Orientation

Hi!

I decided to write a blog to keep everyone informed. First disclaimer, I don't like using paragraphs. Anyways, it's really overwhelming to try to tell you everything I've been doing. My orientation finally ended yesterday. It was an intense week and a half of lectures and tours to get us adjusted to Ghana. The orientation was led by other Ghanaian students. We've taken a bus tour of Accra and I've also gone to the Accra mall a couple times (that's where I'm writing right now). Last weekend we spent a couple days in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. There, we took a tour of the Royal Asante Palace Museum and also visited some craft villages that are known for making traditional kente cloth.

A couple days ago we took a trip to Cape Coast and went on a canopy walk in Kakum National Park. The park is in the rain forest and the bridges we were on are tied to platforms built onto huge trees. In some spots we were over a hundred feet high. It was scary but also amazing. After that, we took a tour of the Elmina slave castle where millions of slaves were kept. It was very disturbing and sad to be in dungeons were countless people died.

Last Thursday, we registered for classes which was a long and frustrating experience. I'm so used to things being automated and done on the computed. To register we had to go to each department to sign up. It took about the whole day. I still need to finish registering tomorrow.

A lot of orientation was spent in lectures learning about different aspects of Ghanaian history, language, culture, etc. I'm looking forward to classes starting so that I can have some routine.

I'm living in the International Student Hostel on campus and rooming with another girl from the US. I like our living situation. We definitely have it better than the other dorms on campus. It's not unusual for the power or water to go out for sometimes days. Last night our power went out and today the water went out on the top floors (I'm on the top floor) because there wasn't enough power to pump it up there. Hopefully the power will be back by the time I get back tonight. I'm getting settled into my room though. I did my laundry today by hand and last night I rearranged my room so that I could hang up my mosquito net. I'm posting some pictures on my facebook. They're probably be more interesting than my blog. I'd post the link but I'm not even sure if they'll all get uploaded tonight. I hope to hear from everyone soon!