missed holidays

HAPPPYYY BIRTHDAY NANNYYY!!!! 94 :) i love you!


HAPPYY FATHERS DAY DAD! i love you very much and i know you would absolutely love it here. i hope you had a good day, i'm sorry i couldn't have been there.

dodi princess cruise

the next morning (sunday) we went on the dodi island princess cruise. we travelled for about two hours on the volta lake to reach dodi island, then the two hours back. there was lunch and drinking and dancing and a live band on the cruise. on the way to the island we all danced and made fools of ourselves. the island was a bit of a disappointment. i didn't know what to expect, but i thought we would be let off in a town or something. the island was essentially still natural with a very small town far from where we docked. we followed a path to the other side of that part of the large island, and then walked back. but along the way, the people who live on the island lined the trail and played music and asked for money. i wish i had known that that was going to happen because i would've picked up more pesuwas (ghanaian cents, pes-oo-ways). on the way back to the dam, everyone fell asleep. it was a long weekend.

we had another two hour drive back to accra. on the way we passed villages that had been displaced because of flooding from the rainy season. it was so sad. i suppose this happens alot, there are two rainy seasons every year, but it was still very scary to see all the people lined up along the side of the road, while their houses were half under water and others tried to get their cars out of the flooding. it was a very sobering experience.

i have more to tell about yesterday night, but i've got to go to class now. i'll update again as soon as i can!

akosombo dam

it took about two hours to drive to the akosombo dam. the dam is huuuge! it's completely natural, being that it is made from rocks and sand, not concrete. the dam has created the largest land made lake in the world, volta lake. after touring the dam and taking tons of pictures, of course, we went to the continental hotel for lunch and to watch ghana play australia. after lunch we drove up to our real hotel, volta hotel, which is at the very top of a mountain near the dam. the view from the hotel was amazing! just stepping out onto the balcony of my room i could see all the surroundng hills, the volta lake and the akosombo dam.

at the hotel we found these huge centipedes. they were as long as my foot and about an inch across. they were so disgusting and everywheree. it was the first big bug that i've encountered so far.

we hung out by the pool for a while, it was great to get into water that wouldnt give us parasites, then went to dinner. there was a night club at the hotel so we decided to venture to that. it was hilarious. no one was there but us and there was a dj and strobe lights and dancing. good thing there were no ghanaians because our dancing was horrible.

the most amazing little kids

after the coffins, lauren (my roommate) and i went out with her friend prosper. he's a local that she met and he has been taking care of us when we want to explore. we explored with him for a little and we ended up in this area deep from the main road. alot of the people there had never seen a white person before! ha, it was funny to be on the other end of the camera. i now know how they feel to have us constantly taking pictures. we ended up close to our hotel where a bunch of kids were playing in the street. i gave them lollipops and immediately they wanted to be our best friends. we taught them duck duck goose and they kept saying joose! and running. then we played miss mary mack, and i swear i did that rhyme 30 times. they sang us songs, tried to teach us a dance (which by our standards would be ridiculously inappropriate for girls that age, but damn, they can dance! and its just a part of their culture, and one that i am very jealous of!) they thought it was hilarious when we tried and failed to imitate their moves. one girl, by accident i think at first, touched my hair and she was amazed at how soft it was. alllll of the kids then proceded to touch it. some were rubbing their hands in the dirt at the time and reached right up to grab it. they had never seen hair with so many colors, they said too. it was such an amazing experience. those children were so cute and friendly and adorable. i love them already and can't wait to come back to play with them on monday! we're off to akosombo to see the electric dam for the weekend then go on a cruise on sunday. i will be able to post again sunday at the earliest.

crazy coffins

yesterday after class, we had the opportunity to visit some coffin makes about half an hour from the hotel towards kumasi. these specific guys make coffins in the shapes of things that people like, or that represented their occupation. it took us an hour to get there because we hit this insannnne traffic. crazy in twi is obodam....(oh-boh-DAM). i've been in some obodam traffic in ghana but nothing like this before. it was like five lanes (and i say lanes loosely because there aren't any) trying to squeeze down into one. we were literally touching another tro-tro on either side. oh, and roads here don't undergo much up keep. every ride is a bumpy ride. and this one was especially bumpy. so we finally go to the coffin making shop and we're informed that all the coffins had been removed the day before. there was one in the shape of a fish that they were working on, but we got to see pictures of the finished products. some coffins were shaped like chickens, beer cans, houses, pipes, hammers, or there was even a holy bible and an AK-47. it was hilarious but inappropriate to laugh because these are peoples coffins!

guest speaker part 2

one of the stories the guest speaker told was about a group of hunters in the northern region of ghana. they went out to explore the local forests and stumbled upon 4 monkeys guarding a sacred totem. they returned to their village and informed the king of their findings. they thought the monkeys to be sacred and that they should not be harmed. the king did not believe them, and went hunting for the monkeys. it is said that sometimes, when the king would slay a monkey, its body would turn into a man. the people did not like the king's rampage so they rose up against him and beheaded him. after that, the people formed a community around the monkeys, and even to this day, people in this region live together with the monkeys. they are allowed to roam freely throughout the villages and enter peoples' homes. the people often feed the monkeys and the two species are connected in a culturally important way. their identity is infused with that of the monkeys.

the professor, aside from telling very interesting stories, reminded us that in many parts of africa, the protection and preservation of sacred groves is woven into the very cultural being of the people protecting them. nature and humanity don't stand apart, with humans either protecting or destroying nature. the trees (or in that story's case, monkeys) are more than trees; they have cultural importance to who these people are. it would be amazing to be able to visit some of these places! our professor was very lucky, he'd seen many sacred groves in ghana.


and i can't BELIEVE the celtics rolled over in the fourth quarter. ugh. congrats lakers. i hope the game was at least interesting to watch for those who could watch it. remember, ghana plays australia today! go black starsssss!

guest speaker

before i came on this trip, i was mainly focused on predicting what it was going to be like once i was in africa and what connecting with the ghanaians would be like. i forgot that i'd be making some strong bonds with the kids in my study abroad group. i'm surprised at how fast we've all gotten so close. it's definitely enhanced my experience here, and i can tell that these friends are going to continue to do so but at the same time i am sometimes being forced to choose to focus on one or the other. like do i go to the mall with my friends or focus on learning more about ghana? i think that we'll be able to find a way to even it all out as we get going. i think the seven or so people i've become really close with are all volunteering at glona with me, so we'll be able to have both. i start volunteering on a regular basis on monday.

tonight we had a guest speaker lecture us for an hour. he spoke about sacred groves and global environmentalists. he told some crazy stories about how the local people personify plants. i'll have to explain them tomorrow when i have more time, because i just got really tired.