Last night the girls, Sonny, Lucy, Professor Williams, and I went out to a club. It was a lot of fun and quite the experience! The relations and roles of males and females in this culture is very different and will take a lot to get used to! The men are very outgoing and the females are very reserved. I think the men are especially outgoing towards us American girls, because if they marry one of us they will be able to go to America. When we were dancing I got separated from my group of friends and suddenly there were four men dancing around me, grabbing my arms playing tug-a-war with me. It was insane! I had to push them all away to rejoin my group. I am still figuring out how to deal with men here, but ignoring them shouldn’t be too difficult most of the time. Overall it was a fun night!

It has been an entire week since I arrived here. So far it has been an incredible experience. The people here are so kind, I love it!
On Sunday our house was ready to move into. It is much nicer than we were expecting! We all have our own bedrooms and bathrooms, we have a kitchen, dining room, and living room. It has a tall adobe fence toped with barbwire that wraps around a nice green manicured yard. We have security guards that take turns sitting in a little office outside the house 24 hours a day. All the security feels a little excessive but it’s nice to feel safe anyways.
We have been walking to the Aya Centre everyday for class. This week we had a Twi class. Learning the Twi language is very difficult, as any foreign language is, but I’m making progress. Today was the last Twi lesson, the course was much too short but I plan to keep practicing on the locals. The way people speak this language sounds so good, they sound so graceful with their words, I really want to learn it!
This week we learned how to ride trotros. The trotro is the most popular form of transportation in Ghana. It is a system of large passenger vans that have different routes and stop to pick people up and drop them off. Accra also has a bus system but it is not popular because it takes longer and costs more. Trotros are usually packed to the brim with people and always cause perfuse sweating. It was a fun experience, but I am nervous do it alone! At least I have a cell phone so that I can call for help when I get lost!
I am really happy that I went on this trip! I like all my roommates and my first glimpse at African culture!

Our First Weekend in Ghana

On Saturday Molly, Gina, Emily (another roommate who had just arrived) went to a part of town called Osu. As soon as our taxi arrived in Osu we were instantly bombarded by baggers and people trying to sell us things. It was quite overwhelming. A very persistent man selling paintings eventually talked me into buying something. He started out trying to sell me his painting for 40 cedis (about $30) but I explained to him that I did not yet have any local currency and bargained him down to $12 (17 cedis). Looking back on the occasion I am proud to say that I was not ripped off too badly for my first experience bargaining in this country and that it is a very pretty painting! We then went on to find dinner. It took a long time for us to find a restaurant and we were all very hungary and happy when we found a legit place. Not knowing what anything was on the menu, we had the waiter explain to us what everything was. It is amazing how kind and patient people are around here! I ordered my first authentic Ghanian meal... Banku (sour dough ball), Tilapia (the popular local fish, people eat the entire fist from head to fin), and a spicy soup to dip the Banku into.

When we returned to the hotel we greeted Ada, the last roommate to arrive. The Afia hotel was very nice. While we were there we enjoyed many good meals, a few beers, and my first ever night swim in the ocean.

My Journey to Africa...

As I arrived at the Long Beach airport my eyes started to water with thoughts of the unknown filling my head. I was scared about the possibility of my time in Africa not being fun or good. I thought “What if I don’t get along with my roommates? What if I get homesick? What if I don’t make many friends?”. I said goodbye to my parents and then went on my own up to my boarding gate. After I got onto the airplane my nervousness turned back into excitement as my long time dream of going to Africa was finally coming true! I was ready for big adventure, even if it meant leaving behind the people that I love.
The plane flights and layovers were long and tiring. I meet up with my future roommates Molly and Gina in the D.C. airport and we took the last leg of the flight together. I filled the time on my flights with a nap, a movie, music, and some conversation with Gina. I was getting more and more excited as time went on, especially once I could see a glimpse of Africa through the clouds (photo above). Sooner than I could get a grip on the reality that I was going to be in Africa, we arrived. As I was going through customs I did not get a very good first impression of the country. There were pretty paintings on the walls, but the air smelled like urine and there were men dressed in army attire walking around with machine guns. After we got past customs we went to get our bags. Miraculously all of them arrived no problem :)
As we made our way down to the parking lot area we found the people picking us up holding a sign that said "AHA Program". We later learned that one of them is named Sonny and he is the one that takes us on tours and is basically in charge of us, the other is the van driver. As we followed them to the van we were bombarded by men trying to help us carry our suitcases and get money from us. It was quite overwhelming as we didn’t know who was part of our group and who was not. Eventually we made it to the van and escaped the madness of the airport.
Sonny and the driver took us to the our hotel that we had reservations at. It was totally beautiful! I love the tropical plants and the sound of the ocean!