Daily adventures

Africa » Ghana » Greater Accra » Legon
February 27th 2009

Published: February 27th 2009

Monday I continued my adventure to the post office to get the much anticipated package my family sent. The trotro ride there was entertaining as always. Just the usual meeting new people and they always want to know where I am going and why. The mate was pretty cool and helped me find where I needed to go. Once I got to the post office it was actually a pretty decent process compared to usual Ghanaian processes. I handed the lady the slip and my ID, and we went into a back room for customs to inspect it. It sounds much sketchier than it really was. The guy laughed when he saw a box full of poptarts and Little Debbie snacks and granola bars and mac and cheese. He then asked me if I liked Ghanaian food and I told him I like it, I just miss American junk food. He told me it would be about 25 dollars in customs taxes, so I handed him a poptart and chewy granola bar and said make it 15 and he obliged. Told you I needed little debbies to get through customs! Haha, it made my day though, I would have never thought that the day I saw poptarts and mac and cheese would be one of the happiest days of my life. The pictures were great and now cover my wall. Its nice because it feels a little homier now, not staring at dirty white walls anymore. I went to the school that afternoon and showed the kids the pictures of my family that were sent. They loved them! They kept asking me who everyone was and what we were doing there. They seemed really interested in the pictures from Tanya’s wedding so I turned it into an American culture lesson and told them how our weddings are and everything. It was cute, they kept asking me to show them again and again. Just so you know Mom, Leevan requests that I bring you to Ghana so you can be his girlfriend 😉

On Tuesday I didn’t go to the school, but I still did work for them. We’ve decided that its probably better if we start working on proposals to get funding for the organization. We had a long talk about what they need and how to get more funding and it helps a lot that I better understand their needs. I read some of their past proposals and um.. well the level of literacy isn’t where it needs to be for a formal proposal requesting money from a large company. So its probably best that Im not in the classroom as much and my skills are used better elsewhere. I will still teach occasionally when Im not working on other things. They also want me and Bethany to go to the different Ministries here and talk to government officials. Scary!! It would be really cool though and will get me more experience for lobbying and that sort of thing. I feel like sometimes we are the “token white girls” because when I asked why we were the ones going to the Ministries they said that we would command more respect because we were white. Um ok…? Not sure if I’m comfortable with that idea but whatever it takes… That night we walked to Bonjour which is a gas station where people hang out. They have a “Pizza Inn” and a “Chicken Inn” which are fast food places kind of like those truck stops in America, but much smaller. The fact that a gas station is a popular hang out for students is a whole different topic… but we went there because the pizzas are 2 for 1 on Tuesday night. While we were there I met this guy Dirk that a friend knows from some time they spent together in Rwanda. He is from Holland and has a really funny accent hah! But he was a really interesting guy. Didn’t get to talk to him much that night, but I did the next night but Im jumping ahead of myself here…

So after our lovely dinner at Bonjour, we went back to the hostel to get ready to go out because it was MARDI GRAS!!!! Obviously no one in Ghana celebrates Mardi Gras, and most of our group didn’t even know it was Mardi Gras that day, but the 2 Louisianans were on a mission to change that. Me and Max decided to try to get people to go out on a Tuesday night which turned out to be a really easy thing to convince people to do. We went to Jerry’s only to find out that there was some big soccer game on. Ghanaians are just like the rest of the world and are crazy about soccer. It was really cool though because Jerry had pulled out a TV and all the neighborhood people came to watch the game. I couldn’t even tell you who was playing or who won, but it was fun. After the game we had fun hanging out and playing a few games. I had to call it an early night because one girl decided to get in the Mardi Gras spirit a little too much and me and max decided to take her home. Interesting that the 2 people actually from Louisiana were the only sober ones that night. Sorry friends, I know I let you down…

Wednesday was fairly uneventful other than almost getting attacked by kids playing soccer. There is this soccer field right by the hostel that really is just an area of land between 2 buildings. You have to walk across this land to get anywhere on campus, but kids play soccer there all the time. I was walking to the ISEP office to take care of stuff with my visa and I guess I walked in the middle of their game and they almost ran me over. Stupid obruni… I also had my meeting for my group presentation that is next week. That was a disaster… first of all, I sat with another obruni for 15 minutes outside of the classroom where we were supposed to meet. I was about to leave because no one else showed up but decided to check and make sure they weren’t somewhere else. So we walk around the building and find them on the backside of the building sitting outside a different classroom. They complained about how we were late. Um hello?! We were where we agreed to meet, how were we supposed to know that we decided to sit over here instead?! Gosh… and then the meeting consisted of a girl reading out of a book she found as one guy took down notes from her. He then appointed himself the secretary of the group which means he is the one that actually writes the paper. So basically I show up and sit there quietly like everyone else and one person does all the work? Oh Africa…

That night I went to the beach with some friends to go to reggae night. Its always interesting going there but we had a good time dancing on the beach. I ran into Dirk more and we started talking about volunteering and I mentioned GCP and all the stuff I did there. He seemed really interested so I told him he should come and check it out. I ended up running into Joshua, one of the teachers, and introduced Dirk and they hit it off. I felt like such a little networker! I’m starting to get the hang of this.
Thursday morning it RAINED!!! Yup!! RAIN!!!! It’s the dry season here, so its hot hot and extra hot, and never rains. It was nice because there was a great breeze and was probably like 75 degrees so it was great weather. Unfortunately, later in the day when it stopped raining it was even more humid and back to being hot hot and hotter. Because of the rain I was late to my class, but when I showed up no one was there. Is there an unwritten rule that if its raining there’s no class? Haven’t figured it out yet but if so I would like to know.
The power has been going in and out on campus all week. Not really sure what is going on, but some buildings will be completely out all day, some will have it, and some it will flicker on and off. Today must be the day that ISH doesn’t have any power so I decided it would be a good time to walk to the nice AC internet café and update my blog. It sucked in class today though because the building I was in kept flickering power. When it went off the first time I was praying and hoping the lecturer would let us out because the fans weren’t working and we couldn’t hear him without his mic. Nope, he kept talking, and I continued being drenched in sweat and only hearing about every 3rd word he said.

Did I tell you about my trotro breaking down the other day? I was going to Osu. The trotros always look like they are about to fall apart. They’re usually old church vans that have been donated or something like that. Well, this trotro looked just like the others so I hopped in like everyone else. Well half way to Osu it just stops. The mate gets out and starts pushing!! As hes pushing, the driver is able to get it into gear and it starts back up again. We go another 5 or 6 yards and it dies and we just idle for another 50 yards. The mate jumps out and pushes until it starts again. We drive about 10 feet, idle another 50 feet, and continure the process. I just cant help but laugh. It was my very own “Little Miss Sunshine” experience. Any minute now they are going to pull grandpa out of the trunk. Im seriously cracking up in this trotro and no one else is finding it entertaining at all. Guess they’ve never seen the movie…After awhile the trotro just dies. We’re pretty close to Osu by this point and time and a guy sitting next to me asked where I was going. Turned out we were going in the same direction so we split a cab.

I have bed bugs. I figured if I had bed bugs I would have known by now, but I guess not. Well, atleast I assume thats what it is. Tanya's going to kill me, but I havent been wearing bug spray. I really haven't needed it. The past 2 nights I have woken up with these tiny red bumps on my legs. Its like chiggers but worse. Guess I'll have to start going to bed with bug spray on and see if that helps.

I haven’t bought any books since I’ve been here. I’m not really sure if there are supposed to be textbooks in some of my classes or what. Like most things here, something like that is just assumed or general knowledge. I found out last week from a fellow classmate that there was a reading packet that I could buy. He told me the building to go to. When I get there I see that it’s a dorm? So I walk into the internet café that is there and they have no idea what Im talking about. There is also a “Bubbles gift shop” that I think might be a good bet because they have copying services there. Wrong again. So I go to the department. The lady there was really rude and told me that she didn’t know what I was talking about and looked at me like I was a crazy retard. I finally got really fed up and went back to the dorm. I asked the guy at the front desk if he knew where I was supposed to go. He points to this corner of the lobby where there is a copy machine with a man standing next to it. Oh, of course, why on earth wouldn’t I have known that? So I go to the guy and he pulls out all the handouts for me. Eventually I am going to learn all of the Ghanaian “common sense.” Until then, I’m the crazy retarded Obruni.

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