Hey everyone!
Yes.. I'm still alive..
Sorry I haven't updated the blog at all this semester. I didn't pay for wireless on my laptop this time over, so I've only had internet access at cafes where I don't really have time to get business done and write a blog entry. But today I thought I'd spend the time to do so!
This semester has been amazing. I've made some great new friends with whom I'm very close, and I'm even closer to my Ghanaian and Nigerian friends from the beginning of the school year. I am very, very glad I did a year-long program instead of just a semester. I've been able to really connect with my African friends, and I feel like I have a real grip on how everything works here. I feel like the kind of knowledge I've attained thus far could never be summed up in just a semester. But also because I've been here a year, being separated from it will be so much harder.
Well.. I guess I'll try to sum up what I've been up to this semester. For a week before I got back in Accra I was in London visiting my friend Chelsea. London was a great experience. It felt pretty close to home, but at the same time it really had its own thing. I loved the fact that the city is maybe only a third actual British people. There are soo many immigrants that bring their own cultures with them and add such a great dynamic. My friend was busy starting her new semester there, so there were two specific days where I explored the city by myself. I went to places like Camden, Notting Hill, the Borough Market (a huge food market), Harrods, Brixton, Westminster Abbey, and various other places. I know that I definitely want to end up there after I graduate. There are endless opportunities to find out which direction I wish to take in life.
I got back into Ghana a few days before the new batch of Americans from my program showed up. I went to various markets to buy things and also just relaxed in the dorm. When the newbies showed up we got to stay in a hotel for the weekend, and I went between campus and the hotel a lot. It really made my day when I came back once to find that some of my Nigerian friends had moved back in.
I was bombarded with a lot of questions the first few weeks. The new Americans were completely lost and it was funny to see them in the same shoes I had been in months before. But eventually they adjusted.
As far as travels go, I haven't done that much so far this semester. However, I did go to a stilt village in the Western region, and went to Togo and Benin. We went to the stilt village, Nzulezo, back in February (I think?). It's a village entirely on stilts built over water. We went there and talked to the chief. It's unclear whether the village was built by people who migrated from Mali or Nigeria because the chief said something different from what the guide book said. To get there we had to walk a ways and then take a canoe to it.
Togo and Benin was really fun. Togo is only about 4 hours from Accra, and then Benin is only another few hours from there. We went straight to Benin first and stayed in one of the main cities on the coast, Cotonou. It is hands-down my favorite city I've been in so far, in West Africa. Moto-taxis were the best mode of transportation. It's the same concept as a taxi, but instead you're on the back of a motorbike. And it's a lot cheaper and more efficient than a car taxi. I really wish that concept was in Accra. Cotonou really felt like a metropolitan city. We ate a lot of good food there, too. Cheese and other dairy is expensive and/or not attainable in Ghana, so we went to a supermarket one day in Cotonou and bought Brie cheese. It was so good! We also went to a Senegalese restaurant twice and had some amazing Senegalese dishes. And baguettes were always plentiful. We went to a market and bought fabric there because it is very different from Ghana's fabric. The colors are much brighter and there are different patterns you can find. On other days we did day-trips to other Beninois towns. We went to Abomey one day, which is where we saw the palace of the king of the Dahomey kingdom, and then we also went to Ouidah, which is where we went on a moto-taxi tour of an old slave route (Ouidah is also supposedly the birthplace of what we call voodoo... we also went to a python temple there and got to hold the snakes). On our way back to Accra, we stayed in Lome, Togo for two nights. Lome is quite an interesting city. Every night was party night. Bars were always open, every night, pounding music. We were exhausted from Benin, so we basically just slept and ate in Togo (the Togolese food was good, too).
About a week ago we went to Kumasi, which is the second largest city in Ghana. It's about 6 hours north of Accra. I went there last semester, but I wanted to go again to see the football match. Ghana's team, the Black Stars, is currently competing to qualify for the World Cup in 2010, and they were playing the Beninois team. The trip was put together by my program so we stayed in the nicest hotel in Kumasi. Luckily, the Black Stars team was also staying there! It was funny to come back after the game and see all of them in the lobby being swarmed by reporters and fans. And security was tight.. a few times we were told to take the elevator instead of the stairs because they were going to come down soon, and we also were told to leave the lobby a few times. The game was really fun, though, and Ghana won 1-0. The energy was so high at the game-- there were a few different small bands of maybe 7 guys playing the entire time. They were just sitting in the seats with us, and had trumpets, trombones, drums, and cowbells. It was a non-stop party. You really don't realize how much of a passion football (soccer) is to the rest of the world until you experience it firsthand.
Right now I'm planning on going to Nigeria at the end of the semester with some of my Nigerian friends. I was going to go to Mali this next weekend, but I'm having problems booking my flight, so that may or may not still happen. There was a small tidal wave on the eastern coast about a month ago, displacing 3000 people, so I may go lend a hand instead, if that's possible. Lately I've been having a really hard time trying to emotionally deal with the fact that I'll be leaving here soon. It actually makes me physically sick if I think about it too much. I know that I'll see some of these people again, but there's so many others that I don't know if I ever will see again. These types of things always happen in life, but it's always hard to deal. I guess at this point I don't really feel such an attachment to the place anymore, it's the people. And it's hard because I do miss people at home, too, but I just wish there was some way Ghana was right next door to the American Mid-West. haha.. I guess I should just enjoy the last month and a half I have here.
Love you all!
Hopefully I'll blog at least one more time before leaving....
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