im a lazy bum and not gonna "finish" this blog

yea so after finals, i went to togo and benin, but im being a lazy bum and not feeling like writing about it. in lew of that, feast your eyes on my photos from abroad. links below. and stay tuned for news about my wedding to elizabeth a. scharf.

http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027180&l=facb7&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029130&l=5840b&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029137&l=c6c1a&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029140&l=150b9&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029144&l=24868&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029149&l=547ad&id=5303277
http://gwu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029150&l=2b523&id=5303277

PEACE.

here's just a brief sketch of what finals are like here in ole ghana

now, do remember that the university of ghana is considered to be one of the best universities in africa. one of my profs went so far as to say that he thinks its one of the top ten unis in the world. now i find that laughable, but you see what im getting at...it does have some sort of reptuation as a respectable institution.
first of all, the whole semester long the international students have been told that our exams would be held at the same time but in a different location as our ghanaian peers. we were to be sequestered in the great hall so that our exams could be graded separately and therefore faster...then on the first day of exams, a notice was printed stating that we would indeed be taking them with everyone else, so we had better look up the locations....
i had my first exam on the second day of exam period so i set off to campus early so i could look up where i had to go. the exam schedules were supposedly posted in all the dorms so i popped in the first one on the main drag. however, the schedule for that day had already been taken down... of course.... soooo then i wandered all over trying to find a schedule that said where my exam was taking place oh, you know, just in the next hour or so. fortunately i did find one outside the library and made it on time.
around this time a rumour started brewing that all the international kids had/could/should (no one really knew which) change their exams to all be before the 12th. exams were supposed to run until the 20th of may, but apparently one of the international programs got the date wrong so their kids had plane tickets back home on the 15th. so i had a final on the 20th, but no one really knew what i was supposed to do about it... the problem was solved when i ran into my religion prof who assumed i needed to change it. we made arrangements to move it up. as i was the only foreign student in the class, it wasnt really a big deal. though i was generally advised not to change it since profs apparently have a habit of losing exams taken separately...of course, they do... as you can see, communication isnt really a strength of this renoun institution.
well then, the actual exams. re-diculous. i found that the perfect amount of studying was to read my notes two to three times prior to the test. i should add that i generally only had about ten pages of notes (in a notebook the size of a blue book) for most classes... all of my exams--geography, poli sci, religion, social work, you name it--consisted of six essay questions. you picked three to answer and had two to three hours to do it. you were expected to write approximately 3 pages on each...front being one page... so really, you had to learn about three things from the whole semester... brilliant! our whole grade pretty much rests on these exams. in fact, i only had other assignments in two of my classes. but, a 70 percent is an A and something like a 40 percent constitutes a C, what i need to get transfer credit at GW. so in sum, i congratulate the university of ghana on my easiest, stress free exam period to date :)

burkina and mali

i know its been a while since ive written, and all of my ardent followers are waiting with bated breat for an update (haha, yea right)
so here are the highlights
joanna and i decide on tues we are gonna take two weeks off and jet up to burkina and mali. bus doesnt leave until saturday. mia, our housemate going alone, but on the same bus, etc so we did the first five or 6 days with her.
-sat leave accra. 40 hour bus ride from accra to ouagadougou (capital of burkina, pronounced waga-do-goo). bus broke down twice
-first impressions of ouaga: dusty, poor, lack of development, hot (breeze like a wafting oven), motor bikes everywhere
-first day in ouaga easter monday so nothing open (despite being only 10 percent catholic); sorta ruined our plans to get visas for mali that day. also couldnt find anything to eat... did manage some pastries...the one thing france has done right in west africa is the food. spent some time with some fruit market ladies...including surviving a dust storm. i held down two umbrellas (glad to say i did my part! hehe). did a little craft shopping pretty woman style. joanna and i were led upstairs and sat down and vendors kept bringing over anything and everything for us to look at. i bought some fabric for blankets or god knows what. surpirse, surprise.
-next day got malian visas and set out. met up with 3 peace corps volunteers from togo doing the same route as us. got all the way to bankass, mali the base point for excusions to dogon country.
-spent night on roof. woke up at dawn. watched sunrise over malain town. v. different than towns in ghana. large compounds. rectangular buildings enclosed by mud brick walls. flat roofs, good for sleeping on. lots of animals...pigs, donkeys, cows, etc. dont see much of those in ghana. huge mud and stick mosque.
-took ox cart 12 km to teli and began trekking dogon country. spent two days on flats. edge of desert. base of plateau. dry season (hot as hell, very dry). dogon very unique architecture, culture, religion, etc. have built their homes in the walls of the platuea and above.
-end of second day hiked to top of platuea and spent night in village at the edge. amazing view and geography. coolest place ive ever been in my life. next day more hiking across plateau which is actaually cultivated and relatively fertile. dunes off to the north. more general bad-assness.
-then to mopti, mali. mia had gone back to ghana at this point. we carried on with the peace corps. they spoke french. very convienient. the five of us got a room together in mopti.
-mopti has beautiful blue green river between sandy banks and neat old town of mud brick buildings. spent day wandering around, buying crafts etc. i bought some silver jewelry and 6meters of turban fabric. you know how i love my turbans.
-then joanna and i set out forbobo, burkina faso. two days and many nightmares later we arrived. spent first night in beautiful rasta man's brother's rasta compound. long story.
-bobo very nice city, nicer than ouaga. explored a bit. happened upon a burkinabe wedding. also, cultural group practicing. had some more good food.
-got on the road back to accra. took a couple of days and many more break downs to reach home.
alright so there's the long and short of it. in other news, i braided my hair before i went. long, auburn, "rasta" braids so thick i couldnt hold 'em all in my hand believe it or not. did it so i wouldnt have to wash my hair while traveling. they served their purpose but when i took 'em out, half of my natural hair came out with 'em. i think im balding. its terribly sad. now's its final's time. ive taken two already. medical geog-easy. poli sci-bombed. oops. done on the 11th but couldnt get an earlier plane ticket home so i guess im giong to travel around with however else is left...probably to togo and benin.
now consider yourself updated!!
ciao.

Burkina and Mali

My roommate and I are taking off for two weeks in Burkina Faso and Mail. PEACE!

A little update

Hey all, I've been out and about traveling through Ghana for the last 8 out of 9 days. I'll try not to drag on too much, but here are the highlights:
Last weekend CIEE sponsored a group trip to the Volta Region, which is northeast of Accra in the jungle covered mountains (beautiful, possibly my favorite part of Ghana). It was a pretty low key trip. As usual, one of the perks of the trip was the swanky accommadations--pool, AC, hot water, meals included. Saturday we went to a monkey sanctuary and saw some mona monkeys hanging out in the woods. They are the small ones with long tails that fly back and forth in the tree tops and like to eat bananas. Sunday we headed further north to Wli Falls, repudately the highest waterfalls in West Africa. It was a nice 30 minute walk though the forest to the base of the sheer mountains that the falls come over. We spend the afternoon swimming in the rocky pool underneath the falls. It was gorgeous and the water was freezing...being cold, not something I'm used to here!
We were back in Accra Sunday night, and I had one day to get all my stuff together before heading out for a six day trip up north on Tues.
Tues at approx 5:30 AM (woah) began trekking up north with 3 other chickies, Carrie, Claire, and Chrissy (or, the 3Cs as I like to call them). It was a rather uneventful day. For those of you with a map of Ghana in front of you, we made it to the one horse town of Wenchi (the name is fitting really) and spent the night there. Wednesday we were told to be back at the trotro yard at 8 to catch a car up to Bui National Park. Haha. Joke's on us, the trotro to Bui didn't leave until after 4 PM! We litterally sat in the yard for 8 hours...its always kind of interesting to see how people react to these kinds of stressors... I passed the day sitting on a sac of yams reading Poison wood Bible, which I would highly recommend by the by. Anyway, we reached Bui sometime after dark and managed to get a room there (when our guide book was published there were no accomodations in Bui, but there were plans to build some so we werent entirely sure there would be somewhere to stay!). We turned in early as there's not really much to do out in the middle of now where with no electricity, running water, or food. Plus, we were getting up early for hippo gazing on Thurs. Thurs we trekked six kilometers to the Black Volta River. My sandal (and only pair of shoes) broke about 4 Ks in... We spend about 4 hours out on the river in fishing canoes checking out the hippos. The river is gorgeous. Its quite shallow in some points so we had to get out walk through it while the canoes where pushed beside us. In other places, it flows in to deep pools--thats where the hippos hang out. We saw 3 pods of hippos. Mostly they just hang out under the water with their eyes, ears, and noses poking out, but occasionally they come up and make wierd hippo noises and tossle about. We also spend Thurs night at Bui as there was only one car out of there per day, and it leaves at 530 AM. I had the joy of showering off the 2 previous days filth using water in a bucket and a fanta bottle in the dark :) Friday we set off at 5:30 and spent the whole day traveling westwards. That was quite an experience... |The highlight being our second tro tro on which I was pinned to the wall for five and a half hours in trotro the size of large van full to the brim with 27 people, 8 chickens, and a goat in it in the middle of the midday heat. The most uncomfortable, claustrophobic experience of my life. Though we were lucky that we were able to catch transport from all the major junctions (the roads and routes up north arent as often traveled), and we made it to the town of Laribanga by 5 PM. Laribanga is a small town, approx 4,000 people, in the Northern Region. It's of some signifcance for two reasons. First, it is home to the oldest mosque on Ghana (and one of the oldest in West Africa). It's made of mud and sticks and quite distinct architecturally. Secondly, its located 6 km from Mole National Park, the country's biggest game preserve. We got to Laribanga and met these two brothers who seem to be the head honchos of the town and run and inn there where you can sleep out on the roof. The invited us up and in (literally) so we passed an hour or so up on the roof waiting for the bus to Mole. Of course (like everything in Ghana), the bus was late and we didn't get to the park until after dark. We were hoping to spend one night there treating ourselves to a nice room, real showers, and decent food in Mole and then a second night with the brothers in Laribanga. However, when we showed up to the park hotel there were no rooms left, and you cant really leave to go back to Laribanga because its dark, kinda far away, and you've already paid an entrance fee to the park. They managed to scrounge up some mats, and they put us up on the floor of the girls dormitory. In addition, the running water sucked so there were only bucket showers, and the only food being served was chicken and rice (wow, thats what i eat everday!). Finally, it was all rediculously expensive and overpriced. So, not quite the treat we thought it was going to be. However, Saturday morning, we went on a Safari walk in the park. We saw elephants, warthogs, deer, antelope, and baboons. It was pretty sweet. Then we walked the 6ks from the park back to Laribanga to check out the mosque. Since it was early afternoon and we'd done about all there was to do we thought we'd try and get on the road. However, there's only reliable transport out of Laribanga once per day, at 4:30 AM. Fortunately (sorta) ,we were able to hop in the back of a truck heading to the next town. WOW! Truck bed, dirty road, flying like crazy, bone crunching, ribs jarring internal organs. There we hopped on a trotro that wasnt really a trotro as it had been rented to a boys under 12 soccer team heading to a tourney in Tamale. We road 65 km on a dirt road with 19 12 yr old boys! The trip took us over 3 hours as the car moved no faster than 12 mph and broke down once! I had a window seat and when we got out, I can honestly say I was the dirtiest I've ever been in my whole life. I was literally covered from head to toe in a layer of redbrown dust, eyelashes included! Plus, I had some real sweet sweat stains on my sides and back from my waist to my knees, my heels were black from the tires I was sitting on in the first truck, and my toes were wrapped in bandages 'cause my new pair of flip flops (yellow and too big) were giving me blisters. Haha! Oh, my! From Domonga Junction we were able to catch a car south to Techiman where we spent the night. Sunday, we traveled the rest of the way to Accra with a stop in Kumasi for a nice meal. Of course, the resturant we wanted to go to was closed on Sundays, but eventually we found a placed. I dropped 70,000 cedis on the first real food I'd had all week. Thats only about 8 bucks, but it's the most expensive meal I've had in Ghana. Okay, so thats it for my latest adventure. Now it's back to the books!

Happy Eclipse Day

For those of you who dont know, Wendesday morning Ghana witnessed a solar eclipse. The eclipse was only visible in a tiny strip that cut across the globe, and Ghana was among one of the best countries for viewing. NASA was actually here filming. It was nothing short of a national holiday, and the atmosphere made the spectacle even more powerful. No one was working. There were no cars on the road or in the taxi stations. Everyone was outside with their friends, families, and coworkers sharing these cool protective glasses (they look like the kind you use to watch 3D movies) and watching the eclipse. I didnt have the glasses, but I was walking to work during the beginning phases and all along the way people shared theirs with me. When I got to the hospital, no one was working of course. All the lights had been turned out, and everyone was out in the courtyard to observe the big event. Everyone was so happy and excited; this one nurse kept dancing and singing through our clinic for the rest of the day. Just another great day in Ghana. :)

15 Things to Love About Ghana (some more than others)

1. Rice. Fried rice. Jollof rice. White rice. Brown rice. Rice with chicken. Rice with fish. Rice with plantain. Rice with beans (waachye). Rice with vegetables. I think you get the idea.
2. While we're on the subject of food: oranges. Served with only a thin layer of peel removed and sliced open at the top. Consumed by sqeezing and sucking the juice out. I highly recommend them.
3. Going to a state school. It sprawls, has 30,000 kids, and a seventy percent constitutes an A. Right now I have no classes Mondays or Wednesdays. Only one Thurs and Friday. The rest on Tues. I've only had two assigments to date.
4. Weighing babies. My top priority at the hospital. I sometimes feel like I'm on an Anne Gedes photo shoot. Anyway, this is no laying of babes on a metal scale. Instead a tension scale hangs from a wooden crossbeam. Babies are placed into "weighing pants," a sack with two holes for the legs to poke out and a strap. The strap is placed hung on the hook of the tension scale, and I read the weight while the little tikes swing around below...
5. Trotro rides.
6. Batik. I've now had 3 dresses and two skirts made. (which means I only have to do my laundry once every 2 weeks!)
7. Fanchoco. Frozen chocolate milk that, like everything else, comes in a bag. Sold all over campus by guys on bikes.
8. Travel. Spending my weekends beaching or hiking the rainforest covered mountains.
9. Drinking on week nights. Classes are useless, and no one's home on the weekends so why not?
10. Wildlife. Our street is home to chickens, goats, dogs, cats, lizards and who knows what else. I once saw a herd of cattle at the end of our road.
11. The minimum thirty minute walk to campus that is hopefully keeping all that rice off my thighs.
12. Horn honking. Drivers here make new yorkers look tame. As far as I've been able to ascertain a horn honk might mean any of the following: white person!, get out of the way, i'm in your way, i have a horn so im gonna use it, need a ride? too bad, car's full!, you're white and therefore must need a ride, do you want to get married?, its too quiet, i see people, move faster, oh yea, white person!!
13. Public restrooms. Hahah. What public restroom? Oh, you mean that cement block over there. And if you do actually find a toilet, dont count on it being clean, having toilet paper, or flushing.
14. Consistent water supply. Our house has a tank. The same cannot be said for the electricity.
15. Readily available fast food. Fried doughballs, peanut butter balls, fried yams, meat pies, fanchoco (and other fan products), oranges, bananas, fried rice, kabobs, water, bread, crackers, cookies, waachye, gum, you name it. Its all being sold from someone's head at your nearest large intersection, trotro or taxi station, or market.

Ada Foah

This weekend I decided on a short trip to Ada Foah. I was accompanied by my roommate, Joanna. Ada is the point at which the Volta River drains into the Atlantic Ocean. Its really only about an hour or two from Accra, but of course, everything in Ghana takes about ten times longer than it should. We left the house around 8:30 and ended up in Ada four hours later after going to the wrong trotro station in Accra and taking a trotro to Tema the township instead of Tema station in Accra. Fortunately Tema is in the same direction as Ada, and we were able to get transportation directly from there. Whew! We met a nice guy, Emmanuel, on the trotro who schooled in Ada and is now teaching somewhere else. He was going to Ada and offered to show us his school and then take us to the estuary (our final destination). We saw signs for his school at the trotro yard and figured it was right around the corner. Uuuh, no. We ended up walking 30 minutes in the noonday sun in the opposite direction. And guess what? The school looked like every other school in Ghana. We got there and there was some sort of lecture going on. Emmanuel talked us into staying to listen for a few minutes. We had to walk in the front door and cross in front of 500 ghanaian students in uniform and the lecturer on stage speaking. As usual, we were dirty, sweaty, white peo0ple carrying backpacks. Talk about hella akward. After about 10 minutes we got up and demanded to leave. We had to walk all the way back to the station and then another 40 minutes across the dunes to get to estuary. So much for getting there in the morning and spending the day on the beach reading!!!!
Well finally, around 2, we made it to the camp. We got a nice little thatched hut to stay the night in. The walls were made of palm fronds woven together and the roof, thatched, like I said. Inside there was just a double bed on a sand floor. Real nice and quaint and dark. Joanna and I spent the rest of our afternoon swimming in the river, which is more like a lake at this point because its soo huge and slow moving, reading, writing, sitting at the beach, playing with the local kids. Nice and relaxing, just as planned. In the early evening some of the locals got to drumming and a group of boys and girls had what seemed to be a traditional dancing lesson. It was cute to watch. After dinner, we laid up in the hammocks under the palm trees and star gazed. They were, no exaggeration, the most amazing stars I've ever seen in my life. I think we may have been under the milky way because the stars up ahead were more intense and dense than I have ever seen.
The next day was more of the same...reading, writing, swimming, beaching. I tried to walk down to the point where the river actually meets the sea... overrated. I walked along the ocean in the surf so it wouldnt be too hot. Seemed like a good plan until I came across a dead fish. Well, dead fish, we are at the ocean, no big deal really. Then a bit farther, dead goat. EEEWWW. Okay, that was too much for me. I cut up and decided to go the rest of the way across the dunes. However, the dunes had become a plastic graveyard at this point. I walked for a while and debated seriously if walking across the hot, garbagy sand in my barefeet was worth it. I made it to where I could see the estuary, had sudden visions of the soles of my feet covered in blisters, and ran the rest of the way back past the dead goat and plunged in the water. Thankfully, no blisters, but I did get a pretty decent sunburn.
Sunday afternoon, Joanna and I decided to take a boat back to the Ada Foah trotro station instead of hiking across the dunes. Good call. It was about an hour canoe trip up the lake/river and it was BEAUTIFUL. Right next to we were staying were several fishing villages huddled under the palm trees. Villagers live in the same kind of huts we were staying at and fish in the typically colorful pirate boat/canoe. Farther upstream, western expats have built weekend vacation homes. We saw a few oboruni out on their speed boads, some kids wakeboarding, other swimming, etc. Also, several islands dot the middle of the river including one where rum is made. All and all, it was a nice weekend trip that made me wish I spend more time near the water!
PS. i think you can leave comments so leave me something fun to read :)

A Lesson in Agricultrual Land Use Systems (ALRIGHT!)

Friday my agricultural land use systems class (don't ask, I'm still not sure how i ended up in this one) took a field trip to visit some farms in the Eastern Region. We travelled about 2 hours north east of Accra across the Accra plains. Then we cut north and travelled up and over a chain of hill that paralled the main road east. From the top we could look down over the savannah at the Volta River (which is humungous). I've decided one of my favorite things about Ghana are trotro rides. Its the best breeze in the world, and there's always something interesting to look at outside. I often find I'm a bit dissappointed when we actually reach our final destination and have to disembark.
Okay, enough on that... Our professor is all about sustainable agricultural systems and agroforestry as a way of preserving biodiversity. So, our first stop was a venture where honey is processed. I still don't really get it, but they make a number of products from the honey and wax. Nothing is waisted. SWEET, huh?! Pun intended. Hehe, okay, moving on.
Next up were two farms of the Krobo people. The Krobo peple were forced to migrate from the plains into the hills. There they collectively purchased tracts of land from the existing peoples. Then these large tracts of land were divided amongst the investors in accordance to their initial contribution. The land was divided into long, skinny strips. Farmers typically build their homes and the front of the plot, then kitchen gardens, and then other crops. The system of land management is unique in Ghana.
Ah, I mentioned agroforestry. These farms also generally leave naturally occuring commercial crops and then plant other crops around them. For instance, the first farm we viewed had guava, avacado, orange, and plantain trees. Around them were planted several kinds of yams, cocoa, and other crops. Of course, they had the usual chickens and goats running around the place. The best part of it was the cool, shady environment created and the fruit that we got to try: guava, something in red pods that tasted like cocoa + cucumber, and cocoa (which you suck the meat of the seed. the seed is bitter and processed to make chocolate. the flesh is sort a gooey sticky and sweet.)
The second farm is trying increase its sustainable commercial agricultural products. It boasted chicken coops, cages for the growth of domestic grass cutter (bush rat...hehe...about 3 or 4 times the size of normal rats and apparently quite delicious :), and beehives. Here was the same tree/crop deal. However, the land here had been subject to brush fires in the 80s so trees such as plantain were jsut starting to come back. Highlights included BASIL!, cashew fruit (which is real weird. it caused some deydration reaction in my gums that wasnt too cool), and coconuts. Then it was another glorious trotro ride back to campus...