I'm Pretty Big in Ghana

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On Friday, after a good dose of peer pressure, I went to the University of Ghana’s baseball team practice, to just see. I heard they weren’t great, and was missing daily athletic activity, and although the coach wasn’t thrilled that a girl was going to come play, he heard that I played softball so allowed me to “try out.” Long story short, I am one of the newest members of the men’s baseball team here at the university. The coach is really good, he is on the Ghanaian national team, and has trained with Mets’ farm teams. We have practice everyday on maybe a third of a baseball field in between a pick-up football (soccer) match and cricket practice. It’s just really fun to run around, and the guys are all really nice, so we’ll see how that goes. At the beginning of March the University is hosting a big sports meet of all the different teams from Universities all over West Africa, and my team and the Ghanaian national team will be split up to play in game during the opening ceremony. I’ll let you know my trading card gets printed.
To calm everyone’s fear that I’ll be a dumb jock here, I am happy to report, classes are going well. They’re big between 75-300 students in all of my classes, and at time the professors can be hard to understand, but all in all the classes I’m choosing between seem really interesting. Because the school is so big and most processes are electronically-based, I am taking a bigger load until the exam schedule comes out so I can make sure I don’t have any exam conflicts. The classes I’m in at the moment are: Human Rights in Africa, The Modern Social Structure of Ghana, Working with People with HIV/AIDS, Regionalism and Ethnicity in Ghanaian Politics, U.S Policy Towards Africa (!), Poverty and Rural Development, and I am definitely taking Twi.
To continue my search for knowledge, I headed with some friends to a sports bar that serves excellent Mexican food for a night of trivia. Although our team, Dolla Dolla Bill Y’All, has not yet peaked, I expect great things later in this trivia season. It was tons of fun, and we met people from the U.S Air Force who were here because of Bush. Learned they get a 200 cedi a day allowance, our tax dollars at work… nice guys though. On Saturday we went to a local art gallery that was just awesome. The paintings, kente, sculptures, and everything else challenged a lot of preconceived notions I had about African art, avd I look forward to going back soon to explore more. Sam, an art major, was making interesting comments between some of the styles there and those in the Harlem Renaissance. If I had a few thousand cedis, I would gladly take one home. The of the modern abstract paintings were particularly eye-catching and thought provoking. Lots of markets and traffic jams made of short brush strokes of many colors, but it’s so apparent what the scene is… Like I said, I’m really interested in going back.
And now for the soul, Church today was three hours long. Shane and I had some trouble making it through, but looking around, lots of others did, too. Note to self: remember sweat rag for next time.
Over and out, Kathleen

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Comments

[Justin]

pfffft
I am avoiding an essay. Your classes sound amazing. You are loved. +j

[Ken Abels]

Travel Channel on Ghana
I caught a Travel Channel special on Ghana, Anthony Bourdan's "No Reservations." Here I learned about palm wine, the Accra main and night markets, chop shops (think community diner), fisherman with what look like huge dugout canoes, elephants, Kente cloth, and yes, monkeys! Be on the lookout.