Akwaaba

Well, after 16 hours flying to Dubai where we had a 12 hour layover, followed by another 9 hour flight to Accra, I finally made it to Africa and it is exactly as I had pictured it. They welcomed us at the airport with big banners that read “Akwaaba” (Twi for “Welcome” to a land of red red dirt, decorated with sparse eucalyptus trees and white buildings remnant of the colonial era. The campus here at University of Ghana in Legon is actually very pretty in its own way with its quaint colonial style buildings and tree lined roads. The actually city part of Accra is fairly dirty as it is littered with trash and people pretty much pee freely anywhere but it has its own charm with its women selling goods out of big baskets that balance on their heads and everyone dressed in clothing made of vibrantly colored cloth. It is hot as hell though. Very very hot. Always. And very very humid. Last I heard, it was 84 degrees with 84% humidity and I have been told that we are in the cold/dry season. I can’t imagine what April with bring for us. After being here a little over a week though I am starting to get used to it a little bit and getting settled in in general. All of last week everyone in my program had been staying together in the International Student Hostel (Ish) on campus but a few nights ago I moved into my permanent room for the semester in one of the Ghanaian dorms, Volta. Only four of us actually got to move in here while the rest stayed at Ish because there weren’t enough rooms open and they couldn’t kick out Ghanaian students for us to stay here since its cheaper and many Ghanain students can’t afford the more expensive alternative. I am happy to be living here though, even though it is famous for not having running water or electricity. I had to take a bucket shower my first night here which was interesting but now that we’ve only had running water one of the nights here so far, I am starting to define my technique. Its not so bad actually. And now, the one time that we did have running water, I was unusually appreciative of the resource and extremely careful to use as little as possible. I feel like everything will be that way for me when I finally get home though. It is really not so bad to get by here but the fact is that that is exactly what you are doing, just getting by. There is cheap food and clean water and decent shelter but it lacks all the amenities we have at home for comfort like air conditioning and running water and vegetables and nice beds and TVs. And its interesting because as white people, here called obrunis, the people here are very aware of that fact and very aggressively go after us to try and sell us their goods or use their services. Many times, children have come to greet us when we get off the bus and they hold our hands and ask our names and then when we finish doing whatever activity we were going to do, they come back to us with some good that they personalized with our name, telling us we need to buy it since they can’t sell it to anybody else. Its kind of sad really. Many of the street vendors just pull out a mosquito net at night to hang over their table and they sleep on the ground underneath. It is definitely a different world here.

I am really enjoying everything so far. I live with a girl from Watsonville/Cal named Anabel who is pretty nice and everyone in the program is really cool on a whole. I think it takes a special type of person to want to come here and do this for this long. And we have done some cool things with our program in orientation. We had a bunch of lectures on language and culture and history and had a few really fun West African dance classes. Our teacher was so cool. He was this older Ghanaian guy with graying hair, a drooping gut, glasses, large crooked white teeth, a goofy smile, and he literally walked with a cane until he started dancing as if he was cursed with boogie legs and had to walk with a cane to walk normally. Plus he spoke like a guru, always giving us wisdomous advice such as “you have to look beyond the boogie to see humanity”. He cracks me up. I am going to try to take a class with him during the semester. Beyond that though, we also got to go on a few field trips. We went to Kumasi for a weekend, about 2 hours north of Accra, where we went to a couple different really cool craft villages to learn about/buy traditional kante cloth and woodwork. We also went to the Cape Coast and Elmina to go on a canopy walk in the rain forest which was pretty cool, and then to see St.George’s Castle where they used to export a lot of goods in the colonial era, including slaves. The tour of the castle was really interesting but totally weird. Before starting, they separated all the white and black students in our group into two groups to take the tour separately in a very sly way, although it was totally obvious. Nobody understood why so I was the ballsy one that decided to ask the question, to which our tour guide replied that it was a coincidence. That was obviously untrue though so we asked a guide from our program after who told us that two years ago, the black students got mad at the white students for not being serious enough and asked them to leave the castle, at which point a huge fight broke out. Its still so dumb though. I really can’t believe they did that. First of all, they were talking all about how the history is important so that we can share the experience and learn from each other’s perspective and make sure that it won’t happen again but how do they think we can possible do that if we can’t interact. Plus, it was dumb because many of black students, also have European ancestors. And it is not tally implausible that the white students don’t have African ancestors. And color doesn’t determine who is affected by it. Yohanan, a black student, is from Ethiopia, a country whose people were essentially completely unaffected by the phenomenon. Plus, it was a huge crime against humanity, we were all affected by it. We should all learn to see it as such. Anyway though… that is it for now I guess. School starts on Monday so I will just be finalizing my classes and exploring and all that this week but I am excited!

Peace.