Odds and Ends

Above: my two pieces of America that live-on here in Africa. I can't express to you how perfect Toms are for here.... and coke... I have never drank so much pop in my life. There's no real ground-coffee here and nescafe just doesn't do it. So my pick-me-up = a coca cola ... usually out of a bottle. Man, that is good stuff.

There are so many little pieces to figure out while I'm here! So much going on all at once and what feels like so much down time...

On Thursday I went and visited a place that I am fairly certain will become my heart beat while I'm here. Beacon House orphanage is about 40 minutes away from campus and a home for special needs orphans who are either from families that cannot take care of them or are biological orphans (meaning both their biological parents have died or abandoned them.)

The trek to the orphanage was an adventure...

Important fact (that I didn't understand before Thursday): when a cab driver tells you he knows where he's going... you have no way to know if he's telling the truth.

We got so horribly lost it's laughable. I kid you not we drove down street after street with our cab driver yelling out my window in Twi - asking how to get where we needed to go. After 45 minutes of these shenanigans we admitted defeat, paid him the promised 5 cedi and got out on a residential street... with no idea how to get to the orphanage.

Luckily after multiple phone calls to our contact there and the incredible kindness of two strangers... we made it there. I can't imagine how pathetic we three oburunis looked standing in the middle of the road with no idea where to go. A woman named Victoria finally took us on as her special "look what a good person I am Hey-zeus" project for the day and lead us to our destination.

When we arrived the kids were sleeping but we got a tour of the house and a good idea of what we would be able to do.

Tentatively: I will be playing with the preschoolers before lunch, helping serve lunch, and then possibly giving drumming lessons. HA! Anyone who knows me knows I don't play the drums... But I am taking a traditional African drumming course and I go straight from that class on thursdays to volunteering... and the kids are so little... and sure! WHY NOT!?! My friend Grace and I (who are in the class together) are planning on buying djembes and taking them to the orphanage in our taxi - and then teaching the kids what we learn in class in the mornings! How incredible would that be?

Other than that: my life here is still working to settle into some sort of manageable and predictable routine.

Today we were supposed to go to the Arburi gardens and also to see wood carving but the bus driver went AWOL and we were left in the lurch at 7:30 this morning. The good news: we are going tomorrow and I can't wait.

More to come.

To teach or not to teach...

"If you teach for the classroom and not for life, you have failed your students."

Professor Frempong

I tried to go to professor Frempong's class three times in the past two weeks before we ever had a real class. The first time I arrived at his 7:30 AM class (30 minutes from my dorm) he decided not to show up. It was Monday 7:30 AM and apparently the first class of the school year did not require his attendance. I took this for what it was and went on with my day. What I found out in that first week is that most professors just don't show up for their first class. I signed up for 5 classes and out of those 5 classes only two professors showed up for the first week.

Please understand - we only have class once a week, 2 hours a day for 10 weeks. That means when they don't show up... we have 9 classes before the final exam.

So, yesterday I decided to make my second 6:45 AM trek across campus to attend prof. Frempong's first lecture. I arrived at 7:30 and was greeted by a Ghanaian Student-Leader telling the room full of international students that "prof. Frempong's class has been moved to Tuesdays at 7:30 AM... it's no longer on Mondays. So sorry. Come back tomorrow - same time - same place."

Are you kidding me? Oh let me tell you... this oburuni was pretty peeved that 6 AM wake up calls one AND two were for no reason.

Today was our first lecture. And for the first time I realized that the accents of some profs are incredibly hard for me to understand. Luckily, after the first 2o minutes I felt I was getting the hang of his pronunciation and cadence. The class was fairly intriguing though basic in its introductory lecture.

The courses I am taking while I am here (and their corresponding times) are:

Mondays: 9:30AM-11:30 History of the Black Diaspora
1:30-3:30 Political Economies of Colonialism
4-6 Intensive Introductory Twi
Tuesdays: 7:30AM-9:30AM Intnl Conflict, Conflict resolution and Human Rights
9:30AM-10:30AM Intro to Traditional African Drumming (Auditing it for fun!)
4-6 Intensive Introductory Twi
Wednesdays: 9:30AM-11:30AM Art History of Ghana
4-6 Intensive Introductory Twi
Thursdays: 9:30-10:30 Introduction to Traditional African Drumming
4-6 Intensive Introductory Twi
Friday: No class!

The best professors by leaps and bounds are my Art History prof., Professor Anquandah, prof. of my Intensive 6 week Twi course - Prof. Kofi and my Black Diaspora prof., Prof. Baku.

Prof. Anquandah is probably heading into his 80s fairly soon and one of the most phenomenal people I've met so far. He is passionate about art and archaeology and has written multiple books on the subject of African and Ghanaian art. Prof. Baku is a fiery intellectual with a mean streak who takes his job VERY seriously. And Prof. Kofi (fondly known as short-Kofi - instead of tall-Kofi who teaches the other Twi course for CIEE) is one of the most ridiculous men I've ever met and the second-best language professor I've ever had. (The first quite obviously being Madame Schein at TCU for those of you who have heard me rave about her.)

Short-Kofi threatens to "kill the students" and "fire us" if we don't participate in class. Then he laughs maniacally about his "pension baby" being more gutsy than us and his plan to "cast us into the bush" for being shy.

I am incredibly lucky with most of my courses, 4 out of 5 I am taking for credit are incredibly interesting with engaging professors. The jury is still out on one of them... I am concerned to say the least. And my drumming class I am auditing saw me for the first time today. I didn't go last week because I was unsure I could take it. The instructor is WONDERFUL. I cannot wait to go back on Thursday.

Most courses here are lecture once a week, some reading, and then a final exam for 100% of your grade.

It's a different world than TCU. And I'll be honest... my inner nerd will miss the more challenging and more-rigorous course work in the land of horned frogs.

However, I am incredibly thankful for the once in a lifetime experience to take classes here, and be exposed to the thoughts and theories of African professors ABOUT African issues.

More to come later.

Maakye (loosely translated as have a good morning in Twi)

Clubs, Cooking and Cold Water

Teaching a bunch of Oburunis (foreigners) how to cook with a mortar and pestle and coal fires could not have been an easy task.


Yesterday, one of our incredible CIEE staff worked with us to teach us how to cook some traditional Ghanaian dishes that we could bring back to the states and recreate for our family and friends. It was incredible to watch a woman cook with only small-portable coal stoves - making three different sauces at once while another coal stove fried up the kelewele (fried plantain with spices like ginger, red pepper and fresh onion). That morning she also taught us how to wash our clothes by hand in small buckets... I don't think I have the skills quite yet but I'm working on it.


A lot of people have been asking about the dorm-life here. Asking if I have running water, if I have air conditioning - etc. etc. etc. So here is the run-down: I have running water... sometimes... but there is no hot water at all. I live in a dorm called International Student Hostel (better known as ISH) that has community bathrooms and I share a room with another American student named Claire - who goes to Boston College. My room is wonderful, no air conditioning but an incredibly effective fan. I sleep under mosquito netting at night and get up with the sun around 6 am. I can usually fall back asleep but it is definitely a new experience to have the sun rise so early. It's necessary though, considering the sun sets by 6 o'clock in the evening.









The UPALS that I mentioned in an earlier post are our saving grace here but they are also our all-knowing-excursion-experts. A friend of mine here has her birthday on Monday and wanted to go out so we asked Gabriel where would be a good place to go dance. The answer we received was "Mirage is the place to go on Saturday night." Mirage... ummmm hmmmm well other than sounding like a strip club what could be wrong with such a place?


Sweet fancy Moses. After negotiating a 10 cedi entrance fee down to free... we entered the club... walking on "stepping stones" through a flooded entrance. What a good start. We entered and what we hear is the kind of techno you'd find in an over-priced night club somewhere in Eastern Europe. Straight techno. Enter: laser light show and a strobe light. I have not had that much fun dancing with a bunch of partial-strangers in my entire life. The time the bouncer grabbed me to dance was a bit intimidating but the over enthused middle-aged-middle-eastern men doing the cotton eye joe to techno made up for it. Some friends and I retreated in a taxi home around 1:30 just as everyone was just getting started.


And that is when I had my first experience with police corruption. Our taxi driver was stopped not once but TWICE and left no choice but to bribe the police/military personnel so that he could get us back to campus. Definitely not something you'd find in the states. And the way it's done is incredible... the police just shine a flashlight in the window and let their stare do the talking. The driver proceeds to reach into his earnings for the night and hand over 2-5 cedi so that he can be on his way. And we complain about speeding tickets...


Other than our clubbing adventure the only other notable excursion thus far was the trip to Medina market eluded to in the previous post. Mass chaos is the best way to describe it. Functional-overwhelming-chaos. You'll find everything from stations doing braids on girls to electrical wires and incredible fabrics. All thrown together down endless corridors of vendors and people. Please note the photo of the "Obama biscuits" for sale in the market. Many of my conversations with passing cab drivers and people on the street go as follows:






"Oburuni!"
*I wave*
"Obama!"
*I give the thumbs up and giggle to myself*


Ghanaians love them some Obama.



There is always more to come and I can't wait to post more - once more has happened.

One last note: currently I am in an internet cafe on campus... my background music to this post: African drumming and a giant choir singing outside... some sort of celebration on the basketball court. The room is shaking a bit. I love my life.

The First Week

Gabriel (one of our Ghanaian UPALs ): "Let's go to Aphrodisiac tonight"
Me (trying to be funny): "Umm Gabriel I don't know you that well.... that's awfully forward to think I'd like to share an aphrodisiac experience with you."
Gabriel: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Do you know what an aphrodisiac is?"
Gabriel: "No..."
Me: "It's different foods and such that get you going before sex."
The look on Gabriel's Face: "$%*@)%$*"

That little exchange is just one of many hilarious moments thus far. Another, was the shot-gun wedding in a tro-tro (buses that are packed to the max and allow you to travel across the city for less than 25 cents). My friend Naomi and I were proposed to in our tro tro to the big market called Medina yesterday, we graciously accepted and got a good laugh out of the Ghanaians filling the seats around us.

To give you a brief synopsis of life here so far: we spent three days at a resort-like hotel in downtown Accra, just trying to adjust to the fact that we are in Africa. We did orientation-like activities to answer questions and get us prepared for the University. We also met our UPALS - Ghanaian student assistants. I had no idea to what extent these people would be active in our lives. Now, after only 4 days. I see that our UPALS, Nana, Gifty, Mickey and Gabriel will keep us alive on this campus. They do everything from showing us how to get to classes on this massive compound to getting us safely in a tro tro to market and back.

I'm sure there will be innumerable stories about our adventures with the UPALS while I am here.

Before the majority of my program (CIEE - 49 students) arrived at the resort in Accra I had a day to kill with my newly-made-airport-friend Angie. Angie and I went to Cape Coast, 2 hours away with two friends of hers that lived in Accra. As promised I have uploaded photos of the trip. It was a memorable experience, which reminded me of the frightening realities of the impact of colonialism and the atrocious human rights abuses of the slave trade.



Standing in the Cape Coast castle, in a room no bigger than A TCU lecture hall, and imagining over 2,000 people closed inside with no light, no facilities for relieving themselves, and no room to breathe was emotionally overwhelming.

One of the most important images I captured on this day trip was a photograph of "the door of no return", which was the door that the slaves used to exit the castle in chains to board the ships to Europe and America... to be sold into slavery and never returned to their homes and their families.

Walking through that door and emerging on the outside to the smells and sites of a the vibrant fishing village was breathtaking.

I hope you enjoy some of the photographs, they are incredibly hard to upload on the internet here, so forgive me for there being so few.

I have arrived.

I'm here.

The journey began yesterday at 6:05 Eastern Time in Atlanta. I caught my flight with no problems at all and boarded with ease. After the initial joy of getting moved to an aisle seat I realized that the two 13 year old boys that were pinching and poking each other all the way down the aisle were getting closer and closer to my row.

Sure enough those heathens were my neighbors. In the middle section... 4 deep. I sat on the left side next to the aisle, the boys next to me and their mother as the other end cap. For the first 45 minutes of travel they were quite literally punching each other in the head. It escalated and escalated and ESCALATED. My looks of amusement turned to frustration turned to unfiltered fury. And oh did those boys notice. I am fairly certain I was being called many choice words in German for a good 10 minutes at one point.

Finally one boy hit the other one so hard that he yelled loud enough to disturb the whole cabin. Finally, the Mother shushed them a bit and encouraged them to put in their headphones. I sat the whole time thinking "Really Heyzeus? Really? These kids have to be my neighbors on this flight?

After the movie was in they were fairly harmless and mostly quiet.

I landed in Frankfurt at 9 am their time and had a quick layover. When I arrived at gate B47 to wait for my flight to Accra I was met by two of the ticket-takers and asked if I would join them at the ticket counter. "I'm upgrading you to business class."

Wait what? Why? Uhmmm Thank you? - that was all I could think of to say!

Let me tell you... flying business class on a 6 hour international flight is like being escorted to heaven temporarily. I just started laughing when I sat down in my beautiful seat - "Alright Heyzeus so is this my reward for being a good girl on the first flight and holding my tongue?"

I like to believe so.

I landed in Accra at 3:30 their time and retrieved my bags and went through customs quickly and painlessly. I then waited 3 hours in the airport for my new friend Angie who would get in at 7 and take me to the hotel. She knows missionaries in the area and they were gracious enough to pick us up at the airport and buy us dinner. They are staying at our hotel for the night and we are going to the Cape Coast tomorrow with them to see one of the forts used in the slave trade when the Gold Coast was one of the biggest exporters of human capitol. I can only imagine what it will be like to stand in that building... knowing what went on there for so long.

My feelings about being here are hard to explain ... It still feels surreal. It's truly incredible. It just... feels right.

I can't wait to update more this week with photos and information about my program and orientation.

I'm IN Africa... when did that happen?

30 hours and counting...

In 30 hours I will be on my flight to Frankfurt and eventually Accra.

In the past three weeks I have travelled from Atlanta to Omaha to Indianapolis and back to Atlanta. The family reunion in Omaha was wonderful and General Assembly was phenomenal.

Now, the reality is beginning to set in that I am leaving the United States for almost 5 months. My family is starting to become visibly anxious and friends are calling and texting day and night. I will say - I've never felt like such a hot commodity.

The emails have gone out to alert people of my departure and the link to this blog, the phone calls to triple and quadruple check flights and reservations have been made and the plan for getting to the orientation site in Accra has been crafted.

It's time to pack... and to go.

One of my best friends said to me last night: "My prediction is you won't sleep the night before you leave, because you'll be packing and repacking and then on Friday you'll end up leaving for the airport at the very last minute."

Let's hope that forecast is faulty.

The next time I write will most likely be from Accra.
Wish me luck.