It's about time...

Wow. First off, I'd like to comment on the hideous color scheme of this blog. It shows up as a soft, dull yellow on my laptop. I turned on the PC when I got home and I was immediately blinded by the sun. So much for my attempts at being patriotic.

I've suddenly become inspired to blog while reading a book called "The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi" by Salam Pax. He's an Iraqi blogger who got a lot of attention for his civilian, insightful blog during/after the Iraq invasion in 2003. It's really good and very eye-opening. He's an awesome writer and his humor/wit cracks me up. Read it!

So it's been almost three weeks since I've been back to America and already my time in Ghana seems like a distant dream. It's been weird being back, with pretty big culture shock. I walked into Walgreens on day two to make a quick bathroom run and was on one hand completely shocked by the accessibility of alllll this stuff neatly categorized in aisles, with set price tags, with such a variety to choose from, all the while being absolutely appalled by the prices. I think I was in Ghana Cedi currency for the first two weeks and refused to make many purchases, and if I did i couldn't do it without cringing a little inside.

It's nice to walk around invisibly. And man, coming home to mom's home-cooked meal was awesome. I'm still getting over all the nice cars on the road and all the iphones, ipads, ipods, i-whatever they have now. It also took me a few days to get over the left-hand rule. It's culturally disrespectful to receive or give items with your left hand because it's the "defiled" hand. I went to Kaiser when I got back and was signing a few forms and just before I had time to transfer my form from my left to my right, the receptionist took it from my left and I went "o! sorry..." pause. hm. inteeerrresssting...

Crossing the street has been a treat. In Ghana, (and in many other countries it turns out) pedestrians don't have right of way. It's like the live version of Frogger. Cross the street, if you dare. I walked out of 99 Ranch and just stood on the side of the road waiting for all the cars to pass before I deemed it safe to cross. Now imagine this: cars STOPPED! After you. No no, after you. Really, i insist. Well, alright.

It was so nice coming home. Minus the really cold weather that welcomed me back. "This is warm! It's pretty warm, really." Please. Now that the sun's out and shining you all are running for cover while i'm outside in the middle of the day helping the parental units tame some wild daisy bushes hardly breaking a sweat. hah. take that California.

Roi came back too. She spent a month in Guatemala and then some more time in Mexico. And my dad just returned from a trip to China. Ema is back from Italy as well, so it's been really cool having loads to share and loads to learn about other cultures.

Ah. inspiration depleted.

I love you, i hate you

Two posts in one day (Just cause it'll be my last chance to post before I leave). I'll continue posting when I get back to provide links to uploaded photos and maybe a blog or two about my transition back to America. A few friends and I complied a brief (and not at all complete) list of things we will miss and things we won't miss about Ghana:

I WILL MISS:

1. Ghanaian hospitality/friendliness

If you come to Ghana, you will be floored by Ghanaian hospitality. It is remarkable. They welcome you with open arms and are so pleased you chose to come visit and learn about their culture. Their generosity makes the transition period much easier.

2. Banku

I'll try to find a recipe for banku and stew. Yum yum.

3. Being a goddess

(I am personally unsure of whether or not I will miss it. This one is Ashley's point.) Non-black people are pretty idiolised here. People definitely treat you differently because of your lighter skin color.

4. Seamstresses

I will miss having easy access to talented, affordable, and accessible seamstresses. Two seamstresses come regularly about twice a week to ISH and there are seamstresses at all the markets who can custom make anything you want. It's pretty sweet.

5. The vivid culture

Ghanaians are so proud of their culture and roots. And they have every reason to be. I've definitely learned a lot from them about their culture and also learned to really value and appreciate my own.

6. Sense of community

Ghanaians are peaceful people and have a strong sense of community. They see people as their brothers and sisters. They have each other's backs even if they are strangers to one another. It's something I highly admire and will miss terribly when i get back home to America, where people are independent minded and have the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps mentality.

7. Trotros

8. Cheap goods

9. The ease of traveling

10.Fanice

This is a popular brand of icecream. You buy them in small sachets and they can be found anywhere on the streets. SOO delicious.

11. Alvaro

This is equivalent to my Manzana Lift craze from Mexico. It's a fruit flavored soda. YUMM! my new favorite drink.

12. Laid back-ness

I think I've gotten way more laid back since I left America. Everyone here is so easy going and chill.

13. Freshness of foods

14. Drinking out of bags

After a month of buying bottled water, all the Obruni's switched to the common way of drinking water - out of plastic sachet bags!

15. Professors

16. Ghanaian music

17. Safety

Ghana is extremely safe. I can walk outside by myself at night and feel completely safe and comfortable. There's little to worry about rape, assault, and the sort, like in the States. The only thing one has to watch out for is getting robbed. Even still, Ghanaians have an extreme disgust for stealing. They will chase after a robber and beat him to the point of death if authorities do not interfere in time. A few of my friends have even witnessed this. It is so heavily looked down upon.

18. Free time

19. Thunderstorms

20. Hawkers

So convenient to have hawkers. You can do all your shopping from a tro-tro/car. And it's so cool how they carry everything on their heads!

21. Twi

I'll miss Twi and Pigeon English! And Ghanaian slang, which I AM bringing back to the States.

I WON"T MISS:

1. Open sewers

2. Absence of toilet paper in most bathrooms

Always remember to carry some tp on you.

3. Ghanaian creepy men

4. Mosquitos

5. Fufu

Like Banku, but without flavor, and is not as sticky. Most people love it. I'm not one of them.

6. The heat

7. Getting onto tro-tros

8. Taxi drivers

9. Bargaining for everything

10. Unpaved roads

11. Skin color-based attention

12. Unpunctuality

One disadvantage to ghanaian's laid-back manner is their tendency to be late. It's instilled a horrible habit in me! =P Hopefully I didn't get too affected by this.

13. Chicken and rice meals

14. Lack of food variety

15. Cheesy American pop/country

16. Ghanaian education system

They like to call it "Chew and pull." Basically cram everything in your head before finals and then spit it out during exams. Contrary to American's system of critical thinking-based learning.

17. Patriarchal society

18. Age-based respect

(Another one of Ashley's. I for one don't mind it as I feel Chinese culture is like this as well). There is a lot of mannerisms when it comes to age. You must respect your elders, even if you don't agree with on issues.

19. Not being able to walk around barefoot at home

(This is Jean's. It's so dusty that it's better to just wear shoes inside the room. Although Glenda and I had a no-shoes policy and we swept regularly, our feet still got dirty.)

20. Ants!

21. Lack of customer service

In America, customer service is highly valued. Not so much a concern here. You'll still receive it of course. But it's not a high determining factor for how business performs.

OK. signing off folks. It's been AMAZING. Thank you for following my adventures (stay tuned for pictures). I had such a blessed opportunity. I will never forget my time here. I will definitely come back in the future. If you guys get the chance, please visit Ghana. It is a beautiful country.

See you on the other side. =)

Fulfilling some promises

Alright. So i remembered I said i'd update you on all my classes. So i wanna at least fulfill one promise I made on blogger. =P Just a brief update on my other two classes I took.

SOWK: Working with persons living with HIV/AIDS

This class was my favorite class at the beginning of the semester. The professor didn't appear to be the typical Ghanaian professor, focusing merely on dictation method. She engaged with students and encouraged a lot of discussion and brought up very interesting issues related to HIV/AIDS. We even visited an HIV/AIDS home for a class field trip and got to talk with victims about their experiences. After about a month and a half, the class sorta died, and she started giving us random ridiculous busy work, and pointless class presentations that would take up all of lecture time. I was pretty disappointed.

SOWK: Women's and Children's Rights and Protection

I took this course just for the heck of it. The first couple weeks were please-shoot-me-in-the-head boring. The lecturer has the most monotonous voice and simply read us the Ghanaian Constitution word for word for 2 hours a week. =P But then we got into some VERY heavy issues. Out of all my classes, I think i learned the most about Ghanaian culture in this one. A LOT of very heated gender debates. I was so surprised by what the men in the class were so willing to say. They probably would never get away saying it in America. Stuff like, women set themselves up for rape, guys need sex, guys can't handle a woman being more successful in work and education than them and get jealous or angry, how women are expected to do domestic chores, how it is socially acceptable for men to have multiple partners, even in marriage, but women can be severely punished/stigmatized if they did the same, etc. I understood coming to Ghana that it is a patriarchal society, and i definitely see and hear about it everywhere I go here. It's very apparent. Like at the night market, all the food stalls are run by women. But the BBQ, media, and shoe repair shops are run by males. All taxi and tro-tro drivers are males. The night market is FULL of male customers. Probably 90% male to 10% females. The reason being, most Ghanaian men don't know how to cook. And all the women are in their rooms cooking their own dinners. But anyway...this class gave me even more insight to all these gender-related issues, and I got to hear it straight from a male mouths. I know, half of you guys are probably think I'm crazy for taking this class, being a femi-nazi and all. That's why i had to go to class with a bag of plantain chips to munch on, so to prevent myself from saying something stupid/offensive in class. I was so grateful for a lecture on feminism, where an empowering guest lecturer seriously challenged the men in our class about gender expectations in the society. Ghana is modernizing fast. More women are getting educated and getting jobs. How are they expected to continue carrying out traditional roles while doing everything else? It'll be interesting to see the change. Of course not all men are crazy dominant and controlling and believe all those things i talked about and not all women here are submissive and dependent on men. Most educated women challenge the system. I wish i could write more about this. I have SO much to say and i've had so many analytical discussion figuring all this out. I'd love to talk more with you about it. So call me up and we'll chat over a meal or somethin. =)

Anyway, on top of all the gender discussions, i learned a lot about some of the issues women and children (mostly in the rural areas) in Ghana deal with. Things such as trokosi (where a virgin girl is sent to a shrine for a lifetime of servitude to atone for a family sin), witchcraft (In certain northern regions, the belief of witchcraft is highly prevalent. Elder women are falsely accused of witchcraft and are exiled to witch camps), child betrothals, female genital mutilation, etc. So interesting. All these things are banned according to the constitution of course. As they are old traditions, it's still slowly being controlled and phased out in certain areas.

Aren't you guys proud I survived in a patriarchal society without getting myself in too much trouble? =P Although gender equality hasn't been perfected in America, I do appreciate how far it's come.

T-minus three days

Whirlwind fury! Glenda left yesterday. It was pretty heartbreaking seeing her off at the airport. Two more girls left today. It'll be my turn soon! I've already started packing. In the mean time...

I went to Reggae Night yesterday on the beach. I enjoyed it very much. It was very Berkeley, with the hippie Rastas, live reggae music, and peace and love. It was a super nice night out on the beach, complete with a cool breeze. Funny, one Ghanaian rasta came up to me and thought I would be cold saying "Oh! Sorry oo. You didn't bring somethin heavy." HAH...brotha. i'm from California. This is perfect weather for t-shirt and shorts. There was a beautiful lightening storm later on, forcing us all to go home. I could use some more beach before I go.

Ghanaian Men

My friends and I have decided to collaborate on blog entries. The following is written by Ashley.

"So one of the biggest things I deal with here in Ghana is men. Due to my looking like a stereotypical white American lady (I’m half Filipino but no one believes me) I get a lot of attention and to be honest its really annoying. Anywhere I am it could happen. Sitting on a tro tro a guy can sit next to me and it always starts the same, “I like/love you” then something along the lines of, “you will be my wife/I am going to marry you.” Excuse me? Don’t you need to know a girl’s name first? Or one of my favorites, “Obruni! Obruni! I will marry you someday!” Well send the place, time and date to me via e-mail (because you are not getting my phone number and calling incessantly at odd hours) and I shall show up in a wedding dress.

One thing I have learned in Ghana is that even though most Americans couldn’t point out Ghana on a map Ghanaians idolize America. They want to get there so bad but visas are hard to acquire so marrying into America is another valid option, on top of this having a white wife/girlfriend is a status symbol.
“Know what? Ok. I will marry you. Even though you are only using me for my skin color and citizenship, there is no way you can find a job that can support us as a family so we will probably rely on my paycheck. There is a good chance you will cheat on me a beat me because that is common among Ghanaian men. BUT, I heard black men are ‘big’ so yes. I will marry you and you can come to America and we shall have pretty little multiracial children.” If I said that to the next Ghanaian man who proposes I wonder how he will react.
I should make it clear, not all Ghanaian men are like this. I have plenty of Ghanaian friends who are guys that haven’t asked me to marry them (…at least seriously…). And the thing about beating/cheating, it is more common here then it is in America but like in America there are good guys and bad guys. The good Ghanaian men are just as extreme as the annoying ones. Some guys I have come across only want to help. You ask them where the internet café is and not only will they tell you but they will take you there too with no expectation of reward. They are respectful, sweet, and usually the ones you want to give your number to (even though you don’t get an opportunity). I am amazed constantly at the helpfulness of both Ghanaian men and women that you just don’t see often in America.
The last thing I have to say about Ghanaian men is there version of masculinity. Men hold hands here are with other men and I have seen guys wear what I think is girly print or cuts. [Joy's insert: But it's not considered gay, as an American would probably automatically assume. In fact, male homosexuality is illegal.] From the relationships I have seen (with both American and Ghanaian women) they tend to be chauvinistic and controlling. On the other hand they are overly romantic in what most Americans see as a cheesy way. It’s all interesting.
All I know is if one more guy asks me to marry them I am telling them I am a infertile lesbian. Maybe it will work?"

Less than a week!

Ugh. I cannot believe I will be leaving in less than a week. Even though I had two weeks of nothing before leaving, all my travel plans fell through. We were planning on another trip to Togo, but realized our visas expired. Then we were all ready to go to a small beach resort last weekend, but that morning I woke up with a cold. Well OF COURSE i would, i started the trip being sick, i've gotta end it the same way. It's not bad at all. Just sniffly. I know I've gotten sick a few times, but I"M NOT NORMAL! There are loads of people here who haven't gotten sick ONCE. So don't let that scare you from coming here. =)

We've been keeping ourselves busy, but some days we simply lounge around and don't do much. The other night we had a "Christmas" party for Phebe where we presented her with all our going away presents. Twas fun. I'm starting to put together all of my goodbye presents, letters, and photos. It's hard to do. I don't know what to say or write. I've never lived in a place for this long and had to leave not knowing when I will come back and see my friends again. I'm going to miss Ghana sorely. I'm trying to soak in every moment of this place.

I've had so many discussions about what it will be like going back, being separated from the people who shared this experience with me, and returning to friends and family who can only understand my experience second-hand. One of my largest fears is going back to America and getting caught right back up in American pettiness. I guess time will tell.

"It's been long time, oh"

It's been nearly a week since i finished finals. I thought i'd have more free time to catch up on blog entries, but that was an obvious fail. I've been going out doing last minute shopping, went to the art center, medina, and koforidua. Went to the movies, and watched Date Night. Oh man. frikking hilarious. Took Junior, the guy who works at the eatery at ISH, out to Chinese food one night for his birthday. It was his first time eating Chinese food! Then smoothies and salsa dancing afterwards. Salsa's a popular scene among the youth here. The club was full of Ghanaians and they were all PROs at salsa dancing. There was a circular dance floor that is slightly lower than level ground (the opposite of a platform...), that only fit about 3 couples, The best dancers dance down there and people watch from above. I was absolutely mesmerized. Salsa is so stinkin' sexy!

Yesterday I witnessed a University of Ghana protest march on campus. (Ah...felt at home =P ) But what a commotion! It was a protest put on by Commonwealth boys. Commonwealth is an all boys hall on campus that can be equated to an American fraternity. Apparently the school is going to turn commonwealth into a mixed graduate student hall, which was the reason for protest. I wonder why large protests never occur on campus concerning larger issues like child labour or something.

I just returned from my internship. It was a slow day. I only saw two patients. One of the things I enjoy most about the internship is being able to see the same patients from week to week and witness their healing process. There is one patient who had back pains and wanted surgery. He was advised to find a surgeon in the UK or the States, but he decided to go for convenience rather than quality, so he had a poorly qualified Ghanaian doctor operate on his spine and he got pretty messed up and hasn't been able to walk for two years. But today he was able to stand up and walk a few steps with help, and without pain! It was really cool to see. It is also frustrating when patients don't take the necessary steps in doing their home exercises, so their conditions don't get any better, and sometimes gets worsen. Vicky and I went out for a lunch break (banku + palm nut oil stew + crab + okru), and along the way stopped to do a bit of shoe shopping. =P (Like i said. it was a dead day at the clinic.) I hung out with Agnus when I got back. She is the professional masseuse at the clinic, AND she has diamond studs on her teeth. We worked out in the gym, and I taught her some yoga. In return for my yoga lessons, she gave me a ridiculous 10 minute massage. I'll be visiting the clinic once more before i leave. =(

ABOUT A WEEK AND A HALF LEFT. I'll try to cram in more entries because I don't think people will be interested in catch-up-entries about Ghana once I'm back home. =P

Should be studying...

...but I'm too excited about being done with school, so I'll post instead.

I just finished my final for medical social work, my favorite class this semester. It was the one with the hilarious professor, remember? I really enjoyed studying for that class. I'm sad that it's over. =( Wanna learn some things that I learned in the class? In no particular order:

1) 50% of Accra and 30% of Ghana's rural population has "good drinking water."

2) "If you go to central Accra, make sure your stomach is empty. If your stomach goes on riot, you are finished!" -Professor Kodjo on lack of public restrooms in urban Ghana.

3)20% of Ghana's population lives on less than $1 a day. About 87% of Africa lives on less than $2 a day.

4) On maternal mortality: My Prof went to Switzerland hospital and asked for their maternal mortality records and the nurse looked at him like he was crazy. "This is a hospital," she said "we haven't had a maternal mortality incident in ten years." The prof returns to Ghana and incidentally, the newspaper headline read "K'bu hospital - no maternal mortality in three months!"

5) Ghana's contraceptive prevalence rate is 15%

6) In 2005, 40% of Botswana's pregnant women were living with HIV/AIDS

7) Zimbabwe's average life-span has decreased from 55 y.o. to 35 y.o. due to HIV/AIDS.

Ok. i learned a looot more than just those 7 points, and would love to share. But I gotta go study. But man, what an awesome class.

Here's a picture of me with Professor Kodjo

Here are some of my classmates from med socialwk. Me n the guy on the side weren't ready for the picture, but this is the only group photo where the majority of my friends looked ready for a "snap," as they call it. They looked kind of funny and unprepared in the other shots. I was actually all ready to take the photo. The camera guy said "ok! 1....2...." And Gad, the guy who is looking at me turns and says "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Hah! Fat chance, Gad." *snap!*

Ok i need to study. O, but good news! My class in which i have a final tomorrow was changed back to p/np! I'm so relieved because there is a buttload of information to learn. I don't feel like studying at all since the class doesn't count for anything at all. But I should maybe attempt to study and pass the class.

PS: update on water. It's back! Came back today after my exam. Phew. "It was SERIOUS, oh" as the Ghanaians say.

It's raining, it's pouring

I was at the front of Balme Library today, which I believe is the largest library in W. Africa. (It's even on the 5 GhCedi bill.) It's truly sad that I haven't been inside yet. I was so close today. I was waiting outside for my friend Jean to meet with me, and watched as the rain clouds loomed dangerously low overhead. I attempted to beat the rain by walking back to ISH (cause i didn't want to get stuck at the library for who knows how long. Although...it's probably what i need: to be forced to study by natural intimidation.) Alas, i didn't make it home in time and was completely drenched by the time I got back to ISH. When it rains, it really pours. But the good news is, the weather is much cooler now. =) Another good is the music man put away his speakers to avoid the rain, so now i can study in peace. The bad news is a mosquito war is coming once the rain stops.

I bought a carton of juice and a small piece of chocolate cake to prep me for a long study session. I'll certainly need it. One of my classes (my hardest one to be exact...) wasn't changed to P/NP like it was supposed to. I definitely haven't been preparing much for that class because I assumed it was p/np. SOOOO...now i have to cram a bunch of bills, constitutions, articles, and clauses, into this nearly-exploding brain of mine. Wish me luck.

Here's a picture from my room of all the laundry hanging outside getting drenched. Mine included.

Four finals down, two more to go. On Thursday I had my Twi written exam. It was pretty chill, as the class has been all semester. This is a class that is set up specifically for UC EAP students. The prof is this little ol’ bald guy with a baby face. He’s so cute. We’ve been learning lots, but I honestly feel like I learn more Twi out on the streets than in class. We hardly had any assignments or quizzes, so we weren’t pushed to shove Twi into our heads. It's nice having Twi with just the EAP kids. During orientation we’d all gotten pretty close to one another and we get along very well. Twi is a time where we can commune back together again during the week and catch up a little. It makes class fun. We laugh and make fun of each other when we completely butcher Twi during group oral exercises in front of class. The rest of the class just sits there muffling our giggles like school children cause its so ridiculous. Professor Pepreh gives his lil’ boy frown with a confused smile demanding why we are laughing at our fellow classmate, trying to understand our insensitivity. I had my oral exam today. It was ok. Could have been better because I was pretty nervous. But Twi is done! I’m sad because I’ve learned this language, but it isn’t spoken ANYWHERE else, so I can’t really use it. It’s a dialect that is only spoken in particular regions of Ghana. And apparently it’s spoken in some obscure rural area in Germany as well. But that’s it! Sad. That means i must come back to Ghana some day and utilize my Twi.

On a separate note, ISH 2 has no water again. I'm impressed though because we haven't had a water outage in maybe three weeks. They are usually more frequent, but lasting only a day or two, but on two occasions we didn't have running water for four and a half days. It was pretty gnarly. We still get water from the spickets from giant water tanks, but sometimes even those run out. Then the bathrooms get REALLY disgusting. During those four and a half days, we also lost electricity. We haven't had a big electricity outage in maybe a month? But we still have small ones that last a few hours from time to time. ISH 1, the international hostel across from us always has electricity and water because they have a generator. Apparently they forgot to put a generator in ISH 2 when it was built...AFTER ISH 1. ISH 2 gets pretty bitter at ISH 1 when there's no power and water. But the nice thing is that we can just head on over to ISH 1 to charge our electronics and take showers. We have it good though. Several halls on campus hardly ever have running water and residents always have to lug water from the spickets, like Legon and Volta Halls (the all boy and all girl dorms where some EAP students are living at).

Time to sleep so I can be well rested for an intense day of studying.

Drumming and Xylophone

It's revision week, but I have four finals this week. I already completed two exams yesterday morning for drumming and xylophone. I figure since I haven't spent much time discussing my classes, I'll do so after I complete each class final.

It was unfortunate that both my drumming and xylophone practicals were at 9AM Monday morning. BUT it's Ghanaian time, which means it worked itself out since nothing really starts on time here. ISH II was pretty hoppin this past weekend cause everyone started practicing xylophone and drums. So all day saturday and sunday i would hear the same two xylophone songs being played over and over and over again throughout our entire hostel since four people own xylophones here. Once in a while you will hear drumming going on as well. I decided to contribute to the noise on Sunday afternoon for a good 4 hours. I've got battle scars to prove it: a blister on my finger from the xylophone mallets and somehow a small bruise on my finger from drumming. Lame. I feel so bad for all the residents who had to put up with the noise. I've been so brainwashed by all the songs myself that from time to time, i'll hear phantom music playing outside.

Drumming has been one of my favorite classes. We've learned three songs this semester. I love my professor and his organized teaching style. He's a professional drumming master. SUPPER good and can come up with the tightest beats. I wish we could have played music to dancers. I'll try to post some drumming videos when I get back home.

Music practicals are scary. You go into a room and play in front of a panel which includes your professor and two other members of the department. They are all there to evaluate and grade you. It's extremely intimidating. Growing up performing in recitals and concerts, and taking a ton of musical practical exams at cal, you'd think I'd be used to doing this sorta thing, but I still get so nervous before performing in front of people. Drumming was my first practical. We performed in groups of five, each person on one of five instruments: single bell, double bell, rattle, supporting drum, and master drum, and we would rotate through each instrument. I don't really know how well I did. I had some little slip up on each instrument except the rattle and the master drum. Kinda really messed up on supporting drum. Ghanaian drum rhythms are so cool, the way they weave together into super complex beats. There are certain rhythms though, usually with the supporting drum, that I still have a hard time figuring out and understanding its place within a certain piece. Boggles my mind. Ghanaian music is just too crazy good.

Gonna try to buy a djembe and bring it home. Though we didn't play the djembe in this class. It's lighter to carry back with me.

Xylophone

I heard a lot of good things about the xylophone class before classes started but it didn't meet up to my expectations. I definitely prefer drumming over xylophone. The class wasn't very organized and i can't believe we spent the entire semester learning only 2 and a half songs. Basically a pretty slow class. I love the sound of the xylophone though. i want to bring one back to the States with me, but I have no idea how I can lug such a huge instrument onto the plane. =( Guess i'll have to settle for one back home.

I was more freaked out about xylophone than drumming. Anything that involves detailed hand-eye coordination and accuracy over many keys are never good news when i perform cause I get so nervous, my accuracy decreases significantly. good thing I play piano...

After the drumming final i rushed over to the xylophone final and found a bunch of xylophones sitting in the shade of a huge tree where people were practicing. Pretty scared because each person before me had something horrible to say about the panel. They asked a bunch of questions about things our professor never taught us and would mercilessly critique and comment on your performance or oral session. Two panel members even walked out on one girl's performance! and for others they would cut them off in the middle of the piece and tell them to move on to the next song. (The Simon Cowells of Ghana?) None of this settled well with me since I was towards the end of the list. I was determined to take on these unfriendly savages and decided to put on my best Ghanaian charm and mannerism, and buttered them up with a little "Jesus Loves Me This I Know (even if you may not...)" worked into one of my pieces. The practical overall wasn't perfect, but i decided to just have fun with it. who knows when I'll get my hands on a ghanaian xylophone when I get back.

First two exams at U of Ghana! Done! Four more to go. In the midst of exam cramming, we are all freaking out about the fact that we only have about 3 1/2 more weeks before we leave.

Up next: Thursday Twi oral and written exam.

Me and the drumming teach. He's stylin my favorite male Ghanaian top called a smock. I was going to ask the prof for a letter of recommendation after the photo was taken. However, I instantly changed my mind after he got excited about taking a picture and said, "O this is great! A nice picture with Professor Johnson and...(awkward pause)...student..."

Here is me and my xylophone professor, Aaron. Sorry for the awful lighting.

And here is me and Phebe. This is what we do when we study. We play dress up with all the beads from Koforidua bead market.

AhweneE

My Twi class went to Koforidua this afternoon (about 2 hours north of Accra in the Eastern Region) to practice our Twi bargaining skills at the well known ahweneE (bead) market. They have beads/jewelry from all over West Africa. Last night, my Ghanaian friend Phebe grilled me for about an hour on Twi bargaining lingo. She's a a toughie.

Me: AhwenneE wura (bead seller)

Phebe (in the most calm and quiet, but stern voice): No. What are you saying? I don't understand you.

M:AHHH-HWEEE-EH-NAY wuuura (bead seller)

P: No! i have no idea what you are trying to say. Do you know what you are saying? You are saying 'nose.' Why are you talking about noses at a bead market?

Moving on...

M: me pE sE meton ma w-...(I want to sell it)

P: What? Why are you talking about butts?

M: meton

P: No.

M: Tooe-n?

P. No. That is butt.

M: Tooo-own

P: Taw-n

M:Tawn

P:T-AHWWW-N

M:OMYY...woman! That is what I said. TAWN!

P: NO! you keep saying 'butt'!

Yeah. so that went on for a while...

Got to Koforidua and was bargaining for two necklaces made out of fish bones with my mad Twi:

Me: Ne boo yE den paa. (it's too expensive)

Ahwenee wura: WHAT. oh. please...speak English. Your Twi is not good at all.

M: Oh c'mon! Let me practice!

A. Wura: ok...fine

M: MepakyEw, te so. Me yE sukuu--... ("Please lower the price, I'm a stude...")

A. Wura (cuts me off mid sentence unsympathetically, and totally unimpressed by my efforts): Yeaaah yeaaah. 'You're a student, you don't have any money...' I know, i know. It's still 12 GH cedi."

Dang it!

So much for that. I got completely owned by Twi. =P But I ended up getting a really good deal when I told him I had to get money from a friend. He thought I was ditching him ( i really wasn't and honestly was going to return and pay him 10 cedi) so he quickly said "OK OK! 8 cedi! Bring it!" Sweet.

I really enjoyed the market, surprisingly enough, since i normally hate going to markets because of the harassing and bombarding of sellers. The sellers there were way chill compared to what I'm normally used to. You tell them you just want to look first and they'll give you your space. And they don't start at ridiculously outrageous prices. Their rates are actually decent. It was a nice change.

A bunch of the girls bought beautiful waist beads. It's popular among Ghanaian women. You wear a string of small beads around your waist to keep track of your weight. If the beads get tighter, you know you're gaining weight and are forced to inch the beads up a little higher. No one is supposed to see them because they're lingerie status. Interesting eh? Ashley's been trying to get me to buy some for months. Finally bought a few today. She's been breaking me. First banku, then Glee, and now waist beads? What next?

The market was an all-day ordeal since it was so far away. I was super tired when I got home. Watched an episode of Glee (SOO addicted, by the way), and met up with Prosper, the guy I'm working with on the NGO he is starting. Talked a lot about logistics, strategy plans, manual formatting, etc. It's weird going into this stuff, just cause I haven't had much background in all this mumbo jumbo administrative business that goes into starting an NGO. But it's actually pretty interesting and I'm learning a lot. Sometimes i feel like I'm in way over my head. I also don't really enjoy working with Prosper. I think most of it has to do with the fact that he was trying to holler at me in the beginning, and later kept asking me to hook him up with a White girl. I was so put off by his unprofessionalism and haven't liked him much ever since. It's all business when we meet now.

Officially the last day of lectures tomorrow! I don't have any lectures, just one tutorial. Wow. I can't believe it. Only about a month to go. There's still so much I want to do and learn. I wish i did the year-long program. =( But i'll be home soon! I'm definitely looking forward to that.

Meanwhile...

All this posting on old news. Here's what's going on present day.

Last week of lectures! I had my last lecture today. =( I tried to do a lot of video recording today. I'm gonna attempt to make a video titled "A Day in the Life of Joy in Ghana." Unfortunately, i can't load or save ANYTHING else onto my laptop because for some reason, my hardrive is completely full already. It doesn't make any sense because my docs, music, and pics don't meet the max capacity. I have no idea what's taking up so much space. it's driving me insane.

So if you guys want to see anymore recent pictures of what i've been up to, you gotta tell me how I can get hardrive space back. =P It's a plea for help.

Well, on with my week. I'm studying a lot more now since i have four final exams next week! (sorta caught me by surprise. but two of them are music classes. phew.)

Northern Ghana Part 2 - Your favorite sandwich filling

Learning from our experience from the days before, none of the girls in my room set alarm clocks and we all just got up when we wanted to or when we heard others getting up. Banku for breakfast again. The most expensive banku we've had...5 cedi! Split among 3 people. We could barely finish it.

We stopped at a small village for a very short time and chatted with a villager who was carving a stirring stick used to make banku and TZ. (don't quite know what TZ is...i assume it is something similar to banku.)

Villager carving a stirring stick

Our next stop was Lansia. The villagers didn't appear as friendly or welcoming. Here we tasted their traditional beer called pito, made from maize, millets, or dillicon. They also sold shea butter! Only 10 peswas a ball! I bought two. They made DELICIOUS kosi with some kind of pepper that topped it off perfectly. I can't find that pepper anywhere. We continued on into the village to interview two seventy to eighty year-old women with lip piercings (one hole above the top lip, one hole below the bottom lip) formally holding padlocks. (silly me kept holding the shea butter balls in a bag and only just realized that they were melting really really fast. Didn't really know what to do with them so I handed them to some villages kids in hopes that they would go put it in a basin of water to keep it from melting and save it for future use. They just held on to it giving me a "What the heck do you expect me to do with this, stupid oburuni?" kinda look.) So you wanna hear about the padlocked women eh? Well in the past, such piercings were considered fashionable and conducted to attract men. However, authorities have banned the practice, which is why we didn't see younger women with such piercings. Padlocks were used to prevent wife kidnappings. This way they were not able to talk with their abductors. Furthermore, padlocks were used to keep wives from talking with visitors. The typical, male authoritative, controlling power kinda deal. The women we talked with wore plugs in their holes.

Me and some village women with pito beer. FYI, the drinking age is 18 in Ghana, and don't worry, I didn't drink the entire bowl.

One village women who formerly had a padlocked mouth

We stopped at a large market in Wucheau. Walked around a bit, bought some garbanzo beans + gari for lunch. Also fell in love with a beesap hibiscus juice that you drink out of a sachet bag. YUM! We spent the next seven hours driving further north to Bolga. It wasn't an enjoyable ride. The roads were extremely dusty because it was no longer paved. Dust started flying into our bus through the ventilation system and attacked us. It was SO stinkin dusty that they distributed face masks. It was difficult to breath and I was convinced that I'd have asthma by the end of the trip. When we reached our destination and the bus lights were turned on, we found one of the passengers completely covered in dust! I abandoned my contacts after this day and went with the glasses cause of all the dust. New accommodations that night. Not as nice as the night before, but better than the first night. About 30 beds in one room.

Blood. I mean hibiscus juice.

Next day: Ghana's 53rd Independence Day! We didn't do anything special regarding the holiday. Stopped by the transit center for breakfast and ate...guess what? banku. We visited Paga, famous for their crocodile ponds. We visited one village with a crocodile pond which supposedly held up to 200 crocodiles. We paid a small fee to have the community members lure crocs out of the pond by feeding them live chickens. They attempted to call out the largest croc to shore, but were unsuccessful. Apparently the largest croc ate a sheep earlier that day, so we settled for the second largest croc. We all took turns sitting/crouching/touching the beast. It was pretty thrilling. I was kinda hesitant at first because it's a wild croc. Meaning, it could turn on you at any point in time, and I'm sure the villager's measly little tree branch sticks weren't going to stop the animal from taking me down. We all had our turn and thankfully left with the same amount of people we came with. I love what our tour packet says about the crocodile experience: “Relax, express your anxieties and enjoy your experiences.” What if screaming your head off is how you express your anxieties? That obviously conflicts with relaxing and enjoying.

Me and the cute lil' croc

Next up, Ghana-Burkina Faso boarder post. It was pretty uneventful. We walked through No Man’s Land. While the residents of No Man’s Land are under no governmental rule, they do have elders of the village who enforce peace and justice when necessary. Note, "when necessary," because when I pulled out a camera to take a few pictures, some people in my group frantically told me to put it away because a lot of residents of no man's land have been known to take cameras away and destroy them. And with no real governmental rule, who's to stop 'em? It's ok though, cause I was still able to get in a few shots. =)

Our next visit was to the Pikoro Slave Camp. Here we visited a rock city where slaves were taken. Their faces were marked with hot iron and five to six slaves would be chained to a tree. They drank from small water holes and grinded stones into rocks to form pathetically minimal holes out of which about five slaves would share a meal. This in turn resulted in malnutrition and starvation. There was a market place for slave buying and a punishment rock where a slave sat with hands and feet bound, and was forced to stare at the sun all day. There existed a three-strike rule where a slave was killed to serve as an example to the rest of the camp if he/she were to be punished three times. The scenery was gorgeous. I wish we had more time here. I wanted to sit and mediate about the history that is the slave camp. But as usual, rush rush rush. (Interesting enough, while we were visiting an ex-slave camp, some other friends who didn't accompany us on the tour went north west that weekend and witnessed present-day child slavery in Ghana.)

The minimally carved grooves in the rocks from which the slaves ate their meals at Pikoro Slave Camp

Notice how sparse the land is compared to the green forest at the beginning of the trip

Off to Tongo where we visited the Tenzuk Chief Palace. The village is built in the mountains. The housing highly resembled the rocky surroundings, and blended right into nature. Here we learned about a very traditional community in which heavy rituals were performed. For example, the fact that our fully clothed tour group was even allowed into the village is attributed to a lengthy cleansing ritual involving the sacrifice of three cows and thirty sheep, for they were entering a harvest festival season in which no clothing was required. Men were topless and women wrapped towels around their bodies. We spent some time interviewing the chief in front of the palace. There was a man sitting at the chief's feet and he kept on shouting "NA!" while the chief was talking. I thought he was trying to call out to one of the many children running around the village. The chief would be speaking, "blah blah blah...explaining something important..." "NA!" "Blah blah blah explain explain" "NA! NA! NA!" Me thinking to self: "for goodness sake, man! Get your lazy butt off the floor and find Na yourself!" Turns out, Na isn't a person, but an interjection, to confirm whatever the chief was saying. So at the end of every phrase/pause, the man would yell "NA!" Which grew tiresome because I could never hear the beginning of the chief's phrases. I think it's pretty similar to all the "Amen!" "yes, Lord," and "Mmmhm's" that you hear in church during a sermon or a prayer. =P Anwaaayyys... The village was a labyrinth. You could easily get lost. Some of us lingered on the palace rooftop for a while to take pictures of the village from above, but was scolded because we were warned not to exit the same way we entered, and if we were to get lost, a complex ritual must be conducted before the rescue. Ancestor and idol worship is highly prevalent. Consultation of deities and shrines occur when the village people have problems and need help. Over three hundred people live in the chief’s palace, seventeen of which are his wives. I was really interested in listening to the tour guide talk about traditional values/practices, but it was difficult for me to hear the tour guide as village children swarmed all the obrunis, linking onto our hands and arms and keeping us from getting close enough to listen to the information concerning the community, though I had a delightful time playing with the children. Note, the picture I posted in an earlier entry as a teaser from this trip was from this village.

Me n the chief

View of a part of the village from the palace rooftop

On our way to our destination, Ashley gets a call from her roommate asking if she was alright because apparently there was an outbreak of spinal meningitis in the north. Huzzah.

We went to a sit down restaurant for dinner, which was a big mistake because most restaurants I've been to that are run by Ghanaians tend to have ridiculously slow service. They usually have a very small kitchen and only two cooks. We ended up waiting about... an hour and a half for our food.

An awesome two days.

PICTURE UPDATE

Just letting you know that I added some pictures into my last post! Have a looker.

Ghana Tour Part 1 - The dry tasteless bread

I’ll write it in three parts and label it just as my friend Ashley did on her blog after we agreed that our trip was very much like your favorite sandwich served with bad bread. (I'll also be jacking a few snippets from Ashley's blog cause she explained certain things pretty well.) By the way, i tried loading pictures but it's taking too long. pictures will be in another post. sorry!

We left on the Spring Tour 2010 trip on March 3rd. The Adult Education Department makes the trip up north every year, but basically anyone is invited. There were about 60 people on the trip over all, 15 of which were college-aged Oburuni’s, and all the rest were older adults. We were told to meet at 5AM. So up I woke at 4 and scurried around in the dark and rolled my wheelie suitcase through the dirt road towards our meeting spot, all the while beating myself up over the fact that I forgot to bring a bed sheet (a lot of hostels here don’t have bed sheets. Ew!) Of course, with typical Ghanaian time, we didn’t even end up leaving until 7:30! We had to wait for a couple of sleepy stragglers. There were two buses: one large tour bus and one smaller mini bus. We drew lottery to decide which bus to sit on, because apparently a lot of drama occurred in the past over seating arrangements. FINALLY we were off!

We started the tour on campus at Legon Hill which overlooked a lot of Accra, including Haatso, Agboba, Madina, Adenta, and further to the Akwapim Hills. We observed the rapid urbanization in Accra, which is quickly overtaking the natural hills of Akwapim. Ashley and I knocked out the moment we got onto the bus because we both only slept about 3 or 4 hours that night. Here are a few things I learned in between sleep, Ghana is green! As we journeyed through Akwapim and Koforidua I was refreshed by the change in scenery of luscious green forests, which is quite a contrast to Accra’s minimally green surroundings. Sadly, Ghana is battling with deforestation, which is occurring in order to make room for concretization and farmlands.

View of Accra from Legon Hill on campus

The group listening to a quick lecture on the hill

Green

Then we stopped in Koforidua (? I think…) for lunch. 2 hours into the trip, Ashley had already started complaining that she really needed to eat banku. The moment she said banku, I knew I was in for it. She recently developed a newfound obsession over the Ghanaian dish, which is basically a sticky sour dough made from fermented corn/cassava that is served with soup and meat, and is eaten with your hands. She is crazy about banku. It doesn’t help that she craves it at every meal. It also doesn’t help that she has the fastest metabolism I’ve ever seen. So the moment she steps out of the bus she’s hunting down some banku. I for one had only tried banku once before the trip and wasn’t a huge fan of it. We walked all over town and finally found a small chop bar (cheap limited menu restaurant that usually just serves banku, fufu (basically the same thing as banku except the dough has a different consistency and taste), and some form of rice (jollof, white, or fried). We shared a ball of banku with groundnut soup, okru, and chicken. I gotta quietly admit, I kinda started liking it a little. Ok fine. A lot. Needless to say, I ate a lot of banku during the trip.

Unflattering picture of me eating banku. The banku is in the right bowl. Ground nut soup and okru are in the left bowl.

Then off we went through Kumasi, where Ghana’s trademark cloth Kente is made. We stopped for a short lecture about plate tetonics and global warming, where we had a great view of the Kwahu Mountain. We headed towards Sunyani, our destination for the night. Sunyani is less urbanized. Unfortunately it’s also undergoing a transformation towards urbanization, so more deforestation. We stayed at a worker’s college that is actually a part of the University of Ghana. An interesting experience to say the least. The place wasn’t finished being built, there was no running water, and the very hot and poorly ventilated small room I stayed in had about 12 bunk beds crammed inside. Sleep was pretty awful.

The next day they told us to be ready by 6am so I put my alarm clock on at 5:20 and I was packed and ready by six. Unfortunately I always forget we are on Ghanaian time so I don’t think we left until 9 or 10ish. That is a frustrating yet common theme throughout the trip. Oh! I also tried kosi for the first time that morning! It’s basically mashed beans rolled into a ball and fried. It looks like a dougnut hole. Yum!!

Baby goats practicing their head butting at Sunyani worker's college. Too stinkin cute.

Some more excerpts from the report I wrote (you can kinda tell by my writing which sections of this entry were just "copy +paste." )

Continued to observe rainforest depletion, and more dry grasslands. We learned that farmers in the area migrate from the Upper West Region to intentionally create savannah land. In order to sustain savannah crops meant to be planted in the Upper West such as groundnuts, yams, maize, etc, such crops require the blazing sun in order to prosper. Because of this, farmers will rid the land of trees (mostly via fire burning, which we observed a lot of during our night drives) in order to eliminate shade, which hinders the growth of savannah crops. There are currently no existing policies for assigned/segregated planting. Additionally, tick plants are high competitors, keeping other plants from growing properly on the land. We enter the transitional zone, where the land is neither savannah nor forest, but somewhere in between. We continue on into a region of savannah woodland (as opposed to savannah grassland), where the land is largely savannah, but still sustains scattered trees.

Our next stop was Konsia, where we visited and interacted with the people of the village. We met with the chief of the community and got to discuss some community challenges that include obtaining portable water and a well. We discussed the government’s plan for all children to receive IT skills, however, many people in the village have never seen a computer. Even if they were to obtain such devices, it would be difficult to acquire electricity to utilize them. In regards to healthcare, the people must travel to the next town to see a doctor. Most community members here are Christians or Muslims. They don’t practice traditional religions. Entertainment includes radios, football, and occasional spokespersons that come to educate and speak to the town. The people plant tick trees in order to produce timber. They give the timber to the government and receive compensation in return. They also have laws to control premarital pregnancies. A likely punishment is a fine charged towards the parents of the pregnant individual. They talked for a long long time, unfortunately they spoke in some other language (Twi I think?), and my friend Immanuel got bored of translating after a while, so I only obtained the above information. All the Oburunis, not being able to understand what was going on, went into the village to interact with other community members. I met a few women and children pounding cassava. They allowed me to give it a pound, and they couldn’t stop laughing while I was doing so. I also played with a baby girl who was extremely malnourished given her big belly and protruding bellybutton.

Konsia village woman pounding what appears to be pepper

Konsia village kids

Konsia village huts

Konsia villagers pounding casava

Then off to Forikrom where we visited the Forikrom Bote Shrine and Magic Cave. They were more like rock formations than caves. Reminded me a lot of rock city in Mt Diablo. We hiked through the formations and miraculously enough, my knees weren’t doing so bad! The scenery was gorgeous. Then off to Nkwanta village where they harvest biki (sp?) beans and honey. These communities are called “Little London” since the British introduced such skills as honey production to the rural areas. On our way to our final destination, we stopped by a beautiful mosque. They people allowed us to climb on the spokes that protruded from the walls and even allowed us to go inside with a small fee (of course. Even though you’re not supposed to go into a mosque if you’re not Muslim…).

Forikrom rocks

Decked out in beekeeping gear

Mosque

This was taken at a different village we visited that specialized in making gari, a sandy, tangy topping that is added into many Ghanaian foods. Here is a woman stirring gari over a fire.

Arrived in Wa at another worker’s camp with the best sleeping accommodations during the entire trip! Only 8 girls to a room, WITH a ceiling fan, running water, and showers! It felt like a 5-star hotel. The downside about the first two days of the trip was the fact that we didn’t spend as much time as I’d liked to at each site. We kinda just stopped, said hi to people, chatted with a few villagers, took a few pictures, had a short lecture, got back on the bus and drove to the next destination. I wished we stayed longer at each site so we could properly take it all in. No real deep connections with the villagers we met, no time to fully appreciate the scenery we saw. I felt pretty rushed at every stop. Hence the dry, tasteless bread at the base of a delicious sandwich.