Cote d'Ivoire

Clearly I am just not cut out for serious blogging. The post I'm about to write is about a month and a half late. For Spring Break (March 14th-22nd), my roommate Kelsey, housemate Jaclyn and our other friend Victoria from Drew University, all went to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. The first few days of our break we had some issues with getting visas, so we didn't actually leave until Wednesday. We took an STC bus from Accra straight to Abidjan. The entire bus ride took about 13 hours. The boarder was a little bit sketchy. Someone collected our passports and took them inside the station to be stamped while we waited on the bus. We didn't actually get our passports back until we had crossed over to the other side. So, for about half an hour we sat on the hot bus wondering, panicking, about whether or not we'd ever get our passports back. We laughed later on about being so concerned. Yes, you have to be cautious about these things when you're in a foreign country, but STC is a respectable company and we really didn't need to be so worried.


My aunt Ahoua (my mother's brother's wife) is Ivorian. She still has family in Cote d'Ivoire and she put me in touch with her cousins, who picked us up from the STC bus stop in Abidjan. They're names are Karim and Raissa. Mama Kone, my aunt's aunt, took great care of us and cooked us dinner Thursday and Friday night.

Karim, myself, Raissa, Nora, Mama Kone

Thursday we walked around the neighborhood of Abidjan where our hostel was located, Cocody. We were staying at a guest house owned by a church. Since Cote d'Ivoire is a francophone country, it was great to have Karim with us every step of the way, to help us bargain shop and direct taxi drivers. He was such a great help to us. Three out of the four of us also speak some French, so even when we were on our own, we got along just fine. Across from our hostel was this fantastic ice cream shop. We also discovered a place with delicious pain au chocolat and cafe au lait. Yum yum. We also went to the market and bought some souvenirs. The day culminated in a dinner at Mama Kone's house. She made us fish, couscous, ratatouille, rice and this delicious spicy ginger drink.

Mama Kone

On Friday we went to a nearby beach town called Bassam. The town is known for its beautiful sand beaches and artisan shops.

Bassam

We were able to go to the Costume Museum, as well. The tour guide showed us the different articles of clothing of chiefs and queen mothers of traditional Cote d'Ivoire. We ate lunch on the beach with Mama Kone and Karim, who were nice enough to drive us to Bassam and show us around. We stopped on the way back to Abidjan for some coconut milk on the side of the road.

Coconut!

We left Abidjan early in the morning on Saturday because the STC bus doesn't run on Sunday. We slept most of the way back to Accra, with some interruptions from a) a very loud cell phone conversation, b) a Christian man who suddenly felt the need to preach to the entire bus at 8 am, and c) extremely loud Nigerian films that were played on the television in the bus. (PS, if you haven't heard anything about Nollywood...You should seriously consider doing some research. The stuff is hilarious.) So Cote d'Ivoire was a great success and we made some wonderful friends there that we will never forget! Here are a few more photos from the trip:

Jaclyn and Victoria outside of the hostel

Beach in Bassam

Abidjan! (Its a major city with skyscrapers and everything.)

Kelsey was very excited, in particular, about the ruins in Bassam.

So its really not that bad...

I have been complaining a lot lately. If its not the internet, its the water being out, or the a/c is broken or...the list goes on. It may be the reason I haven't blogged in about a month. I'm not really homesick but I'm not totally content here either. I definitely am not ready to go home.
Today, my friend Jaclyn and I decided to go to a smoothie place we heard about. It is in Osu, which in a taxi, only takes about five minutes to get to. But we walked. That did a lot of good, getting out of the house and into the air. Usually when I eat or drink something here I have to prepare myself for it to taste NOTHING like it does back home. Things are just different, not necessarily worse. Mac 'n cheese, for example, is not like the kind my grandma makes, ya know? Well...these smoothies were out of this world. They were even better than the smoothies I'm used to from home or "insert smoothie joint of your preference here." This was another good moment, the smoothie alone.
So as Jaclyn and I were sitting there sucking down our Berry Blast and Venice Boardwalk (one original and one not-so-original title) we noticed the only other two white people in the place and decided to say hi. Us "oborunis" have to stick together. Anyway these two girls were from Colorado and Montana, one of them was a senior in high school and the other was sixteen. They started telling us about their Ghana experience. They are also here for school, for the entire semester, which is longer in high school...so they'll be in Ghana until June. That was the first thing that struck me. Being here till June. Then they went on to explain that the exchange program they're studying through has them all at different home stay sites. So none of them are together. They are completely immersed in the culture. The 16-year-old is with a family of five, I believe she said, and they have cable. The high school senior is living half an hour outside of Accra with a 54-year-old man.
At this point in the conversation, I'm feeling like a total jerk for having complained about being so far from home and not really understanding why people keep grabbing at my arm in the marketplace. When I was a high school senior, there is no way in hell I would've volunteered to go on a home stay in Africa for an entire semester to live with a single guy. I mean...never. The thing is, these two girls are so happy to be here and really seemed to be enjoying themselves. They had their complaints, too, but shrugged their shoulders and laughed them off. I'm thinking it could be a lot worse and I should be lucky to at least be living in a compound with other Americans. I have two months left and I'm soaking it up. It'll be over before I know it and I won't be able to get this experience back. It will still bug me when the water's out but I'll try to keep my opinions to myself.
This coming week is our Spring Break and my three friends and I are going to Cote d'Ivoire. We have absolutely no plans as to what we're going to do while we're there but it will be a blast, nonetheless. Blog post and pictures to follow, for sure. Also, a side note...I'm waiting to find out about this really crucial position that I applied for at NYU in New York so keep your fingers crossed for me! Much love. <3 E

Cape Coast: Elmina and Valentine's Day

Its been quite a while since my last post. Sorry about that. The events of the last week and half or so have kept me in bed. I shall explain...

We took an NYU in Ghana group trip to Cape Coast last weekend. We went to a small town called Elmina, where the famous slave castle is located. We were told it would be a very emotional tour and that we should prepare ourselves emotionally. What I hadn't considered was how important it would be to prepare myself physically. Elmina was much hotter than what we're used to in Accra. Though its on the beach, and therefore more of a humid heat, the slave castle tour was outdoors with the sun beaming down on us the whole time. As we congregated around our tour guide for the introduction, I started feeling light headed and slightly nauseous. All I remember after this is waking up on the ground with the entire group surrounding me. Someone was splashing water on my face and I was told that I had fainted. My friend, Tanesha, who had been standing directly behind me, noticed my balance starting to go and caught me just in time. How classy! I ended up being just fine but I had to wait in the air-conditioned van for the rest of the group to finish the tour. I am still pretty bummed out that I didn't get to see the slave castle. It sounded like an amazing cultural experience. Maybe I'll go back one weekend and see it again.

Several hours and a few cokes later, my blood sugar was back up and I was much better. Just as I was regaining my strength and feeling like me again, we headed for the Cape Coast canopy walk at Kakum National Park...100 feet above ground on rope bridges...And I'm extremely afraid of heights. I didn't want to faint up there of all places. But I went anyways. It was very scary; the bridge swayed from side to side as I walked across a very thin piece of wood and grasped onto the rope handrails. When I finished, though, I felt really great about the accomplishment, especially considering my last encounter with heights. (About three years ago I went on a Leadership Retreat to Mount Baker and we did a high ropes course that was only 60 feet in the air...I got halfway up and started crying.) Maybe I have grown up a little bit? 

The rest of the weekend was spent on the beach and in the pool at our wonderful hotel. (We stayed at the Coconut Grove Hotel...It was beautiful!) 

The following week I was feeling really sick. I even went to the hospital and met with a doctor on Monday to check my blood pressure and do a blood test for malaria (which I do not have, fyi). I wasn't expecting the hospital to be as modernized and technologically advanced as it was, but I have to say I was very impressed. The only major differences were that a) the hospital was outdoors, more or less and b) it took 6 hours to see the doctor, take my blood and wait for the results. It turned out I had a stomach bug and the doc gave me antibiotics that made me extremely drowsy. So I spent Monday through Wednesday in bed, watching movies, sleeping and periodically eating toast or drinking tea. By Friday I was 100% back to my old self. No fainting, no puking, no nothing. 

Valentine's Day was yesterday. A bunch of us decided to get together for brunch and watch a movie. We made the most delicious french toast I've ever had, using cocoa bread, cinnamon and freshly sliced bananas. We watched Ten Things I Hate About You, which made me miss Seattle but was great nonetheless. It's been a very relaxing weekend and I'm sort of sad about going back to reality (sort of) on Monday with classes and all that. I"ll try to post pictures of the last couple weeks soon! 

All About African Dance

I am all about african dance after my second week of African Repertory: Music & Dance class. After last week, I felt like I was going to keel over and had to stop at the academic center with friends for some water on our walk home. We ingested a bunch of dust from bending over and dancing around in a circle, the beats we played on this bell with a stick were too complicated to follow and on top of that, my hips hurt so badly from jutting them back and forth, trying desperately to imitate the teaching assistant in the middle. She walked around as we danced, randomly highlighting those students who seemed to really "get it." There was one white girl from our group who was called into the middle to show off her skills. The rest were African students. And so the first week ended quite sadly...I left feeling like a stereotypical white girl with no sense of rhythm and everybody knew it. 

I practiced the past week in our courtyard and even one night at a local club, where some Ghanaian guy taught me to salsa. Flash forward to today...The drummers did their thing, same as last week, and I felt a little more confident with the moves. I looked around at everyone else in the group. Some were straining to keep up with the pace of the circle and not looking so great. Those who cared the least were actually dancing the best. I kicked off my shoes and danced barefoot like some of the other students and I just decided not to give a sh*t. I threw my head back, poked my butt out and got down with my bad self. The teaching assistant pulled me into the inner circle.

Community Service Project

I received a message today about my community service project in Ghana. I will be volunteering at the Morning Star School. The school is about 3 minutes from where I go to class and has about 1300 students from kindergarten on to 9th grade. My job will be to assist the teachers in grading assignments, teaching English, Math, Science and Art, and helping out after school with clubs. It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun and I'm really excited. I should start sometime next week. I'll be there roughly 10 hours a week so it should make for some good stories to blog about. There are two other girls from NYU volunteering at the same place with me but we haven't figured out if we will be there at the same time or not. Either way, I love kids so this should be a great learning opportunity and a whole lot of fun!

First week of classes & Obama Inauguration

My week began with Twi class. Both of my roommates are in this class with me so we're hoping we can practice together at the dorm. So far I'm really only able to greet people by saying good morning/afternoon/evening, but that is a good start, considering that greetings are a really big deal here. 

My next class was supposed to be African Women Speak, however the professor cancelled the first class because she had to go out of the country unexpectedly. More on that class next week. 

Tuesday I had Society, Culture and Modernization in Ghana. The professor is super nice and there are actually quite a few of us in that class. (Most of them are only 4 or 5 people!) For the first day, we learned about the different cultural groups that exist within the country as well as a few of the customs.

Wednesday was African Music and Dance...Let me just say this was the most fun AND the most physically difficult class I think I've ever taken. I was so sore after and hour and a half of dancing outdoors in the hot sun. So far, this instructor is my favorite. He is so passionate! At one point he was trying to emphasize the way that Ghanaians put energy into each and every movement they make. He said that "watching the women walk in the market is like...Its like eating ice cream." We all cracked up, but by the end of the semester I'm sure we'll be on the same page. He also told us he is going to make sure that by the final performance (in front of the whole school...eeek!) he will have taught us to "see the music and hear the dance."

Lastly was Special Topics in Non-Western Art. This was another really adorable and fun professor. He also seemed very invested in the class. Making connections between love and art, he went around the room and asked us all if we had ever been in love! We giggled a little bit...Teachers in the states are hardly ever this forward. I love their approach, though. They just want us to get into it and you know, I think its working!

Tuesday night we had another very important event - The presidential inauguration!! Some of the group went to the W.E.B. Dubois Center to watch it and listen to live music afterwards. Others went to a Gala Event. I decided to watch Obama be sworn on television at the Academic Center with the Ghanaian security guards and our RA. It was a very moving and emotional experience anyway, considering that I have been an Obama supporter since the beginning. But even more so because he is like a god to the locals here. The news station that broadcast the event had a ticker moving across the bottom of the screen with words that people from all over the country had sent in. It said things like "Good luck Obama, we love you" and "May God watch over Prez Obama and his family." Leaving the center, there were some students wearing Obama paraphernalia. Locals were chanting "OBAMA" and congratulating us on his victory. We were high-fiving total strangers and celebrating in the street. It was quite the sight. I think I'm glad I was here in Africa for this event rather than in New York, actually. 

That's about it for this week. I'm still waiting to hear about my volunteer placement. Until next week-Yebeshia! 

Final Class Schedule!

Here are the classes I'm taking in Ghana:

African Women Speak (Lit. Class)

Beginner's Twi (Language Class)

Society, Culture & Modernization in Ghana (Anthropology Class)

African Repertory: Music & Dance (We learn traditional dancing and drumming, both theory and practice!)

Special Topics in Non-Western Art

And that is all! I only have class from Monday to Wednesday so the rest is free for volunteering and side trips. I will find out about my volunteer placement soon. 

PICTURES!!

Very cool peacock we saw at Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum.

One of my roommates, Katja, eating delicious mango!

Ghanaian children posed for us outside the market.

My housing!

The beach in Jamestown.

First Week In Ghana!

Akwaaba to my new blog!!!

Goodness, where do I begin? Getting here to Accra, Ghana was seriously a fiasco. After having my initial flight from SeaTac to JFK cancelled, I was already getting a lesson in how to be flexible and go with the flow. That's really big here in Ghana...When I finally got to New York for my connecting flight, it was delayed 4 hours. Fantastic. So I was feeling really depressed about the whole thing and no one around me was speaking English. They were mostly calling their friends and family back in Africa to let them know about the flight changes. I was near complete breakdown from lack of sleep and just generally being concerned that my bags would be lost on top of all this. Then the Ghanaian man next to me asked if I would hold his son for him while he changed his other son's diaper. He handed over this little baby, maybe 18 months or so. I was shocked. I mean, nowhere in the U.S. would you find an American so trusting of a total stranger with their kid! Even the baby looked at me like he knew me already; he was completely comfortable in my arms and didn't cry or fuss. This just goes to show you how community is valued, even from a young age. Ghanaians are all so accommodating and kind to one another and to us foreigners. Everyone is your brother or sister or uncle or auntie. That's just how it is, they share everything. I wish things worked like that in the U.S. because everyone is just in a generally good mood here as a result.

Not much to say about the flight, I passed out and woke up...in AFRICA. The heat and humidity hit me right away as I stepped off the airplane. It was like being in a sauna, but worse. Since then I've adjusted a bit to the temperature but its certainly no Seattle weather, or even New York summer weather, for that matter. Sammy was the driver who took me from the airport to my new home in Accra. The area where we live is called Labone (pronounced with an "e" sound at the end). From there, I went directly to the academic center to join the rest of the NYU in Ghana group, who had arrived the day before and already begun orientation. All week we received orientation from about 8 in the morning to 8 or 9 at night. It was busy and tiring, but it forced us to adjust to the time change. In short, we learned some Twi (pronounced "Chwee," it is the local language), cultural and social customs (like not using your left hand and how to wave down a taxi), visited some prominent sites (such as the burial place of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president) as well as some local markets, shops and restaurants. On Thursday we visited the U.S. Embassy in Ghana and were able to meet the Ambassador and his staff. I was even asked by the associate director (Christa) of the NYU program if I would give a speech of thanks on behalf of all the students in front of the microphone! Ok, not such a big deal (there are only 43 students in our group), but still pretty cool.

Registering for classes has been an interesting journey...things are much different here than in the states. Instead of doing everything electronically and through the internet or email, registration is done by paper in the offices of the university. As a result, things can take a couple of days or more to get straightened out. (I won't have my schedule finalized until February 2nd, but when I do I will be sure to post it on here.) Thursday night a bunch of us went to a club in a nearby town called Osu. It is a well-known venue where locals and foreigners come together for live music and dancing. It was unlike anything I have experienced in the U.S. They charged us a cover of 1 Ghana cedi and 50 pesewa...That's about a dollar and twenty cents (for my New York friends, you can appreciate how small that charge is compared to the $20 cover in most clubs in Manhattan)! The men were very forward with us gals, asking some of us to marry them, take them to America or make them our partner. Still, it was a blast and the music was fantastic. By the end of the night we were all so sweaty and gross from dancing outdoors in 80-degree weather. None of us really cared though.

We have been eating the most amazing food! Some people have gotten sick from it, just because there are a lot of spices in everything, but luckily I haven't had a problem with it yet. Fried plantains and rice seem to balance out the chicken, lamb, goat, beef and spicy vegetables we've been devouring. There are names for all these foods but I haven't memorized them yet. And the fruit...oh the fruit. It tastes like fruit was always supposed to taste. Not artificially sweetened and dried out like it is in America. Wow, I could spend a whole blog entry on the fruit and juice. Altogether, this week was seriously exhausting but seriously fun. Stay tuned... I will try my best to keep this up as a weekly thing. Until next time, take care!!