lyssapoague

i'm trying to remember what i've done since i wrote last.. i have a hard time deciding what will be worth writing about.. there are some things that were really interesting to me when i first got here, but seem normal to me now. we had planned on going up to dotey island (on lake volta) with our rasta friends for the weekend but it ended up not working out, so taylor and i decided to spend a couple of days in ada foah instead. ada foah is best known in ghana for the estuary where the volta river meets the atlantic ocean and the nearby town big ada. we met someone in ada foah who showed us around a little - we hung out by the river and later at a bar where we danced ... read more

i didn't have a camera for a month or so, so the pictures from togo and kumasi are from anouk and taylor -explaining why i have a lot more from green turtle and ada foah.. the past few trips have been really good for pictures.... read more

Last wednesday, my indigenous religion class visited a traditional shrine. field trips here aren't as easy as in the states -there are probably 400 people in this class so the whole thing took four hours longer than it was supposed to. still, it was really interesting. the shrine wasn't what i had imagined at all. it was pretty much a designated building where the appointed traditional priests work. the only noticable differences between a normal building were that you had to remove your shoes before entering, couldn't cross your legs while inside or bring in any food containing salt. the priests talked to us for awhile and explained what they do and how the heirarchy works. before we left, they said a blessing for us using shnapps. it was cool to see what we've been talking ... read more

Alright, I know I’ve been slacking lately. But in my defense, the electricity has been going out a lot so I haven’t even gone near my computer lately. I’ll backtrack a bit. Last weekend the entire ISEP group went to Kumasi. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana located in the ashanti region, about a five hour drive north of accra. Traveling as a big group of obruni’s is such a different experience as traveling in a small group. I prefer the latter but it was still a fun trip and much easier than having to personally make all the arrangements. The first place we visited was the royal palace -although Ghana is democratic, the king still has cultural importance. While there, I was given the name asantewaa by our guide which is the same ... read more

last friday morning, anouk, taylor and i headed out for togo, the country directly east of ghana. getting there was fairly uneventful but we drove through the volta region which was really was beautiful. after a few hours we arrived in aflao. we got through immigrations and realized that lome, the capital city of togo was just on the other side of the border -we had expected to have to travel further into the country to get there. after exchanging currency -cedis to francs- we headed down the main road of lome. the first thing we saw after crossing the border was the beach about twenty yards to our right. the waves were really intense so swimming was out of the question, but the water was a lot warmer than it is at any of the ... read more

haven't gotten pictures from volta yet, but kevin made this video - ... read more

Alright, go back a couple weeks to when sarah and I made a second attempt at getting our packages from the states. We headed to the post office on a week day; there was a lot less traffic so we got there a lot quicker than the week before. When you get a package through the postal service here, you have to open it at the post office in front of a customs officer so they can charge you the appropriate taxes. The amount you end up paying is pretty much at the employee’s discretion so it’s best to be very agreeable with them. I had done this and was about to pay for my package when the customs officer asked me to hand her one of the boxes of granola bars inside my package. She ... read more

classes haven’t been too exciting but have gotten much better lately. i’ve gotten more used to having 3-4 hour blocks of classes and the lecture style of most classes. i really like the literature class -the professor used to teach at cornell so her teaching style is much different than in most of my classes. this is also the only class i’ve had an actual assignment in. drumming is probably my favorite and the rest of them are coming along. on thursday we went to an irish pub for one of our friends birthday. there were more europeans and americans at this bar than i’ve seen in one place since i’ve been here. it's been fun going out with ghanaians but it was also nice to hang out with other foreigners for a bit. it’s hard ... read more

classes have been decent so far. both of my political science professors have really thick accents that are hard to understand and most of the two hour lecture consists of them reading information while expecting us to write it down verbatim. tutorials for these classes are supposed to start next week. other than that, we don’t really have any interaction with the professors. I ended up dropping the history class I had registered for and am taking literature of the black diaspora instead. the class is small and is taught by a native english speaker, which is a nice because she is very interactive with the class and I can actually understand what she says. my other female professor is fairly easy to understand and although the class is large, she still makes an effort to ... read more