ichaselions

By this time tomorrow, I will be waiting to board my flight back to the United States. That's right...after four months on the dark continent I will finally be returning home. It's crazy to think that this adventure is coming to an end. Last year, around this time, I remember talking with my family about my Africa related excitement, slowly starting to plan for a world 8,000 miles away that I couldn't fathom. I spent time in class day dreaming about what it was going to be like coming here, coming to a third world country that most people couldn't point out on a map if you asked them to. And now, I'm leaving. I think about how far I've come in the past few months from that shell shocked fellow who was being grabbed and ... read more

I was we would say in Ghana...I have gone and come. Rachel and I left to go to Benin on Wednesday. I'd like to say we got up bright and early but considering we were up in moving before the sun...we just got up early. We hoped on a bus bound for Aflao, the border crossing point to go into Togo and of course got the bus without air conditioning, hooray!! But we did see an old woman who looked exactly like E.T. which basically made my day... Unlike my last time going through Togo, crossing in this time was pretty easy, thanks in part to the fact that we bought our visas ahead of time. Needless to say, I was a bit relieved not to have to deal with threats to my physical safety or ... read more

Its been some time since I've written...I don't really have an excuse because I haven't really done much with my time. Without classes and finals most of my time has been spent sitting on my pretty behind. I've gotten some productive things done -- I did an outline for my thesis, got some shopping done before coming home, and enjoyed some leisurely reading. The days have been hot and long and I generally try to find little ways to try and make them seem shorter...sleeping through most of the heat, watching movies, playing soccer and football and things like that. I would have liked to gotten more work done over the internet but alas its been pretty crappy across campus and "service" I subscribe to is about as terrible and frustrating as can be so blog ... read more

It feels like its been ages since I have been on this thing and I apologize. The internet across the country has been mediocre at best and the connection I have in my room has been down. I got a partial explanation of why everything is so slow here. There are basically a handful of companies (a few years ago there were literally only two) that control all the bandwith coming into the country, which is summarily divided up between all the internet carriers. Thus, there is very little bandwith to go around for a lot of people meaning that we all have to suffer slow to totally not-working internet. In the meantime I have emails and Facebook notifications that I am slowly working on responding too...so don't worry, just cause you haven't heard from me ... read more

I thought I'd take this wonderful break from "studying" to update you on my exciting life that is. Classes have basically ended...during the first week of November...which means we had two months worth of class and I can hardly say its been intensive. I have two finals this week for the same class -- a written Twi final tomorrow and an oral Twi final on Wednesday. I hope to do well...I've been studying but lord only knows how they will go. We all know my track record with languages... It remains to be seen where the rest of my finals will fall. I have a drumming class that will end this week but no one knows when the final will be. And apparently, we will have a final for our USAC culture class next week and ... read more

Dear Barack, I woke up to a new world today. I literally saw the sun rise on a world that is full of hope for you and what you can do. Fifty years ago, the idea that you, a black man in America, could be president would have been laughable. But last night, the tradition of hundreds of years of racism on our shores was dealt a massive blow and the cause of equality was lifted up like it hasn't been before. This was bigger than the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement -- there was no violence here, no blood shed, no fire hoses, or riot gear. There was the realization that we, finally, were ready for a new dawn; this was a victory of ideas, a victory of the belief that the idea ... read more

Good morning world! I've had a variety of things going on lately. The most interesting at the moment is my meetings and discussions with members of influential government and non-governmental actors involved with HIV/AIDS in Ghana. I've been learning a lot about how the world really works on the ground here and how full of inconsistencies publications and statements made by certain groups are. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the things that I'm trying to get accomplished right now I can't exactly publicly dive into what I'm finding out. But I can tell you its crazy stuff!! And Corey...I hope you appreciate how vague and clandestine I'm making this sound, ha! In other news, Halloween Africa style was entertaining. I dressed up as Quailman!! It was sweet...although I got some strange reactions from Ghanaians when ... read more

Hello World!! Well first things first --- I have fully recovered from malaria, hooray!! I got very lucky all in all. I caught it early and was able to get to the doctor before it did any real damage. So with the exception of being on bed rest for a few days having the achy joints of an 80 year old man I wasn't too miserable. I just hope that the drugs killed all the little parasites. Even if they didn't I don't have much to complain about...my friend Kristine who I have wrote about in the past went home yesterday because of how ill she was and has been. The poor girl had some crazy mutated strain of malaria and then a Parasite of Doom (not the medical term) that has kept her in bed ... read more

So a variety of personal news to report. First things first: I have shaved my beard off. Its been a dramatic change. I haven't seen my face without any fur on it for about a year and so it was no surprise I didn't recognize myself. Many people are asking what precipitated the need for such dramatic change? The answer is really I was tired of all the damn attention I got from Ghanaians who thought I looked like Jesus. It was a bit unnerving to have bus loads and crowds of people yelling it at me and annoying to have women spanking as I went through markets (side note: you see the second coming and your first reaction is to spank him...really?). It simply needed to come off. I may grow back a little scruff ... read more

Story time... Three days ago at this point (Saturday), a good portion of the international students ventured over to Sekondi-Takoradi to watch a soccer game between Ghana (The Black Stars) and Lesotho. Twas no ordinary soccer game though; this was a World Cup qualifier increasing the importance of the game. We wanted to get tickets for the match before we even got to the stadium, but that, like many other things in Ghana, was impossible, of course. The tickets didn't go on sale until the day of the game but we had multiple assurances that it would be easy to get in. We took this for what it was worth and departed at 7am on Saturday morning. We chartered a tro-tro like we often do and after a bit of negotiating the driver and I agreed ... read more