find your way home

Yesterday on our schedule from 1:30-5:00 is said "find your way home/shopping". None of us really knew what it meant but we soon found out. We were escorted to the market by the student guides in the afternoon and were supposed to find our way home afterward. Luckily the guides ended up staying with us the whole time (maybe they didn't think we could do it ourselves?).

The market we went to was called Medina Market. I wish I could show you all a video of walking through it because I feel like it is too hard to describe in words, but I will try: crowded, people, hot, trash, food, fabric, music, honking, sewage, people, flies, fish, balancing, buying, selling, bargaining, noisy, hectic, confusing, exciting, and foreign. The aisles of the market are very small and people are traveling both ways on them with no logic. It is amazing to me how the women can balance really heavy things on their heads flawlessly while walking through the crowd. There are children all around yelling "Obruni" which means white person, but here that is a friendly term. I made a mistake and left the house without water and almost fainted from hunger, dehydration, and sensory overload. The women at the fabric stand were very friendly and gave me water and a place to sit until I felt better. They said I looked white as a sheet. That's the last time I forget water.

I made another mistake as well. You are never supposed to greet people, take something from them, or give something to them with your left hand. A man walking past wanted to shake my hand but my camera was in my right so I shook with my left. He took his hand back and started shouting "Why? Why did you do that?". I apologized, shook with my right and kept walking, feeling terrible. From now on I am going to clench my left hand so I won't be tempted to use it.

After the market we took a tro-tro to the Accra Mall. Tro-tros are equivalent to mini vans but they seat 15 people, I'm sure you can imagine how crowded that is. The driver was very friendly and no one mentioned that the speedometer didn't work so the first tro-tro trip was a success. It was crazy to go from Medina Market to the Accra Mall because it was the starkest contrast I have ever experienced. The mall had a Nike store, a Puma store, cosmetic stores, a food court, cell phone stores, and so much more. It easily could have been anywhere in America. It really was telling of how much more intense the difference between rural and urban and high class and middle class is. I have so much to learn.

Today I stayed in bed all day for feeling sick, much worse than yesterday. It is no fun to be sick in an unfamiliar place. But everyone here is really thoughtful and helpful. I still am having stomach pains, but I hope it will be better tomorrow because we are going to a funeral then have a five hour bus ride to Kumasi.

Until Monday...

12pm in Ghana, 5am in California

day five.

We are all so tired. Yesterday was the first time someone went to the hospital. Brendon couldn't get out of bed. At the hospital they said it is too soon to tell if he has malaria. Last night Matt knocked on our door at 3 am because Travis was throwing up and needed water, we gave him the bottle and a half we had in our room. This morning he was feeling better but didn't get up for breakfast or morning lecture. Today I felt stomach achy but I drank three bottle of water and feel much better now. So far I only have one bite. I think it is a spider bite (surely not poisonous) though because it is a bit swollen. There are mosquitoes around but not nearly as many as I thought there would be.

For the most part we are all happy and healthy but each day we are realizing more and more what the challenges are going to be of living here. However, everyday I look around and see smiling faces and meet helpful people who remind me of the reason I am here.

Tomorrow we move in to our permanent rooms (which will be great since I really don't like living out of a suitcase) and this weekend we go to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. It's crazy because we feel like we have seen so much but really we still have so much to see. More adventures to come.

day four

Everyday we wake up for breakfast at 6:30am and we have lectures, classes, meals, and activities until 9pm. There is hardly a minute to think about anything else.

Tomorrow we have five hours to ourselves in Accra where the objective is that the guides help us get on the right tro tro then find our way home...practice (or training). Today we toured Accra in a University of Ghana sports complex tour bus (that has extra seats instead of a regular sized aisle). It was unbelieveable for so many reasons. We saw everything from the dirtiest slums to the most expensive homes in Ghana to the US Embassy. We can't wait to go back.

It is 11:14pm now and after this long of a day it is time for bed (...maybe a roound of catchphrase first!).

1 GH cedi per hour

We arrived in Ghana safely on Sunday at noon and it feels like we have been here for weeks. The campus is beautiful with trees everywhere and so many buildings (most of which are dorms to lodge the 30-40,000 students). There are six Ghanaian student guides that are really helpful, they eat meals with us and go to all of the activites. Speaking of meals, at each meal they are introducing us to new Ghanaian foods. So far we have had friend plantains, red-red (a bean and cassava dish), porrige and stew (a really good spicy eggplant dish with other stuff in it). There is also a special tomato sauce that we always eat with rice, and there is usually pineapple for dessert, the sweetest most amazing pineapple I have ever tasted. There are also a ton of markets and stores around campus where we can buy fresh fruit, fried plantains, sodas, crackers, candy, and other things. We met a woman yesterday names Louisa who is called "the muffin lady" (Andrew, I'm sure you would love her), she tries to get us to come to where she sits with her wicker basket selling banana bread, mango pie, and strawberry cookies by saying "come, come, my desserts are so tantalizing!".

We are all staying together for the first few weeks in Volta Hall, the girls dorm...which looks like a tropical paradise. It is the end of the rainy season right now, so we got some rain today and it has been overcast since we've been here (but I'm wearing sunscreen anyway).

We have orientation for the first three weeks in which we get to know the local area and we go on a few field trips. So far we have heard many lectures on topics that will be useful to us (Ghana history, land and people, safety, health, music). Last night we had a dance class with the professor who teaches the dance classes here. It was so much fun and funny! We have another class tonight (for which we are supposed to have practiced).

Right now I am in an internet cafe in Legon Hall where it cost one Ghanaian cedi per hour to use a computer (one of the dorms on campus). There seems to be not many places that have wireless so I won't be able to upload pictures as often as I'd hoped but I will as soon as I can. The electricity in the room takes a minute to turn on and the water in the bathroom goes out everyday. I took a bucket shower last night and plan on having to do that often, but hey, it definitely saves water!

I have a million more things to say but I'll leave you all with this. As we walk around here on the red dirt, we occassionaly encounter a smell that is so fruitful and indescribable. We have yet to find out what the smell is but I'm sure I will always remember it as the smell of Ghana.

98 degrees at 6:30 in the morning

We made it to Dubai. It's hot.

We are all gathered together on the floor of the airport right now waiting for our flight to Ghana. There is wireless so everyone has their laptops out (we definitely stand out, I guess it's time to get used to that).

There are about 60 of us from all the UCs and a few from CSUs. Everything is going really well so far...time to board!

fitting my life into 46 kgs.

Packing.

I leave for Ghana in fifteen hours and I cannot seem to make everything I will need fit into the weight limit. Sure, some of the things I am bringing are not essential (catchphrase, the complete Lewis Carroll, four family size bags of peanut butter m&ms, an aerobie flyer, and my iPod speakers, among others) but six months is a long time and I want to be prepared (I'm not sure what those things prepare me for, but whatever it is, I'll be ready). If I only had to ditch one thing to make weight that'd be one thing but I am at the point where I feel like I need to unpack everything and start over from scratch. I am trying really hard to think objectively and I'm sure that most of you could set me straight and tell me "Lucy, you don't need three mad libs books, how about one?". But at this time and after a really long day, I can't decide whether the one I should bring is "mad libs from outer space," "slam dunk mad libs," or "grab bag mad libs".

I am strongly wishing that I hadn't waited until the last minute to finish packing but the last few days I spent with my favorite people were well worth my current stress, and hey, the worst that can happen is I pay the $100 overweight fee, or ditch the non-essentials and say goodbye to my catchphrase-alice in wonderland-peanut butter-flying dance party.

Ghana here I come.

post script: please note that I am avoiding writing down my thoughts and feelings about being gone for so long...it's because it doesn't seem real yet. when it hits me, you will know.

leaving in a fortnight

Two weeks from now I will be hundreds of feet above the ground on an Emirates Airlines Boeing 777. Twelve-thousand miles and two days later, I will land in Accra, Ghana.

Ghana:

geographic coordinates: 5 33 N, 0 13 W (closest country to the center of the world)

idependence: March 6, 1957 (from the UK)

population: 23,832,495 (I like people)

GDP per capita: $1,500 (compared to $48,000 in the US)

coldest ever: 64 degrees F (perfect amount of cold)

warmest ever: 102 degrees F (it gets hotter than this in California)


I will return in 15,120,000 heartbeats. 70 heartbeats per minute.