classes

so there are about 20 classes offered at the NYU academic center, and i'm interested in about 5 of them. the problem then is that i'm also interested in taking courses at the University of Ghana, as well as Ashesi, but now that i've attended most of the classes, i'm thinking I may just take NYU classes for credit and audit courses at the other campuses. UG just seems really disorganized and I'm not sure if i want to deal with the stress from that system, and I'm still not really sure about the professor at Ashesi. so it looks like i'll be taking a literature course called African women speak on monday mornings, and then Globalization in the developing world monday afternoons. On tuesday morning is the one anthropology course offered, but I'm still not sure how I like that professor either. That class is called society, culture, and modernization. The Ashesi course meets tuesday and thursday afternoons, and late on tuesday afternoon is the film course, Documenting the African City, which should be really interesting, because it's a way of studying what we see while we're here, and creating a documentary about the experience. Yesterday was one of the UG courses I was interested in taking- Gender Issues, from the Sociology dept, but there was a glitch with the professor not being there and the prof who was supposed to cover had a conflicting class, so we were apparently supposed to have found out that the class was rescheduled for later, except no one knew that. unfortunately this rescheduling of classes without telling anyone is typical at UG, and since it's just a large lecture, that's part of why I'm thinking I may just try to attend the lectures, but not sit the exam. Because they are also on the british system, so most of our grade is just from one final exam...which is different/ scary. Today, I thought there was a course on Pan-africanism that I thought I'd try, but it too was apparently rescheduled here at the NYU center, and I missed that memo, and can't attend it this afternoon because of the ashesi course....but that's probably better because I'm already taking too many classes. Tomorrow, I'll go to UG again to try out a 2 credit zoology course, mostly just to see how they teach science courses, and we'll see how that goes. Friday is also when they offer Twi class, which i'd like to attend to learn more of the language, but I don't think I'd want to take that for credit. So that is generally what I'm thinking about classes, except a group of us might also try to take dance and/ or drumming courses with a dance troupe that we saw perform on sunday, and i'll put up pictures from that soon. actually, they're already uploaded, but I have to do a bit of editing, and then i'll let you all know how to access that to see pictures. I'll probably put videos up on youtube. and last night I also started working on putting up the roadtrip pictures...so that should be ready soon. now i'm going to go try to figure out my community service stuff, and then do laundry and work on pic stuff more. later-

camp is over

so now that our week of planned orientation activities, or kids camp, has ended, it's starting to feel more like i'm actually here to study, and not just at a 'learn about africa' camp for a week. orientation was very strange, but the past two days have felt a lot better for a lot of reasons. my stomach is finally settling down and getting used to the food change, which is a big plus. We've also started taking classes, so I can start deciding what it is exactly that i'm taking this semester. I can only take 4-5 classes for credit, but I'd love to audit several others because the lectures seem so engaging, but I can't handle doing that much extra work for the actual course. So far I've attended 5 classes in just the first two days, mostly at the NYU center. I attended the traditional medicine course at ashesi that i was really excited about today, but the professor is new/ different and i'm not sure how i feel about it, so we'll see. a lot of the other courses seem fun, but i have to decide which ones i'm taking for credit, so i'll write more about classes another time. i take my first class at the University of Ghana tomorrow morning, and then there's a durbar for the international students in the afternoon, so that should be fun. since we don't have much work yet, and finally actually have some free time, we've also started going out at night, and that has been fun, because it's a different opportunity to meet people in the program. last night we just went out to be out of the house again, but tonight was the first birthday for someone in the program (next week we have 3!!!) so we had a little celebration with cake and then dancing. so it was fun to relax a bit, and now that we can really go out and explore on our own it's starting to actually feel like i'm going to really be here for a semester. the only other thing that's coming up is figuring out where i'll be doing my community service, but I still have to talk to the guy coordinating that, but i'm really excited about that. (I even practiced my trumpet for a bit tonight to warm up, because another girl brought a flute, so we were making a little noise. for those of you I hadn't talked to about this, I brought a trumpet to maybe do some sort of music lesson/ class thing at one of the schools, but i'll explain more about how i work that out after i actually work out the details!!) so that seems to be it for now. check back on thursday, because tomorrow is reggae night at the beach after the durbar, so I don't think i'll have time to update. and don't forget to keep me posted on what is going on in everybody else's lives- like i want to know how everyone else's semesters are going....or will be going.

beach touron

so today....and by today i mean, on sunday we went to the beach and that night i started to write about it, but then my internet stopped working and last night i was too busy with other things, but here's what i wrote about our sunday adventures, and then i'll update for the following two days. so on sunday: we were really tourons (moronic tourists) and went to the beach and saw where all the other americans who come to Ghana hang out. it was weird since i really haven't seen americans outside of the program all week anywhere and then today it was like BAM. they're all chillin at the beach. but what was weirder was the ghanaian version of seaweed. aka garbage. i saw/ felt only like two pieces of seaweed the whole time we were in the water, but you were surrounded by bits of garbage, a lot of it was little pieces of black garbage bags....so yum. then sunday night we all went to the national theater to see a play about an african man who brings home his african-american wife and the conflicts they deal with. it was recommended that we go by the professor for one of my classes, and our power was being weird, so a lot of people went just to get out of the house. and so ended sunday

ama sitsofe

that was the new name given to me today at the naming ceremony in the Torgome village. Ama like i said before means that i was born on a saturday, but since clearly not all children can only have 14 name options, another name is chosen for the child by their father. Ceremonies like naming a child, marriage, funerals are really big deals in this culture, and since we all need new names, the chief got to pick them for us. The chief himself could not make it to the ceremony because apparently his daughter died yesterday? (someone told me this after the fact, and i'm kind of shocked that the whole village put on the whole performance for us anyway). But a bunch of elders presented us with our new names and gifts- these cool little pots and bracelets. We learned later how to make the pottery. they also did some traditional dances for us, but by far the most fun part of this whole ceremony was taking pictures of the children and showing them the pictures. they loved it. In Ghana, we're supposed to ask people for permission to take their picture typically, but with kids they recommend taking the picture and then just showing them since they like it so much. so we did this a lot and more and more kids just materialized around us, and they kept getting cautious the longer we were there. at first they seemed kind of afraid of us, but then they all wanted their picture taken and to press buttons on the cameras, but they were so funny, because none of them wanted to smile for the camera, so i have a lot of serious looking children pictures. it's fun stuff, and hopefully tomorrow i'll take the time to pick a place to post a ton of photos. i'm too tired again tonight to do it and will only write a bit more for now. we also went to a wildlife park today, but saw no wildlife. we did however see a cave where people used to live, and i climbed up a tree in my skirt. i somehow missed the memo that we were going to hike up a little mountain after the ceremony and see these caves, so hiking in flip flops and a skirt was kinda bad. but when we got there, there was a little tree (15 foot stick) you could shimmy up, and of course i had to do it, so one girl recommended tying the bits of the loose skirt together to make it more like pants, and that at least got the fabric out of the way. in any event it was funny.

just a brief note about yesterday. we went to an art museum and saw some cool stuff, plus a few of the strange coffins...like a shoe, or a pineapple, or coke bottle, or other weird stuff. i'll show you. i missed the coffin shops to go back to university of ghana, but i still got a taste of the strange options, and i can go to the shops another time. i also have a better idea of my classes and community service activities, but i'll write about that when i'm more sure and more awake. we have more fun stuff planned for tomorrow, and i'll write about it after the fact. there were more things i was going to write about, but i guess i'll have to do it next time because i can't remember. so until then~

time difference

one last note: it's only a 4 hour time difference here, so i'm four hours ahead of you guys. i will be 5 when daylight savings time changes for you. also, for gus' sake and anyone else who cares, the latitude is 5° 33' North and the longitude is 0° 15' West. and since I'm still slightly awake, a couple other notes are....they have lizards here like we have squirrels, and the lizards are cool looking. August is the coolest month as we transition from the wet season to the dry season, so the temp hasn't been too bad. I discovered my first mosquito bite about 10 minutes ago, but it's ok because I won't forget to take my malarial meds. I'm also taking vitamins regularly....mom. I forgot to mention that we went to the house of the woman in charge of cultural affairs something or other at the US embassy, and I have registered with the. AND their version of ramen has very little flavor even though their food is typically very flavorful. now for real i'm going to sleep.

settling in

hello again,

so I apparently won't be writing as often as I thought, because our internet is not as reliable as I thought. We have pretty reliable internet at the nyu academic center, but during the free time when I'd want to be writing long emails or these updates would be at the end of the day, and yesterday our power was out. That shouldn't be a problem, except our new generator apparently isn't working. Even when the power is working, our wireless box(?) doesn't always send out a good signal. So I'll update when I can. I'm also pretty tired still, so I don't have that much energy, and just want to sleep when we get back. The real problem with the power outages is that we don't get running water though, and that is pretty gross.

But, since I can write now, how about I tell you about the fun things going on. It seems like our schedule is always busy, and we're always running late to things. I've decided it is a hurry up and wait system we're operating on this week, because we always seem to have lectures or programs go too long, and then we're just late all day, but even when we arrive late to things, we just end up waiting around for things to get started. But it's generally ok. The most frustrating thing has been registering at the University of Ghana, because they allotted 3 hours for it on the schedule, and on the first day we didn't even finish half of the general registration process. AND THEN you have to go and register again separately at each department where you might want to take classes. So today we went back and finished general registration, and ran around to some departments to register, but we'll probably go back again tomorrow. This of course has eaten up our 'free time' and we're behind on other planned activities, like our Twi lessons. All I can say in Twi is hello, how are you, what's your name, and where are you from...but since greetings are really important, I guess that basic stuff is helpful. It would be nice to know more, but we'll learn throughout the semester, and it's not that essential, since most Ghanaians speak English. It's just nicer to try using the local languages out of respect, etc.

So even though we're mostly through orientation, I'm still not sure what classes I really want to take. Many things seem really interesting, and some I may just audit. I really wanted to take this course called traditional medicine at Ashesi University, but I may also sit in on an Economic development course there, for example, because it would be interesting to see what discussions the Ghanaian students are having about those types of topics. Ashesi seems like a pretty neat university, because it was founded only 5 years ago by a guy who went to Swarthmore, and worked for microsoft in seattle. So that school is much more like a small american school, and is very discussion based. Ashesi means beginning. There's a whole interesting story about ashesi and it's beginning, and the president of the school is really cool, but i'll tell that another time. maybe. The university of Ghana, Legon, is on the british system, so there won't really be assignments that are graded, because it's mostly just based on a final exam grade. So we'll see how that works. A lot of those classes are much larger since the campus has 28000 students, so it would be really easy on some to just sit in and no one would really notice (although we do stick out...) However, it should still be really easy to sit in, and part of what I'm really interested in learning from these classes is not so much the material, but the way in which the material is being taught, the teaching style, and perspective, etc. So I haven't really picked a class there yet, because I'm not sure what would offer the most unique experience. Part of me really wants to take a science course to see how they are taught differently, but I'm not sure if I want to be graded on it. I signed up for a sociology course in gender studies, which should be similar to my anthropology work, and I'm signed up for a zoology course, but that's just because they told us to register in departments we think we might be interested in. Next week we'll "shop around" for classes, and see what we like most. I also want to look in on some of the archaeology courses and see if they tickle my fancy. I'm also not sure with the upper level science courses if I could sit in unnoticed, and I probably can't audit a lab....but their system is very slow, and I'll figure it out. At the nyu campus...or building with two lecture rooms, I'm hoping to take the documentary course, because that's pretty key in some anthropology work, and I wouldn't do that kind of thing in NY so here's the place to try it. I hear people can do some really great work with that course, so it should be fun. There are a couple of other courses more focused on pan africanism, and globalization in ghana, and literature by african women that all draw my attention for different reasons, but again, I'm going to shop around.

Let's see what else I can write about... I was the first one to arrive at the compound, and that was really funny. Plus the RA for our building called me Erica the whole first day, and since I was so tired I didn't bother correcting her, and now I'm pretty sure she'll call me Erica the whole time. Her name is Ama. Everyone here has names that mean "was born on blank day of the week". So ama is girl born on saturday, and that would be my name too! but our Ama is really funny. She's the one that drove me to the airport twice to look for my lost bag. Retrieving that was a adventure of sorts. They didn't have it the first day, and the second day they said they had it in their records, but I couldn't find it forever. They just let you in this room full of suitcases, and say....look around. really weird system.

We won't pick our community service places until tomorrow, and I'm still not sure what I want to do for that either. I'll write more on that when I know. Tomorrow we're also going to see some famous coffins? because here they make really weird coffins apparently, like in the shape of coke bottles and weird stuff. I'll take pictures. We will also get a tour of the Kwame (male born on saturday) Nkrumah Mausoleum. He was Ghanas first president. It's pretty cool being here this semester, since this is their celebration of 50 years of independence. So far we've mostly just had a lot of mini lectures about the culture, religion, medical care, policies, geography, and more. The real fun should start tomorrow with our fun visits, and on Saturday, we're going to a village, and there will be an official naming ceremony, visit with the local chief, learning different crafts, etc. It should be fun/ interesting, and on sunday we'll get to see a traditional dance performance over brunch. which brings me to food. we do have a meal plan for dinner, at two different restaurants. one is "the best west african cuisine" and the other is indian food. They're both nice, but of course our bodies all have to get used to it, so most of us are kind of sick. My one roommate slept in bed all day yesterday. I'm more bothered by a slight head cold/ allergy i have. I'm not sure if i'm allergic to something here, but it's mostly getting better. Also, I do have 3 roommates, but I haven't really had a chance to get to know them real well yet.

i guess my last comments for now are just some funny things that have occurred. For one, Ama seemed to think we needed about 3 hours in the morning to get ready....so she'd come knocking at like 6:30...and well. it was just a little crazy. not really funny i guess. but worth noting. the real funny thing i guess is that for the normal semester we'll have a couple vans that drive us around between the academic center and dorms and other universities and stuff, but for orientation transporting all 50 of us to the same place at the same time....they rented a tour bus. like a safari bus. with elephants and giraffes on the side. and everyone is embarrassed to be bussed around in it. i'll try to remember to take a picture of it, but its just funny how much we hate being marked as tourists. the vans blend in more, because tro tros are a typical form of transport...and they are just vans which act like oversized cabs which drive a lot of people around. so. i think i've now written more than anyone should reasonably care to read in one sitting, since i wrote it over a very long period of time, taking breaks, etc. Which is probably also why it may not seem logical. But now I'm going to go make some soup and get to bed early to try to be more alert during the day. I'm not sure when I'll write next, but probably this weekend to tell you about those adventures. Til then~

Akwaaba

That means welcome in the local language Twi, which I'll be learning some of this semester. We've heard that a lot. So Welcome to my blog, where I'll just be writing about stuff that happens randomly. I will have much more reliable internet access than chris, but it's still not that great. I'm still pretty exhausted from all my flights and we get woken up pretty early, so I'm not going to write much more tonight, but I'll write and explain more tomorrow night. Tomorrow we'll go visit the two neighboring universities, so I'll be able to tell you more about that. We've also already had dinner at the two places on our 'meal plan' and they're pretty good. Til next time~