This will be my very last Ghana blog. I don’t have many remarkable things to say since I last blogged. I had two finals on May 2nd. They went well. All of the finals exams here are essay test and they are 2 ½ hours each. I take most of the time for the test.
The Monday after I blogged was Ghana’s Labor Day. I went with Jenna and Nana to a movie. It was actually the first time Nana had gone to the movie theatre so it was fun.
Most of the rest of the week I studied and hung out with friends. We would just go to a smoothy place or a coffee shop to study.
On Thursday I went to a bead market with Jenna and Michelle. I don’t remember the name of the town where it was but it was about 2 hours north of Accra. The tro-tro ride up there was pretty fun because the road went up into the mountains with hairpin turns and gave us a beautiful view of Accra. The market is well known because the beads are all made in the town. I had so much fun there talking to the shop owners and bargaining. Bargaining is supposed to be an enjoyable exchange but it takes some getting used to and feeling comfortable enough to joke around with the sellers. I talked to one seller for a while who was from Kumasi. He bought me a Fan Yogo (like frozen yogurt) and I bought some old Ghanaian coins from him. Some of the coins are colonial currency, some are from right after independence, and some are from before Ghana readjusted their currency. It was weird to see some of the coins there from 2007 that aren’t in circulation anymore.
After that, Michelle and I went to the Cultural Center to have some more bargaining fun.
Since last Thursday I’ve just been studying a lot. I had finals on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and today (Thursday). They all went really well even though I couldn’t keep up with studying towards the end. I’m really relieved to have them all finished by I’m also a little depressed about it. The semester is officially over for me.
Today I think Jenna and I will visit an art gallery in Accra. After visiting galleries in Togo and Benin, I’m curious to see contemporary art in Ghana aside from what I see in the markets. Tomorrow I’m hoping to get out and go to a museum and monument for Kwame Nkrumah. I don’t feel like I’ve done many touristy things within Accra so this is my last chance to do it. I’ll also probably just be enjoying Ghanaian night life my last few days here too. Sunday is coming too soon.
I’m getting so nostalgic about Ghana and all things I’ll miss. There’s so many common place things that I’ve gotten used to:
The smells of fish, burning plastic, the smell of apateshi on strangers’ breath, peppe (its not misspelled), jollof rice...
The tastes of red red, local mango, banana, pineapple, Alvaro, Fan Ice, Tampico, fried plaintain, plaintain chips...
The sounds of tro-tro mates yelling for Accra, Circle, Lapaz, girls yelling “iiice Watah, puure iice watah,” getting called Obruni, people yelling in Twi, Ghanaian and Nigerian music, Fan Ice horns...
The sight of babies strapped to women’s backs with a piece of clothe, dust clouds, people carrying stuff on their heads, entertaining phrases on tro-tros, taxis, and chop bars, Ghanaian mannerisms, goats and chickens, MTN and Tigo advertisements everywhere...
The feeling of 80% humidity, the feeling of the flip-flops I’ve been wearing for the past five month, being crammed in a tro-tro, shaking hands with a snap at the end, mosquito bites, tearing into a sachet...
These are all seriously wonderful things, most of them genuinely, some of them in other ways that I appreciate. And there are so many more. How can someone not fall in love with this place? Sure it had plenty of flaws. Everything is a lot less efficient, not everything makes sense, there’s a lot of corruption, gender equality is lacking... but it comes with the territory (literally) of any place you go to. I had an amazing semester. I love Ghana.
