Today was the first day of class at the University of Ghana! (and thus far, four of the five profs were no-shows.) I was looking forward to a much needed full nights of sleep, only to be woken up in the early morning by blood curdling dog barks and howls. It was extremely eerie. I've never heard anything like it. It went on for about 5 min of about 8- 10 dogs and then abruptly became silent again. Chilling.
At 4:10 I heard distant, frantic pounding and someone commanding, "Wake up! Get out of your rooms!" I was drifting in and out of sleep and wasn't sure whether or not I was dreaming. I heard the knocks growing louder and at last, two loud, demanding knocks reached my door. I could hear doors opening with confused and sleepy voices next door. Suddenly, Glenda, my roommate, jolted out of bed and shouted, "Oh my God. Joy. We have to go!" We looked outside and people were all heading out of their rooms in their PJ's in a hurry. No one knew why we were being herded outside. My first instinct was to stay INSIDE. We didn't know who wanted us out and why. The power outage made the situation 10 times spookier.
Glenda: "Ok, you stay here. I'll find out what's going on out there."
"Heck no! I'm not staying here by myself!"
After a few seconds of debate we decided to head outside.
Every scenario crossed my mind. What if it's a conspiracy? Get the foreigners out for an easy break-in to their rooms. So i grabbed my bag and laptop.
What if it's a life threatening evacuation and we have to stay overnight somewhere? So I grabbed my traveling toiletries and malaria pills.
What if the international students were being held captive and this means war!
(ok, keep in mind...it was 4AM and i had no idea what was going on. It was just confusion and adrenaline working with me here.) So I stuffed a loaf of bread and a bottle of water into my bag, grabbed my flashlight and phone and was ready to go.
Everyone was in the parking lot and no one knew what was going on. It seemed WAY too sketch. Everyone just headed out without question.
"I think it's a fire!"
"ok...what jacka** left their candle burning?"
"I think it's an earthquake drill"
"I'm from California. I eat earthquakes for breakfast. Let's go back to bed."
I personally concluded that if we weren't gonna be finished off by a surprise attack, surely the psycho dogs were lurking in the dark, smacking their salivating lips, anxiously waiting to pounce on a herd of vulnerable foreigners.
Glenda told me later she had a whole escape route planned out:
"If anything serious was gonna happen, i was gonna grab you and run off to the airport and catch the first flight back to America. I've got hella money now cause I exchanged it at the bank today. I was thinkin 'o no! what about Joy's knees! SHOOT,' I said, 'I'd just throw you on my back and get the hell outta this country!"
HAHAHA.
Anyway. The other international hostel was evacuated and a few other places as well. 20 min later, the porters finally calmed everyone down and explained that he woke up hearing (on the radio) that a massive earthquake was going to occur in approximately two minutes. It had been well past the 2 min mark and clearly nothing had happened. Apparently it was ALL over the news. The porter read from someone's phone in eerie silence that Accra has been experiencing tremors and that they should be ready for a major earthquake. EEK! We waited another 10-20 min, half anticipating to feel the ground violently shake and the buildings to crumble to dust at any second.
The porters finally confirmed that radio stations had revoked the earthquake alert and it was our decision to go back inside or stay outside.
I for one, being deathly afraid of earthquakes, hesitantly went back to bed. Glenda crawled into bed with me cause we were scared, haha, and we woke up this morning unscathed and ready for class.
You laugh now, but it was scary!
And here's what I received in my inbox today:
http://www.africanews.com/site/Earthquake_scare_hits_Ghana_but_dispelled/list_messages/29453?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Africanews-RssNews+%28AfricaNews.com+-+RSS+News%29&utm_content=Google+FeedfetcherOh, Africa.
