Accra

After a wonderful and cold holiday in Portugal I am glad to be back in sunny Accra. I had forgotten how humid it is in the South because Northern Ghana is extremely dry, and I am remembering what being sweaty actually means. I am staying with my friends Jen and Selina and I start my placement on January 5th.

You can mail me at my original mailing address in Legon as I will be checking that post office box regularly:

Claire Ryan
c/o TIG
Institute of African Studies
PO Box LG 73
Legon, Accra
Ghana, West Africa

Being away really made me realize how much I missed Ghana, and how much I like living here. When my plane landed I felt at peace and as though I was truly coming home. I wait in nervous but optimistic anticipation for my second semester!

Claire

December

So I packed up all my stuff, having to leave behind (very regretfully) my steam iron, my laundry basket, and my flip flops. So now I am wrinkly and washing in my bare feet, but I thought I was going to dislocate at least one of my shoulders as it was carrying all of my stuff around Tamale. I got on a bus and went to Kintampo, visited my new friend Rohini and saw waterfalls and met other new friends. I got on another bus yesterday at 9:30am, and got to Accra at 9pm. The distance is about 300km maybe? And it took Twelve Hours. The traffic is ridiculous coming into Accra; it took us 2 and a half hours to drive 27km. The roads are also in horrendous condition slowing down the drive so, so much. It was so good to see my homestay family again and meet my Auntie's children and grandchild. They were hospitable as always and are letting me keep my stuff at their place while I travel. Tomorrow I leave for Portugal for a week, come backon the 27th, will probably hang out with my Ghanaian friend Collins in his village for New Years, and then begin my last four months in Ghana. Time is flying.

xo

Mole National Park

This past weekend my friends Mika, Julie and I traveled West to Mole (pronounced MO-lay) National Park to explore, relax, and go on wildlife tours. Julie and I woke up at 04:30 on Friday to taxi into town and buy tickets - you have to go this early or you won't get a seat. After that we went back to sleep, or at least I did, and then walked around downtown because it was Farmer's Day and the President Atta Mills was visiting Tamale. At 14:00 all three of us went to the Metro Mass to wait for our bus to arrive, because it was supposed to leave at that time. At 15:15 it finally arrived, we pushed our way into the line and got on the bus and sat in our dirty cramped seats.

At this point I would like to talk about transportation. This is one thing I will never, may I stress ever, take for granted in Canada again. A full greyhound with a smelly bathroom seems like a distant dream at this point.

So 4 or 5 hours and a couple episodes of This American Life later, we arrive at Mole National Park. It is now dark and we are tired from being awake for so long. We decide to stay in the dorm rooms which we share with three other female guests because it is cheaper, and we go to bed early in order to be awake for the early morning walk on Saturday. Saturday we walked twice: once at 07:00am for two hours, and once at 15:30 for two hours. We saw tons of different types of antelope, warthog and warthog babies, and monkeys and baboons. At one point Julie and I were having a pop by the poolside (ya, there's a pool, super weird) and baboons just started casing the place and one came about 10 inches from my face and then thankfully bolted away as one employee chased after it with a slingshot.

That night we started chatting to a couple of doctors from the States, who were stationed for a month each in a Town South of us called Kentampo. I want to preempt this with saying that, in general, I am extremely skeptical of all foreigners that I come across in Ghana. Every white person I see I am so critical of because I know that many of them are not as self critical as I would like them to be. Unfortunately this is not just me being a judgmental jerk, it is in fact a reflection of the reality that white people in Ghana generally don't realize their position of privilege. It is in this light that I cringe when foreigners try to talk to me just because we are foreigners - they think we are in the same club, which makes us friends. And as much as I am critical of them I am critical of myself and my position, it just makes me deeply uncomfortable to think that probably they have not fully analyzed their motivation for being here. However these two doctors we met totally proved me wrong on these points and turned out to be hilarious, brilliant people who really were critical about the situation they were in. It was so good to talk and laugh comfortably with new friends that we got their info and will most likely visit them in Ghana or the States. Who doesn't need a contact in Brooklyn and Alaska?

The next morning we went on our third walk with our new doctor friends, and told them funny stories about getting ecoli and staph infections and malaria, and they ripped out a page of my romance novel and prescribed anti-funguls to take on the plane home. Closest thing I've got to a prescription in Ghana, I told them.

That night we made a friend named Emmanuel and got him to drive us to Larabanga to stay at the Salia Brother's motel, where we could sleep on the roof if we so chose. There was a ladder about the size of my forearm going up to the roof and one dirty mattress, and Mika says "So...this is what we have to work with." But I saw the biggest two cockroaches ever in the room below so I didn't mind having to sleep on the roof - it was so beautiful, but freezing cold with many mosquitoes. We then woke up at 04:15 to catch the bus back to Tamale and 4 hours later arrived.

It was amazing to see so much wildlife close up and in their natural habitat. But back to reality, I have two assignments due by Friday and a Christmas holiday to plan so it's really nose to the grindstone now.

All for now!

Claire

Politics

Ghana gained its independence in 1957, Nkrumah being its president at the time. Padraic requested I blog a bit about politics so here it is.

Ghana is predominantly Christian and Muslim, and it has had exclusively Christian presidents despite the huge Muslim population. Padraic's question was whether people tend to vote along religious lines or not, so I talked to my landlord. He said that people vote along "tribal" lines, meaning that depending which cultural grouping they are from (Ashante, Akan, etc) they vote for a certain person. The way he described it kind of sounded like the way people who are running for Presidency in the US go around campaigning, winning over one state at a time. Presidents who have the majority of the regions on their side will win. The current President is John Atta Mills.

More on this later.

A day in the life

I realized it's probably hard to put what I'm saying into context, so I thought I would write out a brief play by play about what an average day here is like for me.

05:15 - wake up to the mosque loudspeaker announcing it's time to pray

06:30 - wake up for the second time to a screaming goat, and a very loud rooster

07:00 - boil water for Nescafe, buy bread for 40 cents from the lady across the road

07:30 - eat and drink Nescafe while the people in my compound (who have been awake since call to prayer) do their washing and clean and iron

08:30 - get on my bike, pedal uphill to school in some outfit not made for exercising

09:00 - buy two water sachets, go to class, take notes

12:30 - finish class and go the yam lady across from school, buy lunch for 40 cents

13:00 - go to the market, buy tomatoes and bread and yams and rice and sauce

14:30 - go home, lay in my bed beneath the fan to avoid heat stroke, the compound is empty and everyone is hiding from the heat

16:30 - try to avoid the children screaming SALMINGA HEEELLLLOOOOOOO and jump across rancid, toxic gutters to go to the internet cafe by our house - surrounded by thatch huts

17:30 - start peeling yam, cutting tomatoes. Light burner and cook supper

19:00 - fill two buckets with water, start washing clothes by hand

20:00 - fill another bucket with water, scrub down and bucket bath

21:00 - hang out with people in our compound, drink more sachets

22:00 - bundle up and go to sleep beneath my sleeping bag

That's a pretty calm day. Sometimes there are wrenches thrown in, like when I had to deal with a drunk bicycle mechanic, or when I got hit by a cyclist, or when I took cheap drugs without prescription to stop my diarrhea and ended up having vertigo and insomnia from the side effects. After every ridiculous and potentially dangerous experience, it usually ends in a good laugh. Salminga means foreigner in Dagbani, so the kids who live around my compound are always screaming it at me and are not satisfied until I wave furiously at them.

This weekend was Sallah, which is a national Islam holiday. There was an abundance of animal slaughter and the cooking of cow bones and hide and insides has forever stained my nostrils. I didn't even feel bad for the goats next door though, because they wake me up so early every single day with their incessant crying.

So soon it will be Christmas, this month has gone by unbelievably fast.

Kukuwo

Ok so this is my second attempt to blog, but since my computer has been nothing but difficult this whole trip, it erased my first attempt.

When I get home I'm buying a mac, and that's that.

As I was saying, I realized I haven't blogged about food yet and it is quite relevant in my everyday life. All of Ghana is sustained mainly of starches, which is probably one of the main factors in the group weight changes we have seen.

Fufu: pounded yam, served with soup and meat

Banku: pounded cassava or maize served with Okra soup and meat

Red Red: beans and fried plaintains

Yams and Pepe: fried yams and super spicy sauce. Today my pepe was so hot I had to stop eating it, and my face to my chest was actually in pain, and my eyes watered.

Rice: (fried, plain with sauce, or with beans)

Egg and bread: fried egg on fried bread

Ghanaians enjoy these meals at all times of the day, often even for breakfast. I like them all except egg and bread, which I expelled from my body violently when I got ecoli and now I can't even stand the smell.

Ditto Julie, but with banku.

Ghanaians like to see me try and pound fufu, they find it very amusing. It's pounded with a really long, really heavy piece of wood that you slam over and over into a pile of yams until it becomes a soft gooey ball. It's extremely hard work and I can only do it for about 5 swings and then my little bicep muscles get tuckered out and the people at my compound clap for me. Overall, they appreciate my effort but on the whole it's pretty pathetic in comparison.

Also, you don't chew banku or fufu, and all of the above foods are eaten with your hands. One time I ate fufu with a spoon and I am the butt of that joke to this day. Every woman in our compound (there is one man and one boy and like 10 women) is a force, I swear. They are so badass, but they are also really nice and caring. They help us out and teach us about things that we are ignorant of, and we make them laugh by trying to exist in the world and constantly struggling.

School is going well, our prof/coordinator is a brilliant, radical man. Unfortunately I am having some problems with the direction the program is taking right now, and so I am desperately trying to work out an alternative with the heads of my program. I was aware we would be partaking in mini placements, but I wasn't aware of was what the mini-placements would entail. I assumed it would be like our 3 month placement, shadowing an NGO or a community organization or something. What our assignment really is, is getting into groups and actually going into a rural community and coming up with questions in order to analyze a system that has been put in place, such a school feeding program.

The problem is that we are not skilled or trained on how to know whether or not a programme is in fact being as effective as it can be. We are students, and we are predominantly white, all privileged, all middle-upper class, and we are invading a poor, African community and any conclusions we draw will stay in our classroom. This is not the development that I believe it. It is against my politics and my ethics to do this, and although I can see the benefits that might be drawn my people who are interested in field work, I am not.

I am emailing my prof at Trent and trying to get out of it. Usually I would just suck it up, I mean, I'm uncomfortable here all the time and I just deal. But this makes me so uncomfortable I can't even express. At least if I don't get out of it I can try and change the program for next year. Maybe over something different, something that applies to field work but that doesn't so blatantly take advantage of the groups' overall status.

Beyond privilege and beyond wealth, it comes down to race. I do not want to the white do-gooder going into the poor Black community not even to help, but for the sake of purely selfish information gathering. Information that will be discarded, and in addition to that, any community hopes that might be raised about elevated attention to their cause will of course be dashed. It is frustrating that these concerns were not addressed in class because I am sure I am not the only one with these concerns. The Ghanaians in our group are used to community entry, but none the less see the problematic nature of it. Especially because we are doing it just to know what it's like, not to actually try and mend something that is broken, or some other larger purpose.

On a totally different note, I drink about 5L of water a day. Give or take a litre. I am not messin around here. Also, lately it's been getting really cold at night because of the change of seasons, so I've been wearing a hoodie, pants, and socks to bed under a sleeping bag. Then Chris told me how low the temperature gets at night...

30 degrees Celsius.

So I guess I can say I've acclimatized.

Education/Ridge

We have arrived and begun school in Tamale. After travelling from Accra to Kumasi, and from Kumasi to Tamale, we unpacked our bags at a guest house here planning on staying for a few nights until we moved into our new house. We were told by the people who run our program that we could choose to either live in a huge house with 12 or so of our classmates, or break into very small groups and find homes together. They made it seem so easy. However it turned out to be the opposite - people who wanted to live in the huge house moved in, and the rest of our housing options all but fell through. After days in the hotel, we were taken yesterday to a compound to look around and see if we were interested in renting it for the next 5 weeks. The second I walked in I was sold - I was not kidding when I said my standards were extremely low. All I need at this point is one bucket of water per day, a place (a hole, some dirt) to go to the toilet, and a mattress. This is pretty much what I got so I am happy. It is 50 cedis a month, Julie and I are sharing a bed, and sharing the compound with 3 of our classmates. It is ideal for me and I am extactic that we found a place with an accomodating landlord because I was a ball of anxiety not knowing where I was going to sleep night after night.
School so far has been interesting, but we have only had class for the past three days. We have had a tour of Tamale, we went North to Bolgatanga and even walked across the border to Berkina Faso. In Bolgatanga I got to touch/ride a wild crocodile! I was terrified but the man in charge (who was wearing safety goggles, and had no other form of protection from the crocs) grabbed my hand and dragged me behind the animal so I could lift its tail and inspect its scales. It feels very....waterproof. I don't know how else to describe it. After that we watched it devour a whole chicken (read: a live chicken) in one gulp.
I like Tamale; the pollution is not as bad, nor is the traffic, and everyone and their dog drives a motorcycle or a bicycle so getting around is much easier. It is easier for me, as an affluent outsider, but life in Tamale appears to be much more difficult for some people than life in Accra. It is more rural and has less development over all - and therefor less money circulating. I had a really interesting conversation with a man today over coffee. I don't know how, but we started talking about Canada and then suddenly we were deep in conversation about terms of trade and aid in Ghana. He ended it with "What can Ghana do? It has one hand reaching out for aid, and the other reaching out for different terms of trade in order to be able to profit off its exports. It cannot have both, nor one without the other." He made a serious and tragic point. In many deep rooted ways it seems as though the country's hands are tied.

On a medical note, while I was travelling to Bolgatanga it seems that I acquired my roommates highly infectious staph infection, and small patches of boils broke out my face, eyelid, and arm. I got appropriate medication at the pharmacy and it has very much cleared up, but for a while I was scared that it would spread rapidly and maybe into my blood stream. Again though - I am lucky enough to be able to seek medical treatment as soon as I deem it is needed. Many people do not have these privileges.

I am very frustrated because the prof we have right now is teaching us about the Human Rights Based Approach to Development, but he has been stubborn and contradictory in his views that liberalized changes will not occur in countries such as Ghana. I posed the question that if the HRBA aims to provide marginalized people with the ability to realize their rights, is the constitution not directly contradicting that in making "unnatural sexual acts" (e.g. homosexuality) and women's reproductive rights illegal? He refused to give me a straight answer. He sidestepped the issue claiming that it is unfortunate but true - tradition and religion rule and Ghana and that is just the way it is. He then proceeded to compare same sex acts to beastiality in that they are regarded as one in the same under the Ghanaian law books and I was livid. I had to leave the class because it had become obvious that although my point was not arguable and in some ways he seemed to agree with me, he would not move from his stance.
This is my number one frustration with living in Ghana - especially living here as a marginalized individual. I feel that I cannot express my views without being criminalized or shrugged off as not deserving to have an opinion. Of course circumstances such as these do occur in Canada as well, but here I am helpless. The majority of opinions I have heard expressed are very conservative and are not condusive to the progression and change of a liberal democracy in Ghana. My opinion stands however: the HRBA to development carries moot points. If excluding the reproductive rights of 51% of the population and denying freedom of sexuality of countless individuals and groups is part of the HRBA - then it is being outright contradictory and selective. It is truly the Rights Based Approach for heterosexual, able-bodied men because it is taking place in a religious based, patriarchal society. How then is this a legitimate approach to fair and democratic development in the Global South?

But, it is hard to see problems such as these unless you are an individual that is oppressed and marginalized by the very ideologies that are being built to help you be more free. Majority always rules, and hence the stagnancy in social change.
I am hoping that I am either wrong or misguided in my cynicism, but I am witnessing this everywhere and so I continue to be jaded by failing development systems and the ongoing systematic oppression of marginalized groups. I will continue to go to school and participate in my placement and hope that somewhere I can find the organizing and exercising of resistance.

Traveling

I have not blogged in a while, as I have been so busy with exams and traveling and finishing up my stay in Accra.

The past few weeks have really been a blur. We had a five day break so my roommate and I decided to go traveling outside of Accra and explore Ghana a bit more. The first two days we had really unfortunate and hilarious luck, but after that things got much easier.
We traveled East to Ada Foah where the Volta River meets the Ocean. It felt like we had walked to the tip of the world, it was so breathtaking. But it took hours of exhaustion, dehydration, and frustration to find the ocean and struggle to the end of it.
The next day we went to Shai Hills and saw baboons and climbed a mountain. I thought I was going to die of dehydration and exhaustion because I wasn't prepared to literally climb a mountain, and was wearing flip flops and had no water. But it was worth it because we got to see a natural rock formation where the Chief of the Shai tribe hid during war. It was so incredible and educational, but I had to awkwardly ask our guide to get me water, like immediately, or else he was going to have to carry me back to the main gate. He was nice and did so.

We walked to our hotel (so exhausted) and they informed us that they had no rooms. I asked nicely if they did not even have a small closet we could sleep in and they said no. I thought maybe we were going to have to return to the nice woman we had bought yams from earlier and ask to sleep on the floor of her stall, and we started walking back to where we came from. After walking, hitching a ride, and getting a taxi, we finally stumbled across a very strange and out of place ritzy hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere, that had peacocks walking around and air conditioning.

After that we went to the Volta Dam on the world's largest man made lake. (Paddy I have pics for wiki.) We stayed on the Volta River and visited a bead factory and market, and made friends with the founders of a cool international fair trade organization called Global Mamas.

Now I am back in Accra packing and learning about different NGOs that I might volunteer for. I was having a hard time with the NGO fair because of my beliefs on volunteering abroad and the privileges that I specifically am privy to because of my skin colour and nationality. I have a hard time with people who volunteer abroad - especially students who have no essential skills to offer and are basically there to fulfill their own needs morally. Because that is not my motivation for being here, because I am here to further my knowledge of privilege and difference and the inequality in the distribution of wealth globally - actually participating in an NGO makes me very uncomfortable and make me feel like I am being put on a pedestal I do not deserve to be put on. So I have been talking to my wonderful friend who is second from the top in an organization that I really believe in and appreciate. It is called CPEHR - the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights. It fronts as an organization that deals with HIV/AIDS (which in truth, they do, but not primarily) , however in reality they are basically the only organization that's foundation stems from resistance to homophobia and oppression based on alternative sexuality. Specifically male to male sexual relations in Ghana is still illegal - a law that is impossible to enforce and denies an extremely high number of the population one of their basic human rights. Because of this many of the activities have to be discreet or secret, which is tragic but none the less, an extremely effective method of widespread resistance.

Tomorrow I move to Tamale where I will have less access to internet but will have more independence in terms of eating/sleeping arrangements. I am looking forward to the change but am anxious to rearrange the routine that I have set for myself here. My hands hurt from doing laundry by hand....after the godforsaken trek to Ada Foah down about 3km where all we could see was sand my clothes may never be the same. When I washed them water came out brown and grey. Literally my sweat blood and tears - but seriously, so worth it.

Hopefully the trip to Tamale isn't so bad tomorrow, and my guitar survives the trek. I will try and blog again soon to keep everyone posted on the differences that I notice between urban and rural living in Ghana.

So much love,
Claire

New Address

So in a couple weeks I am moving to Tamale and I thought I would post my new address here:

Claire Ryan
P.O. Box 59
education/ridge
Tamale, Ghana
West Africa

and that's it! I cannot wait to move because Accra is extremely crowded and humid and busy, whereas Tamale (about 7 hours North) is much calmer and dryer. Although...it is even hotter.
Classes are finally finished! Exams are next week and then I'm very free of academics.

I know that never again will I go without recognizing my privileges. The privilege of eating raw vegetables, drinking tap water, feelings safe, trusting the system, being able-bodied and white and western. Everything. Every day I learn something new about what it means to be privileged and it changes my thinking in a really positive way.

Assignments and the Like

It's been a while since Elmina Castle - the days are flying by. It's hard to believe at home Thanksgiving and partridge hunting is happening, along with the changing of the seasons. Here the only change is that it has gotten hotter and more humid, and not a second goes by that I'm not sweating so hard the back of my shirt could be wrung out. We have three assignments due this week and an enormous amount of readings, but it's not really that bad because after October we pretty much are done with academic assignments.
It's hard to concentrate in school when it's so hot. In Canada I have never had formal education during the hot months so I inevitably associate hot weather with relaxing or doing non-academic work. It's just a mind thing that I've had to overcome but at least now I know I can study under any conditions (even beneath a slow moving ceiling fan, or during 35 degree heat and a power outage).
I bought a guitar! So exciting! I was wilting without one, I feel sort of lost when I'm not making music. I had to walk in circles and bribe a school girl and haggle with a Ghanaian gentleman, but I finally got a capo and a guitar for about 50 Canadian dollars. No tuners in sight but luckily the top string was in tune so I could do the rest by ear. It's not perfect but it's certainly blissful.
If by some miracle it makes it back to Canada with me it will be my first very own guitar. I'm not sure about it's travelling abilities though, the case is about as protective as wrapping it in kleenex. We'll see in April.
I am writing a paper about sustainable livelihoods and access. It's going alright but I have to get back at it.
All for now.
Claire xo

An Experience of Humility

Yesterday our group took a field trip to Elmina Castle - the slave castle the stands in Cape Coast. It was the most intense experience I have had in Ghana yet. I wanted to cry the whole time but I didn't because I wasn't sure if they were my tears to shed. I also just read "The Book of Negroes" which happened to be about the slave trade in the 18th century from the Gold Coast to the US so it was all just too surreal. You could feel the evil that lay in the air of that place, it gave me goosebumps. It occurred to me that as white people, we were lucky to even be allowed into the castle to learn about history. I also wondered how much blood was beneath the white paint, considering 8 million African people died there or on the ship to America. The ocean is beautiful, but as I was looking out at it I could only imagine it as a large, unmarked grave. It has swallowed so many individuals quietly, only a few hundred years ago.

I learned a lot through the silent tour that we took. I remembered why I am here and why I am in International Development Studies. There's nothing I can do with the knowledge that I acquire here except mourn the past and do what I can about the present.

We were all so tired after the trip we fell asleep without brushing our teeth. I would recommend the Book of Negroes to anyone who will listen - it is remarkable and tragic and informative.

Snickers Bar

I am in an internet cafe and I am sweating so much. I can't stress hot it is here. I think it's hotter than any day I have ever experienced in Canada. I am getting used to it, but I am still amazed at how much sweat my body is even capable of producing.
I eat Snickers bars sometimes, I don't know why, I guess they remind me of home. They're the only Canadian thing I can find so I just deal with it. I have a feeling they will always remind me of Ghana.
The first month is finally done. I can't believe I survived it to be honest. I feel mildly invincible. Everyone in our group has lost weight and got a tan, we all look different already. When I come home you might not even recognize me!
At school we finally have a female professor - she is brilliant and intimidating, I love her. She is also the first prof who seems to know anything about development - she even uses words like 'development discourse' and 'elective affinity'. Don't get me wrong - the profs are all geniuses, just not all specializing in development.
I miss coffee and running water. That's all for now.

Twi

Akwaaba! Ya ena. Wo ho te sien? Me ho ye. Naon suway? Eye.

That means Welcome! Thank you. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Just fine. in Twi- which is the most common local language. My spelling sucks but I can say those things out loud. Right now my friends Emma and Julie are with me at an internet cafe (wireless!!) that we nearly acquired sunstroke trying to find.
I forgot to write about Boti falls. This past weekend we went to the Eastern Region of Ghana and I got to accomplish my life dream of walking behind a waterfall. It was so incredible. It also torrential downpoured which was strange because it hasn't rained since we got here.
Western shampoo is extremely pricey so I've been washing my hair with a bar of soap. Effective but not necessarily enjoyable. We went to this huge creepy western mall called Shoprite where we went to the movies (we were the only ones in the theatre) and bought things like Mars Bars and Mr. Noodles and all those gross Western things you can't get in Ghana. It was odd...it felt like home being in a pricey, stuck up, over commoditized atmosphere. I even bought an americano. I felt like a King, but also felt a lot of guilt and discomfort.
Powerouts happen on the regular, which is fine except that means we have no fan (guh) and it gets dark at six. Julie and I are pretty bored, and I almost cried when I spilt water on our playing cards. (Don't worry, they are tattered but salvageable.)
Our homestay family is hilarious. They're a bunch of wildcards, I swear. Our homestay mom (Auntie) is named Comfort and when I was showing her pictures from home she explained that my dad's brother (uncle Marty) is my other dad and my mom's sister (aunt Donna) is my other mom. This cleared up a lot of confusion what with all the kids in her house we though were hers (they are nieces and nephews). It's kind of nice though, Ghanain society seems to run on kinship ties more than anything, their loyalty is impressive.
In other news, the i button has fallen off my keyboard while I've been aggressively typing this blog (check back and see how many times an i was necessary and empathize with my struggle). So ...not sure what to do about that.
Also I am getting a head cold which seems unfair since it's about 35 degrees. School is hard, nothin' new there. Luckily I have nothing better to do other than lay around and read mounds of historical information on chieftancy in Ghana.

Sometimes when I'm feeling smothered by the religious and conservative atmosphere I wear mens underwear and feel that I'm secretly revolting. I know I've mentioned underwear twice now...but it's pertinent

So that's all for now. I'm probs gonna be at this cafe every weekend for the next 8 months because it's quiet and somewhat cool and they have legit coffee which is super scarce here.

I wish I could upload pics...but that is unlikely. Most of the stuff you can google anyway to get an idea.

Claire

Water Sachets

Water Sachets are bags of water we drink on the regular because bottled water $ can add up. They are like a ziploc bag with no zipper - you rip the corner with your teeth (sorry mom, I know you said to never do that 'cuz the braces) and then suck out the 500mL. It's pretty safe and gets the job done. School is extremely hard and consumes my life. We get up take the x2 tro tro ride from hell to school (although this is getting much easier) and then get schooled for 4 hours or sometimes 5 1/2 and then go home. I think you all should google tro tro because...I'm really not doing them justice. Last night we went out for PIZZA and it was AMAZING. The food here I find kind of hard, basically it's just a chore of not being hungry. I never know where to buy food that is safe, as I can't tell the difference between sketchy and reasonable. But I'm sure that will come with time.
The things I miss most are surprising:
- underwear (American Eagle size M if you're interested and feeling generous...)
- skinny jeans
- hipsters in general
- my guitar
- swearing
- regulated transportation
- running water
- chewing my food rather than just swallowing
- mint gum

That's pretty much it. All the rest of the stuff I can pretty much laugh at. Like only ever being 70% sure I'm in the right tro tro. Julie and I have a good time, we crack each other up. I am so so happy that we are super compatible roommates or else things would be just too hard. I play a lot cell phone games - suduko etc, and read a lot. I'm hoping I don't run out of books but it appears to be inevitable. I'm getting way better at washing my clothes but...my homestay fam still laughs at me trying to ring out my jean shorts.
Now that I've conquered ecoli in my first week in Ghana I feel like I can pretty much do everything. Life is good.
Oh also, I've upgraded my wedding ring since a guy chased me down the street pinching my bum until another dude ran after that guy and beat him into the street (isolated incident). It's pink with gigantic fake jewels...I flaunt it well I think. Although due to a huge lack of sodium and salt my fingers have become really skinny and sometimes it falls off.
September is going by fast....I can't believe it's the 16th already.
When Julie and I have bad days she reads out a quote from her quote book to calm us. We're getting back into pushups tonight hopefully as the sickness def slowed down our bicep growth.
I'm appreciating in a big big way all the love and support I'm receiving from Canada. It's making me sincerely appreciate my friends and family in ways that I never have before.
Love love love

Claire

Peeling Sunburns

Today I finally went back to school after a really brutal two day period of expelling fluids from my body because my whole goup got food poinsoning (strange considering...we don't all eat the same food at the same places). I went back to school and am learning African history and Ghanain history. Right now I'm typing this in my house! Which is amazing - somehow our homestay family has 5 Dell computers and we buy a little card that puts hours on the computer so we can use internet. We're super lucky - we're the only people that have internet or a plethora of computers at our house. Tomorrow some of my friends and I are venturing to the creepily huge and western mall, inside of which is a movie theatre. We're going to see Harry Potter...hopefully it won't be like the soccer game where I shared my seat with my friend, two men and a young child.
Things are looking up. Life doesn't seem to bad when you can finally go ten steps without needing a bathroom, especially in a city where bathrooms are very, very rare.
I'm rapidly applying sunscreen but I don't think I'm fast enough. I feel like if I spend more than 3 minutes in the Accra sun I instantly turn red. As if I don't turn enough heads as it is.
Send me lots of mundane details about your life please! Eveyone. I love hearing stories from home. I basically spend my time here reading my book (midnight's children), laying under a fan, sleeping, and riding tro tros. Well, other than being at school and studying of course. I'm excited because this saturday we are going on a day trip to the eastern region where we will see a cocoa farm (ghana is the world's....second largest exporter I believe?) and huge waterfalls. We have to leave super early because city traffic is like nothing you have ever seen.

Ta ta
Claire

Classes

Yesterday a bunch of us went to a gigantic soccer game (qualifying match for the 2010 world cup I think?) and it was totally ridiculous. I was sharing two seat with about 5 other people and everyone was screaming and blowing horns and hugging each other. This morning was our first day of classes and they seem interesting but extremely hard. Julie and I have finally figured out the tro tro system and get to school and back sans struggle (relative). Tonight we have a dinner with American students, which I'm not very impressed about because it's so late we probably won't get home in time to do our massive amount of homework. My homestay family tried to convince me to let them put my hair in braids/cornrows...I was like ummm....no thank you. I would look so ridiculous. So that's all for now!

Obruni!

Obruni is the Twi word for white person, and it follows me wherever I go. It's not offensive, more of an acknowledgment of difference. I have learned the Twi word for local person so i say that back to them and they laugh. Julie and I have moved into our homestay - our Auntie is named Comfort and she is really nice and layed back. This morning her daughter taught us how to handwash our laundry, it was hard but we will have ripped biceps by the time we get back. There is not much running water in Ghana, so all the bathrooms I have been in usually dont flush, dont have toilet paper, and there is not water coming out of the tap. I have learned to just hold it. We have to take two trotros to school and two back home. Trotros are terrifying. The roads in Accra are completely packed with reckless angry drivers at all time of the day. tro tros and big vans that seat12ish and they swing by, you jump in, and they peel out, kind of holding the door shut while ramming into bumps everywhere. At first it was absolutely scary, now I just nap for most of the way. Neither of us can pronounce where we live (or know how to get there) so you can imagine the big scary struggle it is getting home before dark (6pm all year round). It seems like nothing comes easy here. We drink water out of sealed plastic bags that are relatively safe, and I haven't been using my mosquito net because it keeps falling on my head in the night and scaring the crap out of me. But there don't seem to be any mosquitos...strange. Probably because we are inside when it gets dark out and we have screens on our windows. We have bucket baths, which is the Accra form of showering. You fill up a bucket with water and dump it on yourself and scrub your skin until you are clean. It is cold but it feels so good. I have to go to class now so I will talk to you all soon! Oh and yesterday I saw the ocean, I put my feet in. It was so incredible and breathtaking.
Love Claire

Hello!

I am finally in Accra. I am in an internet cafe on campus typing this to you. We reached Accra last night where our co-ordinator picked us up and brought us to the campus chalets. They are very nice with two beds a room and wonderful and nice people feed us delicious food. This morning we toured campus, feeling a little strange because we are a big group of white people that are clearly unfamiliar with the area, but it will come with time. It is not unbelievably hot here because the rainy season is ending, so it is overcast and really humid and slightly breezey. Overall very good weather considering I was expecting to be totally cooked at first. All this week we are learning about the area, languages, and finding out where our homestays are and how to navigate local transit. The food so far has been really great, and I have been drinking bottled water exclusively as it is very cheap. I have had no side effects yet from the malaria medication I am taking so that is a relief, but my roomate has had a migrain since we got off the plane. I am quickly learning patience as we have had to wait for everything so far, and really it's not that bad. Everything works out eventually. RIght now since it's sunday most things are closed (and everyone looks reaaally good) but early this week I will be buying a cell phone and it is cheap to call Canada so hopefully you'll be hearing my voice.

I hope this email finds you all well.

Blogging!

Welcome to my first-ever Blog!

This is a place where I intend to update anyone interested on my travels in West Africa for the next 8 months.
I will have sporadic access to the internet, so I figured blogging would be easier and more efficient than trying to remember to stay in touch with everyone individually.

I leave on the 28th - wish me luck!

Lots of love.