as greater than the power of my own actions, but it is funny how it spurs some people to just pretend they are at the zoo or that the animals are animatronic Disney characters. While it was fun to take some "classic tourist" pictures, it was also nice to just sit and watch the elephants bob and throw dirt onto themselves, and interact with fleets of little white birds. If you ever get the opportunity to see one in real life, I strongly suggest you go for it. The experience was profound for everyone, so we spent a few hours quietly hanging around the hotel, taking the place in and loving every minute of it. There were also some naps and lunch.

After that we had another brilliant idea- a jeep tour through the park. A handful of us and another woman we'd met boarded the truck, and the majority of us sat on top on these really uncomfortable metal bars, fighting the spare tire for space. We all squished together and it was a great ride. We saw some baboons, kob, waterbuck, bushback and two more elephants. It was so nice to see them away from the hotel in the trees. The whole scene felt very peaceful. The driver tried to overcharge us, but it was well worth the bumpy ride. We got off a bit bruised, and then carried on much as the day before. Swimming, dinner by the pool watching the sunset again, showers, more chatting by the pool side, and then finally bed. We woke up at 3:30am the next morning to pack our things and catch the bus out of Mole. Our original plan was to get off at a particular junction and then take a maze of tro-tros and buses that would have been maybe an hour faster total, but we missed the stop and instead went all the way to Tamale, which worked out perfectly. There was complete and utter chaos at the bus station in Tamale as everyone scrambled to figure out which company had a bus leaving first and then buying a mess of tickets. Our group got split into two groups, but we all endured the long trip home, packed 7 of us into a taxi and made it back to campus. The power was out. Taking that as a sign, I unpacked my things, took a quick bucket shower, and fell asleep after a dinner of crackers and peanut butter. I woke up the next day a little shocked to be home.

Mosomagor

2008-04-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

After the slave castle tour I met up with the other girls, we got some breakfast, and then Megan, Thien Vinh and I left to go explore Kakum national park, specifically a small town turned eco-tourism project named Mosomagor. It took a while to get there after taxi-negotiation mishaps and poor directions, but one helpful man pointed us in the right direction. After a long ride, we arrived later than intended in the village and were greeted well.
We met some of the women and children around and arranged an evening hike. We then began a quick tour of the village, followed by some rice and stew for dinner.

This is a little girl pounding cassava (a really big potato like root) to make dough that is served in stew. The finished product is called fufu, which I mentioned a while back. Pounding it is very hard work, but many Ghanaians treat it as a staple and really like it.

We also saw a group of women extracting palm oil from a bunch of palm nuts. They sometimes use a grinding machine to get most of the oil out, but the traditional method is to boil the palm nuts until the oil floats to the top and then skim it off by hand. Pretty skilled, I'd say. They use palm oil for almost every dish here.

Once the tour was done and we scarfed down some rice, we hitched up our backpacks and began hiking into the rainforest. We hiked down the dirt road, through another village, and then entered Kakum National Park with a pretty clear boundary of large trees. The sun set very quickly and soon we were just following our required armed guard down a path in the dark. It was nice to walk with the sound of cicadas and limited vision, unsure of where we were going.
We fortunately had plenty of water and would stop every so often to break and sip it. After about an hour and a half of walking, mostly in silence, Megan in the lead said "ow...Ow...OOWWW!" followed by Thien Vinh. That was our first and only direct interaction with the fauna of Kakum in the form of soldier ants. These ants were vicious. They crawled up my legs, under my socks, into my shoes, and I even found one on my head. Responding to a threat, it is perfectly reasonable that most ants would sting to stave off the threat. But these ants, I'm convinced, were playing offense. They wanted to take us down. We painstakingly ran through the forest to a clearing where we pulled off our shoes and, one by one, removed the ants that had a painful death grip on small patches of skin. Even as we squeezed them off, they bit our hands leaving these little raised red spots all over us. Fortunately we didn't see them again and made it the rest of the short way to our sleeping quarters:
We bravely ascended a flimsy looking ladder to get to the raised tree platform where we would spend the night. We unpacked our meager belongings, spread out towels and sheets, had a late night snack of bread and cheese spread with some water before journaling, reading, exploring the self-timing option on Thien Vinh's new camera, and eventually falling asleep to the jungle cacophony of insects and the occasional howling mammal.

We woke up the next morning to a light filled canopy, drowsily looking around at what had been pure blackness the night before. It felt magical to be up so high, but because we had a bus to catch from Cape Coast, we had to skedaddle pretty quickly.
We stopped to see some of the very interesting flora along the way including what was described to us (almost certainly a lie) the tallest tree in West Africa

We were also able to spot and avoid these little bastards so they couldn't bite us up more. There was one ant attack, but Thien Vinh only got bitten once and there were no casualties

We also saw this tree, pretty cool, whose roots pull up so much water during the night that if you cut an exposed one first thing in the morning you can full a liter bottle without much trouble. Good to know if you are ever wandering around a Ghanaian rainforst. This tree is called the umbrella tree because its leaves fall in bunches that look like umbrella covers.

The last plant we stopped to see and sample was a cocoa pod, the base ingredient for chocolate much revered by people around the world. The pods come off of the trunk of the tree and are this bright yellow color with white pulp surrounding big purple seeds. You put a seed in your mouth and suck off the white pulp before spitting it out. It tastes like lychee to me, if I had to compare it to something. The bitter seeds are also dried as the first step toward making yummy chocolate.
When we returned to the village, we said farewell to the people we'd met, got our taxi back to the nearest town and a tro-tro from there back to Cape Coast. At that point we were pretty hungry and looked for two restaurants that the Brandt guidebook told us about that didn't exist before giving up and going back to the same beach-front resort and ordering mini pizzas and vegetable curry. Shortly thereafter, we taxied back to the bus station and hopped on a big windowed bus to make the ride home. I met a couple from USC medical school studying for 6 weeks at the teaching hospital in Accra. They were very friendly, and it was fun for me to talk about Ghana and sound a little bit knowledgeable, because I'm confused here so much of the time.

As a special bonus for reading so far, here are updated pictures of what my room looks like (there should be green sheets on the bed, but they were drying after being washed). Stay tuned because next week there will be storied of elephants and waterfalls with lots of pictures, now that I know how to make them big :-)

Cape Coast

2008-04-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

After a relaxing week, I shuffled some plans around and ended up in a group heading towards Cape Coast, roughly three hours west of Accra on the coastline. I traveled with Thien Vinh, Natalia and Megan and after our morning egg sandwiches we taxied to the main bus station in town to buy tickets. The bus employees have a long history of treating people from our program really badly, so I was not looking forward to it, but the buses are the safest way to go long distances.
After lots of reading, napping, ipod listening, and one breakdown, we arrived in Cape Coast

We took a taxi to our room at a nice guesthouse and all sat in wonderment because we had a fridge and tv (which we never used) plus lots of space for the four of us.

Once we got established, we wandered around town for a little bit. Cape Coast is much more relaxed than Accra, but is a big enough city that you can walk around for a long time checking it out and finding new and exciting things. We had been given a tip off that near the town center was a vegetarian restaurant, and Thien Vinh, having chosen to maintain her vegetarianism in Ghana, could not have been happier. We had some onion burgers, which really turned out more like onion latkes, but were still yummy. At the restaurant we met up with Talia, Lauren and Emily who are Cape Coast veterans. They each now have boyfriends from town, and one of them owns a shop on the main road where we spent the early evening hanging out. The three late-arrivals were going to a show in a nearby town, but because transportation was an issue, everybody ended up staying in Cape Coast.
We all shared some tea at an ocean-side hotel as the sun set. After hanging around there for a little while, we walked to a bar in an "up and coming" neighborhood, and schmoozed more before turning in for the night.

I woke up early the next morning and the girls were still asleep, so I stole an opportunity I'd been waiting for. During orientation when I famously came down with malaria, the rest of the group made a trip to Cape Coast because it has one of the most famous monuments in Ghana: an old castle that started as a trading fort and transformed into a prison for slaves before they were shipped over the Atlantic. It is a beautifully kept whitewashed set of buildings, and I spent the first half hour there just wandering around, hearing the waves beat against its side, trying to imagine what it must have been like during the slave trade. All of the noise and sadness and livestock and everything, now replaced with the sounds of a rhythmic ocean. It was eerie to be standing in a monument to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, basically the worst thing that humans have ever done by measure of its scope, scale, brutality, and instant institutionalization that staved off any resistance for such a long time.

The first thing that welcomes you is this seal of Ghana's government with the words "Freedom and Justice" embossed under the eagles holding the seal. Those words take on a particular sense of irony and meaning printed on the side of a slave fort, especially in the greater context of the developing country that it represents, struggling to provide basic resources for its people. After wandering, I started on a tour. I was originally with a very large group of Ghanaian college students from Kumasi who were impossible to tour with. Like any large-group field trip, kids were listening to their ipods, chatting with each other about meaningless things. I felt that the castle deserved a more solemn mood and respect than they were giving it, especially as people coming from this country. But our tour group eventually separated, and I was left with a small group of a nice mix of Ghanaians from several regions and a few other foreigners. We saw the small cells that kept hundreds of slaves with no sanitation system with a church built right above it. We saw the chamber for slaves who resisted- a dark hole in the wall with scratch marks in the stone from people who went mad in the constant darkness as they slowly succumbed to a painful death.

Finally, we saw the "Door of No Return", where slaves were ushered down a tunnel paved with broken glass to prove their strength and then made to crawl through a very short door to get out of the castle. A man was selling tourist trinkets right outside, perhaps as a reminder that the economic conditions of this country leave it so indebted to the western world. It was not a feel-good couple of hours.

But it ended on a refreshing note, the small tour of people from all over the place, honestly recognizing how all of their ancestors had participated in (I'll say it again) the worst institution that has to my knowledge ever existed. This place represented the absolute rock bottom of human interaction. We have a long way to go to get past it, but it felt refreshing to recognize with Ghanaians and other foreigners alike how indebted we are to each other, how we all must carry the burden of making sure that such a thing never happens again. In that way, we are all now on the same team. Taking a deep breath together in the hold of the castle, feeling connected to each other even though we just met, proved how much of a positive experience could come out of such atrocities.

Caffeine and Babies

2008-04-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

In the middle of that week, after the funeral, I made my first trip to Max Mart. It is a triple story building that functions as a mall but it's pretty small. They have groceries on the first floor and odd and expensive gadgets and decorating elements above. The one major draw is that the second floor houses what seems to be the only cafe in Accra. It is air conditioned with large tinted windows that face the street, giving the impression that you have literally risen above the city and are looking down over it (there are no hills or tall buildings here). The only downside is that because it's not in California, people smoke cigarettes inside. I joined a group to go get lunch there in the afternoon

Jessica Erica Aaronson (roommate) Ali Jessica again

We got coffee and sandwiches with !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!cheese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! which I have not eaten for roughly two months, unless you count the Laughing Cow cheese-like spread, and you shouldn't. We had a range of discussions ranging from local issues to US politics, but mostly focusing on reflecting on our time here and how challenging it can be. I think a lot of us came to Ghana with the idea that we should suffer great hardships, that we should deprive ourselves of comforts in order to benefit the most from a challenging experience. It was nice to talk about the issues we've each faced, the challenges of adjusting to a new place, and to realize that this is such an intense learning experience because we're constantly immersed in a culture very different from our own. It has nothing to do with access to cheese sandwiches. A few others came and went, but Jessica, Erica and I talked until before we knew it the sun had long since set. We ordered dinner right before they closed, and then caught a tro-tro home.

In other news, a woman comes by the girls' dorm once a week named Jane. She's a seamstress and makes nice clothes and quilts. This is me with her baby, who I later found out is named Joy (I hope Makdisi is reading this...) I just wanted to include a cute picture

No Weddings and a Funeral

2008-04-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry all. Somehow this post didn't make it when it was supposed to. I went to this funeral a few weeks ago right before Cape Coast. Happy belated reading

That weekend, about 20 international students piled into air conditioned minibuses and drove towards the Volta region (a lot seems to happen to me there). We were going to attend a funeral in the home village of my drumming instructor, Johnson. Now, while you take a moment to process that last sentence, I have to explain that funerals here are not the same as they are in the US. A funeral here is meant as a celebration of the life of the deceased to honor their spirit (which is still around) whereas I think of funerals at home more as events for the living, an opportunity to acknowledge their feelings. Because of this fundamental difference, funerals in Ghana are open to the public, and we were emphatically welcomed to hear about the woman who had died and partake in her celebration.
The first order of business when we arrived (after a short time playing with the little kids, to whom two vans full of white people was pretty noteworthy) was to gather and pour a libation. This has, of course, happened before. We gathered on benches and Johnson pulled out a bottle of locally made gin. He instructed us to drink some and pour some on the ground for the ancestors to thank them for protecting us on the journey there. After that, we toured around the village (spelled Dzodze pronounced "djo-dje") and met some of the people who live there and also searched for food and water, which we found on the main road. We also saw the school at which Johnson used to teach.
As we walked, what looked like a parade came towards us. This group was part of a different funeral in the same region. They were marching following a car with the corpse sitting upright in the back seat. They were dancing, playing, and celebrating, stopping to say hello to us or pull us into the dance-fest. It felt more like a parade than a funeral.

We shared dinner with Johnson's sisters who made banku for us, and then after the sun had set and we had played a few games of cards, Johnson brought out the drums. They were all kpalongos (almost conga shaped, I'll show you mine when I get home :-) ) and we practiced some of the songs we're working on. Some of us are also in a dance class, and they practiced their dance moves as the rest of us drummed.

Exhausted after our drum circle, many people fell asleep staring up at the millions of stars that you can't see in the city. Johnson came by to rouse the sleepy and invite them to a celebration, where the family of the deceased woman was keeping the wake. It was a long church service mingled with dancing. You can see Emily in the first picture, and the second is Jessica standing next to a woman who proposed to marry me so that I could "take her back to London". So much wrong with that. Anyway, while we were dancing , the immediate family of the dead woman were also gathered there, separate, wearing only black and mourning with no holds barred. They just wailed and howled with sadness. It was really shocking to see such a harsh dichotomy. Was I supposed to celebrate or mourn? How could you possibly dance with such sadness right next to you? But after discussing the cultural set up of the funeral, we realized that a celebration did not flow against the grief of the family. Rather, it supported them, allowing for them to feel their intense loss while being reminded that the community was all around them at that they would one day be happy again.

The next day began with oats and tea for breakfast. We'd spent the night sleeping on a hard clay floor, so everybody rather slowly woke up. We talked about our experiences of the night before and also sat in silence for some time. A few of us helped a man pulling dried corn kernals off of the cob to store for the rainy season.

Shortly thereafter, Johnson woke up and beckoned to us to follow him. We walked toward a latticed area with dried vines and he told us it was a local shrine. When he was a kid, he said, his family woke up one day to find his little sister missing. She had been summoned in a dream to the high priestess of the village, and from then on was trained as a priestess herself. She poured libation for us in a ritual and we thanked her (at one point one of my friends was dizzy and about to faint, so I had to take off a little early, but definitely got the experience.

From there, we joined the solemn and celebratory march of the casket of the dead woman from the town center toward a public ceremony. That was particularly difficult for me because while I wanted to interact with locals and hear their stories, I was reflecting on death and thinking about my mom being in the hospital before I came to Ghana, and how little I would feel like celebrating. But when the parade got to the grave site itself, a certain peace fell over everyone. People said a few words, and young men from the village alternated filling in the grave after her casket had been put in it. The chaotic pattern of dirt flying through the air and landing with a rhythmic thud on the coffin seemed too symbolic to comment on. There were such a wide range of emotions in the few days that we spent there, each expressed with so much intensity. It seemed like the only honest way to conduct a funeral, to bring out the complexity of feeling so happy, proud, disturbed, sad, inexplicable. To have it resolve with such quiet was reassuring.

We moved from that funeral to another smaller one. A member from the village had died somewhere else in Ghana. After conducting a burial at the death-site, friends there shipped the man's hair and fingernails back to Dzodze so the village could also bury him. It was a much smaller group of people and a much shorter ceremony as they drummed, sang, and buried a small box in a grassy field.

We continued on then, in a whirlwind tour, to meet Johnson's brother. We arrived and were offered more alcohol in a variety of forms than any of us could stomach (everyone was pretty dehydrated after marching in the sun all day). He was very welcoming, invited us back any time we were in town, and then wished us a safe journey. We ate some rice with Johnson's sisters and then boarded the buses home. We

Field Trip

2008-04-25T03:06:00.000-07:00

Field trips are one of the best reasons to study environmental science. It points to the flexibility required to be a student here that one week before our field trip my professor announced it showing no consideration for the fact that students take multiple classes and maybe have other appointments that stop them from just ditching a random Wednesday. But it was worth it. After returning from last week's adventures, I woke up early on Wednesday and piled into a 70s style minivan big enough to take about 25 students on the four hour journey back to Akosombo. We were crammed in there and it was the usual rowdiness you would expect, but I slept throughmost of it because I'm still not fully used to the early mornings here. For no reason other than that I am a total nerd about this stuff, I want to show you guys pictures of the dam itself from up close.
When we arrived we met a man from the Volta River Authority who lead us on a tour above the dam. He also felt free to meander off and talk about how children should take on more responsibilities for society.

Here are pictures from this dam

Now I'm sure many of you are thinking, why do we care about such a dam? This is a hydro-dam that provides virtually all of the electricity to Ghana, as well as some to neighboring countries. Those of us who remember the rolling blackouts in California not too long ago will remember griping about not being able to use their microwave for an hour during the blackouts, but people in the Untied States tend not to think about where electricity comes from (or water for that matter). It was cool to see the mechanism that provides electricity to all of us (when we're lucky) and allows me to do things like write on this blog at all. As we toured a second dam downstream it started to rain on us with thunder and lightning strikes that made me realize why people believe in God. I mean, it just came down. And rather than thinking of rain as a pain, getting us soaked before we sat in a hot bus for four hours, it was nice to think about each raindrop as the energy used to power hospitals, schools, this computer, etc. It never hurts to remember that it's all connected.

There's no place like home

2008-04-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

I realized that I had been traveling every weekend since school started, and that my continuing bouts of sickness were telling me to calm down and take it easy in such a slow-moving place. It was fun to stay at home, but I can't say that I got much done. I attempted some research at the library, but the section I needed isn't open on the weekends. I ended up hanging out with the others who stayed behind. Saturday was by far the best day because it included yummy ice-cold smoothies in Accra, followed by a wonderful Chinese dinner at Regal Chinese restaurant. It was a fantastic break from Ghanaian food, and a nice throwback to what I think of as San Francisco cuisine. Otherwise, the days moved very slowly but peacefully. It was really good to spend a down weekend in Legon.

Life moves slowly

2008-04-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, there was not much exciting that happened for the next long while. I have been a little afraid that I have given you all the impression that life here is just one big traveling adventure. While that is true in some ways, it's important that I convey how slowly everything moves here. We typically budget one errand per day which could range from checking email to going into Accra to buy groceries- something that at home would be one unnoticable activity on a long to-do list. Each day moves slowly, and not much gets done. The bright side is that that leaves a lot of room for personal reflection (sometimes scary), long, drawn-out meals, walking slowly instead of jogging or biking, coloring, reading, and napping.

The following week included more cake and ice cream for the March-born students (only Megan), and the arrival of Megan's family including her boyfriend Mike who will be with us for the long haul until the end of the semester. It was fantastic to meet them because they are all very kind and entertaining people, and there was somewhat of a rush of California viewpoints, which was more than welcome. It provided a really good opportunity for me to re-live that first week I spent here, to talk about what shocked me the most, things they noticed that I didn't, and a re-affirmation that this place is very different from the home I am used to, so periodic moments of insanity are warranted. The group that flew back has arrived safely, and I hope they know how fun it was to meet them and enjoy their California company :-)

Ah, also worth note is that another thief was punished outside of the library. Bad thieves.

Dam to Estuary

2008-04-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

The following weekend was Easter weekend (just to remind us all how far behind I am). I took a trip with Elaine, Katie, Mac, Brittany and Raia along with Senam up to the Akosombo dam. From there we took an all day ferry down the Volta River to the estuary at Ada Foah to spend Easter Sunday and Monday. I fortunately got a lot of pictures, so they will be doing most of the talking.

We left early in the morning, as you do, and caught a tro-tro from Accra to the town of Akosombo. The town really flourished when the dam was built in the 1950s shortly after Ghana gained its independence. Behind the dam is Lake Volta, the world's largest man-made lake (now being challenged by China). There are a number of environmental issues associated with the dam (because it was unfortunately built before the environmental movement with little to no understanding of how the environment functions), but it is also quite a beautiful sight.
Akosombo is a well designed town featuring a grid-system that marked the industrial mindset of its creation and the desire to accomplish the large-scale project of the dam. It is in a beautiful forested place, and has some cute spots like where we ate lunch at the Hollywood Cafe (far the hell away from Hollywood)

We had two choices for lunch: fried rice or banku (I'll talk about food in a few posts). Everyone ate well, drank soda (which none of us do at home) and then moved on by tro-tro to the town of Akuse, 10km downstream and sight of a second hydro-dam.

We met some of Senam's buddies (who mostly spoke Ewe) but it was fun to see new people. We sat with some of his friends at a small ranch operation with chickens and pigs! Because of Senam's connections, we were able to stay at the Volta River Authority Lodge operated by a friend of his. The rooms were spacious and air conditioned so they were actually cold!We went to see the friend's house, and he served a delicious kenkey dinner. We met his wife but arrived to late to see his twin six year-old boys, but their pictures adorned the room.
The next day was a trip. We woke up at 5 to catch a ferry at Akuse's station. The ferry takes a full day to go up the river, and then the next day goes down (it does not operate on Sundays). We waited on board, the only passengers, as the ferry pulled out at 7am.

We saw the sun rise and set from the same boat. We had water, toilets (read: a hole in a wooden seat that drops straight into the river that villagers drink from), and food. We tried napping at various intervals, but the ferry became quite crowded with people going downstream to visit their families for Easter. There were crates of live chickens, huge bags of charcoal and other goods that villagers were selling downstream.

When we arrived in Ada Foah (the estuary town), Senam asked around for a cheap place to stay. One man lead us to another, then another until we met a man on his motorboat named Theo. I should say that there are a huge number of Theo's in Ghana, both boys and girls, and it's really confusing for me who has never met another Theo before. We hopped on his little boat in the dark and took off towards his little lodge.

It is a beautiful place, with about 10 thatch bungalos, a bar and a large stretch of beach that is completely unoccupied. We were the only ones there, along with Theo and his wife Veera.

We helped them make a dinner of banku which is really hard to stir. It's made of fermented cassava, corn flour and water, and the longer you stir it the harder it is. It doesn't help that the proper technique involves stabilizing the bowl with your feet on two bars that I was told by everyone else resembled a visit to the OB/GYN. It is served with fish and pepper sauce that Elaine is mashing.

We all scarfed down and then sat by a fire that Theo had made in awe of how beautiful it was before going to sleep in our tent.

Unfortunately something had wiped me out for all of Easter Sunday with food poisoning (it wasn't pretty), but the group nourished me back to health. I spent most of Sunday thinking that it would be great if I had been sick on Saturday and magically recovered on Sunday in an Easter parallel, but then remembered that feeling crappy on a crowded ferry is a lot worse than on a deserted beach.

It was a good group to travel with, and we got along with Theo and Veera very well (Elaine and Veera on the left). We called ourselves the village of 9 because nobody entered our beach at all.

We spent the majority of the next day at the Estuary at Ada Foah. For those of us who know me, you ought to know that I love the movement of water, and that I am from San Francisco, the city on a large and important estuary (though some people call it a bay), so it was reminiscent of home

We made a pit stop on the way back to see Ebeneezer, the chief of a local village on the estuary. They are famous for making apoteshie, the general name given to alcohol locally distilled in villages. To his right is a large machine for processing sugar cane and distilling rum. It is fermented in clay pots for about a month and then bottled in plastic water bottles.

We all tried some mixed with juice, but at 45% alcohol, it's hard to reduce that taste

Senam particularly enjoyed it, and we fought to keep him singing and sitting still on the boat ride back to Theo's place so he didn't fall out. It definitely added a comical element to the afternoon, especially for Veera.

We cared for Senam, and then relaxed on the beach for a few more hours reading and lounging. Then as the sun began to set we settled the bill and Theo boated us back to the tro-tro station where we caught the last remaining tro-tro toward Tema.
On the way home, we got caught in a few towns where people were cavorting around the streets. Apparently Easter Monday is a really big holiday in Ghana where people dance all day and rejoice. I guess they have too much pent up energy from church the day before. It was a very exciting site, and Senam would periodically stop to shout "To

Megan's Birthday

2008-04-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

The last major event of that week was the early celebration of Megan's birthday. I have known Megan since I have known Berkeley- we lived on the same floor in the dorms. I have spoken to many people who hated dorm life, but I had a wonderful time and made what I hope will be lifelong friends there, and Megan is definitely among them. It was wonderful to celebrate her birthday here, and we had a great time, so you are going to have to suffer through a description of how to throw a party 3rd world style (we actually pulled off quite a lot). Megan had the inspiration to imitate one of the best college style parties: a room-to-room, in which each room has its own theme and the people who live there throw a "mini-party" of their theme before everybody moves on to the next room.

First was dinner: Vegetable curry and rice. Rice is not hard to find here, but a wide assortment of vegetables required a trip to Accra. The curry sauce contained three ingredients: coconut milk, sugar, and curry powder. It was amazing. The fresh smell that comes with cutting vegetables is especially aromatic when you haven't eaten them in a while. With big scoops of white rice (possibly my new favorite food)

We then moved on to Kelli and Elaine's fruit room. They had painstakingly sliced a beautiful array of fruits with Swiss Army Knives with NUTELLA in the middle (basically like liquid joy). I ate so much pineapple my mouth stung and I had to lay off of it for a week afterwards.

Next was Talia and Natalie's Tea Time, featuring honeybush rooibus tea, a wide variety of biscuits (the British did come to colonize, and while they didn't really leave a strong tea stamp, you can buy little packets of biscuits anywhere). It was lovely. Mac even brought out some fermented local alcohol that reportedly tasted like some combination of feet and ham. I don't hate myself enough to drink something with such a description, so we can't be sure

Finally was the Birthday room. Emily (Megan's roommate) decorated the room and welcomed everyone in by spraying them with silly string (the Ghanaians were really amused by that). We had chocolate birthday cake, and lollipops with whistles on the inside, and almost everyone from the program was in one room together for the first time in a long time. We focused mostly on appreciating Megan, but it was nice to survey a room full of people with whom I've shared so many wacky experiences. All in all, a very successful celebration.

Lizzie Leaves

2008-04-02T11:38:00.001-07:00

The reason I could not stay to see the thief being punished (I'm not sure I would have wanted to anyway) was that I was meeting a friend, Lizzie for dinner. Normally, I would not take the time to tell you about each individual dinner I eat, but this was Lizzie's last dinner in Ghana. She is from San Francisco State and has been in Ghana since the end of last July. Due to progressively worse migraines, she eventually decided that it would be best for her long term health to go back home, and I wanted to have a meal with her before she left. Lizzie in many ways represented the benefits of coming second semester to lean on the students who have already been here and done so much. She was a wonderful reminder of San Francisco and taught me one of the most important lessons of being here: it's ok to have bad days where you feel like you are crazy and hate everything about such a new place. You bounce back, just be honest and nice to yourself. I hope that she has returned home safely and knows that she is appreciated here.

To see somebody actually going home also brought about a new flash of memory. For most of my day I don't think about Berkeley or San Francisco. I have fleeting memories, but I am mostly trying to stay in the moment and appreciate where I am. It was in many ways nice to hear Lizzie talk about the college friends she will see and the restaurants and sites she will visit (after the reverse culture shock subsides) in the city. I might just be able to balance loving home and loving it here.

The Honor System

2008-04-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

There are three noteworthy things that happened that week. The first was a spectacle I only caught part of as I was walking to dinner. Outside of the campus library, there were a huge number of students in red who were chanting loudly. I had to meet some people at dinner (see the next post) so I didn't stick around, but the event was later explained to me in detail by a friend who saw it all. A student was caught stealing a library book. You are not allowed to check out books from the library, and removing them is considered a serious offense because they are a very limited resource (the most recent books on water management were published in the late 1960s-early 1970s). As it turns out, any student who is caught stealing anything is given two options: the first is to accept being turned into the police, following which you are fined and expelled from school. It's important to remember that I'm not in the US here- this is one of a handful of universities, and if you get kicked out, there goes 20 years of hard work and being at the top of your class down the drain, plus you would disgrace your whole family. That's why every student choses option number 2: let Commonwealth Hall deal with you. Commonwealth is the all male dorm at the top of the hill on campus. They are very much the jocks in the traditional high school setting. A sign outside of the building reads "Welcome to Vandal City", and they are well known for being rowdy know-it-alls, but are respected by the rest of the student body. The way they punish thieves is quite a process. The elected "chief" of Commonwealth Hall drags a cart all around campus where the offender stands only in his boxers with his head hung in shame, surrounded by students wearing red- the Commonwealth Hall color. They stop in front of the library where students collect water and throw it at him- not in a fun water balloon fight kind of way, but in a way where the water snaps, leaving welts on the skin. Finally, the group converges and dumps the thief into the pond by the library. I would be interested to assess how much biological activity goes on in that pond, because water never cycles through it and it has taken on an awful brown color. This whole process emerged after years of students complaining about thieves and the security guards on campus failing to direct resources to addressing the problem (they do, to be fair, have bigger fish to fry). I don't want to give the impression that students here are constantly wandering around in a tribal fashion like they just emerged from the bush (they are in many ways more prim and proper than I am), but while this anecdote is in many ways not representative of life here, in some ways it really highlights that there are some traditions that nobody bothers to explain or justify, that just exist because that's the way things are supposed to be. Identifying those things makes studying abroad really interesting, and I wonder what kinds of weird rituals we have at home to which I don't give a second thought.

Happy ending to a bad day

2008-04-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

That Thursday was just one of those days. I woke up with bad stomach cramps and my first bout with travelers' diarrhea. That was tons of fun. I pumped myself full of drugs until I could comfortably leave my room. I had to eat something so I could take my malaria pill so I ended up walking towards class planning to buy a big piece of dry white bread and some water sachets. I walked leisurely knowing I would be late, and stopped at the bank to withdraw money from the ATM where my card, without reason, was declined. I entered the bank to ask why and they told me they didn't know and I would have to go into Accra to the main branch with a copy of my passport so they could clear my name. Bad news: we had to submit our passports to the immigration office to get our visas extended to more than 2 months so I didn't have it. I fortunately had a 10 cedi bill, but nobody on campus accepts them because your average purchase is about 60 cents, and nobody wants to give so much change to one customer. Worn out, I asked the woman behind the desk if she would change that into 1s, which she begrudgingly did after accusing me of possessing counterfeit money. No fun!

In order to improve the situation, I did not abort a plan that Ali, Natalie and I had made earlier that week- to bus to the Western region to hang out on the beach. I figured that if I was going to be lying down with stomach cramps, I might as well be in a place with a working toilet, good food and a beach front (for the mental health).
We packed and left that afternoon by STC bus and arrived in Takoradi that night. From there we took a taxi along the bumpiest most undeveloped road to the backpackers hostel we were hoping to stay at. A series of garbled text messages gave me the impression that they had a room available, and when we arrived, they said they were full. Given that the place was 10km from anywhere, I almost broke down sobbing, but they were able to open up space for us in tents that night. Relieved to find a place to rest our weary heads, we grabbed some sodas from the bar.

My assessment was more than correct. Sleeping in a secluded tent on the beach listening to the ocean's pounding waves was so peaceful compared to a boy's college dormitory. I woke up refreshed and staked out one of the covered tables on the beach where we set up camp for the day. All of us, but particularly me, was happy to have a down day. The most exciting thing I did was to set up this slightly wobbly self-timing photo to show all of us happily together.
I even felt good enough to snack on a breakfast of french toast and plantains with a little honey to sweeten it. Yummy, especially since all I'd eaten the day before was plain white rice.

Ali went wandering down the beach to look for seashells, and both Ali and Natalie went swimming in the slightly turbulent Atlantic Ocean.

Fortunately, I had been looking for an opportunity to finish Huckleberry Finn, so I spent a large part of the day lounging in a hammock. It really does help a tummy ache to spend the day on a lovely white beach. I also met a girl named Jess who just graduated from Stanford and had been traveling with friends and working at a nursery school and another man whose name I never got, but he was born in Germany and worked in England before going for his PhD in ecology and is now studying anthropology, doing work in a small village in the Western region. Interesting people.

We lounged around until the sun set. Getting close to a real San Francisco sunset. It was so peaceful and wonderful. That night, the tents were also booked, but we had agreed to sleep on mats on the sand covered by mosquito nets. That was pretty uncomfortable, but we stuck it out.

The next day we had planned to go see a stilt village. It was still a long way off, and I wasn't feeling 100%. Also, the hostel was going to charge 80 cedi to make it a day trip, which none of us were willing to do. So instead, we contributed to eco-tourism in a cheaper way by walking down the village and taking a guided canoe ride through mangrove forests. They are amazing plants, and it was again quite calm.
We saw some inland villages and met our guides, but also just soaked in the good feelings of being surrounded by green.

Although the optimal time to see wildlife is early morning or evening, we went mid-day to break up the monotony of sitting on a beach, and saw some of the less appreciated wildlife like this crazy looking crab.

We got back to camp, spent much of the afternoon in hammocks or at our table. We tried playing trivial pursuit, but it was British and from the 1970s, and since none of us knew which county the star cricket player at the time hailed from, we gave up pretty quickly. There was a bonfire that night, and some of the backpackers tried their hands at drumming (quite badly), but the Ghanaians took over much to my peace of mind. They were not able to "upgrade us to a tent" so we spent another quiet night under the mosquito nets on the beach.
Sunday was our last day out there (we'd all agreed to miss classes on Monday to make it a long weekend). We hung out and ate at the Green Turtle (our hostel) and then moved our bags over to the Safari Lodge (the more upmarket option- costing each of us 10 cedi for the night). We were greeted back by the famous leaning palm tree, met some of the other guests who seemed to appreciate their personal space (very much not like backpackers).

We then checked into a room with real beds! It feels really good after a couple of days on the ground.

We took a long walk on the beach to appreciate it one last time, came back, swam, showered, played Sorry, and had a wonderful fancy meal while cranking up the bar tab with some fancy drinks. The next day we woke up early, caught our taxi (who actually arrived on time) and brought us to the bus station. We caught the next air conditioned bus without a hitch, and ran into some friends of mine from the International Students' Hostel. We all traveled together (you are assigned a seat on the bus when you buy your ticket which means absolutely nothing), and then we all caught a taxi back to campus. My stomach recovered and we got another good night of sleep at home before Tuesday classes.

Tradeoffs

2008-03-31T04:46:00.001-07:00

We returned from the weekend in the village and I promptly went to bed. Not much happened during that week that is worth noting. I went to class, slept, ate Ghanaian food, and would come home to hang out in my hall or at the girls' dorm talking or watching a movie before bed. On one night, though, a few of the girls came over and we played a game of monopoly starting with the intention of taking a break to go to our open air night market to get food in the middle of the game. Jessica and I played on a team and promptly lost, (convincing ourselves that winning monopoly means you must be a ruthless and evil human being, so in the end we were the real winners), but in the middle of the game it started to rain outside. It quickly transitioned from light pitter-patter to a thousand-jackhammers-striking-the-ground-at-once sounding rain. Then on came the lightning. It struck twice in a row with such a dazzling flash, and the third strike was perfectly timed to coincide with a power outage- our first one of the semester. We lit candles and continued playing. Instead of actual dinner, we survived on pastries and ice cream sold at a small stand right by the door of our building instead of going out. It was such a seamless transition. And the flip side of the rain: we got running water all week (well, for about an hour each morning, but that's enough to fill up the toilet tank, the real drain on our water supply. Ooo, that might have been an overshare). I never thought that I would be weighing the pros and cons of water and electricity, two of the most stable utilities in the US (think about how pissed we get when the electricity blacks out for an hour or two, and I don't think I've ever in my life turned the tap and had no water come out until now). It was nice to realize a lower level of dependence, to continue playing monopoly and eating ice cream until bed time.

Also, to go back to the weather metaphor, the haze that has been so far omnipresent has began to fade away. We can start actually seeing the sun rise and set and there are discernible large puffy clouds and occasional bright blue skies. This is matching my transition from feeling completely boxed into a confusing new place to an up and down state of mind thinking in a single day how great it is to be in a new place experiencing black outs and water shortages and later cursing the world for the lack of the advanced infrastructure I'm used to in the US. Mood swings are just part of the process, but it's good to have glimmers of loving the place that you are.

A few more pictures

2008-03-31T04:39:00.000-07:00

I stole these pictures from Elaine of our first lunch with Mary.

Elaine helping stir the banku (fermented corn and cassava dough served with stew)

The finished banku (we had to eat all of it, and it was very good but quite filling)

Mary, showing us old photographs of her family

Adidopke (continued)

2008-03-31T03:31:00.000-07:00

I am sorry to have cut off the rest of the story in the middle, but my internet time ran out. I'll pick up where I left off and I'm going to try to be fully caught up to the present moment with the blog by tomorrow so get ready for a whirlwind of blog posts (hopefully).

Elaine and I woke up and saw in the day light what the village looked like. This was Madame's house, made of cement and painted a cheerful yellow color. It was definitely the nicest house around, as they ranged down to mud and thatch huts, which also looked quite comfortable. Still, when the rainy season comes, it must be nice to know that you have a tin roof over your head and your house isn't going to melt around you.

We spent Friday touring around the village, and Senam showed us around one half of it. He knew everybody! It was crazy. He hasn't been here in years and everybody who we saw happily acknowledged us and talked to him. Elaine and I don't speak Ewe (the local language) so the typical routine went something like this: we would come up on a new place, the people would greet us in Ewe (Senam taught us how to say "How are you?" ("Ef oah"), "I'm fine" ("Ehhh" just like Fonzi would say it :-) ), and "thank you" ("Yo" with an extended "o") the only three phrases you really need in any community in Ghana), they would offer us a place to sit and they would talk to Senam in Ewe for some time while Elaine and I sat in silence or compared observations of the chickens and children running around or thinking about what it would be like to grow up in such a small community where the children in gangs are really mostly taking care of themselves.
At one point we stopped by the house that Senam used to live in, and I took out my camera. I was spotted by a small group of kids and one of them, clearly under peer pressure, bravely stepped forward and asked if I would take a picture of him. I agreed, and he sat down. Right after, swarms of kids came from out of the woodwork and crowded into the shot. It was really cute, and, if you can't tell, Elaine joined them for a group shot.
We moved then down to the riverside, the source of life for the people here. When the government built the dam at Akosombo, they had to flood the upstream and downstream areas, which left Adidopke under water for some years. The villagers all moved up the hills abandoning everything because of the promise that they would have clean piped water and electricity (promises which have yet to be kept after over forty years). They have managed to survive because of the water that flows down the Volta and the seafood that lives in it. We went for a swim and a short canoe ride upstream, and sat by the bank before we returned home for lunch- rice with pepper sauce and little crawdads (we ate the shells and everything). Various cats and chickens squabbled at my feet looking for scraps.

We took a short walk through the other side of our village. One of the consequences of the river flood was the deposition of brilliantly white seashells in the ground everywhere. They are reminiscent of the shell mounds in California. Some townspeople were working to sift the sand and literally mine the shells, which are crushed and used to produce paint and white wash in bigger towns. We asked what the working conditions were like and got no answer, then asked a supervising man what the working hours were. He told us 7am-4pm, and when Elaine pointed out that it was almost 5 he muttered something about overtime. We lounged around and met more people of the village before we returned home and found out they had put a gas-powered generator on to make us more comfortable. The noise was so loud you couldn't hear anything, but groups of kids came from all over the place to see what could merit such an occasion. I was reading and Elaine was writing in her journal as the kids stared at us, but one brave one followed by others climbed up and started talking to us. I gave him and his friend my book to practice reading English. I then promptly remembered that the book was "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" written in southern slang, and I tried to get it back before I ruined the literacy rate of the village, but they were attached to it, looking at the cover and the maps of the US inside. Elaine started drawing in her journal and ripped out paper for the kids to do the same. Eventually the gas ran out and we went back to sleep.

***

The next day we walked to the next village (very similar) and caught a boat back across the river (Elaine occasionally bailed out the boat). We took a taxi to the town of Bator, the largest town around. Senam kept saying "Theo, this is Bator. Have you seen it? Yeah." He has a lot of little expressions that make us all smile. On the way we passed this tro-tro. They always have something written on the back, but I particularly liked this one: "Pray until something happens".

When we got to Bator, we met an old friend of Senam's named Fortune (some Ghanaians pick their own Western names so while many call themselves biblical names like Isaac or Mary, some have more creative names like Precious). She was very sweet, gave us water (a good sign in a host) and walked with us until we got to the bank where she works. We then continued on until we got to the river side and saw people just carrying sand in baskets on their heads. It was here we met Simple, another of Senam's friends who owns about half of the land in Bator.
He brought us a bunch of bananas and we ate them outside next to this rack of pig jaws that he has saved from the pigs he has hunted and eaten.
We sat by the river for a little while talking before Simply decided he would just take off from work.

We walked to a bar in town and were treated to quite a lot of drinks and snacks. It is considered rude to turn down food or drink in Ghana, but right when we finished something another drink would come out, so we ended up nursing drinks until it was time to go. Simple had hired a private photographer to come and take a picture of all of us together (which was odd, and made both of us feel a little like a fancy decoration to be shown off later). It also made me extremely uncomfortable to spend the afternoon with somebody who has so much and managed an operation of laborers carrying really heavy sand to trucks for construction in Accra in the hot sun all day. We eventually left and returned
to Adidopke by boat, but this one had a cool sail made out of old flour sacks. Reduce, reuse, recycle. It looked like it really helped a lot too.

That night we had a fire outside with some of Senam's friends like Zach and really focused on his cats. There are three kittens by the momma cat, and Elaine and I ended up telling cat stories to each other. We then all crashed and spent our last night in the village.

When we woke up the next morning, we had our traditional breakfast of bread with peanut butter (called "groundnut paste" here, and we see people actually mashing the nuts. It looks tough, but the result is amazingly delicious for peanut butter), tea, cream and sugar. We said goodbye to Madame, to her helper in this photo with Elaine who refused to tell us her name out of shyness, and to Madame's church group (called the Amens by the townspeople because they say "Amen" so often). We gathered in a group to pour a libation of local gin to the gods to pray for a safe journey home, which involved each of us taking a shot at 9:30am. We got a taxi to a junction and tried to hail a tro-tro there, but it took a long time because they were mainly filled up. We eventually got back to Tema, had another lunch with Mary who was very kind to us and noticed my watch band was broken so she had it stitched up. We then were instructed to have another lunch time shot of gin to express gratitude for our safe arrival, and then Senam found us a tro-tro back to Legon while he boarded a different one to his university. Elaine and I rode home mostly in silence absorbing what it felt like to live for a few days in a really small village with no electricity where very little changes, but where the people all knew each other and where they lived so well. It was really an amazing sight. But in some ways, it was nice to be back in Legon where each day is different and new things happen.

As a post-script, I finally got a good picture of the crazy lizards that are everywhere here. This is what they look like :-)

The Longest Independence Day

2008-03-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

The next day, I had been told to meet Senam (who you may remember from a couple posts ago) at the main gate of campus to go into Accra to celebrate Ghana's Independence Day on March 6 and then continue on to a small village Senam had taught English in for 10 years. I am a little jaded on Independence Days because in the US they generally mean barbecues, beaches and fireworks, all of which I like but none of which are actually connected to the idea of independence. I had hoped that celebrating such a day in a country to which Independence was hard fought, well deserved, and relatively recent that my feelings would change. They partly did and partly didn't.

We rode the tro tro in and walked towards Independence Square, which looks like this from a distance

This is a group photo of the early risers. From left to right: Natalie, Alicia, Elaine, Senam, Katie. You will notice the guards behind them. Any other day of the year, it is illegal to take a picture of a person in uniform, so I took advantage. More later
This is what the Square looked like at the beginning of the celebration. It's a wide area of empty space, but the seats are all painted red, yellow black, and green, the national colors of Ghana.
We grabbed some breakfast (bread and Laughing Cow cheese spread and some snacks as the day went on like peanut brittle that almost resulted in a trip to the dentist for Katie who was knawing desperately on a corner before it budged). We then took our seats and watched the uniformed men, women and children march out:
The white is the marching band, the blue are the police, the red are the army, the light blue are the navy, the yellow are the prison guards, and the green are the immigration officers. In addition to government workers, children in school uniforms marched out and held banners. They walked around a lot and ended up standing for a long time in the sunshine. Every so often one of the students would just fall over and two men on the side would run into the middle of the crowd with a stretcher. Nobody batted an eyelash at it. Senam said he remembered passing out as a student in the march. It's just not seen as at all alarming.
The presence of snipers on the marker for Independence indicated the arrival of the President. The monument has the date of Independence (March 6, 1957) and the slogan "Freedom and Justice"
Kufuor arrived too far away to see to much applause from the crowd. He staked out his area in the Presidential stand, and the moved off to examine the troops and school kids:

There are guards running on either side of the car because Kufuor was recently involved in a side-collison. He was just fine, but many believe it was an assassination attempt. The whole story blew over really quickly.Kufuor's car weaved through the troops and made its way to the base of a statue of "The Unknown Soldier" commemorating the nameless soldiers who died for Ghana's independence. He lit the "Perpetual Flame" at the base of the soldier before driving back to the elaborate podium to deliver his speech. The speakers had some timing issues so there was about a 1 second delay between his speech booming from the speakers at the front and our small speaker in our section. That combined with his accent meant sadly that I could not understand a single word he said.

The speech was followed by a procession of the large armed vehicles. This tank was my favorite reading "Ghana Armed Forces: Partners for Development". It also included several missile launchers, a helicopter and an airplane. Also, horses:
Shortly after that we decided to leave. We made a stop at the Art and Cultural Center (where vendors love seeing white tourists- we were surrounded within moments looking at all sorts of crafts, but moved on rather quickly). We walked up to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (Senam was upset that we had never seen it). Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of the First Republic of Ghana (there have been Four Republics because of three intervening military coups). Some people want to erase Nkrumah's face from the memory of the country because he designed a one-party system and did not tolerate political opposition fearing (rightly) that he would be overthrown. It's always interesting to talk to people about it. But nonetheless, he is buried in this mausoleum at a park in Accra:

On the way to the park, we passed a group of Ghanaians rollerblading and skateboarding. I realized that I had not seen these activities since leaving the Bay Area, and was happy to be reminded of them.

This is a statue of Nkrumah taking the first step forward to Independence, and below is his grave inside the mausoleum

We toured the small Nkrumah museum, hit the bathroom and then walked toward Accra main station. As we walked into the station a Legon bound trotro passed us, and Natalie, Katie and Alicia hopped on. That left Senam, Elaine and myself catching a trotro toward the town of Nungua, east of Accra, and the town of Senam's birth. Although he was three when he moved, he knew people all over the place. Elaine and I blindly followed and met gaggles of kids and a few adults. Senam then took us to see his mom, Agnes, called Auntie Aggie, and her daughters. Let me interrupt by saying that any person your age who you know at all is referred to as your brother or sister, anybody who is older than you is an aunt or uncle or grandparent. The definition of family is a lot looser here, so Elaine and I gave up quickly on trying to establish Senam's biological family as distinguished from the people he loves and grew up with. There doesn't seem to be that big a difference. We saw his hometown, had a drink with him and Auntie Didi (wearing all black because her husband died 5 months ago. She was really sweet to us and welcomed us repeatedly). Then we got back to the trotros and continued on toward Tema. When we go tthere we took a taxi right to Senam's sisters' house. We met George, Mary's husband outside listening to the radio. He welcomed us and we walked in to a courtyard full of women joking and playing around as they cooked and made clothes. Mary is the eldest sister and clearly the one in charge. She was so kind. She gave us big hugs, took our bags, and set us down on a bench in the shade. In the US, it would be nice to get up and try to help, but in Ghana it is considered insulting (like saying 'You are not cleaning well enough, so I have to show you how to do it'). We sat nect to Monica, Senam's little sister. She works at a computer store in town, and presented me with my first marriage proposal. I politely declined, but she was fun to talk to anyway. Second oldest was Aba, who was the most feisty and Matilda was making a dress on the side to wear to a funeral that weekend. Aba and Mary were making us banku in okra stew with lobsters (they were small and you're meant to put the whole thing in your mouth and chew and swallow the meat and the shell), tilapia (full of bones but good), wele (cow skin), and vegetables, especially peppers. Elaine and I do not have enough stomach capacity to eat three huge meals because we're both snackers, but we got teased becasue it took us so long to eat and we didn't finish our portions of banku. It was fun to hang around with those girls, they were really a trip. We looked at old pictures of Senam's father and extended family and played with Mary and Aba's daughters. After a while though, we returned to the tro tro station and rode for two hours as the sunset to a town of Sege. From there it was a shared taxi ride to get to another town and when we got out it was pouring rain and lightning was crashing every two seconds to big rumbles

of thunder. We took shelter in a little shack of a bar until the rain stopped and then walked a ways down the road under the lightning bursts. All three of us had woken up early (around 4am for me and Elaine) so we were exhausted by this point. We just stared at the lighting as Senam got on his phone talking to some people from the village. When we got to the end of the road, we stared at the Volta River stretching before us. It was calm considering it had just rained and the tropical trees on the side were occasionally lit up in the huge branching strikes of lightning that were now so far away we could only hear the faintest thunder. Because it's savannah out there though, it still illuminated everything. It was beautiful. Senam's friend Zach soon arrived in a canoe from the other side of the river and we cautiously hopped in, holding our bags on our laps. Zach single-handedly paddled us up the eastern shore and then accross the river. We talked a little but mostly started at the lightning.

It was so quiet and peaceful. Nothing was moving and we could just stare at the black and purple sky. By the time we had arrived on the other side, the lightning had stopped and we were in the dark. We followed Zach and Senam overland between mud huts with thatched roofs, until we arrived at a concrete house painted yellow with a lantern on the porch. Behind the lantern was an old woman whose name, as far as we were ever told, was Madame, the matriarch of the village of about 200 people. She is the mother of Theophilus, who we met at the university in Winneba. She smiled and invited us to eat, but we politely declined because we were still full from Mary's banku. She showed us two rooms that used to belong to Theophilus and his brother and sent somebody to bring us sodas despite our protests. We drank them at a small table but shortly thereafter Elaine left for her room and Senam and I hopped into the bed in the front room and I slept my first night in the small village of Adidopke ("Ah-deed-oh-pweh")

Durbar

2008-03-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

A Durbar is defined by the Merriam Webster online dictionary as "A formal reception held by an Indian or African prince or chief". On March 5, the day before Independence Day, the international Programmes Office organized a Welcome Durbar for us, and I think that I will try to use the word as much as possible from now on. Could be a great Balderdash word. The festivities were outdoors behind the library among several fountains and featured a catered dinner (food is the way to win over college students after all) among a program of performances, and dancing, most of which was too far away for me to actually see. A girl from our program named Andrea performed a variation of Over the Rainbow, and did a fantastic job. Other than that, it was a lot of hanging out with people from my program looking warily at the other mostly American students. I have a friend named Raia in another program, so it was good to see her. After dinner though, most of us took off and hung out in the dorms. It was fun, though I do now resent fountains on campus because the water has not run in my dorm since that hour last week, so I'm always a little insulted by watching it shoot out of a giant chicken or other fountain sculpture. But I guess that's why I study water resource management.

Let them eat cake

2008-03-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Auntie Sharon and Auntie Lizzie are the women who work at the UC Education Abroad Office, and they take really good care of us. I think we are all going to universally miss them. It's really nice to know when you arrive in a new place that somebody is looking out for you. I passed by Sharon drinking water from a sealed sachet (I'll explain later), and she hit me on the arm and said "Let me see that. I am your mother while you are here. You're drinking that brand!". She's just very endearing. Anyways, on Februrary 29, the two of them ordered cake and ice cream to celebrate all of the February born students. We all arrived and the cake was 2 hours late (Ghana time, they call it), but we all gathered and hung out. In a group of 26 it's easy to lose track of people so it's fun to be brought back together for something like that. We sang and were merry, and then a group of about 10 of us walked out of the study center and off of campus to catch a taxi to Kineshie station. We were 5 to a taxi (legally too many, though everybody fit) and our taxi got a flat tire on the 30 minute ride there. Alicia pulled out her camera and started snapping photos (much to the chagrin of the driver changing the tire, I'm sure), and he fixed it remarkably fast. We sped on, and two of us had to get out as we passed a police barricade, but we met up on the other side at the station. From there, we caught a tro-tro to Swedru junction and got another tro-tro from there to Kokrobite beach. The driver originally dropped us off at Big Milly's, but they said they were full. We were looking at another couple rooms at a place called "The Dream" which was way too expensive for what it was, and once we expresed interest the man there became oddly hostile, demanding that we pay up front and suggesting that he would charge us twice as much if we snuck more than three people into a $30 room. At that point, somebody interjected that we could sleep in tents at Big Milly's for $2 each, so we went for it. The tents wouldn't survive long in Yosemite, and ours had a little opening on the bottom so it wasn't fully bug-proof, but after splashing myself in DEET, I survived the night. Part of the problem was that they were thick rubber tents and the air got so hot and stuffy after a couple of hours that we would wake up clawing at the zipper for air. Still, we made it work, and it was fun.
The 9 girls I was with were instantly attracted to the seamstress there selling fabric, dresses, shirts, and her skill at making alterations to things. here they are in various stages of trying on clothes that night. We continued on to walk up the road to the Kokrobite Garden Restaurant, also an inn, and I would recommend you stay there if you ever get the chance. Secluded and beautiful, the restaurant fulfilled our dreams as we ordered bruschetta, pizza, salads, pesto and red wine. It was such a fun decompressing dinner. Running around campus stressing out about finding classes, being sure that you've gone to all the departments you have to visit, etc in addition to going to lectures and trying to find out where they are hiding the class readings from you can wear you out. It was nice to spend a quiet weekend away.

We got back to Big Millie's and did more sitting before bed. That was a big theme of the trip. The next day, we woke up and had French toast with chocolate sauce at the same restaurant (YUM) and then wandered back to lay our towels on the beach. The sand was so hot that running the thirty feet between our towels and the hotel gave me second degree burns on my foot. Everybody got a little pink sunburn too, despite having re-applied sunscreen five times because we were just too sweaty. But that made swimming in the ocean all the more fun. We saw some fishermen pulling the net out and there were hoards of Ghanaian children swimming naked in the water. one had fashioned a surf board out of a large plank of wood (we stayed away from him), but it felt so good to be in the water. We read and lounged on the beach all afternoon and then put in our orders for dinner at Big Milly's. After much more sitting, we grabbed some raised seats because they were supposedly putting on quite a show for us. The show turned out to be not very impressive. Mostly pseudo-reggae music interspersed with some traditional dancing. The real fun part was sitting in a big circle getting to know each other playing long games of mafia.

Feeling remarkably like these children, I went to bed early when the air in the tent was still breathable.

The next morning was more of the same. A great breakfast and lunch at the Garden Restaurant, some sitting on hammocks (those who didn't fear sunburn played in the ocean again), and then taking some tro-tros back to Accra, and then to Legon. A quiet Sunday evening of dinner and sleep followed, and I felt much less stressed out. I wish there was a tropical beach so close to Berkeley!

I apologize for not taking many pictures that weekend. My brain was really fried. If you would like to see more of Kokrobite, I suggest you check out my friends Thien Vinh's and Natalia's blogs for better photos. You can find them under the links section of the blog :-)

Alicia's Birthday

2008-03-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Once again, but I apologize for a lack of a camera at this event. Alicia Sparks had her birthday during that week too, and, being the only student representing UC Santa Barbara, we turned Ben and Wes's room into a hall of drinking games. It seemed appropriate. All you need to know is that some Ghanaians learned how to play beer-pong, there was a lot of hanging out on the balcony, and it became so late that a handful of girls had to walk back at 6am past the preachers in the front. It was a fun celebration, and Alicia greatly appreciated it.

Post-Orientation

2008-03-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

I apologize because I didn't bring my camera to our End of Orientation Dinner, but I think it's worth a little description. We found out about it because Auntie Sharon at the EAP office posted a note on the notice board (we are expected to know what goes on the notice board within a day of it being posted by checking it or talking to each other). For the boys, it meant walking back over to the girls dorm where the experience started three weeks ago. I dressed up and arrived early and people slowly came in both from the Spring program and the students who had spent last semester with us as well. We met Auntie Irene there (our program director and the most powerful woman in Ghana. She is a prominent historian and serves on a number of government panels with the president. The mention of her name pretty much anywhere is like an all-access pass). She greeted us all, gave a short speech in her style about how brave we are to be here but how much she loves the country and how much we have to learn. Then they served an elaborate dinner. I had had a late lunch at 4 (it was then 6:30), and still I ate a full plate. The food was amazing- a variety of Ghanaian dishes included a million kinds of rice, yams, chicken, sauces, stews, etc ending with a fruit plate and ice cream. We also drank soda (I never drink soda at home, but somehow have been conned into supporting Coca-Cola at a few events so far). After gorging ourselves on food we sat talking at the tables and were given a few introductory speeches from some of the professors who had given us lectures during orientation. Not long after that we sang happy birthday to Jessica and then, more full than I've been in a long time, we were ushered onto the dance floor to show off what we had learned in those four dance classes we'd had. I don't know that I have adequately described in this blog how much I dislike dancing at home. I have rhythm from drumming, but I have no desire to move when I hear music on the radio in the US. Most people believe that I am just afraid of being judged, which is partly true but I also just don't enjoy dancing. There's something about it that just doesn't appeal to me. The thought of it is enough to make me cringe. But something about getting pushed into a circle of friends who look equally ridiculous and being told to free-form dance for a little while has changed that a little bit. There's something about the music here that makes it a little fun to move to even after a huge meal. Don't try any funny business when I get home though. So there we were on a little patio with Christmas lights for decorations, surrounded by friends of necessity who I have really come to love, tummies more full than ever before, dancing to the drums of West Africa under the full moon. It was like a scene from a movie.
We left from there to go to to Desperados, the bar inside of Commonwealth Hall, the most frat-like of the dorms who consider themselves to be in charge of campus because the hall is located at the top of the hill next to a sign that says "Commonwealth Hall- Vandal City". It was an interesting place by night. We pretty much bee-lined for the bar that was closing soon after our arrival, so we grabbed some beers, sang to Jessica again,a nd then I began the walk home while a couple of non-exhausted adventurers went out to a bar and, when finding it closed, went to La Beach in Accra (shady!). Everyone eventually found their beds that night and fell asleep.

Coming "Home"

2008-03-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

It is a weird feeling coming home to a place that, for the last couple of weeks, has been the glaring opposite of my home in a lot of ways. I was anxious to get back because I didn't feel very connected to Legon. I was afraid that I would feel off being back here. I definitely am not as well connected to people on campus as I wish I was, and it's a slow process to settle into such a different place and make good friendships, so it can feel lonely and frustrating. I was surprised to find that I felt really good arriving back on campus. People greeted me (as is customary here- you are right to feel a little down if people pass by you and don't at least make eye contact), and I arrived in my building and had a long conversation with the porters (the men who sit on the ground floor to make sure no crazy people walk through though how they spot them I can't be sure), and just sat on my bed exhausted. I met up with a big group from California for dinner and hung around. It felt good, but also weird because the experience of arriving of course prompted memories of home and what it will be like to really arrive there again. Who knows?

Aburi

2008-03-20T07:16:00.001-07:00

We left Kelli at Kineshie station where she had some of her own adventures (taking pictures of a field of dust with a sign in the middle that says "keep off the grass" and buying childrens' stories such as "The Wicked Barber" and "The Man Killer 2: Return of the Man Killer"). Mac, Elaine and I continued on by tro-tro to the town of Aburi, which is a story to itself. Aburi is most famous for a large botanical garden that was out of bloom because it was the end of the dry season when we went. The land had been cleared by the British as a military outpost but when Ghana gained independence the British government funded the creation of a botanical garden as an act of good faith for the new republic. However, because that was in the 50s and nobody knew anything about environmentalism, the garden contains exactly 1 tree species native to Ghana with the hundred or so others imported from the vast collection of plants in the British botanical garden. Ah, ironic twists in history.
We got off the tro-tro and stoped at Edna's place where Elaine and I split banku (fermented corn dough that tastes a little like unbaked sourdough bread if you squint your eyes twist your tongue just right). From there we walked up the road about 5 minutes and arrived at the gate of the gardens. The haze was still present, but they say that on a good day you can see the coastline and the city of Accra, about an hour away. Impressive. While some of the trees were bare, some were really cool.

Here is Elaine standing next to a very large tree that with fern-like leaves

This is the single tree species native to Ghana that is planted at Aburi. I do not remember what it was called but it was overgrown with ivy and grew these large pods that were full of cotton-like material. People use it here to stuff pillows and mattresses because it's cheaper to get than cotton. It had a number of medicinal properties too. Plus, it was huge!

Here are Mac and Elaine peering from the shell of a tree. A tree used to grow on that spot, but a parasitic plant grew around it, sucking up its nutrients. The original tree died and disintegrated over time leaving only the sinewy outline of its parasite. It was so pretty though. Check out the inside of it looking up

We also saw a huge group of uniformed children attending a school tour at the gardens. They really enjoyed seeing the plants and a couple of white people walking around were an added spectacle. They rushed by and we slowly walked on. We met up with a bunch of other people from our program who had come up to Aburi for the day and were leaving as we met them to go to some carving stands just outside of the gardens and then to take a tro-tro home. That left me and Mac, who promptly checked into the Botanical Garden resthouse. We dropped our bags and went to a shop just outside of the gardens that had designed a number of hiking trails in the area. and took a walk at dusk.

This was a farm landscape we saw on the hillside as we mosied our way down the 6km hike. Part of the fun of the trip was that instead of being given a map or directed to follow markers on the "trail" (and I use the term loosely), we were given a packet of photos with a man walking the right way who we were meant to follow in a nightmarish version of "Where's Waldo". This became quite a challenge in the middle of the tropical jungle (where every banana plant looks more or less the same, so figuring out if you are at the right place to turn or not is not possible). We also realized that we'd met quite a lot of confusion because a dirt road that appeared several times on our set of pictures had been paved betwen when the pictures were taken and our hike. Needless to say we got pretty lost, but generally knew the direction of town, so we just meandered along through the woods.

Here is Mac carefully examining the pods of a cocoa tree where all of your chocolate comes from (Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire together produce more than half of the worlds raw cocoa).

This is a very tall tree we saw at dusk

Then we got back to our room and crashed. I read the guide book for a while and we at dinner at the only restaurant around. I ordered rice and chicken and was told there was no rice. My response was to stare blankly at the waiter for what felt like 5 minutes because I honestly didn't understand the concept of not having rice around. I realized that I eat it with almost every meal.
The next morning, I returned to the hike shop to go on an excursion.
Mac didn't feel like it so I went solo on a mountain bike ride. I was homesick and thought that being on a bike was the closest I was going to get to Berkeley in a while. I had a helmet and functioning brakes, which was good becasue the trail was not made for biking on. There were several dry creekbeds full of jagged rocks with steep banks that were allegedly part of the route. I got off and did a lot of walking. Plus, following the Where's Waldo picture set was hard enough on foot, never mind when your main focus is to not die on a bike. Still, it was a fun way to spend the morning (it is, of course, so hot here the thought of riding more then 6km is very unappealing). I was sweating bullets up the last hill in town attracting quite a lot of attention. When I got to the shop and droped off the bike, the men there gave me a chair, some water and some refrigerated pineapple (so good!). I walked back to the resthouse and took a shower before joining Mac for a big breakfast of oats, toast, eggs and tea. Then we caught the first tro-tro we saw because we didn't want to be stranded there on a Sunday

Rewind to two weekends ago

2008-03-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

I realize that I've fallen behind on reporting my movements for the last little while. I'm going to try to do some fast paced catch up, starting with two weeks ago...

While I was still in San Francisco I met a teacher at a charter school through a family friend. The teacher, Kokou, is from Ghana and has a lot of family here. Two weeks ago, I met his brother Senam (who will be an important character in coming stories) in the town of Winneba, about an hour west of Accra. He goes to the university there to get a credential in teaching so he can teach English in a school in the northern region for a while. Because I didn't want to go by myself, Kelli, Mac and Elaine came along.

Here they are in our overcrowded bus at Accra's Kineshie station.The bus was quite warm but fortunately there are vendors that walk around the windows selling cookies, water, ice cream and a variety of other goods. At one point somebody took advantage of such a captive audience and came aboard to talk about a great new cell phone charger he was selling. I've seen everything from shoe heels to screened kitchen sink drains being sold on the street. The bus leaves at no scheduled time, just when there are enough people to fill it up. After we sat waiting for a while, the driver slowly pulled forward. Somebody stood up in the front to lead a prayer that we would arrive safely. That was encouraging.

The best part of the ride by far is what I refer to as our in flight entertainment. After we thought we'd left the vendors behind, the man in the yellow stood up and began an elaborate schpeel about the various artifacts he'd brought with him. What we learned: if you have typhoid, just crush some of his patented mango leaves into a tea and you'll be fine. Plus: a stick that magically increases your sperm count. He was an exciting fellow.

We finally arrived in Winneba, and met Senam (in the center) along with some of his friends (Joel on the left, Charles on the right). They showed us around their campus (which is beautiful), we saw Senam's room and met his roommate, and had some really good conversations about what it means to be a teacher in a developing country. They are all good people. Joel is thinking about teaching biology and then becoming a doctor.

This is the view of Winneba from Senam's balcony (he lives on the fourth floor too). It was a lovely city,much cooler than Accra, but note that the haze hasn't lifted. It's a bit of a quieter town. As we walked around, swarms of kids followed us calling out a word in the local language that means "white person". They were really surprised, and so were we. Gaggles of kids would approach slowly, and one brave one would walk forward. Once he survived, the others would come up and play clapping games, etc.

While walking around we saw some cool statues and plaques. The campus was originally set up to be training grounds for the politicians of independent Ghana and was set up by the first president. It has since become a school to educate teachers. You could say there's an important connection here. The plaque reads "If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a family". An interesting insight into gender relations here but more on that on a later date...

We then walked over to the beach. The surf is too huge to swim, but it was fun to let the waves run over our feet.

Mac was clearly having a good time

Interesting side feature: the military built this "swimming pool" with a sandy bottom for training. Kids now play in it, but watching the waves crash over it made us cringe a little.

As the sun went down, Joel and Charles left to complete some assignments for school and the rest of us took a taxi to a hotel outside of the guidebook with a pretty strong Rasta theme called the Rocktop. It was two tall buildings painted red, green and yellow with beautiful murals all over them overlooking Winneba Estuary and the Atlantic on a beach with a string of palm trees. It quickly got dark as we enjoyed some drinks on the roof before bedtime.We squeezed five of us into two double rooms. The woman who owns it (Shelley) was really sweet and we may go back there for the big deer hunt festival at the beginning of May...Example of a mural at the Rocktop

We woke up for a 6am breakfast on the rooftop and watched the light slowly fade in. The sun never really rises here, the whole sky just uniformly gets lighter. It's weird since I'm used to the colorful Bay Area sunrises (at least the few that I get up to see). We had a quiet breakfast of eggs, toast and tea and then got in a taxi back to the bus station. Senam left us there to go do some school work and we rode back to Kineshie Station in Accra.

Registration

2008-03-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have up to date neglected to mention anything academic about this experience, and now that classes have finally started up, it seems like the right time to post about the registration process. The way you register for classes ("courses") here is to examine the handbook of courses (which unhelpfully contains a large number of classes that aren't offered and omits a number of classes that you can take), go around to each department you are interested in, see if the classes you like are actually available, fill out a form for each department, staple on a passport photo and you're done. Until, that is, you leave and you realize you didn't find the separate bulletin board listing the course times and locations, also often incorrect. We are now in week 3 here. The first week a couple of my professors showed up, but a number of them had just found out moments before that the semester had started and were not yet prepared to lecture. I met some other Ghanain students, but for the most part, this is the main week that classes are starting.

Although there is something to be said for internet registration, I have found that I like this system better than Telebears for all of its problems. My one wish semester after semester at Berkeley is that I could find the human being behind the computer who could listen to my problem and help me out. Unfortunately, I have not yet found this person, and have problem after unsolved problem plaguing me (such as a random change in my telebears appointment with no notification, my desire to add a class that isn't in reality full but the computer seems to think so, etc). There are frustrations here for sure, but at least when I end up in a bind, I can always ask somebody in the departments for help, and they always walk me through the process.

This is generally the theme so far in Ghana. There are no maps, and often people give directions that end with "and then you can ask somebody and they will tell you where to go". I've found that it's true in the US that we develop these systems to allow people to figure it out on their own (by checking the internet or following signs/notices) and then expect them to do it. I remember feeling relieved at home when I would find somebody who would give me directions to a place. Here there are not helpful guides or hints, but the advantage is that (especially as a white foreigner) I am not expected to know everything. I can only imagine how unfriendly the US must feel to somebody who has just arrived and can't just figure things out. Just a reminder that if somebody asks you for directions, remember that they may not know the "figure it out" system as well as you, so you should be extra nice to them.

Speaking of Monkeys

2008-02-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

While we're on the subject, Ghana received a renowned guest in the form of President George W. Bush last week for 72 whole hours. I suppose that's to make up for the last 7 years of staying in Texas. Or maybe he just wanted to take advantage of his last chance to spend as much taxpayer money as possible: He reportedly rented the entire La Palm Beach Resort (in which a single room costs at least $300) and had sent an advance guard of 600 people weeks before his arrival. He met with President Kufour, but gave no public statement. Nobody is certain why he came, but some quality guesses involve suggestions to set up a US military base in Ghana and the fact that the country recently found a hefty oil reserve just off the coast. Oil and military spending? I'm surprised it took him so long.

But seriously, it has been very interesting to interact with people on this subject. Some Ghanains hate his guts, and we get to explain that just because we're from the US, we are from the 'good state' and we don't support him at all. Some, on the other hand, were very excited about his visit. Some believe it is a step towards putting Ghana on the map an in the spotlight so they can attract funding and development, some believe he really is a generous person for donating a pittance for the US and a fortune for Ghana to malaria eradication projects. Some think a US military base will lead to peace-keeping missions in Liberia, Nigeria, Cote D'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. Mostly, Ghanains are not very attached to the subject of the war in Iraq. Those who oppose it think it was a stupid idea, but don't have the same sense of moral outrage that I've seen in the US and England. I've also run into the idea that I should support my government no matter what. While that sounds silly, it's important to remember that Ghana's last military junta relinquished power in 1993! With the story of Kenya in the background, it makes sense that stability and support of government and governmental institutions vastly outweighs one's feelings on any particular policy. I've just heard a rumor that I can get a Ghanain newspaper delivered to my room, so I'll try to keep you updated on the local news if anything looks interesting. I'm about out of time but I have more to say about my coursework and weekend trips. More soon. I miss you

Break-In Monkey

2008-02-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is supposed to be a pun on the "Outbreak Monkey" featured in the movie as the one creature with antibodies to cure a disease that's wiping out the humans left and right. Unfortunately, this encounter was a little less pleasant. I've been holding onto this story because it's such a good one, so try to read slowly and imagine what it was like to be here.
I wake up last Tuesday, minding my own business getting ready for class when I hear these yells from outside. My hall is pretty noisy, so that's not terribly uncommon, but the nature of these screams seemed slightly different, more of a surprise. I open my door to find this:
Now, I'm certainly not accustomed to real live monkeys outside of my door in Berkeley or in San Francisco for that matter. But I thought, as I'm sure many of you are right now, that this is a fairly cute monkey, and so long as it doesn't do anything brash we can make it work. Ghanain students seems to be playing with it a little close for comfort if you ask me (it was climbing on them, making fake little snaps at their hands, etc). Still though, monkeys carry many diseases and I don't really want to get too buddy-buddy with this little guy. The other boys from my program tease it and it ends up running after them, causing them to dive back into their rooms in a frenzy. As I continue to get ready, the noise outside dies down, so I make my way to the bathroom and jump when I realized I've been followed, but remain clam and laugh when the monkey jumps up on the adjacent row of sinks and starts playing with the knobs. I go back into my room, read, slowly pack my things, and cautiously open the door. No sign of the monkey. As I'm closing my door I realize that the door to my balcony is unlocked. Ever vigilant, I walk across the room, lock and door and turn around, only to find that this monkey (roughly 2ft high and 30-40lbs) has walked in through my door. The room is not that big, mostly taken up with beds and desks, which leaves me closer to the monkey than I appreciate at the time. I'm completely freaked out at this point, and as I shout the most absurd things ("No! Bad Monkey! Go away! You're a bad monkey!"), my mind flashes through tactics of scaring animals away. I get big, try to be loud, and squirt water at it. The monkey consequently gets annoyed, jumps on my roommate's bed, gets tangled in his mosquito net, progresses from annoyed to aggresive, and jumps on a chair less than two feet from me. I make a last attempt to scare it by taking a flash photograph which turns out like this:
You cannot see the monkeys face in this photograph, but as it prepared to leap towards me from the chair, it made quite clear the inaccuracy of the statement camp councilors often make that the wildlife 'is more afraid of us than we are of it'. Out of ideas, I quickly slip out the door on the balcony and, trapped, I watch helplessly for a few minutes as the monkey makes its way over to my desk and starts rummaging through my things, mostly keepsakes from home that I really don't want destroyed by a monkey! He eventually is holding two pieces of metal shaped like small stones with the words 'journey' and 'friendship' carved into them- a gift long ago from my very good friend Susanna. He wasted no time picking at them and putting them in his mouth when we both heard a noise outside of the room. For some reason the monkey took that as his cue and, my keepsake still in his mouth, he bolted out of my room. I rush in and slam the front door, not eager to give any sign of invitation. Shortly after I catch my breath, I go outside and try to find him. Some other Ghanain students and the man who washes off our floors in the morning helped coax the monkey into returning my possessions. They still sit safely on my desk, germed up but mine. As I quickly gather my bag, double bolt my door and descend the stairs, I get a call from Alicia asking if I'm still coming to breakfast. I reply that I am on my way, and I have a really good reason for being late.

The update to this story is that the monkey has since been spotted harassing the residents of Volta Hall and the workers at R-Link, a small corner store on campus. Apparently, one of the professors kept it as a pet tied to a tree outside of his house, and it escaped some time in December. It has since been roaming Legon freely, and its past habituation to humans explains why it could not have cared less that I was screaming at it, throwing water or flashing lights. Hopefully it won't be around for a while.

Low low prices...always

2008-02-27T10:08:00.001-08:00

I had forgotten in the mention of that food to talk about where we'd gotten most of it. Just this side of Accra is the new Accra Mall. There's no polite way to say this, but it really is a complete mindfuck to wander from the dusty streets of a third world city into, essentially, a Walmart equivalent (down to the cursive signs advertising "always low prices" and the smiley face logo!). The mall is air conditioned, very clean, caters pretty much exclusively to white people, and is generally a very confusing place to be. I walked in, froze, looked around and said out loud to those I was with "where are we?" Still, I wandered the isles confused getting supplies of peanut butter (called groundnut paste here), cereal, juice, and whatever else looked like it wouldn't instantly melt in the cab ride home. I also got the fan, featured a few posts ago, which is actually crucial to survival. I reflect on American consumerism a lot at home, and it's just always a shock to see that while America fails so greatly to export supposed values of freedom, and tolerance, the bottles of Nutella that cost over $10 here are quick to arrive. Even looking around my cluttered room I realize that my "minimalist" packing, in addition to what I've bought here, amounts to a lot. More than I need. I tell myself it's just because I like feeling prepared going into unknown situations, but I'm sure that it has something to do with a love of having stuff that's seeped into me. It's creepy, and I'm trying to cleanse myself and remember that a lot of it isn't important, but I still packed it... It just seemed like a good time to reflect on such things. Maybe I'll give some stuff away if I can find a place that will take it here.

A home cooked meal

2008-02-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

A fun mental game that I like to play here is imagining the vast number of tools and technology required to cook food: raw ingredients, refrigeration, running water, seasoning, ovens, stoves, utensils, pots, pans, bowls, peelers, whisks, spatulas, etc. It's easier to reflect on such things when you noticeably don't have any of them, especially if you're as much of a foodie as I am. The "kitchen" in Legon Hall is pretty funny looking- dust covers every surface an inch deep and there are a number of broken electrical outlets and sinks that aren't even connected to water pipes. Volta Hall, where the girls live, is a little more set up for cooking, with a refrigerator and working outlets and occasionally running water. The girls have done a fantastic job amassing some basic tools also, like pots, pans, forks, bowls, knives, and you can get some basic ingredients if you know where to look. In honor of Mama Mia, we decided to give it our best shot and make a meal from scratch...

We settled on the obvious: pasta, sauce (really tomato paste with basil, oregano and cayenne that some of us had brought along), green beans (I still don't believe that we got those! Vegetables are impossible to find here, except maybe cabbage), bread with margarine, and to keep it at the college levels, glasses of fairly cheap but actually pretty good red wine.

It takes a lot to get all of this together. The kids at the International Students Hostel seem to enjoy cooking a little bit more (they have slightly better facilities but nothing like the industrial size kitchen I'm used to). It was fun though, and we ate it out on the steps before watching a couple of Simpsons episodes that I'd brought along on somebody's computer. All in all, a very good night.

Elaine's Birthday in Osu

2008-02-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

I'm playing catch up here, but you should all know the highlights of the last two weeks. The first big piece of news is that a girl on our program from Berkeley named Elaine just turned 22. We've already had one birthday (Ali turned 21 and then promptly fell ill with malaria alongside yours truly), but we were so disoriented that aside from showering here with praise and taking her out for drinks we didn't put anything special together. To make up for it, we took Elain to 'Mamma Mia', a real live Italian restaurant in Osu (the wealthier more touristy neighborhood in Accra where you can find supermarkets, fancy restaurants, etc). In fact, there were no Ghanains at the restaurant at all, save a couple of the waiters. It's weird when getting settled to find these pockets of tourism that are not quite like home, but are certainly not the same as the country we are used to seeing.

Here we all are at Mamma Mia's in a group shot. From left to rightNatalie, Katie, Megan, Elaine, Thien Vinh, Kelli, Alicia, Me

Right after dinner, we went to Frankie's- a hotel and restaurant most famous for a downstairs ice cream parlor. They have about 8 flavors, but when it's 90 degrees outside all the time, you take what you can get with a smile so long as it's cold. The smaller 2-scoop cups were really expensive compared to the larger 8-scoop sundaes, so this is Thien Vinh, Alicia, Megan and I embracing the cooperative spirit that is only too famous in Berkeley :-)

The evening continued with drinks and dancing at Lizzie's Bar (really just a bunch of plastic tables outside of a kiosk where you can buy beer, and they have a sound system that is absolutely more powerful than necessary for how crowded the place is.

On the right: Daisy and Cindy who met us there made some friends with soda-guzzling kids.

We then returned home by taxi and got into bed by about 1, which is just unheard of here considering how early people wake up. All in all it was a blast, and I'm sure it's not a birthday Elaine will forget too soon

I did not die of malaria

2008-02-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry to have not laid that fear to rest a while ago, but there's been a lot going on which has made writing about it even harder to keep up with. I'm also working on uploading pictures so even typing in this box is wearing this poor computer past its most extreme level of endurance. But I think I'm learning a lesson of all columnists, that you have to keep on schedule or you lose your readers! I hope that you all are still checking this site out.

The first big event occured on the day that I wrote the last post. I was awoken by my roommates at 5:45am because they were about to leave on a field trip down the coast (I was still in bed trying to recover and eventually did laundry and wrote on the blog). They told me that I should pack my things- as orientation winds down it became time for the sexes to be separated. At the end of the day, the three boys would be moving down the way to Legon Hall, the all male dorm while the girls stayed in Volta, the all female dorm. Those who have known me for a while know that I used to indulge in the guiltry pleasure of watching Survivor in its earlier seasons, and this speedy request to pack all of my belongings was definitely reminiscent of a Jeff Probst moment.

The set up is a pretty good one. There are 6 California males on the 4th floor of Annex A of Legon Hall- 3 new this semester and 3 who are staying for the year. Climbing up the stairs in the heat of the day is a feat worthy of a nap with the fan on, there are always people at the ground level selling water, ice cream, eggs, bananas, and whatever else for the day. It is much noisery than the women's dorm as Ghanain men tend to greet each other early in the morning by shouting each other's names back and forth at maximum volume. In addition to the music playing, the birds outside making a racket, and the cheers/shouts/"encouragement" from the atheletic fields just below our windows, 'lively' doesn't begin to express the atmosphere. Thank God for earplugs. Here's a quick virtual tour:

The first thing's first: This is Cybertron Internet, the cafe from which I've written most of my emails and blogs posts. As you approach the hall, there is a large room called the porter's enterance. On the right is this cafe, and on the left are University employees who hold your keys when you go out, monitor security at night, etc. I don't interact with those ones much because our Annex A has its own porters.

Walking past the porters and internet cafe, visitors to Legon hall are greeted by this statue and a fountain. I'm always a bit peeved when the foundtain is running because we have water in the bathroom roughly 10% of the time. That's why I study resource management :-) The comical nature of this rooster at the front of the all male dorm has not ecaped any of us, so we lovingly refer to it as the cock fountain

Continuging past the fountain down this walkway, you can see my building in the distance (white between the two palm trees). It's very green here for having just finished the dry season.

My humble abode- I share this room with Aaronson (see the trip to Makola maret where we bought buckets for a picture). This is just a preliminary decoration setup, but I thought it encompasses the most important things: a mosquito net, a full bookshelf, a cluttered desk and a chair, not to mention the all important fan- I don't know if any of us could survive without them! I haven't fully unpacked my things, perhaps relating to the metaphorical challenge of "unpacking" in a new place.

This is the view from my balcony- just wanted to show off the greenness again. I'll keep you updated about changes to the decor, and keep writing about the other sites on campus tomorrow (on Ghana time- so maybe the day after). I'm thinking about you all often. Take care

The best excuse for not returning emails

2008-02-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

This past Thursday our group left for a whirlwind tour of the northern region of Ghana: 7 hour bus ride to Kumasi, 5 hours to Tamale, 3 more hours to Bolga and 1 hour to Paga on the Burkina Faso border. I have very little to report from the trip because I have been positively diagnosed with malaria. That's right- malaria. My blood donating days are over. My symptoms were a sore throat and a cough leading to chills, fever and delerium that presented on Thursday in a bus crammed with UC students. I laid my head on the window and have very little memory of what's happened. Generally there are only a few highlights that come to mind, but I'll try to give you as much of the story as I can muster.

I was delirious for pretty much the whole ride up to Kumasi. I don't remember a thing about it except that the bus broke down and we were stuck at a rest stop for hours waiting for a replacement smaller more cramped bus. I remember sitting at the rest stop unsure of where I was looking in the distance at the tropical foliage and mountains that could be clouds or clouds that could be mountains (I'm still not sure which). I ate a little ice cream and gazed at the faces of people whose names I knew but who I didn't really know well and at the multicolored lizzards crawling on the walls, and listened to the Bob Marley music they were playing in honor of his birthday. It was the most disoriented I've been in a long time, but I continued the trip to Kumasi and Tamale.

We were eating dinner on Friday and I was miserable thinking I wanted so badly to see my family and friends or at least to be somewhere with potable running water and available food that wasn't fried chicken. I missed home. Everyone in the group was really nice, checked in and asked how I was feeling and offered whatever help they could give me, but there's no substitute for home and family and friends who you already know and love. At that point Irene Odotei showed up out of nowhere (she had apparently flown up to Tamale because this is the first time the program has done a trip to the north and she wanted to check in with us). We call her 'Auntie Irene' because Auntie is a common title to give someone your parents' age who you interact with. I just wanted to get up and scream 'You're not my auntie! I'm not related to you!' but I was tired, so I walked silently to my room and laid down. We were staying at the Catholic Guesthouse in Tamale and I was rooming with Wes, one of the other boys. I sat on my bed and looked up to see a crucifix attached to the top of the far wall. Unwilling to deal with it, I turned off the light only to find that the Jesus on the crucifix glowed in the dark! Frusterated, I fell asleep.

The next day I went to the clinic. The north is rural and spaced out but Tamale (the town we were in) is the fastest growing city in West Africa. Still, the clinic was rough. I paid 10 cedi (1 cedi= 1 dollar) to get in, they took my blood pressure and weight and asked me to wait behind door number 5 like a gameshow. The clinic was basically an open corridor that made a square with doors and consulting rooms on the right side. While waiting, I went on a quest to find a bathroom and after encountering many chickens and goats just meandering about I finally found a hole in the ground labelled 'urinal'. I went back and waited more. There is no triage system, so the people waiting varied from looking fine to a teenager sprawled unmoving on a strecher. Kelly, Mac and Aaronson were with me waiting in the corridor just watching the ailments of other patients. At one point a woman who had been cradling and consoling a crying baby came over and just put it in Kelly's lap. She came back and explained that her son had never seen white people and was afraid of her. She gave her son to Kelly to prove that she wasn't any different from the other people around. I was eventually called into a room and met my doctor, a woman who studied in Cuba and moved to Ghana. She took a list of my symptoms and at first said I was suffering because of the dry weather. I explained my symptoms again and noted that I was especially sickly green pale (seriously- I hadn't seen myself in a mirror until the day before and I have never looked more pale than that. I thought I might have lost blood but I had that green tinge). The doctor responded 'You're not pale, it's just the color of your skin'. I protested that indeed I am white but my skin is not generally what I would describe as a sickly green color. A nurse came in and began speaking Spanish to the doctor. After a while I joined in and she jumped saying 'I thought I could talk and you wouldn't understand me.' She warmed up to me immediately and said I probably also had malaria, prescribed tylenol, a multivitamin, a cough syrup and a malaria medication. I went to the pharmacy, waited for the drugs, collected them, took the first malaria pill, and we all stumbled out of the clinic catching a taxi to the 'grocery store' in town with no refrigeration. I settled for some bread, jam and peanut butter, and ate nothing else for the next two days.

We got back to Tamale and Kelly made me some great PB&J sandwiches and I had bought some kiwi-cranberry juice to get some sugar in me. I ate one sandwich and a cup of juice and lay on my bed in the quiet next to an open window and slept for an hour. I dreamed that I learned how to play the harp, which was awesome. I woke up a short time later, still felt shotty, comiserated with day-glow Jesus, ate another sandwhich and fell asleep again. This is when I had my amazing dream that was very vivid. I was back at home and woke up in my bed. I saw my family, took a shower and felt better. I walked downstairs and saw Julia Gitis who was smiling broadly. She told me to follow her outside, and I did. All around my parents house, my adorable friends had set up a HUGE street party. There were video screens over all the houses, several music stages, some cows for some reason, and I talked individually to each person that I had spent the last two days missing tremendously. I had wished that I could spend one day at home without having to travel and then come back to Ghana. I woke up looking out my window to a slight breeze blowing through a pink-blossomed tree and my fever had broken. I started to feel better. After a few more naps, I joined the other three at the Jungle Bar down the street to watch the Ghana vs. Cote d'Ivoire third place match (Ghana had been bumped after losing to Camaroon in a semi-final match. Egypt eventually beat Camaroon to claim the cup for the 6th time, the most any nation has won it). We returned home to find that the rest of the group had returned from their trip to Bolgatanga where they had sat on live (domesticated) crocodiles, seen slave camps of the north, and drove to Paga, the town on the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso. They were all sunburnt but excited, and I'll make the trip up there one of these days. We went out to dinner and I went to bed early except that the cough syrup that was prescribed to me gave me a host of side-effects including nausea, 'nervousness' and dizziness all without the main effect of actually preventing the cough. I eventually fell asleep.

The next day we drove back to Kumasi and I called my parents. That came very close to initiating an international relations nightmare between the US and Ghana, but they were very helpful and booked an appointment for me the next day at a clinic in Accra (the capital) that all of the ambassadors and buisinessmen (read:white people) go to when they're sick. Before we left Kumasi, we stopped at the clinic there because another girl, Ali had developed similar symptoms. She got similar treatment, and while the clinic at Kumasi was nicer, there was no triage and still very few resources available to treat patients- a small lab that could do blood tests but nothing of great value. We mostly slept through the 6 hour journey back to Accra but Sharon (the woman in charge of the UC EAP office in Accra) met us as we arrived, passed out dinner to everyone and let Ali and I drop off our bags before she wisked us away to the hospital. This was clearly closer to first world medicine. We signed up, saw a doctor, got all of the tests we might need (my parents had given me a list of about 8 including a chest x-ray), got a prescription for better malaria treatment (the pharmacist actually laughed at what we showed him we had been taking, which was not terribly comforting) and we followed up with the doctor to interpret the tests. Both of us were negative for malaria but (and here's a valuable lesson for you) were still diagnosed positive with the disease (especially in light of the fact that we had both reacted well to the malaria medication we have, even if it wasn't the best stuff out there). Malaria lives and breeds in fatty tissue, especially the liver. If it has spread to the blood (ie if the blood test is positive), it has burst at the seams and you need super crazy advanced treatment. So we took our new drugs home, told everyone the news, ate a quick dinner, took the first set of pills and went to sleep. It was good to have it all figured out. So that's my story about my first and hopefully last encounter with malaria, and my really good excuse for not having any pictures of Northern Ghana. I'm a little sleepy and still have a cough but I'm getting better rapidly. I love and miss you all and know that I was thinking about you when the going got tough. Be well

Ghanain Food

2008-02-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

We were finally permitted to try out some hardcore Ghanain food for lunch after lectures last Wednesday. I'm sure that I'll write more about food as time goes on because I value it so much (I miss fresh produce!). But for now I want to give a brief introduction to Ghanain food with the meal that we had:
This is a table of us at Tasty Treats, a resteraunt that is just out of walking distance of campus on a hot day, but I've heard it's doable. They always have a good assortment of foods and it's classically Ghanain, so it was a proper place for our first Ghanain meal (we've been having Ghanain breakfast, but it's usually porridge or rolls or something not terribly exciting, so this felt like the true first). From left to right: Andria, Alicia, Emily, Katie, Secily.

This was my meal. On the right is a plate of white rice and two types of fried rice with red tomato/palm oil sauce (referred to as gravy), some chicken and a very small portion of cabbage salad. There are hardly any vegetables here, so that cabbage is like gold. The rice, chicken and sauce are a staple of almost every meal. If you order chips (french fries), it comes with rice and chicken unless you ask them specifically for just chips. On the left is fufu. The pale blob is a dough made from mashed cassava/yam and it's in a slightly spice goat soup. You grab a little of the dough with your right hand, put it in your mouth and swallow without chewing. You can also chomp on some of the goat meat if you need a break. Then drink the soup when you're done. It's very heavy and filling so I barely made it through the half-portion pictured above, but it's a classic dish here. I just thought the foodies among us might appreciate it.

Two Religions

2008-02-12T09:27:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday before the lectures and the tour of Accra we experienced two of the major religions in Ghana. The first was Christianity. A group of us went to church with the student guides. Note that we look significantly more sweaty/dumpy than the guides. Ghana is a pretty religious nation. The south (where we are) is predominantly Christian and the north is predominantly Muslim. I have yet to meet or hear of a Ghanain atheist. It is a shocking notion to people here that I am not a Christian and even more so that I do not have any particular religious affiliation. It's usually about the 5th question I get asked after my name, where I'm from, etc, and the fact that I am not religious really sets off a twitch or something. I'm going to experiment with some different responses until I find one that communicates what I'm trying to say. At church we caught the last 15 minutes of Bible study and then sat down in a big obvious group. The service was long but included plenty of singing and drumming. At one point the reverend asked all of the people joining the congregation for the first time to introduce themselves. Emily Aeschleman bravely stood up and took the microphone to explain that we are students studying for a semester and to thank them for making us feel welcome (not mentioning that most of us are not religious). The design of the building and the fans made it way more comfortable than the lecture halls we've had to sit in which is a little upsetting to me. But people really like God. They say if you come to Ghana and don't go to church, it's like you never came. It's such a part of the culture here. It's all I can do to bite my tongue and not make too many references to 'Jebus'.

During the sermon the congregation was asked to pray for two things: 1) That the violence in Kenya subsides and that the people there can live in peace and 2) That the Ghanain national football (soccer) team play with integrity and their maximum effort. This brings me to the second religion: Football.

Nii was able to score us tickets to the Ghana vs. Nigeria game on Sunday night in Accra through the black market. The tickets were very expensive for here (about $20), and not a single one of us was willing to miss it. We drove as close as we could get through the the masses passing vendors, clowns, honking car horns, etc. Making our way into the stadium was a battle, and uniformed military men and women searched people as they entered (sidenote: apparently security is so high because Ghana has undergone four major military coups since independence. The current governmental structure has only been in place since 1993! That's why they don't like pictures of government/sensitive areas, but the stadium is apparently ok). I had a ticket all by myself, but my friend Kelly put her arm over my shoulder and pretended to be my wife so I tagged along with a small group of other students. The stadium had numbered seats and everything, but order is no match for a traditional society that's enthusiastic. I ended up sitting on the stairs behind two trombone players and a bunch of drummers who played through the whole game. The crowd cheered at every shot that the Ghana team (the Black Stars for the black star in the center of the Ghanain flag) made, no matter how much it missed by. We were talking about how in the US people boo when their team comes close and doesn't make it. Another interesting difference- Ghana and Nigeria have had political bad vibes in the past. I'm not sure of the exact history, but this was a heated game. But somehow at the stadium, the cheers were not divisive. The Nigerian supporters got a bit of flack, but the point of the African Cup of Nations it seemed was to bring the entire continent together, to show that Africa is not just the home of sand, AIDS and under-development, but that the people are passionate and can get it together to host a great tournament. It was a very empowering place to be. Even more so because Ghana won 2-1 (for those who care- Nigeria got the first goal on a penalty kick and everyone was disheartened, but right before half-time Ghana scored a great goal. At the beginning of the second half, the captain of the Black Stars was given a red card and stress was high. Then, with about 10 minutes left in the second half Ghana scored again. People threw water every time a goal was scored (a big deal b/c it's such a valuable commodity here) and screamed/drummed/danced/embraced all over the place). I screamed myself hoarse.On the way home all the cars honked in celebration, people shouted, and one man started running next to our van and kept up with us for a good 45 seconds even though he lost his two flipflops. He was just shouting 'Go Ghana!' We went to a resteraunt in the boys dorm called Tyme Out to buy some beers to celebrate and went off to bed for lectures early the next morning

Student Guides

2008-02-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

I feel the need to introduce you (in the most impersonal way possible) to the four student guides we have. Three are students at the University of Ghana in Legon (one just graduated), and we honestly would not make it very far without them. They have made themselves available to answer all of our questions which must sound rediculous and to take care of us when something goes wrong. They've also taken on a lot of the logistics of our trip.

From left to right: Lizzy (the graduate), Nii (my age, he runs track and does the high jump and gives the meanest high fives), Angie ('Mama Angie', she's a senior, I think she's 26 and we're her children in the most loving way- she always asks if we're taking our malaria medication and that we're eating enough), and Irene (a freshmen, but still more on the ball than the rest of us). To be fair, these are the guides in their church going outfits, so they don't always look so formal, but they are all lovely and if you ever through some bizarre twist of fate get to meet them, you are a lucky human being.

Orientation Activities

2008-02-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

Our orientation continued last week mostly with lectures from professors, heads of departments and local reverends. Topics ranged from the history of Ghana to gender roles and inequalities to linguistics ("flirt" here means "have an affair with" and there are about a million other differences in Ghanain English), music, Twi (pronounced Tchwee a language spoken by almost everybody in the nation. Some think it should replace English as the national language), and descriptions of various festivals and celebrations (which include funerals). We have, however, partaken in some exciting outside activities. For example, to the left you will see all of us piled in a van to tour Accra. We looked at the different neighborhoods and identified a we (pronounced like "whey") which is a collection of families who gather at celebrations or to make political decisions. This was amid the modern era Koala supermarket, but they say Ghana is the land of contradictions. There were also some fantastic store names of a religious nature such as "Almighty God Loves You Hair Salon". We saw landmarks such as Independence Square, Kwameh Nkrumah's masuoleum and the Seat of the Government Castle. There are not more pictures because 1) I'm a bad photographer and 2) Pictures of "government property" are forbidden. We were pulled over by a military man in full uniform because one of the girls took a digital picture of the castle. He had a large gun and almost confiscated her camera, but was satisfied when she deleted the picture. Nuts!

Our other excursion was to Makola Market. It was insane. It's a huge outdoor market that spans several city blocks with crowds of people and a string of 20 white kids in single file line looking around timidly. I only made two purchases- the bucket which I am attempting lamely to balance on my head on the left (for storing water, doing laundry and for the imminent bucket showers when the water shuts off) and some clothespins. Quite an experience in a big group, but I would feel comfortable going back with one other person. Now I just have to work on my feeble bargaining skills

A few more basic photos

2008-02-06T08:31:00.001-08:00

From left to right: Grace (UCSD), Kelly (UCB) and Wes (UCSD). These are the guys I met at the Wok Inn at the airport, and we hopped the first ride in an International Students Program van to the U of Ghana campus. It was a very important ride and we compared notes about how it feels to really be starting such an outlandish adventure.

Moving in our bags to the porter's lodge, the entrance to the dormitory. Everybody had to bring enough to last six months, and none of us really knew what to expect, but that lead to some exciting suitcase lugging

"For Women of Vision and Style", this is the largest wing of Volta Hall, our temporary dormitory. After orientation, the three guys will move to an all-male dorm called Legon Hall. That will be a big adventure, and I'll be sure to keep you updated

My bed in our temporary room. Note the several heavy books on the case, sunscreen in the foreground, and the fairy-tale poison hanging bed draping (mosquito net). The three guys (Wes, Aaronson and myself) are staying in one of the standard dorm rooms which has 5 beds and is about the same size as my double at Stebbins. Let's think about that. I come from a family of 6 and we can sometimes barely share an entire house, let alone a single cramped room. There's one desk and a balcony that looks onto clotheslines surrounded by barbed wire. The bathroom is right across the hall, but that's a longer story for another day.

Overdue Pictures from Day 1

2008-02-06T08:04:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from my first wanderings around Accra. You should all know that uploading 5 photos here never takes less than ten minutes of watching a blank screen, so I hope they are valuable:
Fishing boats in the harbor

View of Accra from the Lighthouse (the tallest point)

Children playing at the beach (they get really excited about cameras)

The Lighthouse

A disgrace to the mega-churches of the middle of the United States :-) There are a lot of ironically named shops here, most of them having to do with religion

Akwaaba

2008-02-01T02:58:00.000-08:00

Which means "Welcome" in Twi, the largest tribal language spoken in Ghana. I'll be taking a class this semester, so more fun foreign words to come. Here's your quick update: I checked out of the hotel yesterday and was told that it would take an hour and a half to get to the airport. In reality, it took twenty minutes so with the extra time I went over to the "Wok Inn" Chinese resteraunt where I met three other Californians. We hung out and after a while a woman came up to us and said "Akwaaba". Her name is Anjali and she's on a year-long program here and came to welcome everyone at the airport because she said when she arrived it was really tough, she was confused, and almost got conned into an unnecessary taxi. We got bottles of water and a ride to campus, and the rest of the group followed behind. We got rooms in Volta Hall (the female dorm where we're staying for orientation for "women of vision and style" according to the sign). We met our guides and they showed us to our rooms and gave us cool welcome tote bags. We had a big group dinner (jollof rice, chicken, lettuce and a red sauce that's very popular here), and went up to bed. There are a grand total of three boys, so we're all in the same room with one key. Everybody had a rocky night sleep interrupted by the Campinile-style clock, a buzz of mosquitoes (yikes!), the heat, and the "jungle noises" outside. Half of us woke up early for breakfast at 7am (thick porridge with condensced milk, cold fried eggs and wonderbread rolls- I admit it, I'm a food snob). We then ventured out to the bank and Anjali showed us around campus- we bought some water and then walked to the EAP study center with free internet. It's pretty slow, but I'll still do my best to keep y'all in the loop. I miss you a lot, but everyone seems well adjusted here. We have a free morning and then the two week orientation continues. We're working on getting tickets to the Ghana vs. Nigeria football (soccer) game on Sunday as part of the African Cup of Nations, so there's a huge amount of national pride and the flag is everywhere. We're also making a trip to Kumasi, and several other surprises which I know and you will have to tune back in to find out. Still working on pictures. With love.

Haze

2008-01-31T15:19:00.000-08:00

When we landed in Lagos, Nigeria en route to Accra, Ghana, I tried to get a good view of the landscape but was thwarted by a hazy mixture of fog, sand and pollution. Over Ghana's capital I could only make out pinpricks of bright blue light that didn't cast very far and left most of the landscape in darkness. It was like looking down at the stars. This all wouldn't be worth including unless it were (you guessed it) metaphorical for my first impressions. I ache with the desire to figure out my surroundings so I can just glide through them observing without worry, but that will take time, so I'm re-learning an old lesson: enjoy the chaos. They say that every day is a new adventure, and that's especially true for me here. I expect that I wil continue to be surprised by the cultural divide until my plane ride home, but I hope that this serves as a fun story for you to read as it unfolds as it will be a relieving reminder of home for me. I miss you all and have faith that this experience will teach me a lot that I can bring back, including how important all of my relationships are. Be well.

First Twenty-Four Hours

2008-01-31T07:20:00.000-08:00

I've found that I always notice more at the beginning in a new place, but I'll try to keep this to the highlights. My flight landed and I got off for (hopefully) the last time in several months. I'd spent 28.75 hours in the air over the last four days and another 10 waiting around at airports, so the thought of not flying for a while seemed foreign. I cleared immigration and customs easily (everyone was very nice and they didn't look through my bags), and met a driver from my hotel outside. I checked in and met/chatted with the owner Ramiz who is Lebanese but an American citizen born and raising a family in Ghana. I had some dinner at the hotel resteraunt (fetuccini + the second of hundreds of malarone tablets- a malaria prophilaxis), took a shower and in a bout of homesickness watched CNN for an hour before falling asleep (including one commercial with the catchphrase "Get a vasectomy and smile all the time"). They were doing exposes on the most depressing subjects, but it still felt like home. I slept through the night and woke up today naturally at 8, organized my bags a little and got my complimentary breakfast. A guy who works at the hotel, Richard, is a little older than me and invited me to visit him in Ho by Lake Volta (where I'm planning to go anyway). To experience the town, I headed to the lighthouse at James Town (the title for this blog was almost "to the other lighthouse" as a tribute to Judy) and within five minutes of walking out of the hotel the cutest child approached me and stuck his hand right in my pocket! I was pretty heart-broken because I had to face the desperation of this city and couldn't even trust a four year-old. I took a tro-tro toward James Town (the driver was slow and the van was not overcrowded, plus other drivers were nice about giving directions). I walked the rest of the way sipping from a freshly cut coconut, got directions from a friendly man and arrived at the lighthouse. The view from the top was of a large section of the town, tin roofs, dusty side roads with flea markets and cars speeding around. I think I was looking to the lighthouse for some clarity or direction, but realized that, like everything here, it has a complex history of transforming from a guide for slave ships to (hopefully in the future) a beacn for cargo ships signalling economic development. It was a fairly depressing site. I tried to love this place, but I'm going to have to settle for just accepting it, at least for now and I still have hope for Legon. To make matters worse, the guy who took me up tried to block my exit unless I paid him more money, but I refused and the woman who I'd paid originally helped me out. I took a taxi back to the hotel, napped, and walked over here to email and blog it up. It's been a tough day, and I'm looking forward to meeting the other students at the airport tonight. It will at least be less lonely. I know I'm going to eat those words after living in a roommate in the dormitory for a few months, but I'm sure I'll adjust. The only other reflection I have to leave you with is that I'm white. Really white. And I've encountered a total of 5 white people today, including at my hotel. I get cat-called, every taxi honks at me, and hawkers make a kissing noise to attract my attention. Confronting my race is going to be an interesting process. I'll be sure to keep you updated. Cheers!

PS- I can't plug in my camera here, so I'll include pictures next time