We finally had decent African-wet season rain today, although it was pretty short lived (about an hour or two) but I did take advantage of it, running around and doing errands. The rain really cools the land down; I feel almost tempted to throw on a sweatshirt. Even now, several hours after coming out of the rain, the humidity has kept me from drying off. The rain here makes the dirt, which is like a burnt red anyway, look absolutely striking and colorful and it emphasizes how lush everything here really is. Its truly a beautiful sight. Its Monday right now and I have still not had a class. Tomorrow looks to be promising; I have six hours of class scheduled which will be the bulk of my class for the week. It will be interesting ... read more

Hellooooo! The strike finally ended Wednesday but that hasn't actually led to the resumption of classes. I got up early that day to trek to my class...and it is literally a trek. The building is on the other side of campus from us and is about a mile away; at least it gets the blood flowing in the morning. However, my professor didn't show up (supposedly it will take a couple of days to get things moving again). Hopefully, by next week things will be 'back to normal' of course none of us international students have really figured out what normal is yet. I did have a compulsory USAC class on Thursday. The class is a survey class where we cover a different topic relating to Africa and Ghana each week. This week was about slavery ... read more

And I'm back... So Friday was our first free day on campus, which was spent registering for classes mainly. Here, you have to go department to department to sign up for your classes; it is a very time consuming process but not dissimilar from what they used to do in like the 70s for college. It made me think how Ghana is sort of slammed between two eras -- its like a bit of the present (some of the cars, the internet, cell phones, etc.) but with a hint of the 70s thrown in. Honestly though, any tropical place like this seems a bit nostalgic to me, I think partly because things just looked so aged in this type of environment. I spent my afternoon playing basketball outside with some of the locals...and did surprisingly well ... read more

We finally went on our Accra city tour today. The city rocks but can be very overwhelming. We went to this place call the Ad Market downtown. It was cool cause I got a drum (sweet!) and an African shirt (cut low enough to have a little chest hair come through...its hot, i know). But this place was pretty intense; I've been in situations where I have had to haggle before but man was this different. I felt like I was three year old at a convention of priests with the way everyone was grabbing me! I held on to my wallet, thank god, but its been a while since I've had that many hands on me at once! We also went to Oxford Street, which has more street hawkers than you could imagine. And since ... read more

Greeting from Ghana!! I am an internet cafe waiting to register for classes which is an incredibly painful process compared to the states. But besides that, everything is great! It is pretty unbelievable to be sitting in West Africa right now....although it is quite moist. My first interaction with a native Ghanian was a nice gentlemen at the airport who grabbed my armed, rubbed it, and exclaimed 'I like your bodeee' to which I replied, 'Who doesnt? Now take me!!'...well everything except for the last part. I found out that he was hitting on me for a tip...here's a tip, get a better pick up line! My room is pretty basic and comparable to a room you would find in Nye hall but with an overhead fan. The evening are surprisingly comfortable and even the humidity ... read more

I am officially one week away from departing for Ghana. This time next week, I'll be in a plane crossing the pond on my way to Accra. I have slowly begun my preparations for departure. I've got the malaria drugs at the ready, enough bug repellent to kill half the bugs in Africa, the mosquito net, the knives, first aid kit, etc. I feel more like I'm packing for a trip into the backcountry than for a semester abroad. Nonetheless, I'm already so excited that I can barely sleep at night, that nervous-anxious-excitement that you got as a kid when you knew you were going to Disneyland or had presents to open the next morning. A good deal of the excitement is that feeling of jumping into the unknown. I don't think I have ever experienced ... read more