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.