The Last Month!

Wow! This trip has flown by! I can’t believe that I only have one month before I fly back to GR and then back to Surrey! We have free travel at the end of this week for 10 days, and then it’s exam/paper time, final retreat time, and then home time!

In celebration of what a wonderful trip this has been, I’m going to write a list of all the things that I’m going to miss about Ghana:

1)    1)  FanIce, FanChoco, FanYogo, and FanPop: Here is Ghana, milk products are hard to come by. The only milk available is either powdered or shelf milk. So, instead of drinking milk, I eat FanMilk products. FanIce is soft serve ice cream. FanChoco is frozen chocolate milk. FanYogo is frozen strawberry yoghurt. FanPop is a frozen pineapple ice lolly. The best part about FanMilk products? They come in little plastic sachets. To eat them, you bite the corner off and sort of melt it with your hands until you can drink it. They are absolutely wonderful on super hot days, and they’re only about 40 cents each for a 400mL sachet. So delicious!

2)      2)Water sachets: Here in Ghana, you can’t drink the tap water (well, I suppose you could if you wanted to get parasites and worms etc...). You have to buy the water you drink. Our first couple of weeks, people bought water bottles, which are quite expensive, and one cedi per 1.5 litres. Then, we discovered water sachets. You get 500mL of water in a little, sealed plastic bag and it costs you only 5 pesewas. You bite a hole in the corner and drink away! The concept of drinking out of a plastic bag is such a good one. The only problem is the garbage it creates, but there are companies like Trashy Bags (http://www.trashybags.org/) that create awesome things out of them.

3)    3)  Trotros: imagine a really old minivan. Then, imagine it completely rusted and patched together with string and plywood. Then, imagine stuffing in between 12 and 16 seats. Don’t forget to notice the random slogan on the back window (Ex. No Weapon. Fear Women. God’s Time is the Best. And many many more...)Add a driver who knows how to careen his way through traffic without a working speedometer, odometer, tachometer, or fuel gauge, as well as a mate to collect money and yell out the name of the place you’re going, and bam! You’ve got a trotro! For only 55 pesewas, you can catch a trotro all the way to the centre of Accra, which is about 20-60 minutes away depending on traffic. They’re a wonderful way to experience the business of Ghana. You get to people watch, and see the sights of the city. They’re also quite a lot of fun, and you get to meet some interesting people while you’re aboard. (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/photo.day.php?ID=76087)

4)    4)  Markets: So much more fun than the mall! There is just so much stuff to be found in a market, from fish to Obama belt buckles to miles and miles of cloth to cow’s feet to little spicy peppers to plastic buckets and so much more. Markets are always busy and full of people, even in the rain. It’s also so much fun to wander through the market as a white person, especially when the sellers try and talk to us in Twi. They expect us to have no idea what they’re saying, so when we respond to them in Twi, it brings huge smiles to their faces! Wandering through the Kejetia Market in Kumasi was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. It’s the largest market in West Africa, and it literally just keeps going and going and going on and on and on! The paths are narrow and crowded, and there are people everywhere chatting and laughing. It is honestly such a wonderful way to shop. It’s so much more personal. There is a very small food market just down the road from ISH, and we’ve been able to make friends with a bunch of the people who work there. A few of the girls in our group even got to go to one of their weddings! Markets honestly are just so much fun!

5)     5) Handshakes: When you meet someone in North America, you shake their hand for a few seconds, and then let go and continue your conversation. When you meet someone in Ghana, you shake their hand, fist bump, do this crazy snap thing, and other complex awesome things. It just makes shaking hands that much more fun!

6)      6)Goats and sheep: They just wander around everywhere. There are also lots of baby goats and sheep, which are adorable. The goats sound like crying children sometimes, which is always an interesting experience.

7)     7) Chickens: Same thing as the goats, except without the crying. The chicks are really adorable too.

8)      8)The ladies at the front desk at ISH: Adelaide and Peggy always greet me warmly when I leave and ask how my day has been when I come back. They call me either Lizzy or Beth or something along those lines. They’re always so friendly and kind. Sometimes, they send us on errands to get them ice cream or something. It’s quite cute.

9)   9)   Louise: Louise bakes and cooks. She bakes banana chocolate bread, pineapple bread, and peanut butter cookies. She cooks groundnut soup, curry vegetable soup, and ‘pizza’. There is almost no baking in Ghana, because ovens are quite rare and it’s so darn hot during the day! Also, Louise uses A LOT of vegetables in her soups and pizza, which is also quite rare. At first, I thought she was really annoying because she always calls you over when you walk past. Then, I began to appreciate her. Her favourite word is ‘tantalizing’ which she uses to describe most of her food. One day, I didn’t have a lot of money left for the rest of the weekend, and Louise dashed (see number 10) me a container of groundnut soup and rice. She really is a sweet woman, and I’ll miss her.

1010)   The concept of ‘dashing’: If you buy something from someone and it’s substantial enough, you can ask them to ‘dash’ you something, which just means that they give you a little extra something. For example, if you buy three bananas and an orange and you ask for a dash, you might get another orange or something for free. When you start to develop relationships with the people you buy from, they are more likely to dash you things. It’s pretty fun, actually.

1111)   Cold showers: Since I like to shower at night, cold showers are wonderfully refreshing!

1212)   Going to hotels with warm showers: Even though cold showers are super refreshing, nothing feels more luxurious than having a hot shower. I think I’ve had only 3 or 4 since coming here!

1313)   Our professors: Our Literature prof is awesome! He’s a little crazy, but he’s awesome all the same. We’re pretty good at getting him off track, and he’s told us so many stories about his life. Our Twi prof is rather intimidating upon first meeting, but he is actually a wonderful guy. He tends to mark our homework not on our understanding, but on if we formatted and titled it correctly. Basically, if you follow instructions well, you’ll do well on your homework. He’s definitely our most Ghanaian prof in terms of how he wants us to listen to him. We are not permitted to doodle or have computers out or do anything distracting in the slightest. It’s kind of a lost art amongst us North Americans. Our Politics prof is a little dry and difficult to understand, but he’s still good. He says his ‘r’s funny, but I enjoy it. It’s really fun having Ghanaian profs, especially when they tell us stories about life in Ghana.

1414)   The sky: The sky here is always different and always beautiful. It’s so big and vast! Sometimes there are clouds, sometimes not. Sometimes the clouds are high and ridged, sometimes they’re low and foggy. Sometimes the sky is super blue, sometimes it’s light and almost has a yellowish tinge. The best time of day is sunset. It’s always around 6:30 or so, so we see it almost every night. I am going to miss the sky...there is far less pollution and it’s just so wonderful!

1515)   Trees: The trees here are amazing! Most of them are really short, but some of them have really cool twisty branches or really cool leaves. Some of them are really tall and statuesque, just looming above the horizon. In the north, we saw lots of baobabs, which was so cool! They’re so big and beautiful and stately. I just wish I knew the names.

There are so many other things that I will miss, but these are some of the biggest things I can think of right now. I can’t believe that I only have less than a month left! Gah! 

More Pictures!!! Sorry they took so long in coming!

Pictures between Cape Coast and the Northern Trip

Fort William: A slave fort near Cape Coast that is under renovation. There were archaeology students from the United States working there.

My dinner one night. It was actually delicious! A lot of people were proud of me that I ate food with a face :)

The inner courtyard of Elmina Castle in Cape Coast. 

The Door of No Return

Me on the suspension bridges at Khakoum National Park. It reminded me of the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but way more awesome! They were built by British Columbians!

Visiting a kente weaving village. Kente is woven only by men, and it is done in long narrow strips. It's gorgeous!

Another view. This give an idea of how long the strips are.

One of the waterfalls we visited. We got to swim by these ones, and it was absolutely phenomenal. The water was so powerful that you couldn't actually get close to the falls themselves, and the mist from the impact of the water flew over the surrounding rocks. Amazing!

Me and Logan :)

Feeding monkeys at a monkey village!!!

A cute little puppy outside of someone's house

A fetish priest. Although African Traditional Religion has been somewhat ousted by the presence of Christianity and Islam, it is still a very strong undercurrent. People often believe both traditional religion and Christianity or Islam or else they sort of meld the two together. 

The Odwira Festival in Akropong. The woman with the bowl on her head is possessed by ancestral spirits and is bringing food to sacrifice to them. She is most likely carrying yams.

When chiefs and queenmothers are in festivals and parades, they always wear very beautiful, ornate, and expensive clothing and accessories. This is the chief of Akropong, and the boy in front of him is wearing the Odosu on his head. The little boy is there because his soul is pure.

South African Wine...enough said!

Baboons! These were friendly ones, not the scary ones you always read about.

The obrunimobile! ('obruni' is the Twi word for 'white person'). This is our Toyota Coaster bus that we have spent hours and hours and hours in. It feels like our home away from home!

We visited a witches' village. Women who are accused of being witches are brought here to live. They raise their families there away from the oppression of their hometown, so there are lots of kids around. One of the smallest kids decided that Logan was his favourite obruni for the day, and his hand barely wrapped around one of Logan's finger!

Roland and Tina watching a cute little kid while we were listening to the women talk about their experiences at the witches' village

A storm rolling in up north, just outside of Yendi

Shea butter! Handmade and unprocessed. It is so moisturizing! I bought a giant lump of it for only one cedi (about 70 cents).

Me, Katie, and Megan pretending to be the witches from Macbeth while stirring the shea butter.

Downtown Tamale on Canadian Thanksgiving. We were sitting at a rooftop restaurant eating chicken and yam chips with ginger malt beer as a semblance of thanksgiving food :)

A sheep at the market in Bolgatanga. He did not look amused.

The Ghana border from the no-man's-land between Ghana and Burkina Faso

The border of Burkina Faso! Technically, I have crossed it, but not into official Burkina Faso, just into the no-man's-land.

Me sitting on a crocodile. Isn't that wild? He was 98 years old, and we got to watch him swallow a chicken almost whole about 10 minutes after this video was taken.

Me and the elephant. We were actually that close to an elephant! So amazing! They are huge and they make such crazy sounds. This one didn't really follow any semblance of a path. He mostly just crashed through the bush, and it got out of his way pretty quick. So did we, when he started walking towards us!

Two Absolutely Amazing Tales of Wonder

So, I just want to share with you the crazy wonderful morning I just had!

It all started at 6:45AM when my alarm went off. I woke up early to catch the 7:30 bus to Akuafo Hall for breakfast and laundry. As I was sitting and waiting for the bus just outside of ISH, I could see a massive bank of grey storm clouds rolling in. As I was climbing onto the bus, the heavens let loose an absolutely torrential downpour! Water began streaming down the windows of the bus and it sounded like waves were crashing on the roof above me. Tina and I sat, grinning in awe of the rain and sat in the bus as it rolled slowly along the campus roads. After about 15 minutes, we were as close to Akuafo Hall as we were going to get, so Tina and I departed. We dashed off of the bus and sprinted through the rain about 100 metres to the hall. In the sixty seconds we were actually outside, Tina and I got completely drenched. We ran through ankle-deep puddles and arrived at Coffee Cue (a little breakfast stand behind Akuafo Hall) dripping wet.

We sat down with Emily, who had been there for a while. Tina and I both ordered breakfast and then just sat, enjoying the raindrops plummeting on the canopy above us. We saw lightning and heard thunder as loud as gunshots. The three of us listened to ‘Wavin’ Flag’, which fit the situation perfectly. We sat chatting and smiling for about two or three hours, waiting for the rain to lessen. I was getting very chilly because my clothes were not drying at all, so I asked the man in the laundry shop if he could dry my shirt for me. He graciously agreed, and once it was dry, it felt so wonderful to put again. It was far too wet to make it to the Institute of African Studies for our 8:30 Literature class, so Tina and I watched the episode of the Amazing Race that took place in Ghana. When 10:00AM rolled around, Katie showed up with her laundry and told us that our Literature class had been cancelled because our professor was sick. It was a glorious, wet, exhilarating, free morning, and I loved every moment of it!

I also want to add one glorious story about one evening on our northern trip:

We spent a lot of time driving in the Institute of African Studies bus, which we have dubbed the Obrunimobile (‘obruni’ being the Twi word for white person). One evening, we were driving up to either Tamale or Yendiwe drove into an enormous bank of thunderclouds looming on the horizon. The northern part of Ghana is quite flat, and if Montana is considered ‘Big Sky Country’, it has nothing on Ghana! As we drove towards this huge bulk of storm clouds, an absolutely electrifying lightning storm began. It was incredibly amazing that I cannot describe it well enough to give you even the slightest idea of how beautiful and awe-inspiring it was. It completely engulfed us. There was lightning in front of us, behind us, and on both sides of us. My neck was actually starting to hurt from turning my head from left to right so that I would not miss any of the show. It was more beautiful than any fireworks I have ever seen. Bolts of lightning slashed across the sky, often branching into an electric root system stretching from heaven to earth. It was often so bright that I would have a bolt burned into my retina for a few minutes afterward. The show went on for well over an hour, and it never let up. I have never seen more lightning in my entire life! Nor have I seen anything more awe-inspiring or powerful in my entire life. It was a storm that I will never forget.

The Past Three Weeks

                Wow! It’s been a few weeks! We were in Akropong three weeks ago, then back for one week of insane amounts of homework, and then gone up North for another week. It’s been really busy, but really awesome!

                We were in Akropong for the annual Odwira Festival. The Odwira Festival is a festival of purification to renew the power of the town’s guardians, the odosu. The  odosu are fragments of skulls from the enemies of the Ashanti people that the people of Akropong stole hundreds of years ago. The people who are in possession of the odosu must perform the Odwira Festival yearly in order to maintain the power of the odosu. This is done by bringing food and drink offerings to the ancestors in the sacred grove, which is at the edge of town. The kind of scary thing about it is that most of the food-carriers (there are three from each of the 7 royal houses in Akropong) are possessed by ancestral spirits. They sort of run down the street and convulse violently. It was very unnerving, but I had a lot of good discussions with people about the existence and prominence of spirits. I still don’t really know how I feel about it, but at least I am better informed now.

                Akropong is a mainly Christian town (about 80% of the residents are Christian) and many people are trying to turn the Odwira Festival into a Christian festival of purification. Most people do not know anything about the odosu, however, so they end up supporting the festival without really knowing the outcome. It seems to be a very delicate thing. The Akrofi-Christaller Institute tries to engage in the festival as much as possible, but to use its message and ceremonies to a Christian purpose. The Presbyterian Teacher Training College right next door to the Institute does not allow their students to have anything to do with the Odwira Festival. I can’t decide which approach I like better. I love that the Akrofi-Christaller Institute tries to engage in the festival and discern right from wrong, but there is so much wrong with the motives of the festival that I don’t know whether engaging in it in the first place is a good idea. The week we spent in Akropong was far from settling.

                We spent all of last week in the north of Ghana! We went so far north that we actually got to cross the border into the No Man’s Land of Burkina Faso! It was rather exciting! I like the north better than being in the south. Although there is no ocean and no beaches, I like the feel of being up north much better. Tamale is more what I was expecting of Ghana. It’s dry and dusty and busy, but it still feels like Africa. It reminds me of Kabala, actually. I am not much of a city person, so being in Accra is not really my place. I am definitely enjoying it, but I still don’t like cities a whole lot. I love being in the open, without being hemmed in by a giant city. Tamale was pretty much perfect. It was still big enough to have good shops and restaurants, as well as a wonderful market, but it was small enough to have a nice friendly feel. People would stop and ask how we were just because we were walking down the sidewalk. I love that so much!

                Our trip was a mixture of doing touristy things and visiting NGOs. We saw the crocodile ponds in Paga, which is basically on the border of Burkina Faso. I got to sit on the tail of a 98-year-old croc! We got to see a church that was made entirely out of mud, and attend Mass there one morning. We went to Mole National Park and went on two safari walks. On both of them we saw...AN ELEPHANT!!!! I was honestly like 25 feet away from a wild elephant! It was so exciting! I don’t think that I have actually seen an elephant even in a zoo before, so it was so exciting! We saw him both on the afternoon walk, and again on the morning walk. In fact, the morning we were there, the elephant walked right in front of our motel! We also saw warthogs, baboons, green monkeys, and three different kinds of antelope. It was so amazing to just walk through the African Savannah and see all these animals!

                We visited five NGOs on our trip too. We visited the Christian Children’s Fund of Canada, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, International Development Enterprises, and BIRDS, a local NGO. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences between all of them, as well as the impact that they had on the communities they were working in. I think my favourite project that I learned about was done by Catholic Relief Services in the area of child nutrition. They worked in 108 communities. In 102 of these communities, they provided  access to a health and nutrition clinic and gave out packages of Plumpy Nut, which is a very nutritious meal supplement for children. In 6 communities, they sought out mothers whose children were very healthy and well nourished and provided tools for them to teach the rest of their community how to feed their children well. Once a week, all the mothers who wanted to got together and cooked a nutritious meal and were taught by the mother with the healthy children how to take better care of their own children. It actually reminded me of the muffin morning program at my church back at home. The greatest thing about this program is that the community started to take ownership of it. When families came back north after spending a season down south, many of the mothers helped them learn how to feed their children better too. The community now knows how to identify malnourished children and how to take care of them. I found this really exciting! There were many other interesting programs, but this one was my favourite. When we visited the NGOs, it was so cool to be able to ask them questions. We also got to visit a few places where programs had been put into place to see their impact on the community. It was just such an awesome experience!

                The past three weeks have gone by so fast! I can’t believe that it’s been almost 11 weeks! I have just over 6 weeks to go! Where did the time go? I am loving living here. Sometimes, I almost forget that I am in Ghana because life here just seems so normal. Tonight, we are going to have dinner at Prof’s flat, just like every Monday. We always have guests, so tonight our guest is our Literature professor, who I’m pretty sure is the ringleader of the current teacher’s strike on campus. Thankfully, the strike doesn’t affect us, as our professors are paid by Calvin, not the University of Ghana. Still, it’s been nearly two weeks since the strike started, and if it isn’t resolved by the end of the week, they have to start sending the Ghanaian students home. It’s really not fair because the students have to pay all of their fees at the beginning of the year, so basically they miss out on a semester of school both education and money wise. Anyway, hopefully it will all be resolved soon. After dinner tonight, we are planning on watching the second episode of the Amazing Race, which was in Ghana! We stayed tuned for scenes from the next episode and recognized Makola Market, and the coffins (we’ve seen a fish-shaped one!) and all the signs looked so familiar. Logan and I are looking forward to seeing how badly they get ripped off by the taxi drivers! I can’t wait!

Happy Nkrumah Day!

What a week! It’s been so busy that I haven’t had time to think about much at all!

We drove to the Volta Region on Friday morning. It used to be part of Togo back in the day, but Ghana claimed it in the 1940s when German Togo was split up as part of Germany’s war retribution payments. Apparently there are a select few elderly people who still speak German, but they are very few and far between. We travelled in what we’ve termed the ‘Obrunimobile’, ‘obruni’ being the Twi word for ‘white person’. It’s quite entertaining to see people on the side of the road do a double take when they see a bus full of obrunis drive past. Our first stop was the Akosombo Dam, on the Volta River. It was built between 1960 and 1963 and used to provide all the power for the entire country. It also created the largest man-made lake in the world, Volta Lake. As a result, thousands and thousands of people were displaced and lost their livelihoods. It’s kind of a sad story, but the dam is so successful in bringing electricity to Ghana and even to surrounding countries that there was not really another option. Also, the government warned the residents that they would be creating a lake and then they built rehousing settlements for the people who would be displaced. However, very few people actually moved because they didn’t have another way of life in the new spot. It’s a bit of a tragic story.

Next, we arrived at a Kente weaving village. Kente cloth is a traditional woven cloth from Ghana. It is  woven exclusively by men, and it actually originated in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Volta Kente is slightly different than the traditional Kente because of the colours of the cloth, but it is still absolutely gorgeous! The patterns vary, and some are very complex! Kente is woven in long strips, sometimes up to 10 or 15 feet long, and then sewn together to create a piece of cloth. It tends to be very expensive. There was a piece of Kente cloth that was probably about 10 feet by 15 feet and it was three hundred cedis, or about $210US! Still it’s very beautiful stuff, and I definitely bought some to take home!

On Saturday, we went to Laa Falls. They were absolutely amazing! The hike there was a flat trail that took about 45 minutes, and then we came upon the falls. The water level was quite high, so the falls were very powerful. We went swimming in the pool under the falls, and the water was so powerful that we couldn’t even get very close. The water was blasting out from where the water hit the bottom. Swimming in waterfalls is so exhilarating! It was pouring rain at the same time, so the feeling was even more exciting You just can’t keep a grin off of your face!!

On Sunday, Logan was feeling sick, so we went to the Nyaho Clinic in the morning. It turns out that he has a throat/sinus/ear infection, so he was prescribed antibiotics and sent home. The whole excursion took over 5 hours from beginning to end. Then, I had a lot of homework and laundry to do, so my Sunday was over! Monday, we had classes, but yesterday was Kwame Nkrumah Day, a brand new national holiday for which classes are cancelled. Kwame Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana after independence, and he was a wonderful politician. He is featured on the back of all the bills, and everyone still loves him. One of his biggest ideals was to unite Africa, or at least end inter-tribal tension. He has been described as being years ahead of his time. He also believed in empowering women, among other things. I feel like I want to read more about him because he sounds so interesting. Anyway, all week long there are awesome events going on in celebration. Last night, we went to the first screening of a Bob Marley documentary, another much-loved figured in Ghana. It was all about Bob Marley and Rastafarianism, which was very interesting. I looked up Rastafarianism during my lunch break today, and it seems like a very strange...religion/sect/movement/whatever you want to call it. People compare Nkrumah to Bob Marley because of his vision of a united Africa, but he really was not Rastafarian at all. For the next four nights, there are various plays going on, which I am looking forward to, and then on Sunday night there is a highlife guitar concert and storytelling time on campus. It’s going to be so cool!

Our Peoples and Cultures lecture today was by Professor John Collins, a British man born in India who has grown up in Ghana. He talked to us all about highlife guitar, which was absolutely fascinating! During colonization, the colonial powers squashed out much of the traditional African music because they were scared that it would permit uprising among the people as it did in Haiti in 1803. Instead, they trained people to play brass instruments in European styles. In Ghana, during the Ashanti Wars of the late 19^th century, Britain brought in soldiers from the Caribbean to fight because they were mostly immune to malaria unlike the white soldiers. These soldiers brought with them calypso music, which had been adapted from African music in the first place. This inspired these brass bands to bring African beats back into their music playing. Eventually, this African influence transferred onto the guitar, which created the highlife music style. Highlife is basically an overarching term for any Ghanaian popular music, but it definitely connotes an African rhythmic undertone. It is a wonderful music style, and I am definitely going to bring some of it back!

I had a very short, but very interesting conversation with a Ghanaian student while waiting for my rice balls and groundnut soup the other day. He asked me what I was doing here at the University, and I told him that I was studying International Development. He asked me why, and the only reason I could really come up with was that I want to help fix the problems created by the West in the first place. He went on to say that Ghana and Africa in general don’t really need us to fix them. And he’s absolutely right! As I learned in Sierra Leone, the best way to help someone is not to enforce your own ideals upon them and control exactly what’s going on, but to walk beside them and do what they want to do. Work with the people towards their own goals, not to for their own good. Reading The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly really opened my eyes to the evil that foreign aid has done when we do it wrong. I feel like he didn’t offer enough positive examples in his writing, but it was a very disillusioning book. The idea that even if foreign aid doesn’t accomplish what we think it will that it is still better than nothing is a skewed idea. Foreign aid can contribute to corruption and dependence if we are not careful with it. There is a very fine line in foreign between help and harm, and it is difficult to discern that line and tread on the right side. As I predicted, my course on the Ethics of Foreign Aid is by far the most interesting class!

Keep commenting on my posts, and if you want to, send me an email or Facebook message. I am almost halfway done my trip! Can you believe it?

So another week has passed. Life is starting to feel more normal and scheduled here, which is nice. Although I miss Calvin and dorm life, especially with people updating their Facebook statuses all the time, life here is starting to feel more like home!

Last weekend, Logan and I made the trek back to Akropong. It was quite and adventure! We caught a trotro to Medina (which is a large market area and public transport stop). For one cedi twenty pesewas (about 80 or 90 cents) we went on an hour long trip up the beautiful highway to Akropong. It was a really nice restful weekend. We met quite a few interesting people. My roommate, for instance, was a kindergarten teacher at the Institute for her Masters of Theology so that she could teach her students from a Christian perspective. We also met a man from Northern Ghana who is translating the Gospel of John into his own language. Then, there was a student studying the use of the word 'logos' in John and comparing it with the equivalent of the same word in his mother tongue. There was also a retreat for students of a deaf school there for the weekend. I love the Akrofi-Christaller Institute. It's just such a restful place, and it has such a unique and wonderful mission. I love the variety of people that you meet there. It's just such an amazing place. We're going back as an entire group in two weeks' time, and I'm really looking forward to it. My one funny story of the weekend is that Logan and I both managed to lock ourselves our of our rooms within a span of about five minutes. Both of our doors were self locking, which didn't work so well. Then, the power went out, so we didn't really care anyway, and we decided to go explore Akropong. We walked down one of the streets, and found ourselves at a stream where people were doing laundry and gathering water. We followed the path down a little bit and found the school and football field. It was a really nice morning, all in all, regardless of the crazy things that happened!
I think my favourite two classes are the Ethics of Development and the Peoples and Cultures. I love discussing foreign aid. The book we are reading right now, The White Man's Burden, by William Easterly, is painting foreign aid in a very interesting light. It just shows how the West is trying to dictate what is happening in the Rest, and how we haven't even accomplished that much anyway. The best way to do aid is to listen to what the people want and treat them as equals instead of some receptacle for our money to help ourselves feel good. It's a very fine balance though. It is so difficult to discern where to draw the line. This class is fantastic, and I'm loving all the discussions we're having. I feel like I'm becoming so much more educated on foreign aid and all its effects. One of the girls in our group is doing an independent study on African impressions on foreign aid, and she said that I could come along on some of her interviews. I'm really interested to learn more about the recipient side of foreign aid! In our Peoples and Cultures class, we have guest lecturers in twice a week to tell us about different aspects of Ghanaian people and cultures. We've had lectures on chieftancy, funerals, traditional religion, beads and kente cloth, art, and so much more. This class also encompasses our weekend and week-long field trips. It's just such and interesting and informative class. I feel like I'm getting to know that culture here so much better. I am enjoying life here so much, and all the classes I'm taking are really helping that.
I think I'm going to describe a typical day for you:
7:30 - wake up and get ready for class. I usually get breakfast in the Night Market from a stall run  by Vivien and Regina, two sisters who are about 14 and 16. Usually I eat an egg sandwich, which is just an omelette on toasted bread. Then, comes the walk to the Institute of African Studies, where our classroom is located. It's about 10-15 minutes walking, and by the time we get there, we're all pretty hot and sweaty. Thankfully, our classroom is air-conditioned :)
8:30-12:00 - class time. We have Twi, literature, politics, drumming, dancing, Ethics of Development, and Peoples and Cultures. Classes are an hour and a half long with a half hour break in between.
12:00-2:00 - lunch break! Usually, we head to either the Bush Canteen or Akuafo Hall. The Bush Canteen is a bunch of different food stands around a large eating area. Akuafo Hall is a residence hall with a large cafeteria. My favourite meal right now is rice balls with groundnut soup. Basically, you get a large bowl with spicy peanut soup and then one or two balls of rice, which you eat with your fingers. It's actually a lot of fun!
2:00-3:30- class again.
3:30 - 10:30 - random time. Usually I'll do homework, or talk with people, or play card games, or go to the mall or the market. I like having a long afternoon to just do whatever :)

So that's a pretty typical day. Not too exciting, but there's lots of opportunities to explore and talk to people and finish homework. Today, we're going to try swimming at the pool on campus. Should be fun!

Almost a Month!

So, time for another post! I’ll try and keep this one either shorter or better organized. I’m sorry that I write so much. I just love talking about my experiences so much!

The past two weeks have been crazy homework-wise.  We’ve had to read Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, The Blue Sweater, Sundiata, a number of chapters from The White Man’s Burden, and a number of chapters from our African Politics textbook. We’ve also had to write three journals, a reflection essay, and do a number of exercises in Twi. Not only have we had all this to do, we haven’t had a lot of time to do it either. We spent the weekend in Cape Coast, and had no free time to catch up. I’m finally caught up now, but I’m waiting for the next wave to hit!

Our trip to Cape Coast was very interesting. We started out by visiting Fort William, which was a former British slave fort. Right now, it’s an active archaeological site. We were toured around by one of the people in charge of the site, and we talked to some of the students working there. Most of the slave castles and forts were converted to other purposes after the slave trade. Fort William, for example, was a youth centre for a while, and then was converted to a prison. Now, the archaeologists (the leader of whom actually looked like Indiana Jones!) are working to restore it. It was fascinating! Next, we visited Elmina Castle, which was much larger. It was taken over by the Dutch in the 1600’s. I hadn’t realized that the Dutch had such a large involvement in the slave trade. One of the hardest parts of the tour was walking through the Dutch Reformed Church, which was located directly above some of the slave cells. It seemed so unimaginable to think that the people who go to basically the same church that I do had no problem selling people into slavery. It was also hard to go through the ‘door of no return’, but mostly to come back through it. Our guide told us that there was a ceremony where two bodies of slaves, one from the States and one from South America, were reinterred in Ghana after passing back through the ‘door of no return’, and that the door has now been renamed ‘the door of return’. It was such a strange and interesting experience to see slavery from the other side of the Atlantic.

After seeing the awful conditions that slaves were kept in (some of the cells still stank after over a hundred years), we went to our hotel. We stayed in beautiful rooms right on the beach. They were air-conditioned, we had hot water, there was a TV and a fridge, they were clean and quiet. It took us two minutes to walk down to the beach, which was well-kept and restful. We ate lobster, calamari, and cassava fish for dinner. It was amazing, and such a different situation than we had just been in. It was wonderful to relax and rest, but it felt sort of strange and out of place. I did enjoy the break though. We’ve been going and going and going for basically our whole time here! I can’t believe it’s been almost a month!

Today, we had a very interesting Peoples and Cultures lecture. It was on education in Ghana. Although Ghana is one of the most stable countries in Africa, it still has so many issues with education. The southern, more developed part of the country has relatively  good education. Private schools are much better than the government-provided free schools, but they’re expensive and very competitive to get into. In the rural north, the school system is failing. No one wants to go work in a place with no electricity (and therefore no TV or Internet) and no nightlife when they could stay in the south and still have a job. Teachers are also not paid very well, so no one really wants to become one. The ratio of teachers to students is supposed to be 1:35, but the actual ratio of trained teachers to enrolled students is 1:214. Even where there are trained teachers, the quality of instruction is not particularly high. The biggest problem that I’ve noticed is that reading is not taught with phonetics. Children are expected to memorize what a word looks like and figure out how to read all other words somehow. Reading is such a vital part of school and learning that when a student does not have strong reading skills, they will most likely struggle in school. As a result of this quality of instruction, the pass rates from primary school (grade 6) into junior high school is between 50% and 60%. This is what breaks my heart. The teachers who are teaching now are teaching the students the way they were taught as children. It is so difficult to change this cycle. Yet it must be done. Especially in the north, many parents are illiterate so not only are children growing up without books and other literature in the house, their parents don’t appreciate education as much as they could. One of the other problems with education in Ghana is something called ‘brain drain’. If a student is successful in their studies and becomes, say, a doctor, they try to get out of the country. For example, there is a city in Germany that has more Ghanaian doctors than there are Ghanaian doctors in all of Ghana. There are many opportunities in Ghana, and there is desperate need for professionals, but there is a far stronger draw from more developed, richer countries. I struggle with these issues because I feel like there is not very much I can do. The job of fixing these issues is so daunting, and I have no idea where to begin.

So far, my time in Ghana has been incredible. There is such a mixture of tradition and modernity. It’s very interesting to feel this tension, especially as an outsider who doesn’t really understand all that much. It’s a combination of malls and markets, plumbing that supplies non-potable water, Montessori schools and reading taught by memorization, washing things by hand and having conveniences like air-conditioning and Internet. It’s a very strange and intense life I’m living here, but I love it and all the challenges it brings.