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.