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...

warning: this may be painfully boring and hard to read (the space bar's not working)

well its been a week so i felt certian that someone would want to read an update on my life. haha, well you can always skip over this if you dont. this is mostly just me venting and not real interesting. consider yourself duely warned. last week marks the first time ive become truely frustrated and angry at ghanaian society as a whole. with 1 group assignment/paper, 2 days of voluteering, classes, and an 8 pg theology paper, i was actually legitimately busy. tuesday, i spent most of my day at the ministry of manpower interviewing someone at the child labor department for my social work class. it was pretty cool to get a small glimpse of the ghanaian government worker. i suppose it was also kind of sad. there are 2 women that work in the office--its grosely understaffed. the office is situated by a main highway and its pretty noisy bc the AC doesnt work, the windows have to be kept open. all the technology...comp, phone, fax, etc was all either donated by unicef or was purchased by the women there. anyway, i spent the rest of tues in class and then writing up a paper on the interview. wed, i went to the hospital. oh i should mention that someone in our group decided that since most of our american peers are celebrating spring break in march, that this week would be our unoffical spring break. in other words, we had a party at the house every night. so, wed, while everyone was out drinking and smoking on the porch, i sat inside and wrote my 8 pg theo paper. worst assigmnet of my life possibly. to quote the professor: "4 pgs typed (single spaced). due in 3 weeks. 'the weight of common sense, natural law, and scripture favors the death penalty.' expantiate." thats right, he said "expantiate." expantiate is not a word. i ended up getting so pissed off over this retardo assignment that i wrote 4 pgs (double spaced and that was a stretch) on how i thought religion/scripture was BS and contradictory and people just interpret it however they want based on their own opinion (natural law). whew. hope thats what he wanted... haha, i doubt it. the people here are extremely devout. so yea, thurs after my morning class i had to go to 4 internet cafes in order to be able to access the internet (out at the first cafe and went out at the second), word process (no probs there), and print (3rd cafe not printing). AHHHHHH! i ended up walking up all over the damn city for nothing. never did find a stapler. turned paper in without. of course, the only time im pissed out about the lack of reliable infrastructure/technology every f*ing ghanaian wants to be my friend and is running out on the street to be my friend/marry me/just should OBRUNI! ahhh! i was like, "i cant be your friend right now; im pissed off at your culture!" anyway, after i finally got the damn thing printed i went out and got real drunk. that seemed to make things better. met some ghanaian guys who give traditional and salsa dancing lessons for a living. quite the playboys it turns out. they bought me several rounds and took me dancing thurs. i ran into them again out on friday and saturday! friday i had 730 class and worked at the hosp again. came home around 3 to find my housemates had bought a grill and were bbqing and drinking themselves into a stupor on acct of it being st. pattys day. after lunch, we all took a nap and headed out to ryans irish pub, a rather odd establishment considering we are in ghana. however, they had free green beer. got real smashed again. i am irish, afterall. nothing too exiting happened though. unless you count me harvesting the nearby mango tree, peeling mangos with my teeth, and eating them all night. oh yea, also took shots of the nastiest gin ive ever had in my life and came in something that resembled a ketchup packet. this weekend i decided to stay in accra and just chillax (hehe, thats for you tegan). it was nice to not have anything to do for a change. ive mostly lazed around, but saturday night i made it out to alliance france to see a free concert by this malian group. best live music ive heard since coldplay. you all should check it out: habib koite. okay well, i think thats enough rambling for now. hopefully next week will be more exciting. ps. you all should email me sometimes. last week the only email i got was from myself...tear!

Dead Antelope in My Trotro

well i guess the title says it all. here's just a little snipit of my trotro experience coming back from green turtle yesterday:
first trotro full with over 20 passengers inside, almost 10 on the roof, and a dead antelope under the back seat.
passed trotro full of pineapples. yum.
last trotro of the day complete with blue flourescent lighting in the ceiling. this was only used when the mate collected fares. then he switched to a more ambient setting--red, yellow, and blue bulbs around the sides. oh baby!

Eco Villages and Pirate Towns

Accra's pretty blah so most people here take to traveling to the rest of Ghana, which is fabulous, on the weekends. Friday I left for the Western Region. After almost 9 hours of waiting in tro-tro yards and cruising along to Ghanaian covers of early '90s hits, Anna, Claire, and I arrived at the Green Turtle Lodge, which is pretty much Middle of Nowhere, Atlantic Coast, Ghana. For a second I thought I had died and gone to eco friendly, tropical paradise heaven. The lodge is completely solar powered, recycles its wash water on soap loving plants, and utlizes self composting toilets...you get the idea. plus its entirely locally staffed and all the money goes back into the community so you can feel good about dropping your 400,000 cedis there. Plus, its right on a completely deserted gorgeous strech of ocean.
Friday afternoon we mostly beach hung and played scrabble like big dorks (i lost despite inventing words such as "brines.") during an evening rain shower.
Saturday morning we walked 15 minutes down the beach to the nearest town, Akwidaa, population 600. There, we hopped in a dugout canoe and were pattled through the mangrove swamp for an hour and a half. Saw lots of birds: ducks, egrets, something blue looked like an egret and had green feet. Also lots of bright red and blue crabs scuttling along the muddy banks. It reminded me of the part of Harry Potter when they are following the giant spiders in the forest. We also got to see some men at work: one guy fishing or spearing fish or something from high up in the mangrove, another macheting oysters off the mangrove roots, another one just naked and paddling along in his little canoe...
We got back to the resort ealier than expected so we thought it would be a good idea to spend our afternoon hiking to the next significant settlement over, Cape Three Points, which is the southern most point of ghana and also has a neato lighthouse. Mmmmhmmm. Well its a bout a 6 mile walk in one direction and we set out at 11AM. By the time we got there I was so delirous with heat, exhasution, dehydration that I really didnt care where we were. We collapsed in a heap at the cape, rested a bit, gazed a the ocean...it was lovely...though I thought the veiw at Apalm was better personally. Then we set out to go back. The village had no electricity (meaning no cold drinks) and no bottled water so we rehydrated with super fizzy cokes at the only place in the whole village that sold beverages. Talk about rural. A taxi diver offered to give us a ride back and then left without us making the return trip slightly more painful. We managed to take a little detour or "get lost" you might say and ended up in a village next to Akwidaa on the return trip. From there a horde (sp? im sure thats wrong) of children led us back over the hills on a footpath over looking the beach. It was gorgeous. They left us at Akwidaa where we were promptly befriended by the local children there who led us back to the main beach we had come from.
At this point I was about ready to collapse in a heap and die, but I decided to throw myself in the ocean instead. From there I crawled onto the beach for a rest break, then into the most amazing shower I've possibly every had, then to the bar for happy hour. I had a drink with a 3rd year med student who's working at a clinic near by (go me! haha jk) and then gorged myself on dinner and fondu. Ahhh, amazing. We all slept like babies to say the least.
Sunday was reserved for more beach hanging/hammock reading etc. Then we hit the road back to Accra and the "real world."
Round trip this three day adventure to tropical paradise cost me about $40 and thats by far the most i've spent traveling so far. Jealous yet? :)

Independence Day

As a side note, Monday March 6 was I Day in Ghana. This year they celebrated their 49th anniversary. Too bad we just missed out on the Silver Anniversary. Maybe I'll have to come back. Anyway, there was a big parade in Independence Square in downtown Accra. I was a party pooper and just watched the festivities on our rabbit eared TV. It was OK. Mostly just a bunch of high school students goose stepping around the square from what I saw.
Later on I went to the Trade Fair which has been going on in Accra for the past week. There were a lot of local artisans and such. I picked up some sweet Old Navy flipflops. (I think I paid more for them here than they cost in the US...they had a price tag on them for $1.97. But oh well, my reefs aren't going to make it until May, and it has to be cheaper to buy them here than to have them shipped.) A more exiciting purchase was a painting for my parents. Hopefully, they don't hate it :)
Alright homies, until next time...PEACE.

Kumasi (3/4-3/5)

This weekend CIEE organized a trip to Kumasi for the group. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana and is considered the cultural capital. It's about a 5 hr drive from Accra. The best thing about these group trips (we have 1 per month) is that we travel by bus (a bit more spacious that a trotro), stay in really nice hotels, and the food is "free." I'm sure its not really free, but included in our fees.
Anyway, our first stop after check-in was the Manhyia Palace, home of the previous 2 Ashanti kings. It was built as compensation by the Brits so the architecture wasnt really all that impressive. However, there were some neat artifcats from the kingdom. Also a tone of super huge peacocks roaming around. Our tour guide was lacking. He repeated the same story about how the first king to live there was captured and exiled to the Seychelle Islands "for sooo many years!"
Next we were off to the Central Market, the largest open air market in all of West Africa. To me it just seemed like an oversized version of Madina, the market close by where I vegetable shop once a week. Anyway, it is quite huge and crowded and has all kinds of stuff. Of particular note is the fabric. However, they specialize in prints, which are bright, colorful, and crazy. It was way to busy for me to actually try and pick something out.
Our final stop on Saturday was a bead making village. They taught us how the beads were made and there was a chance to purchase some. However, not as cool as the bead factory and market I went to last weekend.
Then it was back to the hotel for a big dinner, night swimming, and 8 hrs of sleep under a blanket and sheets in our air conditioned room! To top it all off, Sunday morning I took a HOT shower! Hahaha, oh these little luxuries.
Sunday we visited a village that specializes in the produciton of Kente cloth. Kente is a type of weaving indiginous to Ghana. Anyway they showed us how it's made on these huge looms that stretch all the way across a large room. Then we went down the road a bit to another village that specialized in Andinkra. Andinkra is a type of printing that uses symbols (that each mean something, of course). We were shown how the dye is prepared--by mashing tree bark and boiling it basically. Then we all got to print something on a piece of fabric that is apparently going to be hung in the CIEE office. At both location vendors displayed their wares and hawked us to buy their goods. I bough a strip of kente...in fact, im wearing it right now as a belt.
Our last stop was the Arts and Cultural Center where we got another lecture/tour of the artifacts there. Of note was a large leopard skin war drum that when a drum stick is drug over the surface actually sounds like a lion roaring. Pretty bad ass.
Anway Kumasi is a much better maintained--cleaner and well organized--city than Accra so I'll probably venture back there to just hang out and enjoy the city sometime. Also, during the week the Cultural Center has artisans set up who demonstrate how to make the goods and have some for sale. There wasnt much going on when we were there because it was Sunday.

Trotros a Go Go

The trotro, the subject of this undoubtably soon to be international hit by Hugh Harlow, is the primary mode of public transit throughout Ghana. Each vehicle in this fleet of oversized vans and minibuses has been luxuriously refurbished with benches and jumpseats so that each trotro can accomodate upwards of 20 Ghanaians, 2 chickens, 1 goat, and a sack of yams. Trotros are operated by a driver and a mate. The later is responsible for arranging stops and collecting fares. Beware, this man will tell you, with a fist full of cash, that he has no change for your 5,000 cedi note. With hundreds of tros (as I like to call them for short) on the road, you may be wondering how to find the one headed to Accra or Medina. This, however, is simple. Just walk to the nearest trotro stop and watch for the bus with its mate hanging out the sliding door pointing upwards for Accra, making a circle for "Circle," or simply shouting the next destination for everything else. Tros are by far the cheapest way to get around with a trip to the nearest market usually costing around 15 cents and a 3 hr journey to Ho, less than $3.00.

Creating a Blog

Okay, well truthfully, I'm only doing this because I had to open up an account to post something on Mimi's blog. However, blogging (or whatever it's called) seems like a much more efficient way to keep everyone up to date than email so we'll see how it goes.