knicknack11

This weekend I travelled to Ghana’s eastern neighbor, Togo, to celebrate Easter. Lome, the capital city is only about 3 hours from Accra and it is also right on the ocean. For the last hour of driving the road is only partially paved and even the paved parts have lots of potholes, so it was a very bumpy ride. Togo was a French colony, and therefore it is very different from Ghana, which was colonized by the British. Since I didn’t venture outside Lome, I can’t comment on the entire country, but I can compare the capital city to Accra. Lome is much much smaller than Accra. I don’t have access to exact figures of size or population, but let me give you a sense of the small community feel it has. For the three days ... read more

Volunteering at the primary school didn’t work out for me, unfortunately. However, I’ve just begun a new volunteering project at an orphanage in East Legon, fairly close to campus. It seems to be one of the nicer orphanages from what I’ve heard of other places so they may not need the most help, but with just over a month left in Ghana, it’s the only place organized enough to take on volunteers within that time. Compared to the kids I see on the streets with their mothers selling things, I think these orphans have a more comfortable life. The property is rather beautiful and the building itself was probably converted from one of the upper class homes into an orphanage. The kids are divided into three living quarters, one for babies, girls, and boys. There are ... read more

Sorry I haven’t posted in so long; things have been really busy lately. So this post is from two weekends ago, March 28th and 29th. It has been one of my goals while I’m in Ghana to see a football match (aka soccer game) since the sport is such a big part of the culture. The Black Stars is Ghana’s national football team, and they were playing in Kumasi for a World Cup qualifier game, so my friends and I decided to make the trek out to see them. The official home stadium of the Black Stars is right here in Accra, but Togo was playing there because they are not allowed to play at home any more because their fans get too violent. So not only would the Ghana match be safer, but we would ... read more

Tim arrived in Accra late last Friday night, and even his first experience here was truly Ghanaian, which was frustrating for both of us. Several times my roommate had promised to bring me to a hotel where Tim could stay close to campus, but she never ended up taking me. She did, however, give me the phone number so I made reservations and the taxi driver could get directions. When we finally arrived, after stopping for about 10 minutes because the hotel would not answer the phone to provide further directions, we found no one working at reception even though they promised to wait for us to arrive. Our driver kindly took us to another hotel down the street, and insisted that we pay an extra 10 cedi (a 100% increase) for all of the trouble ... read more

I wrote this blog entry after my trip to Mole the first weekend in March. Sorry it's so late! This past weekend, my program took us tot the northern region to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana (after Accra) and the center of the Asante kingdom and to Mole National Park. It took about 5 hours to get to Kumasi and then another 7 to reach Mole, which is about 2/3 of the way north. Ghana is about the size of Oregon, which gives you an idea about the traffic and conditions of the road. The road to Mole from the main highway was 81km of the bumpiest dirt road I have ever experienced. That portion of the drive took us 2 hours and twice my head hit the top of the van due to ... read more

I will preface this entry by saying that I am posting out of chronological order because I forgot to save last week's post on my jump drive. Expect very soon to hear about my trip up north last weekend! The past couple days have been long and there’s been a lot to deal with. Tuesday I spent four hours walking between offices and waiting for people to return from lunch and meetings. At the university, students must register online for final exams in order to receive credit for the course. However, there was a block on my account and it told me to go to the registry. In typical Ghanaian fashion, the man I needed to see was taking a two hour lunch, and still managed to be 15 minutes late. There I found I owed ... read more

Wednesday I went to a Catholic Primary school to set up my volunteer work for the rest of the semester. I went with another girl from my program and when we arrived it was recess. The campus was enclosed by a few one story buildings that formed a big square and the children were running around inside this area. In the center of the courtyard was an open-air church with an altar and crucifix on the wall. The teachers were here having a meeting about new disciplinary rules and we were told to wait there for the headmistress. While we were waiting, one of the teachers was filling us in on what the meeting was about. Apparently, a 13 year old girl had been caught writing a love note to a boy the same age. This ... read more

This past weekend most of the girls from my group and I went to the beach to celebrate our friend Margaret’s 21st birthday. We traveled about 6 hours west of Accra to the resort town of Busua and the more isolated Butre, and I must say I think those beaches are the most beautiful places that I have ever been! I will try to post pictures, because words won’t do enough to describe it. Picture the perfect postcard image of a white sand beach, sparkling blue water, palm trees, and hammocks. In Butre, there were fishing villages on either side of the hotel where we stayed - far away enough so that we didn’t bother/get bothered by the locals, but close enough to add to the charm and atmosphere of the beach. We could watch the ... read more

In the past couple weeks I have been trying to set up a place to volunteer. I want to work with children either in an orphanage or primary school, but it has not yet worked out. Last Wednesday I went to the Salvation Army Headquarters in Ghana with the volunteer coordinator from the University and a few other girls. We thought we would have the opportunity to work with street boys, possibly as tutors, mentors, or administrators, but the officers at the Salvation Army just wanted us to raise funds so they could build a shed for the boys to keep their schoolwork and other possessions so they would not get dirty or lost on the streets. As of now, the organization only provides dinner and a Bible study for the boys on Tuesday night and ... read more

This weekend I went back to the Volta Region with the girls from my group to see the monkey sanctuary. It was our first time taking a trip on our own and I felt like I had a “real” African experience because we spent the night on the outskirts of a village called Tafi Atome and interacted with the local people as well as the monkeys. And it helped that we didn’t pull up in a huge air conditioned tour bus with a guide. It took three hours by tro-tro to arrive, and then the sanctuary was 5km down a dirt road. Three local girls helped us down the road until we found a pick up truck that gave us a ride the rest of the way. Once we got there we met Emmanuel who would ... read more