Being in Africa + Failure to blog often = Lots to write about

Starting this second post is tough because so much has happened since the first post I wrote. Also, I promised to write about stuff from before my last post, so I’m just all kinds of failing on the blog thing. That being said, I’ll try to say as much as I can here without writing a novel.

First I’ll start with the basics in case anyone doesn’t want to read everything:

1.   I’m still in Africa.

2.   I don’t have malaria.

3.   My friend had malaria and she’s fine, so don’t worry, Mom and Dad, it’s not that big of a deal.

Aaannddddd I’m not really sure where to go from there, so I guess I’ll just touch on everything a little bit. I’ll even continue making a list because there’s no way that I’ll stay on any track otherwise.

So, Akwaaba (welcome to) Maddies’ African adventure presented in list form!!!

1.     School – I feel like this one is supposed to come first (weekends comes later).

Here’s what my school looks like!

Just kidding, that’s the gift shop at the botanical garden. My school actually looks like this:

A picture of the library that I stole from a friend.
I'll add more of other parts of campus later!

It turns out that the University of Legon is a pretty big deal, so I’m really happy to be going here. It’s apparently the best school in West Africa and I’m pretty sure it has the biggest library on the continent besides one in South Africa. I already mentioned that I’m taking a class in Twi with my study abroad program, and I’m taking a class called Development Studies through the program as well. That class is linked to an internship that I have with United Way Ghana, which I’ll talk more about later. My other classes include “Ghanaian Literature,” which is a big lecture with a good number of foreign students, and “Contemporary Issues in Modern Philosophy,” which is about 30 people, four of whom are girls.  Those classes meet only once a week for two hours each time. Finally, I’m taking two super exciting classes, too: drumming and traditional African dance. I had no plans to do either until a friend brought me to her class, and they are probably the coolest classes I’ve ever taken. Not that I’ve had any real improvement in my not-dancing-awkwardly skills, but those classes have been a really fun way to meet people and to pretend that I kind of know things about Africa.

2.     Housing – not only do I not go to school in a hut, but I also don’t sleep in a hut.

My room, mosquito nets and all.
The back part is our screened-in porch.

I’m living on campus in the International Student Hostel (or “ISH” for short) and I absolutely love it. My roommate Caitlin actually coincidentally goes to Georgetown, too, but I didn’t know her beforehand. The dorms are actually pretty nice: the building has a giant courtyard and each room has a balcony. Because we’re on the ground floor, though, Caitlin and I have basically a screened-in porch instead of a balcony.

3.     WEEKENDS – I capitalized this one because it’s the most exciting so far.

If weekends in Ghana are anything, they are not boring. Whether you have accidently become a part of an evangelical Christian organization or you got a job bartending where you’re paid in wine and peanuts, there is always something interesting to do here. I’ll start chronologically from the weekend before the weekend before last, as that was the start of the bartending thing that you’re worried about now, Mom. I need to preface this story by saying that Ghanaians are very amused by white people, especially when we’re in atypical places for oburunis to be. About a ten-minute drive from campus (which is literally a $2 cab ride) there’s a small local bar called Jerri’s. Caitlin (the roommate) asked the bartender if we could bartend just because she thought it’d be funny, so he directed us to Jerri (yes, with an “i”). It turns out that Jerri is a super nice, hilarious and usually tipsy old man, meaning that when Caitlin asked him if we could bartend, he was totally into it and said that we should come at 9:00 next Friday. When we showed up the next weekend around 9:40 we were pretty sure that he would have forgotten about it, but he actually called us out on being late and then showed us everything we needed to know about running Jerri’s. That night was one of my favorite experiences ever: customers loved that there were two random, obviously foreign white girls running the counter, Caitlin and I are now buddies with the famous Jerri of Jerri’s, and we made friends with the other bartenders which was super exciting because I hadn’t met that many Ghanaians. Also, like I said, we got paid with a bottle of wine and a jar of peanuts. Akwaaba Jerri’s.

Me at Jerri's with Robert (an actual bartender there)
and Caitlin in the background.

It seems as though nothing could live up to the glory of bartending in Ghana, but the following weekend (so the one before this past one) was also incredible. On Friday I went with about 40 friends from my program (and a Canadian and his Ghanaian roommate who snuck on the bus) to the Ghana verses Swaziland soccer game. There were tons of different large fan groups throughout the stadium that were all cheering and dancing in different ways, and right next to us there was a group of maybe 50 people who were almost all playing traditional African drums or some other instrument. They played for literally the whole game – so a whole two hours – while singing songs in some language I don’t know. Basically, it was awesome.

Caitlin, my friend Rachel and me at the game.
Somehow I still have a farmer's tan.

Me and Jamie, the Canadian

The next day I went with Caitlin, Jamie and my other friends Elaine and Jake to go to a music festival in Cape Coast that we heard about from Iggy, one of the bartenders we met at Jerri’s. Iggy is originally from Cape Coast but is living in Accra to go to school for graphic design (and of course to work with his uncle Jerri), so we met up with him there and he showed us around. It was SO great to have a real local show us around and not do only all of the touristy things. I’ve decided that if I ever moved to Ghana, I would definitely live in Cape Coast. It is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen: it’s got beaches with palm trees and white sand, hills covered in colorful houses, and decorated fishing boats docked all along the shore. At the end of our three-hour drive along the coast of Ghana in a tightly-packed public van called a tro-tro (which only cost about $3 per person), we got to Cape Coast with no idea where to go. However, we almost immediately ran into a gigantic parade where the chiefs of several different regions were being carried on those reclining-chair type things. There were people preceding and following them that were dancing or playing drums and horns in traditional African clothes. Some of the chiefs were throwing out candy as they passed and the crowd was going crazy. Again, it was awesome.

Chief of something. I wish I were less ignorant.

Eventually we met up with Iggy and had lunch at a restaurant right on the beach. Besides the parade experience, the festival we went to that night was pretty similar to what you’d see in the U.S., although we did get to dance on stage at a small concert (again, Ghanaians thought this was funny). The most prominent musical genre in Ghana is what is called “high-life,” which is traditional Ghanaian music that’s kind of jazzy and reggae-esque and really fun to dance to. In the past decade or two, high-life and Western hip-hop merged to create “hip-life” which is also extremely popular. Some of my oburuni friends and I have grown particularly fond of this hip-life song in particular, much to the amusement of our Ghanaian friends.

Caitlin, Elaine and I stayed with our friend Maggie at the Mighty Victory Hotel, which not only has the best name of any hotel in Cape Coast, but it also had one of the only remaining available rooms. Because of the high demand for rooms we had to pay the steep price of 45 Ghana cedis for the night – I say “steep” sarcastically because although that’s more than you would normally in Ghana, it meant that we each paid about $7 for a night at a really nice hotel. Akwaaba Ghanaian prices.

Now, this past weekend is when the aforementioned accidental evangelical Christian incident happened. Although I like my internship a lot, it’s more time spent in an office than I hoped for. One day, though, I went with my boss to a rehab center that United Way was working with and they said I could come volunteer anytime. I was really excited to see another part of Accra that I would not see otherwise, so I went on Friday and worked in a slum by handing out food, clothes and antibiotics. It was a really great experience and I’m so glad that I did it, but the other part of the volunteer work was, well, awkward. I knew beforehand that the rehab center was Christian-based, but I didn’t really know to what extent until they handed me a T-shirt saying “ONE MINUTE, ONE PRAYER, ONE SOUL” really big on the back. For the several hours when we were handing things out, there was a pastor doing some very evangelical style preaching, and some drumming and singing in other languages. They kept having me participate and wanted me to even lead stuff but I was for sure the only one who really had no clue what was going on. Yeah, awkward. I didn’t really expect my internship to involve saving souls. However, that night I got to bartend at Jerri’s again where there is no such thing as awkward. Caitlin and I introduced Jerri to our friends and that small, sweet old man came to their table and said, “MAKE SOME NOISE FOR JERRI’S! MAKE SOME NOISE FOR FRIDAY!” which of course was followed by a lot of noise from all of us oburunis who have become Jerri’s personal fan club.

I spent Saturday and Sunday in Cape Coast again but this trip was with my study abroad program and was therefore much more touristy. Cape Coast, as beautiful as it is, has a really painful history in regard to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. There are still several castles that were used as holding docks for slaves until they were shipped off. We toured one on Saturday and the castle was, of course, really terrible and eye-opening, but no one can deny that the castle itself is also incredibly beautiful. For some reason my pictures from the castle aren't saving onto my computer, so I'll put those up once I figure it out. In the meantime, here's a picture of me with a crocodile that I met on Sunday:

I just like to make you nervous, Mom.

4. Obama - This isn't that related to the rest of the post, but I really want to include it.

Ghanaians love Obama. I wish there were a stronger word for “love” to use there, because the presence of his image here is right up there with white Jesus’. There’s an Obama Hotel by our campus, several murals with him and Kwame Nkrumah (the leader of the Ghanaian independence movement), a political candidate with giant billboards of him and Obama, and even an Obama College. One of my favorites, though, is Obama Biscuits, which are kind of like Nilla Wafers. Mmm the taste of America. I feel like they’d be even better fried.

Tastes like home.

Several of my friends and I have also invested in notebooks with pictures of Obama printed on the front (definite copyright violations) under the title “Ghana Schools.” For my Twi class I use one that has a picture of Obama shirtless at a pool and for my Development studies class I have one with a picture of the first family getting off the plane while a photo-shopped Ghanaian flag waves gallantly in the background. I may or may not be bringing a stack of them back for Christmas presents, so brace yourselves.

So, I think that’s definitely enough for one post! Sorry about really dwindling on details outside of Jerri’s, but I just realized that I have to run to Twi class in a bit. If you read all of this, I’m seriously impressed, so thanks for being so dedicated.