my monday through friday

day 32.

My class schedule is finalized (let's hope). So here is the breakdown:

Mondays:
11:30-1:30 Traditional Dance. The teacher's name is Babaqueue (he told us to call him Barbecue). There are about 50 people in the class, half of them are obrunis and we all have to wear white shirts and black bottoms. There is live drumming and we are learning Ghanaian dances from the various ethnic groups. The dancing involves jumping, bouncing, bending, clapping, stepping (right-right-left-left), and something that resembles closely what doing "the chicken" would look like back home. The room gets hot and we sweat, it's great!

1:30-3:30 Environmental Ecology. The first lecture was extremely basic, about the level of fourth graders not fourth years (what is the environment? what is ecology? what is: a cell, an organism, an organelle, a population, a community, the biosphere?). Despite the elementary material thus far I am going to stay in the class. I feel like even if it is all review, it can't hurt and I am really curious as to how the academics of the class will progress. The professor seems to be a nice guy and we are going to do group projects. (p.s. all energy comes from the sun, in case you didn't know).

3:30-5:30 Introduction to Twi (the primary language of the Accra Region). The first lesson basically consisted of teaching us how to pronounce the word "Twi." To say it correctly you have to whistle a little. Don't make a "T" sound or else everyone will laugh at you. After class I went back to Volta Hall. My neighbor asked, "Where from you?" I told her that I just came from Twi lessons, trying my hardest to pronounce it right. She laughed and said "How are you going to take that class when you can't even say it right?" Darn.

Tuesday:
8:30-9:30 Traditional Dance again. clap-clap-clap (to the right). clap-clap-clap-clap-clap (twice as fast to the left).

9:30-12:30 Conservation and Environmental Science Lab, in the botany department. Throughout the semester, we will look at environmental issues specifically as they apply to Ghana and West Africa. The teacher is only going to lecture for the first three weeks then the students choose topics and make presentations (this could be great or really terrible). There are four field trips (rad!). On the first day I arrived (a bit late and sweating from dance class) to find only two other students in the room. The professor arrived and said, "Good morning, it looks like we're only missing three people. Maybe they have dropped because that would make it much better for us". This is going to be the smallest class I've ever taken. I'm super excited.

Wednesday:
7:30-9:30 Conservation and Environmental Science, Lecture. One more person showed up today, that makes four. Oh yeah, the reading list has 13 books, that is one for each week. They are not sold at the book store but rather have to be checked out from the professor and returned. There is only one copy of each. None of the books were published after 2000.

11:30-1:30 African Indigenous Religion. I just decided to switch to this today so I haven't had class yet. I was going to take Rural Development Theory at this time but in class today the teacher had us write down everything he said word for word. No thanks.

3:30-5:30 Introduction to Twi. Today we learned greetings. Maakye means good morning ("ky" is pronounced "ch"). Maaha means good afternoon. Maadwo means good night. I think I've got these down.

Thursday:
7:30-9:30 Advanced Taxonomy Lecture (botany department: plants, not animals). This is the class I am most looking forward to. Botanizing in Ghana. Yes please.

Friday:
11:30-1:30 Music of West and Central Africa. I have not yet had this class either but my roommate,Carmen, went last week and said it was really good. She is an ethnomusicology major at UCLA. I am excited to listen to and learn about the different types of traditional and popular music. I will post music recommendations often.

1:30-4:30 Advanced Taxonomy Lab. There is an amazing botanical garden on campus. I want to live there.

That leaves Saturdays and Sundays to travel, study, sleep, explore, and read. Let the adventures continue....