My dad thought it would be a good idea to tell everyone about eating. It’s not awesome. My travel doctor told me that if you can’t peel it or cook it, you should forget it. So we’re all a little veg deprived, but it doesn’t seem to be very customary here to eat many vegetables. The diet is very carb heavy. For about a week we ate mostly chicken and rice, chicken and rice. Now that we’re buying our own food, it’s rice and beans, rice and beans. Pretty much every day. For breakfast there’s really yummy egg sandwiches that you can buy at the market, fruit, or bread. We have a little cafe inside of our hostel that serves runny oatmeal, egg sandwiches, and really interesting but good pancakes. Coffee is always instant and in small cups.

There’s no McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, or Taco Bell. The only familiar chains are the Shell gas station just off campus and the Holiday Inn right by the airport. It’s really kind of nice to know that I managed to find somewhere the chains haven’t penetrated yet, but sometimes you just want a cheeseburger. And coffee.

The fruit is great though, and there’s a guy who sells veggie kebabs. I eat the cole slaw here, even though I’m not really supposed to. So far, so good. And, tonight is buy one get one free at the pizza place near campus!

But on to water. I have to buy bottled, of course, that’s not what I am going to write about. The big water news is that once every ten years, the Greater Accra region (where I am) undergoes massive pipes and plumbing rehab. Once every ten years happens to be right now, and starting sometime today, they are shutting off the water for TEN DAYS. Water trucks will come to replenish reservoirs in buildings, but things here tend to be rather unreliable. Assuming the reservoir in our building gets filled regularly, we will have to take buckets to this spigot to fetch water for showers and flushing the toilet. But this is what I live for right? So I can go home and say I spent ten days bathing from a bucket?

I tried to think of a neat little theme for this entry but couldn’t. We’ll see what happens when I try to think of a title. It’s a good time for another post though because I’ve had some more…experiences.

Most excitingly, I’ve been to the beach! The beach closest to downtown Accra is called La Beach. We went as a group a few days ago. I had a great time because I hadn’t been to the beach in a long time, but to be fair it was pretty crowded and sort of dirty. The waves were huge! So it was fun.

I also just finished washing my clothes…in a bucket! Two buckets, actually. They are currently hanging up in our courtyard, underwear and all. I think I did a pretty good job. I guess they’re clean?

I also organized my room. I made myself a shelf out of the box my bottled water came in and a pencil cup out of a water bottle I cut the top off of. Clever, right?

I’ve mostly navigated the disorganized bureaucracy to sign up for my classes. First we had to register as students in one building, then go to another building to get our student ID cards. Then we had to walk around the humongous campus to each department that we wanted to take classes in taking classes in and copy down the meeting times and locations of the courses we want. Some courses don’t have a venue assigned. Other courses, no one you ask knows where that particular classroom is. Anyway, you also must register with each department you’re taking courses in. Each department is different. Some are very easy, but some make you stand in one line, then send you somewhere else only to be told to go back to wherever you came from, or that you don’t have the right paperwork…it can get pretty frustrating. And you need passport photos for all of them. It’s very strange.

I went to class Monday morning and learned that the lecturers are all on strike. But my professor showed up anyway because she didn’t care about the strike. The class was very good. It was called Social Work: Working With Individuals. When she came into class and started talking I was thinking to myself “Oh good, I can understand her!” She asked the class if everyone could understand her accent and I was like “Of course we can! You’re speaking so clearly!” But she wasn’t asking me, she was asking the Ghanaian students, because she has an American accent! I didn’t even notice… 

Anyway, ever since then it’s been kind of questionable whether or not we should go to class. Even though the strike ended today, a lot of classes don’t meet in the first week and a lot of Ghanaian students don’t even bother moving into their dorms until this weekend!

My second class was today. Classes meet weekly for two hours. Two hours! This class was taught by a Ghanaian woman who everyone calls Grandma. I think the class will be interesting, but it’s so hard to stay awake when it’s warm, there’s a gentle breeze, and dim lighting…The class is called African Traditional Religions. She said that if the class wasn’t mandatory for Religion majors, most Ghanaian students wouldn’t take it because of the conflict with their Christian beliefs.

I’ve also been a little more adventurous with food. I tried banku today, a traditional Ghanaian dish. It’s kind of like eating raw dough with sauce. The banku itself is made of ground up cassava and yams and the sauce is made of…sauce. I don’t know, actually. I was a little upset with myself because I didn’t like it at all. So much for appreciating Ghanaian culture…

 Sometimes I feel close to home, like when I hear rap music blasting from car speakers. Other times I feel like I am in a completely different world, like when we go to the markets.

My hostel-mates and I live a few minutes walk from a small market called “The Night Market,” a slightly longer walk to a bigger market called “The Bush Canteen,” and a short tro-tro ride to the Medina market. Today we also rode to the market in Accra. I don’t think Medina and Accra are actually very far, but traffic in and out makes the trip longer.

I feel like I knew there would be outdoor markets, but I kind of thought it would be like buying peaches or corn from a stand on the side of a country road.

It is totally not like that at all. All of the markets I have been to have different characters, but Medina and Accra are most easily lumped together. Both are bursting to the seams with cars, people, and items for sale. Walk ten feet and you will have the opportunity to buy tomatoes, plastic lawn chairs, huge schloozing snails, pillows, bicycles, computers sitting in the dirt, plantain chips, sunglasses, mangoes, colorful fabrics, cell phones, and raw, whole fish. But before you could possibly walk ten feet to decide which of these delightful wares you might buy, your attention would be diverted by the hisses intended to catch your attention, calls of “Ha-lo!” and “Hey Abruni” and “Would you like to buy, 12 cedi, but I give you for 10.” A woman in traditional garb with a baby strapped to her back has probably already squeezed the back of your arm to direct you to her stand where “It’s the best.” Asking how much something costs is usually interpreted as “I would definitely like to buy this from you.”

I’m hoping that I’ve started to convey how completely overwhelming the outdoor markets are. Chaos is the only observable pattern. Children, chickens, and goats roam among the buyers, sellers, and cars. Whole families crouch and even sleep under their homemade stands. Cars are honking to say hello, get out of the way, my turn, and your turn.

Today we also were taken to the Accra mall, which was mostly like a mall in the US except that it wasn’t and there were two supermarket/super wal-mart type stores within it. Words cannot even describe how the simple existence of price tags and cash registers put me at ease. I try to appreciate the market economy occurring within the outdoor markets as the quickest, truest form of capitalism, but I still come out overwhelmed, exhausted, and with little to show for my time.

A lot has happened since I’ve written last. First of all, I finally finished packing. I went and visited Kelsey’s adorable scaredy-cat new kitten. I said some hard goodbyes. I went back home for my pants that I left in the dryer. I got up to the scanner in Lambert’s security line before I had to run back because I had forgotten my big stack of important documents. Oops.

And then I was off. After about 22 hours of traveling my plane finally touched down in Accra. I had already made some new friends studying at the University, and I met Amanda at the London airport (we had actually been on the same flight to London also, but I got to the gate so late/ the plane was so huge that we didn’t see each other). The airport was sort of chaotic, and all of us students grouped together while everyone waited for bags and changed money. After that we said goodbye to a lot of them because they were in different programs.

We arrived at our hostel after a surprisingly short drive where we all tried to take in as much as we could of our dark surroundings. I could only see enough to tell that I had never been anywhere like this.

I was pleasantly surprised by the huge courtyard in the middle of the hostel and the small screened-in back porch that my room opens out to. The room isn’t in great condition, but the bed is sleepable, there’s a working ceiling fan, screens on the windows, even a bookcase! We rearranged and finished unpacking yesterday, so it’s home now.

This week is orientation week for my exchange program, so we’ve mostly been getting to know each other and not meeting a whole lot of other students. We do have three student guides who are Ghanaian and have been helpful so far.

I feel like I’ve been here a lot longer than I have because our days our so long! Yesterday we got to sleep in, but we still did a lot. Today we had to get up early to go to two lectures from professors at the University. The first was on Ghanaian culture and etiquette. I learned a lot, but still got the impression that there was no way I had learned everything. The second was about the role of politics in Ghanain life. Apparently, this is a huge election year for them too, so we learned a little about that.

After lunch we embarked on Part 1 of our campus tour. It seemed like we walked really far, but when I checked the map I realized we’d only seen approximately…one third of the campus. This big school thing is really an adjustment for me. We spent a long time waiting to get passport photos printed. For some reason we need those for everything. I don’t quite get it.

Another thing that’s been an adjustment for me and the other American students is Ghanaian time. It kind of seems like things just sort of happen when they happen here and impatience just makes things worse. We spent an equally long time registering for…something. Not classes. Just school, I guess. We get to shop for classes for a few weeks before we officially sign up for them. Setting up your shedule is really complicated because you have to make sure none of your final exam times conflict. There’s a really complicated system with subject groups and course levels…big schools are hard.

All in all, everything is wonderful and strange. I haven’t had any mishaps or illnesses so far. I have a phone, internet, and roommate who’s not a freak. And I’m not dying of heat exhaustion. So far, so great.

Hopefully I’ll find a way to put pictures up. The internet has been too slow, but I might try early in the morning when it’s less busy. Also, akwaaba means you’re welcome in Twi

Hello everyone!

I’ve started this blog to keep my friends and family updated on my adventures while I study abroad in Ghana. I leave this evening for Chicago, then on to London, and then to Accra, Ghana. Once I arrive in Chicago, I’ll be traveling with a friend from Hendrix. I should be arriving in Accra around 2 pm Central Standard time. I will be studying at the University of Ghana in Legon, just outside the capital, Accra. Here’s a photo I found online of some building at the University:

This is where I'll be!

I’ve just got a few more items to throw in my bags before I leave. I’m not feeling nearly as nervous as I did yesterday, I’m mostly excited now, but I still can’t believe that it’s happening!