Blogs from Eastern, Ghana, Africa - page 2

Ok, so i'm alive! Only just. When we got picked up from the airport and the bloke said the roads may be a bit bumpy as there are roadworks, what he actually meant was that the roads hadn't been built yet, and the 4 hour journey would be horrific, especially in the middle of the night. Hey ho, I am here now and loving it. People here are amazing. They shout 'obruni' which means white person, as they never see them. Don't think this would fly the other way round in Brixton, but when the kids do it you kind of laugh. I went for a run the other morning and they followed me all the way, they are just so happy. The school I am teaching in is not as good. Its a desperately poor ... read more

Just got back from spending the weekend in Busua, which is by far the nicest bit of Ghana- could have spent several weeks there. The town itself is tiny but the beach is about 2 miles of sand and sea with several little surf bars at one end. The only catch is that it takes about 7 hours (at least) to get there. But we made it slightly more bearable by traveling the 2 hours to Accra on thursday and then leaving at 6am on friday to get to Busua at about 12:30. Due to the serious lack of guys at Kwamoso i was traveling with 4 girls (german Katja, dutch danny, french deaf Stephanie and Australian Zoe), and i can happily say that its easier traveling with guys. The journey back was somewhat hellish, ... read more

So week one almost complete and life in Ghana is in full swing; so far so good but it certainly has been a week of initiation to life out here. I have had to share my bed with rather too many ants and turn up to work on 3 consecutive days with bites all over my face, my laptop has fallen sick before me and become infected with some virus that has caused quite a few issues and I came within 4 feet of stepping on a boa constrictor in the dark a few nights ago which gave me a bit of a fright to say the least! I think Ghana is probably the least hectic African country I have ever experienced and there seems to be relatively little hassle from the locals - when you ... read more

July 16, 2010 Koo Nimo is jamming in the background. Koo who you say? Koo Nimo the cool music teacher who (last week) gave us the best lecture because it was mostly music and dancing. No. I didn’t kidnap him and force him to play in my room. I bought the CD, which interestingly enough was made in Germany. Today we had a blast at Kukum. You walk up a bunch of stairs to a series of rope bridges --- each one a little different than the other. I felt like a chimpanzee swinging above the trees, even the way I reached from rope to rope was sooooo ape. Afterward, some of us took the nature trail option while the rest went to drink beer and eat lunch. It rained the entire time, which for me ... read more

NOTE: Posted sans pictures because internet is too slow, sorry. -RR One of my most favorite classes this semester is called Strategies of Development in Africa. Call me a nerd, but I think it's really cool to learn why and how a society functions (or doesn't). Especially when trying to understand how to address environmental concerns, like me. In this class, I am learning the different theories and history of development in different African nations, and so I was thinking in this frame of mind when our CSU group went to visit a cocoa farm and a botanical garden last Saturday (2/27/10). It was interesting to see tangible effects of colonialism in several instances, both at the Tettah-Quarshie's Cocoa Farm and later on at the Aburi Botanical Gardens. We took an informal walking tour of Tettah ... read more