This week was a relaxing one. I'm finally starting to feel settled in and get into a rhythm of things, which is nice, and makes this feel much more like home. I'll start by delving right into the week!
Monday
Monday was actually a national holiday for Kwame Nkrumah's birthday (first President of the free Republic of Ghana). A few of the us international students decided to take a trip up to the Aburi botanical gardens int he Eastern Region for a night. We went up on Sunday morning and stayed through Monday late afternoon. The gardens are absolutely gorgeous! I'd been to the gardens before with some of the Cali Crew, but it was nice to spend the night with some of the different international students for once. We stayed in two person chalets, which were surprisingly nice for only 20 cedi's (about 6 US dollars) a night. We spent the evening lazing around the gardens and had dinner in the beautiful restaurant on the grounds. The next morning, there were festivities going on for the holiday so we spent the morning walking around, eating ice cream and enjoying the different drumming and singing groups playing in the gardens. We headed back to Accra around 2 and had a pretty lazy Monday evening.
Tuesday
Tuesday's are my lazy days, and I spend it living up to that name. I went to Twi lab in the morning where we learning some bargaining Twi to help get better bargain for taxi''s and goods in the market. My favorite new line to use - Wo pe se wo sisi me! "Are you trying to cheat me?" It has worked gloriously on taxi drivers. Spend the rest of the day laying around in bed and then headed off to dance class at 6. Dance is easily my favorite class and it did nothing but live up to its name today. The energy of everyone in that class is enough to get anyone going. One curveball today though, we have a test next week! They're going to divide us up into small groups and grade us on the dance we've been learning the past few weeks! Update on how that goes next week!
Wednesday
This brings me to my second favorite class! Coastal Management. This class is literally what I want to go into when I graduate. After two years of oging through my ENVS major being confused about what I want to do, this has been great. We've been talking about coastal erosion and wetland destruction and how it relates to the coast and i literally get so pumped to talk about it. There's so much that can be done here and i'm so jazzed to start some owrk in the field. My professor for this class is also awesome and has organized a few field trips for the semester. Since this is a level 400 class, it's also pretty small - only 15 students. Since there's only two obruni's (foreigner) in the class it's mostly Ghanaians which is great. The Marine Science Department is one of the smaller one's on campus so this group of students is already pretty tight with each other, but they have been unbelievably welcoming to us. Many of them came up to me and asked me my name and they light heartedly laugh at my California accent whenever I speak in class. Looking forward to making connections and learning a lot in this class.
Wednesday also has Twi class, which is hands down my hardest class. We had our first exam today, which was pretty tough but I still have high hopes. Spent Wednesday night just chilling and got dinner from the lady who sits outside ISH for dinner (We call her Mama Tantalizing because she describes all her food as tantalizing. I'm pretty sure it's the only English adjective she knows. Nevertheless her food is cheap and delish, so it's a staple.)
Thursday
Another light day, Environmental Ecology was cancelled for the week and we were assigned groups for our group project in Management in NGO's, which is going to be to create our own NGO. Super stoked for that, it should be a great experience to have. I'm loving how practical this class is turning out to be. We had dance class that evening and practiced the dance we're going to be tested on on Tuesday in small groups and i'm feeling pretty ready! I'm gonna try and get a video, so stay tuned! For dinner, me and Emily made pesto pasta! The pesto sauce was pricey, but worth it and i'm sure we'll be splurging again. If only we could get our hands on some real cheese!
Friday
Only thing of importance today was soccer practice. Our coach finally assigned us positions and we spent the majority of the hour setting up and practicing moving from offense to defense. As usual, tiring, but rewarding! Always gets my day off to a jumpstart to have practice at 6am which is nice though.
Saturday
Today Auntie Rose and Uncle Albie (Two of our Program Coordinators) took a few of us on a trip back to the Volta Region. She plans small trips for students throughout the semester and this was the one I chose to go on. We went to a village about 3 1/2 hours away and got to check out the progress on a rainwater cachment system a past student had set up there. The trip to the village was another adventurous one, as most of the roads had been flooded from yesterday's storm. We ended up having to wade through knee deep water to get to the village, which was unexpected but surprisingly fun. (Although Auntie Rose did scare us by warning us of worms that can burrow in to your feet that lurk in flooded waters.) After spending time in the village with some of the people, who were all amazingly friendly, as usual (Ghanaians don't have the reputation as the friendliest in Africa for nothing.) we stopped at a little resort on the Volta River where Auntie Rose bought us all drinks and we went out on a boat ride. It was beautiful and we all made plans to go back and spend a night there.
Pictures from the day:
Yebehyia bio! (Until next time)
Monday
Monday was actually a national holiday for Kwame Nkrumah's birthday (first President of the free Republic of Ghana). A few of the us international students decided to take a trip up to the Aburi botanical gardens int he Eastern Region for a night. We went up on Sunday morning and stayed through Monday late afternoon. The gardens are absolutely gorgeous! I'd been to the gardens before with some of the Cali Crew, but it was nice to spend the night with some of the different international students for once. We stayed in two person chalets, which were surprisingly nice for only 20 cedi's (about 6 US dollars) a night. We spent the evening lazing around the gardens and had dinner in the beautiful restaurant on the grounds. The next morning, there were festivities going on for the holiday so we spent the morning walking around, eating ice cream and enjoying the different drumming and singing groups playing in the gardens. We headed back to Accra around 2 and had a pretty lazy Monday evening.
Tuesday
Tuesday's are my lazy days, and I spend it living up to that name. I went to Twi lab in the morning where we learning some bargaining Twi to help get better bargain for taxi''s and goods in the market. My favorite new line to use - Wo pe se wo sisi me! "Are you trying to cheat me?" It has worked gloriously on taxi drivers. Spend the rest of the day laying around in bed and then headed off to dance class at 6. Dance is easily my favorite class and it did nothing but live up to its name today. The energy of everyone in that class is enough to get anyone going. One curveball today though, we have a test next week! They're going to divide us up into small groups and grade us on the dance we've been learning the past few weeks! Update on how that goes next week!
Wednesday
This brings me to my second favorite class! Coastal Management. This class is literally what I want to go into when I graduate. After two years of oging through my ENVS major being confused about what I want to do, this has been great. We've been talking about coastal erosion and wetland destruction and how it relates to the coast and i literally get so pumped to talk about it. There's so much that can be done here and i'm so jazzed to start some owrk in the field. My professor for this class is also awesome and has organized a few field trips for the semester. Since this is a level 400 class, it's also pretty small - only 15 students. Since there's only two obruni's (foreigner) in the class it's mostly Ghanaians which is great. The Marine Science Department is one of the smaller one's on campus so this group of students is already pretty tight with each other, but they have been unbelievably welcoming to us. Many of them came up to me and asked me my name and they light heartedly laugh at my California accent whenever I speak in class. Looking forward to making connections and learning a lot in this class.
Wednesday also has Twi class, which is hands down my hardest class. We had our first exam today, which was pretty tough but I still have high hopes. Spent Wednesday night just chilling and got dinner from the lady who sits outside ISH for dinner (We call her Mama Tantalizing because she describes all her food as tantalizing. I'm pretty sure it's the only English adjective she knows. Nevertheless her food is cheap and delish, so it's a staple.)
Thursday
Another light day, Environmental Ecology was cancelled for the week and we were assigned groups for our group project in Management in NGO's, which is going to be to create our own NGO. Super stoked for that, it should be a great experience to have. I'm loving how practical this class is turning out to be. We had dance class that evening and practiced the dance we're going to be tested on on Tuesday in small groups and i'm feeling pretty ready! I'm gonna try and get a video, so stay tuned! For dinner, me and Emily made pesto pasta! The pesto sauce was pricey, but worth it and i'm sure we'll be splurging again. If only we could get our hands on some real cheese!
Friday
Only thing of importance today was soccer practice. Our coach finally assigned us positions and we spent the majority of the hour setting up and practicing moving from offense to defense. As usual, tiring, but rewarding! Always gets my day off to a jumpstart to have practice at 6am which is nice though.
Saturday
Today Auntie Rose and Uncle Albie (Two of our Program Coordinators) took a few of us on a trip back to the Volta Region. She plans small trips for students throughout the semester and this was the one I chose to go on. We went to a village about 3 1/2 hours away and got to check out the progress on a rainwater cachment system a past student had set up there. The trip to the village was another adventurous one, as most of the roads had been flooded from yesterday's storm. We ended up having to wade through knee deep water to get to the village, which was unexpected but surprisingly fun. (Although Auntie Rose did scare us by warning us of worms that can burrow in to your feet that lurk in flooded waters.) After spending time in the village with some of the people, who were all amazingly friendly, as usual (Ghanaians don't have the reputation as the friendliest in Africa for nothing.) we stopped at a little resort on the Volta River where Auntie Rose bought us all drinks and we went out on a boat ride. It was beautiful and we all made plans to go back and spend a night there.
Pictures from the day:
Yebehyia bio! (Until next time)
No comments:
Post a Comment