Satisfaction

I FOUND CHINESE FOOD!!!!!!

I went to the Accra mall on Friday (a mini America. It was an amazing discovery during my first few weeks in Ghana when I was feeling ridiculously homesick, but now it just seems excessive). They have a small food court with overpriced food, but...HOME food. There's pizza, mexican food, AND Chinese food. All the workers are Ghanaian. =P The food of course doesn't really taste like legit chinese food, but close enough to make my stomach growl and my mouth water. I got hot and sour soup and pan fried noodles with vegetables. YUM! I spent 9 cedi (about $6.20), which is pretty outrageous considering that most of my meals are around 1 or 2 cedi (70 cents to $1.40). But well WELL worth it. I am so tempted to go back every week! Afterwards, i went to Shoprite and bought a 1 cedi loaf of banana bread, taxi-ed home, ate a dessert feast with friends, and then watched an excellent Ghanaian play on campus called Desert Dreams. I was very impressed and enjoyed myself thoroughly. What a pampered night. =)

Internship hunt

I've been scrambling about searching for a suitable internship for the past few weeks. I'm pretty behind compared to other people who are already 3 weeks into their internships. I guess i just didn't want to deal with the search when I was still figuring out my class schedule, having to crash a billion courses and all.

Internship hunting has interesting. I took my first trotro ride alone in search of an internship last week. Tro tros are the main form of public transportation here. They're minivans that can hold up to 25 passengers. They're also super cheap! It usually ranges from 20 to 40 cents a ride depending on your destination. You gotta learn to be aggressive because people will rush onto a tro tro, pushing their way for a seat. If you're not aggressive enough, too bad so sad, you'll have to wait for the next one. "Don't be a lady," one guy said to me as he scrambled past and claimed the last spot in the tro tro this morning.

Anyway, last week i went to visit Mrs. Dove, a woman who started a special education school for autistic and ADHD kids. She's known for hooking the international students up with internships. What a tro tro adventure! My directions to her place were pretty vague, so i wasn't sure which tro tro to take. I figure i'd just ask for Dimples Junction and find my way there. What basically happened was that all the people i talked to misunderstood me and thought I said Saint Pauls because with a Ghanaian accent, St Pauls sounds a lot like Dimples. I thought they were saying Simples when they said St Pauls, so i hopped right on board the tro tro and wound up in the random city of St. Pauls. hahaha. Anyway, a few phone calls and two tro tro rides later, and finally wound up in the right place. Phew! A two-hour ordeal that shoulda taken only about a half hour.

Mrs. Dove introduced me to a few facilities that weren't quite what I was looking for, but this week she pulled a few strings and took me to a physiotherapy facility. The center opened just last year and is run by a really sweet woman named Anna who got her PT education in Canada. It is a suuuper nice place. Just as nice, if not nicer, than the typical private pt center in America. And since it is so new, Anna and her colleague don't see a whole ton of patients a day, which works to my advantage since the docs would have more time to teach me. On the downside, it's a private institute, so she sees wealthier patients. I was hoping to work with more disadvantaged patients (socio-economically speaking).

I also visited a military hospital last week. When i went, the waiting room was completely full, as was the PT gym (as opposed to Anna's one patient that was there during my visit). If i work there, I'd be helping out with patients in the gym and with the children. While there may be a greater need for assistance at the military hospital, I'm afraid I won't learn as much (and may even pose as a burden) just because the doctors are so busy with all the patients that they won't have much time to direct and teach me. Well, I plan to make a decision by Monday.

I would much rather have a public health internship. It's ok though because I have an acquaintance who is starting up a public health NGO volunteer program called Hope in Africa Foundation. ( This is different from the well known organization with the same name that we see on TV back home, which is based in South Africa). He wants me to be one of the coordinators of the foundation so that they can get an American's perspective of their project set up, since the volunteer program is geared towards Westerners. Seems like a huge responsibility. I haven't agreed to do it yet.

I also want to do some volunteer work. Probably at a woman's refugee camp because some of my friends want to start a woman's health/reproductive education workshop there. So more public health galore. =)

I'll keep you updated.

(Tro tro picture. Doesn't do much justice since it's a far shot of a moving tro tro. You miss the funny driver sidekick who leans out the door, gives a specific hand gesture, and yells out the destination so fast that it just sounds like random crazy noise ("Cra!cra!cra!cra!cra!cra!" = Accra) You're also missing the scrambling crowd of people that usually surround the door when it stops. =P )

Another school post

I spoke too soon! I guess my medical social work professor changed his mind and decided to show up for the fourth week of school after all! So i gotta drop personality and behavior (YESS!) and add medical sowk (regardless of the fact that the deadline was two weeks ago. Things sorta just float like that here). A classmate called me at 6:15AM (!!!) to tell me the class was back on. But man, after sitting in on lecture, I've decided that sacrificing my three-day weekend for a two-hour lecture on Friday afternoon is completely worth it. My professor is frikking hilarious! In another life, he would be a professional comedian. And he's one of those people who can stimulate belly laughter while barely cracking a smile on his face. Which makes it ten million times better. He's also an excellent lecturer, although I foresee myself getting picked on a lot because I'm the only Obruni in class. Like last week for example,

Prof: "Now see, we are forunate to be the way we are, where we are. Mosquitos. I get bit 200 times, and i MAAY get sick. HER? (points finger at me) 10 BITES! DEAD!" as he slices an open hand through the air to emphasize my impending doom. "And look at our skin. Dark, which protects us from the sun. HER? (points finger at me) (dramatic pause) SKIN CANCER," he says matter of factly, "Thank you. See you all next week."

Ahh...so looking foward to Fridays.

Here's an interesting thing to note about school culture. Back home, i've so often woken up at 11:20 for an 11:30 class, rolled out of bed, and gone to school in my pj's. Something along the lines of sweats and a tshirt, with my hair ungracefully pulled back into a ponytail or something. That wouldn't fly here. well, i suppose it could, but the person would look absolutely ridiculous among the trendy students at UG. Girls get done up: hair, blouse, nice bottoms/skirt/dress, shoes/purse/jewelry. Guys typically wear button up dress shirts or polos with jeans or dress pants. I, along with most of the other Obruni's look and feel like complete scrubs compared to everyone else. We're just this gross, sweaty mess, in tanktops, shorts, and flipflops, with our hair put up in who-cares-what-as-long-as-it's-not-in-my-face. I have no idea how the Africans dress so nicely with the heat! I've been trying to make something work with the scrubby clothes I brought with me. =P I have only just gotten used to wearing jeans during the daytime heat, and am busting out my skirts and dress that I originally brought for special occasions. I'm definitely due for a shopping trip...aka...time to get ripped off at the market.

Lecture styles:
Classes are usually held once a week for two hours (and I thought one hour was long enough. =P ) It takes some time getting used to the professor's Ghanaian accents. (i was extremely tempted to take a boring social welfare class for the mere fact that the professor had an American accent.) I have to concentrate really hard during class to understand what my profs are saying, which is good because it forces me to stay awake (although their accents are becoming easier to understand as time goes on). Sometimes, not even the motivation to understand my professors is enough reason to fight off the Ghanaian heat which makes me feel so lethargic and sleepy. No air conditioning in the lecture halls (except in the business department..?!?!), only a few measly ceiling fans. Most lecturers use the dictation method. Professors basically read straight off their notes word for word slowly, repeating themselves if necessarily, while students sit at the desk furiously writing down every word. This can go on for the entire two hours. Whew! Most of my professors also lecture for a bit and incorporate discussion on top of dictation, thank goodness. Students here are studious and take school seriously. I believe it is because they highly value their education since many people do not have the opportunity to receive/afford high levels of education.

I have so much to be thankful for!

Week three. Taking a breather.

The last three weeks have been hectic. I will never complain about Telebears (berkeley's online class registration system) ever again. Telebears is to eating ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top, as U of Ghana's system is to eating cement.

It essentially went something like this:

You must personally go to each department you are interested in, find the time table (the class schedule), and manually register by submitting a form with your passport picture. Typically, students here only take classes within their major department so they only register at one or two departments and voila. done. However, it's not so easy for international students because we tend to take classes from different departments, so we have to run all over campus during registration.

I was super stoked about starting school, but i soon discovered most students don't even show up for classes on the first week of school...and neither do professors! Only the naive foreigners and freshmen show up for class on week one. =P

The add/drop deadline was last friday, and I was told it can be a pretty insane process as well. And indeed it is. Most departments are chill and do it the informal style where you simply add or cross your name off from the roster (this means going back to each department and manually doing all this of course). But...for some unknown reason...the performing arts department makes students add and drop the formal way. This entails a few steps:

1) pick up add/drop form at the Dean's office

2) bring form to the department and have the head sign it

3) bring signed form back to dean's office so they can sign it

4) pick up the form from the dean's office in three days

5) bring signed form back to the department

Unfortunately, the performing arts dept is on the exact opposite end of campus to the dean's office (Story of my life! The distance between Cal's music department and most of my public health classes? Opposite corners of campus.) Well, let's just say...the bus drivers and bus money collectors know my face very well.

Additionally, I must submit two forms of my registered classes to the study abroad center, and register online.

I ran into a whole lot of bumps during the entire process. I am SO relieved to be done. WHEW! What an adventure! With all that said, here is what I'm taking this semester.

1. African drumming

2. African xylophone

3. Working with persons with HIV/AIDS

4. Women and children's rights and protection

5. Personality development and behavior disorders (not super related to public health...but sorta my last minute add when my medical social work class got cancelled on the day of the add/drop deadline because the professor refused to show up due to some funding complaint. Ironically enough, the professor for personality development just announced yesterday that he is not teaching it anymore because the school isn't paying for his transportation costs! Luckily another lecturer will replace him.)

6. Twi (the local dialect here)

I'm really excited about these classes. The music classes are great. I hope to lug a custom-made drum back to the States. My social work classes are super interesting too. It's gonna be an awesome semester.

PICTURES

here's my xylophone class. The special class for Obruni's (White people/foreigners).

And to appease the 'rents, who say I never post pictures of myself, here is one of me on xylophone.

Gotta get some rest for four hours straight of xylophone and drumming! =)

Letter home

Dear Frances,
You'll never guess what they have here...

!!!!!!!!

It was served at every catered breakfast during orientation week, and it's sold in practically every store and street market booth! I think you'd do well here with your Milo. =) Fraaances Heaven.

Love, Joy

I’m growing pretty accustomed to life here. So much so that at random moments it dawns on me, as if for the first time, that I’m in Ghana, Africa! I LIVE in frikkin AFRICA. This isn’t a vacation in which I can see the end hastily drawing near. It takes me by surprise sometimes. I feel like I need to pinch myself every so often. I am here and enjoying it so much. At times I forget I’m even halfway across the world (minus the fact that all my American buds aren’t around me.) I was having a pretty hard time adjusting at first, but I've met some really cool people, am figuring out my way around town, and am easing into the groove of Ghanaian culture. In the midst of the hectic and speedy transition period, Ghana has stealthily found a soft niche in my heart.