March 30

The month is almost gone! Every anti-malarial pill I take is one less day I have here…

So, last Tuesday I went to Adenta and volunteered at Children of God Community School. It’s a school for kids who aren’t able to go to a real public school. From what I learned, primary education is supposed to be free and compulsory. However, for whatever reason, these children can’t go. Cujoe, the guy that invited me to teach, says that a lot of the children are orphans and/or they can’t afford school fees. Cujoe and some of his friends started the school in Adenta and also a school on Dodi Island in the Volta Region. I know on Dodi Island they don’t even have a school so the children there have absolutely no opportunity. I really admire Cujoe and his friends. They’re Rastafarians who are probably only a couple years older than me and they’ve started these schools. On week days they teach in Adenta and on the weekends they go to Dodi Island. They’re so committed to their cause.

When I got to the school I was kind of hoping to watch them teach the kids for a bit so I could learn about what they do, but they just threw me into teaching a group of nine 12-13 yr olds. I taught them math for a while and then in the afternoon I taught them English. The school is just an unfinished one room building that they broke up into four classes by grouping chairs. Teaching was really exhausting. Not because of the kids, they were really sweet. I just have never taught that many kids. I’ve tutored before, and I helped teach at a summer school in Egypt, but I’ve never been fully in charge of a class like that. Some of the kids are really far behind and I’m not sure what I can do. The biggest problem is the language barrier so even in math they don’t get it because they don’t understand my explanations. After school, Cujoe was really encouraging to me about coming to teach which I really appreciated. I know there was a bunch of advice he could have given me because I don’t really know how to teach in the most effective ways to these kids but he was just really nice about it. He could probably tell I was mentally exhausted. That just made me admire him more for how hard his job is and how optimistic he is. Ultimately, I know I’m going to be getting a lot more out of teaching the kids that they’re going to get out of my teaching. The teachers would have been fine without me and I don’t even know if I was really getting my message through to the kids. I’m going to go back tomorrow and will probably go every Tuesday for the rest of my time here.

Tuesday, I also got very sick. I had diarrhea all day and when I got back from the school I was exhausted. I took a nap and when I woke up I was achy and had chills and a fever. I was really concerned because those are some of the symptoms of malaria and I was hoping to travel this past weekend. The next morning my fever was gone but I was still sick to my stomach. Thank goodness it wasn’t malaria. That would have been awful. I was going to go to the hospital Wednesday morning but I felt well enough not to. Plans still fell through for the weekend though. It must have been something I ate but who knows.

Wednesday, I just hung around and rested so I wouldn’t get so sick again. I hung out with some of my friends because I hadn’t for a while because they were in Cape Coast.

Thursday was pretty dull too… I did some homework and then that night went to a hang out on campus called Time Out. After that we (Amy, Allie, Jenna) ended up going to Osu with some of my friend’s friends and smoked some hookah at restaurant.

Friday… I hung out with Nana and her sister, Nura, for a while. Nura taught me a new way to play mancala which was fun. In the afternoon, we (Amy, Allie, Jenna) went to a rugby game between University of Ghana and a club team. They actually had a couple matches because they’re only 20 minutes long. The first match UG lost. Then in the second match some of our friends were playing, Kyle, Devin, and Caylem, and UG won. Kyle and Devin are from Canada and Caylem is from Scotland so they were the only white people on the team. On Friday night we went out for Devin’s birthday. We went to a sports bar, Champs, which I had been to one other time for Independence Day. They have karaoke there so it’s a lot of fun. After that we went to a club called Cinderella’s which ended up being pretty lame. When we got there it was already 2am (mind you, Ghanaian night life starts really late), and the place was packed (mostly with guys) and extremely hot. We left to go home around 4:30am which is a reasonable time by clubbing standards.

On Saturday, I slept in until 1:30pm. I hung out with some friends in the hostel, did some reading, and then Amy, Allie, Jenna, Emily, and I went to Osu for dinner. We got salads and smoothies. I don’t think I’d had a salad since I left the states. They’re not common here. That night I just came home and read. I started reading Prep. I gave up on Stones from a River for now. It wasn’t fast enough. I like Prep so far.

Sunday was pretty boring. I pretty much just hung around, napped, and read. I tried to go vote for class president of UG because my friend is running, but I couldn’t find where the voting was. That was about it.

Monday... class... etc. I went to see Shutter Island last night with some friends. It was realllly good. I know these are movies that came out months ago in the states but they're new to me.

Today, I went back to Children of God Community School. I was a little afraid to go because it was so hard and exhausting last time so I ended up going a little late (like an hour which is nothing in Ghana time pretty much). It was still hard but it wasn't exhausting in the same way it was before. It probably helped that I have my health today. I taught the kids about long subtraction and nouns and verbs. That was about it.

I had a pretty boring week mostly. I don’t have any crazy cultural experiences to report on and there are no pictures. At least I’m not sick. This weekend I’m going to Kumasi for sure. I can’t wait. I haven’t travelled for the past couple weeks. We also have a holiday on Monday for Easter so my next blog might not be until next Wednesday.

March 22 (a long one)

This blog is going up early again. I might start just updating on Monday instead of Tuesday. This is probably going to be a long blog so here we go:

So last week, I had a group project in Geography of Gender and Development. We met on Tuesday and did a little planning and then we were supposed to meet on Wednesday but only Emily and I showed up. I tried calling a person in our group but he never answered. He didn’t call back and I called a few other times and he didn’t answer. That was really frustrating because the project was due on Friday. I ended up doing some research on my own and making a power point because I couldn’t reach the others and I didn’t know how much they had prepared. Finally he answered his phone Thursday night. Turns out they had met at another time (didn’t bother to call us) and also finished a power point. We met Friday morning though and fit the two power points together so it ended up working out alright.

Tuesday I went to the art market in Accra. It wasn’t as crowded and closed in as the other markets that I’ve been to. There was just kiosk after kiosk of wood carvers, jewellery, fabric, etc. We stayed there until it closed at dark but I don’t think I made much of a dent in it. I’ll have to go back sometime. I got some things for family and friends. I’m honing my bargaining skills. I noticed for some reason it’s a lot harder for me to bargain with women than with men. Luckily most of the people there are men. I think women just play up their charm more, while with men I won’t fall for any of their tricks. It was really disorienting after a while to hop from shop to shop and having to keep the saying the same things over again “no, sorry,” “that’s too much,” “I’m coming,” blah blah blah. You get harassed a lot to buy stuff and it’s easy to burn out. Plus I had to keep my “Ghana goggles” in check. “Ghana goggles” is a phrase my friends coined for when you see something Ghanaian (clothing, souvenir, member of the opposite sex, etc) and you think it’s really cool or attractive but then you realize you would never really like it or wear it back in the states, it’s just your perception in Ghana has changed. I was skeptical when they first told me about Ghana goggles but now that I’ve been here half a semester I can understand. They’re real. There was a cat in one of the shops that was tied up on a leash. I was kind of wary to pet it but it was soooo friendly and wanted affection. I miss pets. L At one of the shops that sold purses, they had crocodile skin purses and the flap over the front was a real crocodile head and front claws. It was so bizarre. The eyes and guts were obviously taken out, but the rest of it was just dried up. It even still had its teeth and toe nails. I thought it was really amusing but Emily thought it was disgusting. If anyone wants one, be sure to let me know. I don’t know where else you’ll be able to get a crocodile head purse. J

Wednesday was St. Patrick’s day but I didn’t do anything to celebrate. A lot of people were going out to Ryan’s Irish Pub (an obvious choice) but I didn’t feel like going because I knew it would just be hordes of Obrunis and everyone would be a wreck. I’m all for that once in a while but I was pretty tired last week. I’ve been pretty worn out but I’ve had some weird dreams lately.. . I’ll share. I had a dream that my mom came to visit in Ghana and we drove up to Kumasi in the minivan and on the way I saw a McDonald’s (which astonished me in my dream because there aren’t McDonald’s in Ghana). I also had a dream last night that I led a revolution against the US government armed with AK-47s. Last week I finished The Friday Night Knitting Club and I also read Digital Fortress. Now I’m reading Stones from the River or something like that…

Last Thursday I got a package from my sister, Jackie. J Thanks Jackie! She sent some chapstick, People magazine, Time magazine, and a book titled What’s Your Poo Telling You? The book is very relevant to our health in Ghana. Everyone thought it was hilarious. Being in a program travelling together, we’ve become pretty open about our bodily functions so no one minds talking about it anymore. The magazines are also really nice because for the most part I never hear about current events, especially US news.

Friday night the power went out, but that’s not really a surprise. It came back on sometime on Saturday when I was gone.

On Saturday I got up early to meet Nana so we could go to a wedding in Lapas. Her friend Balaraba (aka Bibi) went too. We were supposed to be at the wedding at 9am but I don’t think we even left the night market until 9am. Being late is not something to be anal about in Ghana, it’s just how it is. So we took a taxi to Lapas and then walked around for a while because we didn’t know where the church was. We didn’t get to the church until 10:45am but fortunately (or not maybe), Ghanaian Christian weddings are about four hours. There’s pretty much a whole church service within the wedding. The bride and groom looked really nice. It’s not completely clear to me, but I guess the bride was the niece of a woman who also works in the night market. Maybe? After the wedding, we went to a reception outside of a hotel. It was pretty westernized. They had a DJ and a buffet line of Ghanaian food and they cut the cake… It started raining really hard after pretty much everyone had gotten food. The rain only last about a half an hour though. Then we danced a little.

After we left the reception, Nana and I went to Neema to visit a Hausa (a tribe from Northern Ghana) Muslim community. Nana knew them because she had lived with one of the girls when she was in secondary school in Tamale and was really good friends with her. We visited this compound which was only for women to live in together. I guess the women live there together when they have children and want help raising them or pretty much at any point in their lives even when they’re married. It’s just a community of women that support each other from what I gathered. I had a weird feeling of empowerment being surrounded by that many women (probably like 30 that I saw). I only saw men in passing. The women all seemed really strong too. Women in Ghana have a lot of responsibilities, more than men. They’re responsible for raising children, taking care of the household, and also generating an income. So we hung out there for a while. I sat in a room of elderly Hausa women for a while who really don’t speak an English and I know no Hausa. Then I sat out with some younger women and played with their kids. I also got measured for a dress. Nana had told me that she got fabric for me and would take me to get a dress. I think she had an idea of me getting something more formal to wear but I really didn’t know what style was appropriate so I let her pick. I think the dress is going to involve sleeves and ruffles so we’ll see how it goes but at least I’ll have something nice to wear to formal occasions.

On Sunday, Nana, Balaraba, and I were to go back to Neema for a wedding in the Hausa community. The wedding is actually four days long so it started on Thursday but apparently most of the preparation is just cooking for Sunday. In the morning I went to Nana’s house and hung out while she went to a meeting and got ready. I watched her mom bake some bread, her sister braid a girl’s hair, and read a little. I had some waakye for lunch and then we left for Neema. When we got there the compound was packed with women except for a few men drumming. We ate some TZ (short for Teezat or something… I’m not really sure how it’s spelled). TZ is very similar to banku and fufu but I guess you don’t know what those are either. TZ is pretty much a ball of maize dough (I think fufu is cassava dough) that you eat with your fingers and dip in a soup. I had never eaten it before. I had only eaten fufu. It was pretty good. The thing about those three foods is that you’re not supposed to chew them, you just let it slide down your throat which is kind of a trick. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t my favorite either. I’m at least thankful that it wasn’t really spicy like a lot of Ghanaian food is. The soup had beef in it which I was a little wary of eaten but it was really good and familiar tasting. After we ate, we went out to the street where they had a circle of chairs and a DJ.

They did this wedding activity/wedding presents thing… I don’t really know what you’d call it. Four women at a time would get up and dance to a song. Then other people could go exchange a cedi for some Nigerian bills and with the bills they would kind of throw them at the women dancing. I’d liken it to “making it rain” if it was a club. J So basically the idea of it was, the cedis that people give go as a gift to the bride. They used Nigerian money though just because they are smaller denominations so it looks like your throwing more. But after you exchange your cedi and throw the Nigerian money, the money is just picked up and used again. And it makes it a fun game because you can throw money at whoever you want. It be a fun game to play to bring home to use as a fundraiser or something but I don’t think American students can keep a throw-money-at-dancing-people game as innocent as Muslim women can. I got up and danced a couple times and people threw money at me. Once in a while the bride would come in and dance. I threw money at her once which is naturally when people would do it the most. Each time she would stop in at the party she would have new outfit on. She looked gorgeous. You’ll have to look at my pictures to see. Towards the end of the party people started handing out party favors. Guests would bring some party favors to pass out, like Nana brought a lot of little ketchup bottles. So I ended up with a lot of random party favors including: a cartoon of orange juice, a bottle of cocktail juice, some jelly biscuits, laundry detergent, dish soap, ketchup, and a little jar of mayo. I’m not really sure what I’ll do with a lot of those things. I tried to say no because I didn’t need them and I don’t think there was enough to go around but that was a rude thing to do.

There was some other drama in the International Student Hostel this weekend. I guess some girls started fighting and one got a bottle broken over her head and another got beat up. I don’t know… it’s crazy. They’ve gotten kicked out of campus housing but I don’t know what else is going to happen. This morning I went to class. Same old, same old. I’m skipping one class because it’s taking me so long to write this blog. I’m putting it up on Monday because tomorrow I’m going to go volunteer at a school. This weekend I think I’ll be going to Cote d’Ivore. I’ll need to get my visa on Wednesday so hopefully it won’t be too much trouble. I think that’s pretty much all that’s been going on with me. I’ll be posting some pictures and videos from the weddings.

March 15th (a day early)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day and happy Mordecai’s birthday (Alec and my cat). I’m blogging early this week because Emily and I want to go to the art center tomorrow when we don’t have classes. The art center is a big craft market so I’ll let you know how that goes. Last week was pretty good. Class is class. I’ve still been reading a lot. Last week I finish What is the What, I read Profiles in Courage, and now I’m in the middle of Friday Night Knitting Club.

On Thursday night, I went out for a little bit for a girl’s birthday (who is in my program). They were going out to Monsoon, a really upscale restaurant in Osu, and to the night club Aphrodisiac. I just met them at Monsoon but didn’t eat since the food was about 20 cedis. I could eat for a week on that much money if I tried. They did have really nice sushi there. It’s probably the only sushi in Ghana. It was a Thursday night and I was pretty tired so I didn’t end up going out to the club with them but I’m curious to see what Aphro is like at some point.

On Friday, Emily and I went to Madina Market and to Osu. At Madina, Emily bought a lot of fabric to make quilts and I was looking for a skirt or shorts since I only brought a couple pairs of shorts with me. Ghana has a big used clothing market. A lot of the market is kind of chaotic. People are mostly selling fish, vegetables, home cleaning supplies, etc. but in some semi closed off alleys, there are used clothing kiosks. They’re like Plato’s Closet in quality, but it’s so strange to see it tucked away in a big market. Maybe it’s just one of those things you’d have to see. I couldn’t find what I wanted but I did buy some fabric so that I could have another dress made. Afterwards we went to Osu to get some Chinese food and a smoothie. I’ve missed Chinese food a lot in Ghana so this one place in particular comes the closest.

Saturday morning, Allie, Amy, Jenna, and I left Accra to go to Ada Foah. Ada Foah is along the eastern coast where Volta Lake meets the Ocean. We got there around noon on Saturday and hung out at the beach for a while. The beach was pretty dirty but it was still fun. The waves were huge and the beach was really steep so it was a real struggle to get out of the water. We all had about 3 lb. of sand in our suits by the end of it. For once, I didn’t get sunburned at the beach. It’s an accomplishment for me. I’ve tried to be really careful but it seemed like I couldn’t completely prevent it. I guess I’ve gotten pretty tan now. We went to a restaurant for dinner and there were a bunch of stray cats around the restaurant. I fed them a little of my chicken and it made me really miss Mordecai. I wish I could take one of these cats with me. That night we went to bed pretty early since it had gotten dark and there really wasn’t anything to do in Ada or at our hotel.

On Sunday we walked to Volta Lake and took a boat ride down the estuary. The village of Ada Foah doesn’t seem to have that much going on, but we were pretty surprised to see really nice guest houses and private homes with docks and big boats along the lake. There were westerners out on the lake water skiing and tubing. I wasn’t really expecting that. It’s was such a huge contrast from the village. I was a little bit disgusted and a little bit covetous. We road the boat down to the end of Volta lake, where it met the Ocean. It was cool to see the two bodies of water on either side of me. The beaches in Ada are covered in beautiful seashells and the sand-colored crabs were everywhere. Sunday was uncharacteristically cloudy and cool so we just walked along the beach for a little bit and then took the boat back. We left Ada Sunday afternoon and took a tro back to Accra.

Pictures and a video will be up soon hopefully. Tonight I think I’m going to see Alice in Wonderland at the Accra movie theatre with friends. The water went out in ISH again last night so I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be back on by the time I get home tonight. I don’t have that much going on this week. I’ll be in Accra this weekend because Nana wants to take me to a wedding.

Independence Day Weekend

I’ve been in Ghana for two months now! I think I can say that I’ve finally reached the point where I’m really happy and comfortable being here. Once in a while theirs is still culture shock but I’m really content. I’m going to soak up the next two months the best I can. Some of my friends who have been here the whole year are keeping a count on how many days until we’re on American soil again. I think it’s 70 days now or something.

Last week, the water went out in our building for two or three days. I’m not exactly sure. After the water went out the power went out. After the power went out, the reserve water went out…. J Things are fine now but it got kind of frustrating last week since the utilities were so inconsistent. The biggest inconvenience was the reserve water going out because then I couldn’t even take a bucket shower. Ole well. Everything is fine for now and I’m going to savor it while we still have it.

Last week, I went to a mall with some of my friends. It was a different mall than where I go to use the internet. I had no idea that Accra even had two malls. We just went there to get some coffee and walk around. They have a grocery store there too which was fun to walk around in. At the grocery store I bought some cheddar cheese to split with a friend. I’ve had some melted cheese on pizza and sandwiches once in a while, but that’s the first time I’d had real cheese in Ghana. Trust me, it was awesome. They also had salsa at the grocery store but it was 11 Ghana cedis for one jar. I’ve been missing nachos a lot, but not enough to drop that kind of cash on salsa. Pretty much all the American food there is that expensive so it’s not really feasible for me to buy it.

I didn’t end up going to Adafoa beach this weekend. We decided to stay around town because this weekend was Ghana’s Independence Day. Ghana is now 53 years old. Ghana wasn’t even Ghana when my parents were born… weird. Independence Day was on Saturday but it was a celebration all weekend. On Friday night, a group of my friends (Amy, Allie, Emily, Michelle, Jenna, Kyle, Curtis – just for further reference) and I went out to a place on campus called Time Out. We just hung out there for a while and played King’s Cup. Time Out serves beer which I thought was really interesting since it’s a college campus. I can’t imagine the dorm halls at IU serving alcohol… After that we went to Osu to an outside bar that plays music called Lizzie’s. Osu was pretty packed with people. They put a stage in the middle of the main street and had a concert all night. We just danced at Lizzie’s which was a lot of fun but also annoying because a lot of the Ghanaian guys there were really intent on dancing with international students when most of us just wanted to dance alone. Also, since is it really packed, pick pocketing was easy. Kyle had his wallet taken but he felt it when it happened so found the guy, luckily. Later though, his phone was stolen. Allie had her wallet stolen also. L I kept a lot of my friends’ stuff in my purse because it was really safe. There was one pocket that pick pocket-ers couldn’t reach but one that they could. A couple times I found that pocket unzipped but all I had in it was pens and a bandana. We had a pretty good time though.

On Saturday, the President of Ghana gave a speech and there was a parade at Independence Square. I wanted to go but later I found out that it started really early in the morning. We probably would have been miserable anyways because it was really hot, and we heard that even the Ghanaians were dropping like flies from the heat. Saturday evening, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant. Later that night we went out to a sports bar called Champs. It was pretty much just the people I normally go out with, but a bunch of other people from my Hostel and from my program were there. I brought my friend Nana too because she took the day off from work for the holiday. Champs had Karaoke so Michelle and I sang “Ironic” by Alanis Morisette . J After Champs we went to a club called Mirage. We had a lot of fun there. They played more Ghanaian music than at Champs and there was a better mix of Ghanaians and international students than at Champs, which was a lot of Obrunis. The atmosphere was a lot better than Lizzie’s because since you had to pay to get in, most of the people were students and there wasn’t pick pocketing. Night life in Ghana starts really late, like 1 or 2am, so we were out dancing until around 5am. I still can’t believe I survived that long, but there were still plenty of people at the club when we left. I had a lot of fun Saturday night but I’m pretty sure that it was only something I can handle doing maybe once or twice more while I’m in Ghana.

On Sunday, we were all useless. But we went to Osu to get some Chinese food and a smoothy.

Yesterday, (Monday) we had the day off from classes because of the holiday. That was particularly nice because I have three classes and two tutorials on Monday. Instead of classes, Allie, Amy, Michelle, and I went to a beach called Kokrobite. I had been there once before. Yesterday the beach was packed because of the holiday. It was really nice and relaxing though.

This past weekend was pretty exciting so I think this week will be more low-key. I think I still need to catch up on some sleep…

March 2

It’s already March which feels crazy. The semester is going so fast and we only have about 75 days or something.

Last week the power went out for a few days. It went out sometime on Monday, I think, and came back on Wednesday. It’s really not that much trouble though. To shower, I can either fill my bucket up on the first floor and take a sponge bath (or what they call here, a bucket shower) or I can walk over to the other International Hostel and take a shower (because they’re lucky enough to have a generator for when the power goes out). It’s pretty much only a minor convenience but it’s weird to think how crazy people would get if this happened to dorms in the US. It just wouldn’t happen. Today the power went out again just as I was waking up. I don’t know how long it will be out. I immediately ran to the shower so I could use the water while there was still pressure.

Last week was pretty normal. My classes are going well and I have the readings for most of them. I have one professor that no one enjoys though. He’s the professor for my Strategies of Development in Africa class. That class would be really cool but the professor is… a jerk. He likes to single people out who haven’t read and bully students that ask questions. No one agrees with his opinions because he takes the position that culture only hinders development in Africa and he uses anecdotes to prove points about development. Anecdotes are great but you cannot use them to explain trends in development or the economy or whatever else… My least favorite thing is that he doesn’t think critically about topics and doesn’t challenge us to either. He just uses cliché arguments and dismisses questions that challenge those. Ugh. You’d have to be there. He’s bad. But he’s just a one off. The rest of my professors, however longwinded and sometimes boring, are pretty cool.

I don’t think anything else significant happened last week. On Friday, Emily, Jon, and I left to go to Green Turtle Lodge in the Western Region. We left around 2:30 to get a tro in Accra that would take us to Takoradi. We first went to a tro station in a place in Accra called Circle. We waited there for a while but no tro showed up so we found out that we could also go to Kaneshie Station to get a tro to Takoradi. We got one there and then it was a long ride to Takoradi. I’m not exactly sure when we left Accra but we got to Takoradi at 9:30pm. Traffic getting out of Accra was really bad and then our tro had to keep stopping because the engine was over heating. We were worried that we’d get to Takoradi too late and would have to stay there for the night so I even called a few hotels there. Luckily we were able to get a tro from Takoradi to Agona though. Staying in Takoradi for the night would have been no fun and it would have been expensive.

When we got to Agona, we had to walk around for a while to find a taxi. Agona is little more than a village. We found one taxi but he was going to charge us too much. We knew we should be able to get from Agona to Green Turtle for 15 ghana cedis. After we refused that taxi, we had to walk around some more to find another, and we started getting a little worried because we weren’t even seeing another taxi, it was about 10:30pm, and we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Luckily we found another taxi and the guy was nice enough to take us for 15ghc even though we probably would have payed 20 or 25 at that point.

We got to Green Turtle at about 11:45pm. Thankfully people were still around to check us in (you never know in Ghana). I didn’t have high expectations for Green Turtle after our stay in Larabanga, but Green Turtle was actually pretty ritzy in my opinion. We slept in tents that were under a small shelter right on the beach. The whole place was right on the beach actually. They even had a sink with running water and a shower. Right after we got there we went to sleep.

We got up early around 7am just because the sun was up. Pretty much all Saturday we hung out on the beach and swam. The waves were pretty intense and knocked me down quite a few times. I had finished the book Confessions of a Shopaholic, which Ginny sent me, on the tro, so I started reading What is the What. The food at Green Turtle was awesome too and not overpriced. It was so nice and relaxing. On Saturday night we took a walk along to beach to try to see some turtles but we didn’t come across any. 

On Sunday we did about more of the same. We left a little after noon to go back to campus. The journey back went a lot smoother and our transfers between tros were really fast. We probably got back to campus around 6pm and we were all pretty tired.

Yesterday I just had some of my classes… same old, same old. Last night I got dinner at the night market like usual. My favorite is mixing red red (a traditional Ghanaian dish of beans) with white rice and lime. All the Ghanaians think I’m weird for mixing those but it’s delicious. After dinner, Emily, Jenna, and I went to the mall to see a movie. On Mondays they have a special deal where you can get a movie ticket, popcorn, and a soda for 12ghc. The best thing about the movie theater is they have kettle corn and salted popcorn. Why don’t theaters in the US have kettle corn?! We went to see Wolfman, which I personally liked. It’s probably not the best movie but it’s about werewolves who are awesome by themselves and it brings out the dork in me.

This weekend I might go to another beach called Adafoa (I don’t really know how it’s spelled) but we’ll see. I like taking advantage of my time to travel and get out of Accra. Right now I’m going to post some pictures from this weekend, although there are only a few because we didn’t do much besides hang around the beach. Also, I’m going to try to upload some videos from when I went to Mole that I haven’t gotten a chance to post.