This weekend we traveled to Cape Coast, a 4 hour drive from Accra. What should have been an uneventful drive up, turned in to a rather chaotic one. We arrived at a police barricade an hour into our drive. We were signaled to pull over to the side of the road by a police officer totting a rather large gun. When we pulled over one of the Ghanaian passengers in the car, Kojo, told us to drive off. 10 minutes later a taxi carrying the same two police officers drove up beside us and told us to stop. When we did [View Full Entry]

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The Volta Region is located in the eastern region of Ghana and about 20 minutes from Togo - a small country that borders Ghana on the East. On Friday afternoon Julie and I went to the STC Bus Station to buy bus tickets to Hoe Ho, the town in which we would be staying. When we arrived at the bus station we were told that we were at the wrong station and that we would have to travel to central Accra to purchase tickets. At this point Julie and I were hot, sweaty and frustrated, so we got a drink and [View Full Entry]

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T.I.G. If you have ever found yourself watching Blood Diamond, then perhaps at the end of the movie you recall the saying T.I.A - This is Africa! Well for all of us African enthusiasts here in Ghana we have altered that phrase to T.I.G (this is Ghana). We use the phrase T.I.G to illustrate that whatever is going on would be something that would never happen in the states. Here are some T.I.G. moments that I have encountered here in Ghana. - There is no such thing as hot water - Almost getting in a crash at least 10 times every [View Full Entry]

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PICTURES! [View Full Entry]

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Classes officially began on Monday, too bad the University forgot to tell the departments that because timetables were not posted until midday on Monday, and the History department timetables weren’t posted until Wednesday. I will never take another US registration for granted and the luxury of being able to register for classes online in the comfort of your own room. Here at the University of Ghana they do things a little differently. To register for classes you have to walk to each department, look at the classes that are offered because even though they are in the course catalogue doe [View Full Entry]

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After returning home (wow I can’t believe I am already calling this place home) from Kumasi and taken a much needed cold shower I headed to the International Student dinner. The dinner was for the individual students who applied directly to the University of Ghana and had come on there own as opposed to doing it though programs like ISEP or CIEE. Although I feel that doing it through a program would had made the first few weeks in Ghana so much having you day planned out to a tee, going on trips, and having the daunting task of registration done [View Full Entry]

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After failing at class registration me and a group of friends (Franciscka from Germany, Julie from New York/ Mount Holyoke, and Priscilla from Hong Kong/ University of Alberta) decided to travel to Kumasi. Kumasi is about 5 hours north of Accra and is home to the largest market in West Africa, as well as the Ashanti King's palace. We left for Kumasi on Wednesday morning at 5am to avoid traffic in Accra. When we arrived in Kumasi I had to use the bathroom, so I asked a woman near a chop shop if there was a bathroom I could use. She [View Full Entry]

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I finally made it into Accra a week or two ago. We took a tro-tro into the city, and I have never had as many near crash experiences in my life. On the way there we passed the Presidential Palace. It is such a different looking piece of architecture, lots of glass and looks to have some Chinese architectural influences (ill post pictures later). Anyways Accra is a massive street market that sells everything and anything! It is about 5 times as crowded as NYC and all you hear is “Obruni (white person), but this!”, or “obruni come over here”, or [View Full Entry]

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here goes a second time, I thought I saved the last one but apparently not. I went to Commonwealth Hall the other day - it is an all male dormitory on the top of campus. Before we went in we were told that woman are not allowed to wear any red inside. I guess red is a color of power and authority and therefore woman cannot where it in this hall... Anyways the hall was beautiful, there were a bunch or courtyard, and the architecture was beautiful. There were also about a million lizards all of which were the size of [View Full Entry]

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FRIDAY: I am finally here! I got here on Friday after a 2 day long flight/sleepover at Heathrow Airport in London. Never again will I spend the night in an airport. Anyways Ghana is very different from anything I have ever experienced, the first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the smell, it smelt like a horse barn, wet dog, and sweat all rolled into one. After I got off the plane they directed us to the Ghana Border, where they check visas and yellow cards. I already had a 90 visa but the man at the [View Full Entry]

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