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After Mole, my friends' drummer instructor invited us to a funeral in his village. Funerals are a big deal in Ghana. Activities had already started when we arrived Friday afternoon. It is considered incredibly rude if someone from the community does not attend the funeral, since it is the community's job to celebrate the life of the person while the family mourns. Everyone is required to wear black and red, while many people have a shirt made with the deceased's picture. The funeral all in all lasted about 30 hours. After the procession of the body a wake was held during the night with singing, dancing, and preaching. Upon arriving in the village Johnson instructed us on the proper way to take libations, which we would take many of.

The next day we visited Johnson's sister who is a high priestess in the village. These women wear white and cover themselves in chalk to show that they are training to be a priestess.

Then it was off to Ada Foah, the estuary where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean. In my opinion it is the most beautiful place in Ghana (that I've seen so far).

Like many coastal villages in Ghana Ada Foah relies heavily on fishing and its an industry that involves the entire village. On our walk to the estuary we saw everyone, men, women and children involved in carrying the morning's catch back to the village.











We got caught in an amazing storm on Friday evening and were actually cold in Ghana.
An island in the middle of the Volta River produces distilled rum from sugar cane. Ali and I went in on a $6 1.5 liter bottle (to support the local economy of course).

Update

OK, so here is a little bit of what I've been up to for the past month...

*Disclaimer if you want all of the amazing details you should give me food (definately no rice or yams) and I will tell you everything you want to know. :)

In the begining of March Ghana celebrated its 51st year of independence. I got up at 6 AM with some friends to watch the celebration at Independence Square.

Independence Square is about the size of 3 football fields and was filled basically every government empolyee from the miltary to IRS to Prison Guards parading around the Square. President Kufour rode around in an SUV with the secret service running beside and armed snipers in full force. (the last military regime ended only 15 years ago)

The next weekend it was off the the Green Turtle. Theo, Ali, and spent a relaxing 5 days hanging out at the beach and sleeping matresses with misqito nets.

The adventure also included a canoe ride through the mangroves

Then, it was off to the north to visit Mole National Park with Kady and Elaine. Two buses, one taxi and 30 hours later we arrived.

We took two safaris, the driving safari on friday night in the back of a pick up and the walking safari on Saturday morning.
It is always required to have an armed guard on the tours and here is ours causally explaining the local wildlife while holding a loaded gun.
We were really lucky and got to see 3 elephants the first night and about 10 the next day while they were in the watering hole.

Week of Firsts

Ok, so this week has been a week of random 1st time adventures. It started last weekend when Ali, Theo, and I spent a 5 day weekend at the Green Turtle/Safari Lodge. Which included my first time canoing through mangroves (in Africa), being pulled out to sea by a current, and sleeping on the beach with only a mattress and mosquito net.
The next adventure, on Wednesday and Thursday,included having to really act like an adult for the first time. Set up: so basically there is only one place in ALL of Ghana that a Mastercard Atm card can be used and that is the Barclay's in downtown Accra. Lauren, the other IU girl, and I made the trip together since everyone else on the trip has Visa. We withdrew out money and everything went surprisingly smooth. That is until I found out that somehow I was charged double the amount I withdrew. Therein began my adventure of leaving UG at 630 AM and grabbing a taxi by myself to beat rush hour traffic. Well, it ended up that the bank wouldn't open for another hour. So I read and was said Good Morning to by every Ghanaian that walked by. Basically the next hour consisted of everyone telling me they couldn't help me or pointing me in the wrong direction. It was fun.
The next adventure was on Friday was actually fun. I took my first solo tro tro ride. I grabbed tro tro outside of the Bush Canteen and got off at 37 to visit Max Mart for the frist time. Max mart is one of the three grocery stores in Accra. It tends to have a few more international items than ShopRight, like skittles which I got to share with my neighbors. Then I headed over to Bonjour for lunch and enjoyed the air conditioning for a little while. While I sat there reading They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, I was approached by a guy from Sierra Leone whose parents had been killed in the war. He offered to marry me in exchange for a Visa, but I said no thanks.
The Last adventure of the week included attending my first ever revival. My neighbor Beatrice who I had gone to Bible study with a few weeks ago, told me that GAFES (IFES's chapeter in GHana) was going to be putting on a program in Central Cafeteria. I was super excited to go because I have been trying to find GAFES since I've arrived. It was supposed to start at 7 but Beatrice said we shouldn't leave till 8, always trust a Ghanaian when they tell you arrive late. Betrice ended up getting sick so I went by myself. Let's just say the evening included a preacher who really enjoyed yelling and promising to heal people and a guy praying in tongues(?) on the mic. I'm still trying to process this one.

Life as a Lady of Style and Vision

Here's a post about everyday life in Volta Hall. We are the only all female dorm on campus and are known as Ladies with Vision and Style, in contrast the only all male dorm, Common Wealth, known as the Vandels.

Volta has alot of open courtyard space. But, as we all quickly found out, walking on the grass is highly prohibited, fines are stickly enforced.

The doors in the background is the entrance to Volta. Instead of a "Center Desk" it is the Porter's Lodge that is staffed 24/7 by usually 2-4 middle aged men we can "Uncle" Ben, Moses, ect. They do important stuff like hand us our keys, ask how we are, and sell phone credits.

This is looking the opposite direction up to the Volta Cafeteria where "We serve you best." Its where we spent alot time during the first two weeks here. They serve declious Ghanaian dishes like fufu, jollof rice, or kenkey pictured below:

Back to the courtyards! This is the walk up the main area of the dorms. Its really exciting to walk up and see the sprinklers going, because its a sure sign of running water.

The dorm has open air hallways that look out into yet another courtyard. Here is the view from my room.

And finally here is my room. I live with a UC girl named Talya who is a lot of fun. I have the left side of the room and to make it feel more like home, I make sure to keep it messy.

This is the other direction. My trusty bucket also serves as a night stand and the bunk bed catches all my sweaty clothes at the end of the day and works great with my misquito net. And finally here is my desk. (i like to keep a grocery like my Papaw)

Coming soon

OK , I finally figured out a way to post pictures with out infecting my computer with viruses. In the next couple days you should see pictures from my first 6 weeks in Ghana.

This is from a weekend trip to Kokrobite beach 2 weeks ago. 10 of us headed to an infamously Obruni beach that is about 1.5 hours from Accra. We chilled, swam in the wonderfully cool Ocean, and ate amazing Italian food 3 times a day.

Water continued...

Water seems to be in such a shortage that the waterfall we took a 2 hour tro-tro ride to on Saturday was dried up. The beautiful waterfall we were supposed to be swimming at ended up being a 60 foot face of a cliff with an incredibly stagnate pool at the bottom. And even though the man at the front gate told us we could swim, we all decided not to. So instead Kady, Alicia, Ali, Mac, Erica, Kayla, Andrea, Jess, and Daisy climbed on the would be waterfall. While I spent two hours surrounded by a mob of10 kids singing, dancing, and counting. All the skills I learned in Mexico of how to entertain kids who don't speak English came in handy. I taught them a song, then they taught me a song. I taught them a game, then they taught me a game. Then we counted to 120. Even though the waterfall was not running we all had a really fun time and even came home to running water in Volta. Which caused everyone to race to the showers in fear that the water would run out again any second. It did run out an hour later and was off untill Sunday night. But, another rain storm came through on Sunday afternoon which meant all the Obrunies ran outside and danced and showered.

Water, Water, Everywhere?

The water at Volta hall has been out for the last five days. That means bucket showers, bucket showers, and more bucket shower. Also that means carrying buckets of water upstairs so the bathrooms don’t become completely unbearable.

But then it happened… It rained in Ghana! After looking like it was going to rain for a whole week and then having lightening storms each night, It Rained!! A group of us “ladies of style and vision” were sitting in Allie’s watching Save the Last Dance (yes Save the Last Dance) and then we heard the wonderful sound of rain. ALL the Obrunies ran outside and started dancing in the rain. It felt so incredible. For the first time in 5 weeks I felt cool and wasn't even sweating! It rained really hard and straight down for a good 20 minutes. And since bucket showers only get you so clean a few obrunies ran outside in their bathing suites with soap and took a shower in the rain. All of the Ghanaian girls thought we were crazy. Uncle Pedro, the night security guard, thought we were especially crazy and kept asking me "Indiana, why would you go and run out in the ran?" I told him because it felt good to be cold. Last night was cool, probably got down to 78*, I actually got to sleep with my top sheet! It probably would have been the greatest sleep ever except the preachers came by at 6 AM with their megaphones, I guess they thought we would need some extra salvation after partying it up on Independence Day.

Watch out for the Monkey

For the last few weeks there has been a monkey running around the University. About a week ago, Theo (who lives in the boys dorm) told a crazy story about a monkey ran into his room and started jumping around on his bed. Theo yelled "bad monkey" and then ran out onto his balcony to wait for the monkey to leave. We all thought the story was a little crazy, but not unexpected for the guys' dorm. Little did we know few days later the monkey would visit the girls' dorm too....
On Saturday we came back from our day trip to the mountain town and stopped to get water at the convenience store, R-link, that is two blocks from our dorm. The monkey had decided to move on from Legon and to start terrorizing R-Link. Everyone stood by and watched or screamed as the monkey stole clothes and kankey. Finally, on Sunday morning the monkey made his appearance at Volta. I woke to 20 of my Ghanaian floormates screaming and running around. It turns out that Ghanaian girls are just as scared of the monkey as Obrunies. So we ran around our floor for twenty minutes trying to avoid the monkey while the Porters kept asking for a banana as bait.
We learned that you should not run from a monkey or it will charge you, but you also shouldn't stand still or it will put its hands up your shorts like it did to Alicia. We heard the monkey was captured, but I fully expect to see it again.

Markets

A large part of life in Ghana is centered around the markets. Entrepreneurs are a big part of Ghana's economy. It was only six months ago the first ever mall was built in Accra. For a moment having a mall seemed like a nice convenience to have, especially to Americans. Yet after only 15 minutes we could see how bland, boring, and impersonal the mall is.At a market you are able to interact with people, you barter, they laugh at you when you make mistakes, they congratulate you when you do a good job bartering.
On campus there are two markets: the Bush Canteen and the Night Market. The Bush Canteen operates during the day and has two sides, shopping and eating. There are about 40 different merchants selling about everything you could ever need, from school supplies to kitchen utensils, from barbershops to beer. Each merchant has a 6x8 ft room that is crammed with as much stuff as possible. The other half of the Bush Canteen is food. Walking up the Bush is long row of women selling bananas, fried plantains, pineapple, mango, and oranges. Then inside a 40x60 ft area are women pounding fufu and selling red-red. You are able to buy a filling meal for about 40 cents and water in a cold sachet for 5 cents.
The Night Market is basically the same as Bush Canteen, except at night and night in Ghana means 6:30. I love the feel of Night Market. Its four rows of little shops either lit by a single electric bulb or a few candles. Food can also be bought, like egg sandwiches or freshly made kabobs. I'm a fan of both.
In the future I'm sure there will alot more posts about adventures in the markets.

Orientation

The two week anniversary of being in Ghana also marks the end of orientation. For 2 weeks 24 students from California, another girl from IU and myself attended countless lectures, traveled to the Northern border, and stuffed ourselves with chicken and rice. There were days when the program scheduled from 7 am to 9 pm seemed a little overkill. Yet, when 70 other international students arrived on their own on Tuesday we were all really grateful that we had had the orientation.
I have really enjoyed theses past two weeks. There have been some transitions, but nothing too overwhelming.
For example:
rising a 7 am or earlier :)
Restroom break meaning running into the African bush alongside the rode to go pee
All meat is served intact, ie whole fish (eyes, fin, gills), chicken on the bone with possibility of a foot
The heat that limits you to one activity a day
People being super ready to help you
& laughing together when you make a mistake
Every Ghanaian you meet remembering your name
The amazingness of living in Ghana

Orientation

Well, I am in the middle of orientation right now and they are keeping us super busy. So posts might be a little few and far between until school starts which is in 2 weeks. Most days I've been attending lectures on the history or culture of Ghana. Saturday we went on a tour of Accra. But it was hard to really get a feeling of the city from a bus. And on Sunday of course we went to the football game.
On Thursday we leave for Kumasi which is in the middle part of the country and is the capital of the Asante. From there we go to Tamale in the northern part of the country. We should be back on Tuesday. Then it is time to register for classes.
My time is running out at the internet cafe. Its a Legon Hall, the boys dorm, and only a few minutes walk from my hall,Volta. Next post I will talk about the nightly dancing under African sky. :)

Ose Ghana!!!

Last night we went to the quater-finals of the Africa Cup. Ghana is hosting the games this year and the country is loving it. Everytime we stop in traffic someone is trying to sell something, anything with Ghana on it.
Ni was able to score all 28 of tickets, so we spent last night surrounded by 40,000 Ghanians and 500 Nigerians. Nigeria scored the first goal and everyone was a little worried. Ghana and Nigeria have huge rivilary to be the powerhouse in West Africa. Pride in Ghana and the Black Stars is very strong. Even when the Black Stars would miss a goal the stadium would errupt with cheers because it was a close shot. When they scored their first goal about 5 minutes before halftime the staduim went Crazy! I have never seen or heard so many people cheering and going crazy. A favorite thing to do is to spash people with a liter of water. Everyone was wet and screaming at the top of their lungs for the entire halftime. (Oh yeah, the police were there in riot gear) :)
The Black Stars ended up winning 2 to 1 and lets just say Ghana knows how to celebrate! It was an incredible experience and we were so lucky to get to see it. We will be traveling up North during the Semi-finals and the Finals. But everyone will be cheering for the Black Stars!

Traveling

Well, about 12 hours from now I will begin traveling to Ghana over a period of about 36 hours. I'm almost packed. :) And I am so incredibly excited!