Tuesday
Spent the day in bed recovering. Was feeling a little dehydrated, so I just drank down a bunch of Gatorade and sugar/salt water. Decided to make it to dance class in the evening though. The new dance we are learning is called Bamaya. We finally finished it up and we should be getting tested next week. Can't express how much I love dance class, I think it definitely made me feel better after a tough weekend! Had some plain rice for dinner after.
Wednesday
Coastal Management in the morning. We watched a video on ballast water and the impacts of the shipping industry on the coast. Pretty standard from what we've learned in the US. More excitingly Professor Nyarko finalized our field trip, which will be next Friday out to the Tema Port, just East of Accra. Stoked on that. Decided not to stay for seminar today as I wasn't feeling 100%. Headed back to ISH to eat and relax. Had Twi class in the afternoon, where we learned basic questions. In Twi, there is no different sentence structure for questions, it is all simply in the inflection. For example, Wo pe aborobe is "you like pineapple" To change that into "do you like pineapple?" you simply elongate the end of the word aborobe. Confusing, in my opinion...After Twi we had a palavar session with Auntie Rose and Uncle Albie. We watched the movie Big Men, on the oil fields and business here in Ghana. Short discussion afterwards followed by dinner, courtesy of the study center (hallelujah!), of avocado and chicken salads. Headed back to ISH and off to bed afterwards.
Thursday
Decided to play hooky from class this morning to go into town. (Hey, I deserve a break!) Came back and just hung around downstairs for the afternoon. It was ridiculously hot all day, so ISH was pretty much full of us internationals trying to avoid the heat. I hung out with one of my good friends here for the majorityof the day and we headed off to dance class after lazing away the afternoon. Dance was fun, we just rehearsed Bamaya some more. The end of the Bamaya dance has a freestyle portion where everyone has to do a solo, which is basically my worst nightmare. Of course, the cheif drummer looked right at me and i had no choice but to come to the front of the circle and move. SO embarrassing... I think we're getting tested next week and then on to the next dance! Had dinner downstairs at ISH with other internationals and hung out with some poeple in the room for the evening.
Friday
STarted out the morning with a meeting with Dr. Alhassan, my research supervisor. I don't think I've said much about him yet, but he is awesome! He is a Professor of Geography within the Kwame Nkrumah Institute for African Studies and has pretty broad interests, focusing on patterns of the Ghanian diaspora and humanitarian and environmental relief with USAID. He is extremely helpful and interesting and just an all around great professor. He actually reminds me of my dad, one, because he wears a lot of really loud, fun shirts (and we have definitely gifted my dad enough loud and crazy tops over the years) and two, because he is an academic but can still crack an absurdly corny joke and get away with it. We chatted a bit about my research and he gave me pointers on writing and organization and about my trip to Ada. After my meeting with him me and a friend headed over to MaxxMart for lunch and groceries. We ran into some other internationals who were also escaping the heat in the AC of the store. Headed back to ISH for the afternoon to stay out of the heat. That evening a few of the Cali Crew went out to dinner for one of the guy's birthdays. He was craving Chinese so we hit up a place called Spadana out in Osu and had a big family style meal. We hit up Pinnochio for ice cream afterwards (because none of us are capable of walking by without going in), stopped by one of the bars for a little and then headed back to Volta Hall to chill out for a little.
Saturday
Spent the day doing some souvenir shopping in Osu. Got some shea products and fabric from Global Mama's, and awesome fair trade NGO and found a place called Trashy Bags, which makes all of it's products out of recycled water satchets or billboard fabric. Super awesome! We also stumbled upon a pretty cool place called Pure Essense which makes super great shea products that I want to hit up next time. All the natural African shea you find here is so amazing! After a few hours of trekking in the heat up and down Oxford Street, we hit up El Paso, our favorite Mexican hideaway for lunch. Always delish. We all had either a burrito or fajitas with Spanish Sangria. refreshing! Headed back to campus, and good thing we did because as soon as we got back the sky just opened up. One of the bigger storms I've experienced here. Th thunder was earth shattering and the lightening just illuminated the entire sky. And the sheer amount of rain paired with the strength of the wind was unreal. And i think the big difference is, that when it rains here it's not like a dinky one hour storm, it dumps for HOURS. amazingly the power stayed on all night (first time for everything, wooooo!) but it hasn't gone out for about 4 days so it is inevitable. We decided against cooking, fearing that the power would go out midway through, so we ordered Thai food in. Spent the evening indoors watching movies and talking!
Sunday
IA's (midterms) are in the coming weeks so everyone spent the day studying. I spent the morning on my research paper and the afternoon on Environmental Ecology. Around 4 me and a friend went down to the track and ran some laps and did cardio since no one wanted to do insanity. I find it interesting because the track is always filled with Ghanaian men and obruni women, never Ghanaian girls. It's definitely not apart of their culture for women to work out. For dinner, me and my roommate cracked open a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese. Excellent study food.
Spent the day in bed recovering. Was feeling a little dehydrated, so I just drank down a bunch of Gatorade and sugar/salt water. Decided to make it to dance class in the evening though. The new dance we are learning is called Bamaya. We finally finished it up and we should be getting tested next week. Can't express how much I love dance class, I think it definitely made me feel better after a tough weekend! Had some plain rice for dinner after.
Wednesday
Coastal Management in the morning. We watched a video on ballast water and the impacts of the shipping industry on the coast. Pretty standard from what we've learned in the US. More excitingly Professor Nyarko finalized our field trip, which will be next Friday out to the Tema Port, just East of Accra. Stoked on that. Decided not to stay for seminar today as I wasn't feeling 100%. Headed back to ISH to eat and relax. Had Twi class in the afternoon, where we learned basic questions. In Twi, there is no different sentence structure for questions, it is all simply in the inflection. For example, Wo pe aborobe is "you like pineapple" To change that into "do you like pineapple?" you simply elongate the end of the word aborobe. Confusing, in my opinion...After Twi we had a palavar session with Auntie Rose and Uncle Albie. We watched the movie Big Men, on the oil fields and business here in Ghana. Short discussion afterwards followed by dinner, courtesy of the study center (hallelujah!), of avocado and chicken salads. Headed back to ISH and off to bed afterwards.
Thursday
Decided to play hooky from class this morning to go into town. (Hey, I deserve a break!) Came back and just hung around downstairs for the afternoon. It was ridiculously hot all day, so ISH was pretty much full of us internationals trying to avoid the heat. I hung out with one of my good friends here for the majorityof the day and we headed off to dance class after lazing away the afternoon. Dance was fun, we just rehearsed Bamaya some more. The end of the Bamaya dance has a freestyle portion where everyone has to do a solo, which is basically my worst nightmare. Of course, the cheif drummer looked right at me and i had no choice but to come to the front of the circle and move. SO embarrassing... I think we're getting tested next week and then on to the next dance! Had dinner downstairs at ISH with other internationals and hung out with some poeple in the room for the evening.
Friday
STarted out the morning with a meeting with Dr. Alhassan, my research supervisor. I don't think I've said much about him yet, but he is awesome! He is a Professor of Geography within the Kwame Nkrumah Institute for African Studies and has pretty broad interests, focusing on patterns of the Ghanian diaspora and humanitarian and environmental relief with USAID. He is extremely helpful and interesting and just an all around great professor. He actually reminds me of my dad, one, because he wears a lot of really loud, fun shirts (and we have definitely gifted my dad enough loud and crazy tops over the years) and two, because he is an academic but can still crack an absurdly corny joke and get away with it. We chatted a bit about my research and he gave me pointers on writing and organization and about my trip to Ada. After my meeting with him me and a friend headed over to MaxxMart for lunch and groceries. We ran into some other internationals who were also escaping the heat in the AC of the store. Headed back to ISH for the afternoon to stay out of the heat. That evening a few of the Cali Crew went out to dinner for one of the guy's birthdays. He was craving Chinese so we hit up a place called Spadana out in Osu and had a big family style meal. We hit up Pinnochio for ice cream afterwards (because none of us are capable of walking by without going in), stopped by one of the bars for a little and then headed back to Volta Hall to chill out for a little.
Saturday
Spent the day doing some souvenir shopping in Osu. Got some shea products and fabric from Global Mama's, and awesome fair trade NGO and found a place called Trashy Bags, which makes all of it's products out of recycled water satchets or billboard fabric. Super awesome! We also stumbled upon a pretty cool place called Pure Essense which makes super great shea products that I want to hit up next time. All the natural African shea you find here is so amazing! After a few hours of trekking in the heat up and down Oxford Street, we hit up El Paso, our favorite Mexican hideaway for lunch. Always delish. We all had either a burrito or fajitas with Spanish Sangria. refreshing! Headed back to campus, and good thing we did because as soon as we got back the sky just opened up. One of the bigger storms I've experienced here. Th thunder was earth shattering and the lightening just illuminated the entire sky. And the sheer amount of rain paired with the strength of the wind was unreal. And i think the big difference is, that when it rains here it's not like a dinky one hour storm, it dumps for HOURS. amazingly the power stayed on all night (first time for everything, wooooo!) but it hasn't gone out for about 4 days so it is inevitable. We decided against cooking, fearing that the power would go out midway through, so we ordered Thai food in. Spent the evening indoors watching movies and talking!
Sunday
IA's (midterms) are in the coming weeks so everyone spent the day studying. I spent the morning on my research paper and the afternoon on Environmental Ecology. Around 4 me and a friend went down to the track and ran some laps and did cardio since no one wanted to do insanity. I find it interesting because the track is always filled with Ghanaian men and obruni women, never Ghanaian girls. It's definitely not apart of their culture for women to work out. For dinner, me and my roommate cracked open a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese. Excellent study food.
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