Thursday, December 10, 2009
Finished!
I've now completed my final and turned in all my papers. I leave Ghana in 5 days, so it's nothing but party time now I guess. Or sleep. I doubt I'll post again on here, but photos will find their way to facebook when I get home, and I'll show them to all y'all. Thanks for reading yo.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Happy(?) AIDS Day
This Saturday evening was the culmination of Tom’s work with his NGO, the West African AIDS Foundation. They run a clinic here and do advocacy work for people living with HIV. The event, commemorating World AIDS Day, was at the Alliance Française, a French language and cultural center in Accra. It’s a really nice venue, as it’s a big courtyard with an outdoor auditorium and a bar. We arrived about an hour early with Tom, and helped carry boxes of donated bottled water and soda around, as well as putting up banners.
Hundreds of people ended up coming for the event, both Ghanaians and westerners. I hung around Tom and schmoozed with various important people that he was welcoming. When I wasn’t doing that, I played with the NGO head’s kids, three boys who desperately need less crack in their diet. We thought that they’d hit a wall at some point (figuratively, as they frequently literally ran into walls at high speeds and then bounced right back up) and get sleepy, but they were bouncing off the walls until they got taken home after 11.
The actual event started off with a performance by this drumming and dancing troupe. It was my first actual chance since I’ve been in Ghana to see something like this, so I really enjoyed it. They even did an HIV-awareness dance that told the story of why you should always use a condom. It was hilarious, intentionally and not. After that were acrobats, who we’d actually seen during our first week here at La beach. They did typical acrobat-contortionist things, but it really got impressive when they started juggling fire and jumping through flaming hoops. I’m not sure what any of this had to do with AIDS awareness, but that describes about half of the events that evening.
The informative part came next, with a speech by the head physician at the West African AIDS Foundation, as well as one by the president of NA+, the Ghana Network of People Living With HIV. We had a candlelight vigil, which Ghanaians were not interested in being quiet during, and then an apparently famous female singer came on to sing. She sang two “inspirational” songs, and then incongruously busted into a song about how she wasn’t in love, but she was going to be in love tonight. It was basically a song about getting some at the club, which was a great message for World AIDS Day.
This theme continued as a number of Ghana’s most famous rappers performed, including Screwface, Obomofuor, and Macho Rapper. These people are all famous here, I promise. Sonny, a Ghanaian who works at the Aya Center and hangs out with us a lot, got giggly-excited when he heard that Macho Rapper would be there. Anyway, they all sang songs about how gangster they are and how they get with lots of women, probably unprotectedly, so this was pretty funny but the crowd went nuts and had a great time. I got to meet most of these guys afterward, and they were all pretty friendly but had a long drive home so we didn’t get to go clubbing with them just that night. There was also free HIV testing at the event, and I passed on it, but my roommates Liz and Beth are now happily certain that they are HIV-free.
The final highlight of the evening happened while I was out in the courtyard during one of the rap performances. There was a projector set up here showing what was on stage so that those getting drinks or having a smoke wouldn’t miss it. While I was out, for two straight minutes the camera zoomed in on a dancing woman’s ass and just followed it around. No one except me found this strange. Also, during a poem read earlier in the evening on the subject of AIDS, the lines “Men, be careful. Women, stay faithful” were uttered. Ghana’s trying really hard, they are, but man they just don’t get some things.
Hundreds of people ended up coming for the event, both Ghanaians and westerners. I hung around Tom and schmoozed with various important people that he was welcoming. When I wasn’t doing that, I played with the NGO head’s kids, three boys who desperately need less crack in their diet. We thought that they’d hit a wall at some point (figuratively, as they frequently literally ran into walls at high speeds and then bounced right back up) and get sleepy, but they were bouncing off the walls until they got taken home after 11.
The actual event started off with a performance by this drumming and dancing troupe. It was my first actual chance since I’ve been in Ghana to see something like this, so I really enjoyed it. They even did an HIV-awareness dance that told the story of why you should always use a condom. It was hilarious, intentionally and not. After that were acrobats, who we’d actually seen during our first week here at La beach. They did typical acrobat-contortionist things, but it really got impressive when they started juggling fire and jumping through flaming hoops. I’m not sure what any of this had to do with AIDS awareness, but that describes about half of the events that evening.
The informative part came next, with a speech by the head physician at the West African AIDS Foundation, as well as one by the president of NA+, the Ghana Network of People Living With HIV. We had a candlelight vigil, which Ghanaians were not interested in being quiet during, and then an apparently famous female singer came on to sing. She sang two “inspirational” songs, and then incongruously busted into a song about how she wasn’t in love, but she was going to be in love tonight. It was basically a song about getting some at the club, which was a great message for World AIDS Day.
This theme continued as a number of Ghana’s most famous rappers performed, including Screwface, Obomofuor, and Macho Rapper. These people are all famous here, I promise. Sonny, a Ghanaian who works at the Aya Center and hangs out with us a lot, got giggly-excited when he heard that Macho Rapper would be there. Anyway, they all sang songs about how gangster they are and how they get with lots of women, probably unprotectedly, so this was pretty funny but the crowd went nuts and had a great time. I got to meet most of these guys afterward, and they were all pretty friendly but had a long drive home so we didn’t get to go clubbing with them just that night. There was also free HIV testing at the event, and I passed on it, but my roommates Liz and Beth are now happily certain that they are HIV-free.
The final highlight of the evening happened while I was out in the courtyard during one of the rap performances. There was a projector set up here showing what was on stage so that those getting drinks or having a smoke wouldn’t miss it. While I was out, for two straight minutes the camera zoomed in on a dancing woman’s ass and just followed it around. No one except me found this strange. Also, during a poem read earlier in the evening on the subject of AIDS, the lines “Men, be careful. Women, stay faithful” were uttered. Ghana’s trying really hard, they are, but man they just don’t get some things.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Your daily Ghanaian nonsense
On a trotro review mirror this morning:
Prosper Jingles
The Highlander
This makes even less sense than most broken English signs in Ghana.
P.S. For anyone who hasn't heard yet, I'm coming home in January to save money. I'm also going to Egypt, Thailand, and maybe South Korea on my way home. I don't know the details yet of when I'll be back in the U.S.A. but I'll keep you posted.
Prosper Jingles
The Highlander
This makes even less sense than most broken English signs in Ghana.
P.S. For anyone who hasn't heard yet, I'm coming home in January to save money. I'm also going to Egypt, Thailand, and maybe South Korea on my way home. I don't know the details yet of when I'll be back in the U.S.A. but I'll keep you posted.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Thanksgiving
The kids from the other programs here get it easy. CIEE, the largest study-abroad program on campus, threw a Thanksgiving dinner for their students, featuring turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and apple pie. Our house had the choice of doing it ourselves or not at all, so naturally we took that as a challenge and decided to go all out on Thanksgiving dinner.
On Monday we invited everyone who works at our program, as well as friends and coworkers. Cooking started on Tuesday, and I worked on pie. I searched every grocery store in Accra (there are three, and they have pretty much exclusively white people in them at all times) for pumpkin, canned or otherwise, but to no avail. I did find granny smith apples, and Z found a canned “summer berry” mix that looked like it’d make good pie filling. Liz took pity on me and helped with the pie, because apparently she wanted pie that tasted good or something. This was good, because otherwise I’m not sure what we would have ended up with.
On Thanksgiving, Z went out to get a turkey, and we thought that there was some sort of “precooked” turkey available because he’d seen it. As it happened, it was basically turkey lunch meat in the shape of a whole turkey. Gross. We ended up buying a frozen turkey and started defrosting it at about 2, when it needed to be served at 6. I was excited, assuming that this would never happen and we’d all get tons of turkey for the next few days since our guests would be long gone by the time the turkey was done. As it turned out, the turkey fit in our microwave, defrosted quickly, and was tender and delicious.
We ended up with turkey, sausage-apple stuffing, green bean casserole, infinite mashed potatoes, fruit salad, sautéed vegetables, mushroom and chicken gravy, two apple pies, and a berry pie.
Our guests all loved the food, which was great because previously most Ghanaians who have tried American food at our house or elsewhere haven’t been impressed. Dr. Williams, our program director, even came by, and talked about American football for much of the night, which made it a lot like American Thanksgiving. Three boys from Taryn’s school came as well and had a fun time making hand turkeys. Really, all of us college students had even more fun with hand turkeys. 
After the kids took off, we busted out the alcohol, and ended up playing beer pong for most of the night, which is a hilarious thing to do in Ghana. Our security guard walked up to return his plate of food, saw what we were doing, and we were all a little concerned he’d tell us to keep it down or to not remove our closet door and use it as a beer pong table. Instead, he picked up a ping pong ball and sunk a cup with his first shot.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Party Time, excellent
After not being too exciting when we first arrived, my household has started to discover the charms of the Accra nightlife. Which is pretty much the only thing Accra has going for it. On Thursday night, we discovered a place called Ryan’s Irish Pub in Osu. I was expecting a typical Ghanaian spot with Guinness on tap or something, but instead it’s a huge, green farmhouse-style building set into a verdant lot. Inside it looks like you’ve wandered into a trendy Irish-style bar back in the United States. The almost complete lack of black people inside really helped with that impression as well. We spent most of our time inside giggling at the fact that this place exists. We also drank draft beer and Soco, so as much as I kind of felt bad for hanging out in the least-Ghanaian place in Ghana, it’s still fun. Watching the creepy old drunk white men hit on dumb sorority girls studying here was also entertaining.
Saturday night was my housemate Beth’s birthday (actually it’s Tuesday, but Saturday was the party.) Everyone dressed up and we went to this club called Cinderella’s. For some reason there was a club right next to Cinderella’s as well, and it didn’t have a cover, so everyone was in there and we ended up spending the entire night in there. I never go clubbing in the US, so I don’t know how it compares, but it was pretty fun. There were a lot of Ghanaians there, unlike at Ryan’s, and by American standards the drinks were cheap. The great thing about Ghana is that everything is really cheap, but when I want to splurge on things that are fantastically expensive by Ghanaian standards, I just say “This would cost twice as much back home!”
We spent all night at the club, and ended up getting home around 5:30 in the morning. We ate canned spaghetti that one of my housemates thought was a good idea to buy, and then I walked around campus and watched the sun rise. It wasn’t very exciting.
From here on out, we’re planning to go out all the time. Also, I might skip out on most of my obligations next week to go to the Western Region of Ghana with some girls from another program at the university. Apparently the Western region houses the nicest beaches in Ghana, mangrove swamps, a stilt village in the middle of a lake, and an evergreen rainforest national park, so that sounds much more fun than going to class and my internship. Actually trying and behaving myself was fun for a while, but it’s officially party time now.
In spite of my last statement, I’m still reading books at an amazing rate. Here’s an update on what I’ve gotten through recently.
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (good until the climax which was stupid)
- Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (he wrote Atonement, and yet this book is still good. Who’d have thought?)
- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (good drawings)
- Kafka on the Shore by a Japanese dude whose name escapes me (absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to everyone)
- My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (a little too much estrogen but not bad)
- Invisible Man by Ralph(?) Ellison (Kafka-esque and good)
Right now I’m at work on Ulysses again. I’ve totally got the first 3 chapters memorized since I’ve read them like 18 times now, and never made it much further into the book. Will I make it anywhere this time? Check back and see.
Saturday night was my housemate Beth’s birthday (actually it’s Tuesday, but Saturday was the party.) Everyone dressed up and we went to this club called Cinderella’s. For some reason there was a club right next to Cinderella’s as well, and it didn’t have a cover, so everyone was in there and we ended up spending the entire night in there. I never go clubbing in the US, so I don’t know how it compares, but it was pretty fun. There were a lot of Ghanaians there, unlike at Ryan’s, and by American standards the drinks were cheap. The great thing about Ghana is that everything is really cheap, but when I want to splurge on things that are fantastically expensive by Ghanaian standards, I just say “This would cost twice as much back home!”
We spent all night at the club, and ended up getting home around 5:30 in the morning. We ate canned spaghetti that one of my housemates thought was a good idea to buy, and then I walked around campus and watched the sun rise. It wasn’t very exciting.
From here on out, we’re planning to go out all the time. Also, I might skip out on most of my obligations next week to go to the Western Region of Ghana with some girls from another program at the university. Apparently the Western region houses the nicest beaches in Ghana, mangrove swamps, a stilt village in the middle of a lake, and an evergreen rainforest national park, so that sounds much more fun than going to class and my internship. Actually trying and behaving myself was fun for a while, but it’s officially party time now.
In spite of my last statement, I’m still reading books at an amazing rate. Here’s an update on what I’ve gotten through recently.
- The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (good until the climax which was stupid)
- Enduring Love by Ian McEwan (he wrote Atonement, and yet this book is still good. Who’d have thought?)
- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (good drawings)
- Kafka on the Shore by a Japanese dude whose name escapes me (absolutely fantastic and I recommend it to everyone)
- My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (a little too much estrogen but not bad)
- Invisible Man by Ralph(?) Ellison (Kafka-esque and good)
Right now I’m at work on Ulysses again. I’ve totally got the first 3 chapters memorized since I’ve read them like 18 times now, and never made it much further into the book. Will I make it anywhere this time? Check back and see.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Building shit.
This last Wednesday we didn’t have classes and instead went to a school in an Accra suburb to help construct a library. This has been an ongoing project by the Aya Centre where they take whichever groups come through from the US and have them work on the library, which is getting built slowly but surely.
It was an interesting experience to build completely by hand. We spent our time mixing cement and then carrying the cement up to a worker who poured it into the frame that had been built. The building was about halfway complete and we were putting the final level of cement on above the windows, leaving just the roof to be done after.
Making the cement involved shoveling dirt into a large basin, mixing it with bags of cement, shoveling rocks on top, and then carrying water from a rainwater tank and pouring it on. After this we had to mix the cement with shovels. I couldn’t believe how inefficient this was, and at first I was thinking about how much a portable cement mixer would speed up the process, but I realized that just a wheelbarrow would have doubled the work we were able to do.
The main job that I worked on was standing on a rickety board supported by cement blocks and lifting very heavy metal bowls of cement up to the man who was pouring it. I got a lot of cement dripped on me, and nearly got hit in the head by the large rocks in the cement mix when it spilled over the frame. We didn’t really accomplish that much, which was discouraging, but at the same time it felt more gratifying than anything I’d done at my internship this whole term.
Speaking of my internship, I spoke to my program about how I hadn’t done anything there in a long time, and that what I had done was for my boss personally, not for the internship. So, I may end up with a different internship for the last month, unless AFAWI comes up with something for me. I really wouldn’t mind actually doing something, even if it’s just teaching math or English for a while. I’d even be happy doing construction compared to the sitting-around I do now.
It was an interesting experience to build completely by hand. We spent our time mixing cement and then carrying the cement up to a worker who poured it into the frame that had been built. The building was about halfway complete and we were putting the final level of cement on above the windows, leaving just the roof to be done after.
Making the cement involved shoveling dirt into a large basin, mixing it with bags of cement, shoveling rocks on top, and then carrying water from a rainwater tank and pouring it on. After this we had to mix the cement with shovels. I couldn’t believe how inefficient this was, and at first I was thinking about how much a portable cement mixer would speed up the process, but I realized that just a wheelbarrow would have doubled the work we were able to do.
The main job that I worked on was standing on a rickety board supported by cement blocks and lifting very heavy metal bowls of cement up to the man who was pouring it. I got a lot of cement dripped on me, and nearly got hit in the head by the large rocks in the cement mix when it spilled over the frame. We didn’t really accomplish that much, which was discouraging, but at the same time it felt more gratifying than anything I’d done at my internship this whole term.
Speaking of my internship, I spoke to my program about how I hadn’t done anything there in a long time, and that what I had done was for my boss personally, not for the internship. So, I may end up with a different internship for the last month, unless AFAWI comes up with something for me. I really wouldn’t mind actually doing something, even if it’s just teaching math or English for a while. I’d even be happy doing construction compared to the sitting-around I do now.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Important News!
I may be returning from Ghana early. I was checking out my finances, and discovered that next term will cost me $11,500 here. If I return home, I discovered that due to the fact that I only need 1 class to graduate, it will cost me ~$400 to finish my degree. Including buying a new plane ticket home, I’d save about $10,000 bucks by coming home early. That’s infinite money back where I come from, but I’m still not sure what to do. I’m set up to take out the loans to pay for next term, but I just don’t want to be in debt.
I also go back and forth on whether I want to stay at all, as I’ve liked my experience, but I don’t know how much more I’d get out of it next term. I’ve been told that the classes at the university are mostly terrible. But if I stayed here, I’d be more comfortable and have chances to do new things in Accra and in Ghana. I also wouldn’t feel like I’m wimping out.
My travel plans for when this term finishes up are also a mess, whether or not I choose to come home early. I wanted to go to Spain and visit Erin, but getting there looks like it’d be way more expensive than I was thinking. I’d also like to travel around West/North Africa in general, but that requires money too. Finally, I really wanted to go to this music festival in Mali, which is a) expensive and b) in the very middle of an area where a group called Al Qaida in the Maghreb (a word meaning North Africa) has been kidnapping European tourists and attacking Malian and Algerian army posts very successfully. The music festival sounds amazing and like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but making a video about how much I love Allah while someone points an AK-47 at my head would be a pretty unique experience that I don’t want. I normally don’t worry about stuff like this and just say “oh, you have to know what regions to go to in countries like that.” In this case, the festival is exactly where the kidnappings and attacks have been occurring. Still, odds are I wouldn’t get killed by Al Qaida and I really want to go. It just seems like a terrible idea.
In summary, I’ll be home
- In the middle of December, if I decide I don’t have the money/inclination to travel around Africa and I want to not spent next term here.
- In the middle of January, if I decide to travel somewhere and I don’t want to spend next term here.
- In the middle of May, if I want to stay here and decide it’s worth $10,000, whether or not I do any of these travels in December .
I have to decide about all this very soon, like this week. Input is appreciated, because I don’t have a clue what to do.
I also go back and forth on whether I want to stay at all, as I’ve liked my experience, but I don’t know how much more I’d get out of it next term. I’ve been told that the classes at the university are mostly terrible. But if I stayed here, I’d be more comfortable and have chances to do new things in Accra and in Ghana. I also wouldn’t feel like I’m wimping out.
My travel plans for when this term finishes up are also a mess, whether or not I choose to come home early. I wanted to go to Spain and visit Erin, but getting there looks like it’d be way more expensive than I was thinking. I’d also like to travel around West/North Africa in general, but that requires money too. Finally, I really wanted to go to this music festival in Mali, which is a) expensive and b) in the very middle of an area where a group called Al Qaida in the Maghreb (a word meaning North Africa) has been kidnapping European tourists and attacking Malian and Algerian army posts very successfully. The music festival sounds amazing and like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but making a video about how much I love Allah while someone points an AK-47 at my head would be a pretty unique experience that I don’t want. I normally don’t worry about stuff like this and just say “oh, you have to know what regions to go to in countries like that.” In this case, the festival is exactly where the kidnappings and attacks have been occurring. Still, odds are I wouldn’t get killed by Al Qaida and I really want to go. It just seems like a terrible idea.
In summary, I’ll be home
- In the middle of December, if I decide I don’t have the money/inclination to travel around Africa and I want to not spent next term here.
- In the middle of January, if I decide to travel somewhere and I don’t want to spend next term here.
- In the middle of May, if I want to stay here and decide it’s worth $10,000, whether or not I do any of these travels in December .
I have to decide about all this very soon, like this week. Input is appreciated, because I don’t have a clue what to do.
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