Congratulations on Your Safety

"...Those who say getting there's half the fun have never taken an African bus ride..."

Thankfully, instead of accruing all kinds of visa fees and waiting in uncertainty for random Burkinabe, Nigerien, Ghanaian, Togolese, Beninese, etc, buses, Corinne and I discovered through the amiable young Nigerien man at the Nigerien embassy that there is indeed a way to get to Niger from Ghana. I should have known that the difficulty of finding the SNTV (the Nigerien bus company that would be taking us to the intriguing Republique du Niger) station would be an omen of how things would turn out with SNTV. We were in contact with a man named Moussa, and he was to pick us up from where we were at the STC (a Ghanaian bus company). We kept missing one another when we tried to call each other and he said he was going to pick us up on a motorcycle. I saw several motorcycles pass, and none of the drivers seemed to be looking for me. Finally, after asking people who pretended to know where the SNTV bus station was we discovered that we the SNTV station was not near the STC Central Accra station, but the Tudu Station location. So we took a cab, and the cab driver charged us 2.5 GHc to drive in a circle that took 30 seconds, and acted shocked that we thought it was unfair of him to do so. I will not miss cab drivers. We finally arrived at the SNTV station, which was enough of a distance away from the road to get mugged, and consisted of a warehouse-like building with a pile of dirt in it, a couch, some random furniture and wood, and an "office" at which we bought our tickets, from Moussa himself. I was a little skeptical of this operation, and thought at points that Moussa was a master con-artist, and was in cahoots with the Nigerien embassy, swindling cash from innocent American tourists like myself. We bought our bus tickets, and were told to come the following day, May 24th, at 11 A.M. or 12 P.M. This ambiguous time frame made me a bit suspicious.

As advised, Corinne and I arrived promptly at the bus station. Not surprisingly, the bus was not there. The bus arrived at 4:30 P.M. Then, everyone loaded all of their belongings onto the bus. Every available space was packed with umbrellas, prayer mats, teapots, dates, etc etc etc. This operation took two hours. In the meantime, Corinne and I sat on the bus with our backpacks, ready to begin our journey, that would endure for an estimated 30 hours. So when everyone was ready to go, a man approached Corinne and I and said, "The bus driver is tired so we're going to go tomorrow." We both laughed because we thought he was joking. He was not laughing though and told us that the bus was going to leave at 5 or 6 tomorrow. Agh!

Annoyed, Corinne and I decided to drown our troubles in Chinese food in Osu. A protein bomb it was, in tofu form. I'm not used to that kind of thing. My muscle fibers were screaming with delight. It was pleasant until people were begging outside (targeted again for my white skin that shouts I'm made of money), which is usually tolerable, however, until this girl threw a crumpled empty water sachet at my head, and then later a handful of orange peels. Sorry! I woke up hella early to catch a cab to the station. Our bus left at 7:30 A.M. We traveled east through Togo, where the Nigerian man next to us offered us cola nuts. They're delicious if you enjoy the most bitter taste on Earth and like your mouth to feel as dry as eating a handful of sand. An acquired taste, some might say.

We also traveled through, Benin, the country which the Lonely Planet begins to describe as, "This club-shaped country..." hahaha. We traveled the entire length of this club. It was beautiful and lush, like Ghana. The northern portion was drier, as in Ghana. Finally, we reached the Nigerien border at dawn. It was not hot out, but the temperature rose steadily during our short visit to the border, and it felt like it was going to be extremely hot. This was a different kind of heat.

We eventually arrived in Niamey after driving for a few hours through the Sahel. It was hard to discern Niamey as a capital city from seeing the other places we stopped in before reaching the capital because it was very underdeveloped. There were few tall buildings, highways, distinguished areas of commerce, etc. Niger is the least developed country in the world, and one of the poorest countries. During French colonialism, the French destroyed the fragile balance of the Sahel ecology and the methods of agriculture used by the indigenous people, and instead implemented destructive large-scale cash crop farms, that has since encouraged further desertification of Niger. Now the French are gone, and the people trapped by the arbitrary border imposed by a foreign power are the ones that have to deal with inherited poverty from the French meddling in Nigerien affairs. It was this journey, especially from contrasting the lushness and rich natural resources of Ghana, that I realized how much geography determines an entire nation's way of life, and the quality of that life.

At the bus station in Accra, we had met a young Nigerien man, named Mamoud. He told us that we could stay with his mother in Niamey. Upon arrival in Niamey, we received a phone call on the bus, and were informed that someone was going to be taking us to Mamoud's mother's house. We met the two young men, and after arguing with a cab driver, after hearing "Americain" thrown about a few times, i.e. they should pay more because they are American (still, being ripped off by cab drivers is a pan-African phenomenon), a fair price was decided and we were off to the house we'd be staying at for the next week. This could have ended badly, going to an unknown location somewhere with two strangers, but I've put my fears behind me by now, and have embraced African kindness with trust.

We arrived after spending 28 hours on a bus, battling deep vein thrombosis, listening to 25 hours of extremely annoying music that sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks singing along to fast-paced Arabic music and guest appearances by a female T-Pain, and having ankles the size of thighs. Niamey is the strangest capital city. There were about three tall buildings and only a few paved roads. The residential areas only had dirt roads that formed grids around the compounds that everyone lived in. Niger is 90% Muslim, so that was also a different experience from the largely Christian Ghana I've been living in. Nigeriens are very reserved, and did not approach you to bother, sell things, or hit on you, like the other places I've visited in West Africa. They were all very kind, friendly, and helpful when you approached them though.

We stayed with a family of Nigeriens in Niamey. We had a mom, "Mama"!, and there were four brothers and two sisters. We had a huge room to stay in and were fed elephant-sized portions of food, so enormous that even a glutton would have difficulty finishing half of the meal. I had to put veganism on hold because I did not want to be rude by asking for accommodation for my diet. Thankfully, Corinne, although vegetarian prior to coming to Africa and current flex-atarian, is a real trooper, for if there were any surprise meat chunks in what we were eating, she ate them for me. Thanks, friend.

We spent most of our time with Mama's son, Lamin, who was 25, and a rather attractive young man Corinne and I thought, until he was a total narcissist, (i.e. doing push-ups out of the blue, lifting weights, dancing, all in front of Corinne and I, I guess to impress us? Not impressed.). He spoke very few words of English. He said things like, "C'est cool?" (It's cool). I guess he spoke some "Frenglais", as we did too. He had a friend, Ibou, who spoke enough English to communicate with us. Ibou was a sweet boy. We enjoyed hanging out with him. When he would try to remember some English words he was at a loss for, he would close his eyes in concentration and maybe frustration until he remembered them. One of my favorite memories of him is his reaction when we would cook things he was not used to (i.e. frites (french fries) with the skin left on them) and then proceed to try what we thought were culinary delights. When he put a fried potato in his mouth, he made a face as if he dropped it in the gutter outside before giving it to him. When we were laughing at him because of his disgust, he tried fruitlessly to convince us that he liked what we made by eating another fried potato, although we could still detect his disgust in his countenance, although he tried to hold it back. He did the same thing when I made what I thought was a delicious vinaigrette of sesame seeds, black pepper, herbs, salt, garlic, (all pounded in what looked like a huge mortar, with a stick for pounding fufu for a pestle!) oil and vinegar. Wrong. I asked if he thought Mama and Sadia (the sweet 13 year old girl living with us), would like some. He said with a straight face, "They cannot eat that." Ouch. So we then had a salad adulterated with "salad cream" aka straight up mayo, mixed with oil, and some vinegar and salt. My arteries were angry at me after eating this concoction that I have avoided for the duration of my stay in Africa.

We did everything with Lamin and Ibou for the duration of our trip to Niger. Lamin talked at me in French a lot, and I learned quickly how to say some basic phrases, greetings, and what I did and did not eat, which I thought would be helpful in restaurants if we were to go to one. I thought milk was "lait," but this was not the case apparently. Corinne and I tried going to this restaurant called Happy Donald of Hamburger House in Burkina, a name which seemed to get funnier the more we mentioned it. We wanted to go there solely for the name. After spending our entire morning attempting in vain, most of the time, to get our hands on some funds, [[sidenote: Okay, so I've been having problems with my ATM card with overdrafting. I took a chunk of change out of my account, but then I overdrafted, so I had to call to transfer funds. I had these changed to CFAs, and then right before we were leaving I took a bunch of cedis out of my account, but did not exchange them for cedis. I used all of my CFAs in Niger, and had to then exchange my cedis in Burkina. You would think that you could exchange cedis in Burkina with ease because the two countries neighbor each other, and the exchange would not be an unusual request at banks, forex bureaus, right? Wrong. You could exchange Japanese yen, but not the currency of Ghana, the neighboring country. Ha. So I was just barely scraping by when in Burkina. I could not be the baller I wished to be.]] we were famished for some greasy fries and, naturally, hunted down Happy Donald. We spotted our fried food haven, and it looked a little dilapidated from the outside. The navy awning was falling off the building, but it did not really phase me because that kind of dilapidation is not uncommon. I told Corinne to look excited in her pose for a photo opp under the ridiculous sign, so she jumped in the air and put her hands up in excitement. The next photo is of Corinne crying and laughing at the same time because Happy Donald of Hamburger House was no more! We tried to open the door, and that did not budge, so upon peering into the window we saw the place was bare. Too bad, but I think that is my favorite series of photos ever.

Back to Niger: Niger was awesome. I don't know how much I liked Niger itself, it was certainly different from Ghana, but the people we met there totally made the trip. Mama became our mom, and always we were fed (maybe a little too well...afterall, someone at the clinic told me today, "You've grown fat!"...I mean whenever someone has said I looked big here, I hope they mean tall, but I couldn't even pretend that this time.) and taken care of. One highlight of the trip was our trip to Koure, the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa like to hang out. We had to rent a car for the day, and Lamin drove to Koure which is 60 km from Niamey. We packed six people in this car, Lamin, Igbou, Mohammed, a driver, Corinne, and myself. The ride out to Koure was wild. Niamey looked like Manhattan compared to the area directly outside of the huge arch indicating that you were leaving Niamey. You could see for miles in all directions, and the landscape looked pretty similar the entire drive. It was dry and the life that lived there looked like it wanted to give up in the harsh environment. When we finally arrived to Koure, we had to pay hella cash to get into the park, that is we paid for ourselves, and our three friends, the compulsory guide, the vehicle (I mean the vehicle we brought, not actually provided by the park, like you would think..that's okay, have a few thousand CFAs!)..I think that's all..and then the guide got into the car with us, and by that, I mean, the guide hung out of the window until we reached giraffe territory. The giraffes were spectacular. We got within 15 feet of some of these wild creatures. They are the strangest looking animals. They remind me of when two people wear a horse costume, and it's obvious that it's not real, because of the weird neck..okay, I don't think anyone but me understood that last statement...i'll try to draw a picture when I get home...
Niamey is located on the mighty Niger River, the third longest river in Africa. One of our days was spent on a pirogue trip down the river. We rented a car and drove to an area near Boubon. The river is a beautiful greenish color, and surprisingly shallow. The pirogue we were on was manned by two men, each with an oar and a bamboo pole to row and push off of the river bottom, respectively. We slowly made our way down the river for five or six hours. There were wild hippos in the river! Enormous beasts they were. At one point we swam in the river, and hoped we weren't becoming host to any bilharzia. The land on the river was remarkably lush. Life flourished on the Niger. People washed clothing, bathed, and played in the water. There were some subsistence farms along the river. Fisherman fished and set up basket traps. We took some breaks along the way on the small islands in the river. The sun set as we made our way to Niamey and shrouded the earth in a light as warm and rich as the red desert around us. We finally reached Niamey and alighted from our pirogue. It was a long but enjoyable day.

Although the West African guidebook lies about a lot of things, i.e. places existing, the prices of things, recommendations, it did not lie about 2005 nightclub. Corinne and I wanted to go here because of the strange name (2005, a great year, right?) and because clubs just aren't our scene. There is also a club called 100%, but 2005 is supposedly better according the locals we met. That night we went out with two people we met one night at a nearby restaurant who were sitting outside that night. They wanted to take us out to a restaurant, and it seemed somewhat suspicious because we thought they knew the people they were living with when they arrived at the house uninvited, but they did not know them. Igbou came with us that night for safety reasons. It was a strange night. The one guy, Abdoul could speak good English, or better English than some, but his friend Youssef, could speak little. All I wanted to do that night was get down at the club. It was late when we went to out that night to eat with these people and I started to get impatient. I was not hungry and I did not feel like trying to understand Frenglais. Finally, after eating the food I discovered meat in because the outdoor tables we were sitting at were in the dark, and drinking two Biere Niger, I was ready to go. We went to our house and collected the others. Corinne, Igbou, Lamin, and Mohammed took a cab and I went with Thierry on his motorcycle. Sooo fun. 2005 was strange. The music was alright, but there was a huge video screen and it was showing old Queen concerts the whole night. Weird. And there were lots of prostitutes getting down in the club that night, or maybe just an unremarkably high presence of fairly attractive African women that were into ruddy-faced, thin-haired, pudgy old European businessmen...We got down for a few hours, watched some terrible dancing (i.e. Lamin holding his leg straight out in front of him supported by his palm under the back of his knee, and jumping around on one foot...and I thought I was a bad dancer...), and were groped by our comrades (Humorous sidenote: Corinne and I did not shave our legs for the entire trip, so we had quite the forest going on on our legs. So the night we went to 2005, all of our boys we went with were trying to get some kind of action from Corinne and myself, but we weren't having it. At one point Corinne was sitting next to Mohammed, who started rubbing her leg up and down, but after one stroke, and feeling the resistance because of the hair on her leg, only would stroke down her leg, not both ways. That was the last time he'd rub her the wrong way...har har.) . We had a rude awakening when we returned from the club late that night, or late that morning I should say. We came back at the time of the first call to prayer, and hung out side the compound, both boys and girls together. Mama yelled at us, saying, "You cannot hang outside the house like that! I am am Muslim woman and boys and girls are not supposed to be together outside of the house, especially at that hour! That looks very very bad!" So it was kind of awkward times that day, but eventually she warmed up to us, I guess understanding that we are not Muslim, but I guess we should have been a little more culturally-sensitive.

The Niger National Museum was enjoyable for the short time we visited. There were some awful aspects of it, i.e. cruelty to animals (listless animals, pacing animals, small cages, an ostrich that was being prodded at with a stick by a visitor...I wanted to murder that man with the same stick. ). There were some huge dinosaur skeletons and some artifacts from traditional Nigerien cultures. We were getting a little annoyed that day because our comrades were asking for money for things that we weren't even part of, i.e. cigarettes, gasoline (after had getting gas once that day, etc), the language barrier, etc. I'm glad I was with Corinne because I rarely get peeved by her.

Most of the trip was spent with the people we met, and being at the house. We went to the market one day with Igbou and Lamin to buy food to make dinner, out of appreciation for the cooking that Mama and Sadia did for us, and to avoid another meat-, dairy-, and egg-filled meal. I would not be eating any salad cream that night. We made pasta, fresh sauce, salad with a vinaigerette, and Corinne was a trooper and made some fish for the omnivores. She asked Igbou to filet the fish, (filet, a French word, understandable, right? Wrong.) which meant hack it into large chunks with the bones still in it, apparently. It took us four hours to make dinner, an endeavor that would only take Mama and Sadia an hour to do, at most. Perhaps it was because we were only equipped with a knife, some pots, bowls, and a spoon, to use as our preparation tools. Thankfully, it was well-received.

We left our Nigerien family after about a week. The night we left I stayed up all night, trying to speak French, and watched some strange Ethiopian music videos Mama wanted to show us and wanted us to dance to. I felt a warm feeling in my heart, until the last five minutes of our stay with this family. So here's what happened. We paid Mama for allowing us to stay there, with meals, shower, etc. Lamin then asked us for more money for being our "guide." Oh yes, the guide that told us so much about everything, and we understood it because we spoke French. We were so annoyed, because it wasn't like we asked him to pay for anything, if we went anywhere together. We paid for him, and his friends, to go to every place we went with them. We even paid for cigarettes, and things that did not have anything to do with us. We refused, and left with a bit of a bitter taste in our mouths.

Corinne and I were then off to Burkina Faso. The bus ride was going to be 12 hours, but seemed like nothing, compared to the ride from Ghana to Niger. I slept nearly the whole time. The first time I woke up, I was in a different country. The second time I woke up, it was to a bloody man, lying down in the seat next to me. He had a rag tied around his thigh, and his leg from there down was covered in blood. Apparently, our bus caused a motorcycle accident, in which two people were injured. We were in the middle of nowhere and had to wait for medical help, and the police for a report to be written. We remained stopped for three hours. This experience made me realize how different things are in the U.S. Even if there was an accident in a rural place, like in the middle of Montana, there would be help on the way immediately. Who knows what happened to this man, if he got good medical care, and if his huge wound became infected, etc.

We arrived in Burkina in the late afteroon. Ouagadougou is probably my favorite city in West Africa, that I have visited. It is a dusty, gritty, somewhat developed, hectic city. I loved it. Corinne and I spent our time in Ouaga relaxing and walking around the city before heading back to Ghana. We stayed in a room that was highly recommended by travelers, according to the guidebook. We booked a room with a private bathroom, and we got a room that did not look unlike one of a psychiatric ward, with a lawn chair, and a chair that looked like it was from a spacecraft, a view of a wall six inches from our window, and a private bath with a toilet that didn't flush. It was going to be a hilarious time in Ouaga. We enjoyed some delicious Lebanese food and had some disappointing Indian food, as you read earlier, haha. We saw a Bollywood movie that night, which was really strange, and full of singing. We left early though because we were both falling asleep. The next day was spent exploring the city by foot. It seems like a neato place to live. There are a lot of trees and attractive buildings, that do not indicate that Burkina is the 3rd poorest country in the world. At one point while walking around, this man came from one of the shops we passed and started talking to Corinne in French. She told him she didn't understand, but he kept talking, and followed her for about a half a mile, asking her for her address over and over again. It never fails.

That night we wanted to take a mototaxi to a restaurant and we found a group of men on motorcycles sitting at the side of the road, so surely thwe thought they were mototaxi drivers. We asked them, "Mototaxi?" and they looked at each other and said, "Yeah!" So after pretending they knew the place we requested they take us to, we were off. The rain was approaching. The air grew chilly and the wind picked up, blowing dust between the buildings and on the street. There was a sheer curtain of dust that dropped onto Ouagadougou, making me a little fearful when zipping between cars, trucks, and buses, when I was closing my eyes because there was so much dust. The city looked like Seurat painted it, with everything possessing an undefined edge and accentuated with red stop lights and brake lights. We reached our destination, and discovered that these men were not actually mototaxi drivers when they charged us ten times the price the normal fare. After arguing with these men, we went into this restaurant, enjoyed Alain, the quirky owner, had delicious food, got slightly crunk accidentally after drinking two So.B.Bras, and then took a cab back to prepare for the long busride that awaited us the following day.

We got to the bus station at the time we were supposed to get there, and left there right on time, too. This was a strange occurence for leaving in a timely fashion is something that transportation never does here. As soon as the bus left the station we were both snoozing. We woke up at the Burkina / Ghana border, and the sound of "Oburoni!" was music to our ears. The border officials gave us a hard time, I guess because they were bored, and acted as if our documents were not in order. At the border, I saw a woman with what I thought were these millet balls, which were somewhat delectable in Burkina, and Corinne and I could have used a protein bomb. So I bought one cedi worth of them, forgetting that I was in Ghana and a cedi bought an awful lot, so I got about one kilogram worth of what I thought were millet balls. So I bit into one expected to taste the slightly sweet gritty protein goodness of millet, but instead I received a sour taste of some kind of fermented corn. I tossed the rest of the one I bit into into the gutter, and handed the bag stretching under the weight of the corn balls, to a man, confused by, and perhaps suspicious of, my strange gift.

We returned to the bus, and began the snooze routine again. We were about two hours into Ghana, past Bolgatanga, on the Walewale Highway, when we awoke to the sound of gunshots. Our bus had stopped and we heard shooting outside. Flustered, we were told with panicked urgency by other passengers to, "Get down! Get down!" and we followed these instructions with no question, putting our heads between knees and covering them. Corinne and I just stared at each other with wide eyes and gripped the other's hand. People were screaming. Children were crying. The passenger next to us crawled over to our seat, reached under the seat in front of us, and started pulling out four-inch thick wads of CFAs from a black plastic bag and stuffing them into his pants. WTF are you doing?! We thought..We did not know if there was someone on the bus with the weapon(s) we were hearing, and if there were, this man next to us may have surely been drawing attention to us and endangering our lives. After the shooting ceased, I waited a few seconds, and looked out my window to see what I could see, not expecting to see anything. When I peered out, I saw one of the attackers of our bus, dead, on the ground, with blood on the ground near his black ski-masked head. We were in the back of the bus, the second to last seat, and everyone was standing up, so we could not see anything that may have been happening at the front of the bus. We drove away with haste, leaving the dead man behind. Apparently, there had been two armed robbers that were trying to rob our bus. They ran down the road towards the bus, prompting the bus to stop. When the driver refused to stop, the men shot the front of the bus four times. The bus stopped after this. Then, one of the men tried to get in the front entrance of the bus, and when the driver refused, he shot the driver in the shoulder. One bullet grazed the face of a little boy, and another, the face of a woman. There are two plain-clothes police officers on every STC, which I didn't know until that day. One of the officers shot and killed the one man who shot the driver, and took an AK-47 off the shooter. We drove for a short bit, and then got off the bus at some village for some unknown reason. A woman with a white rag, with blood showing through it, around her head came from the front of the bus, and I wondered what other carnage was up there. We got back on the bus, after some authoritative figure told us to do so. We drove straight to Tamale to a hospital to treat those who had been injured, not stopping and when someone tried to cross the road, the driver blasted the horn of the bus franticly, sending stares from the villagers in each community we drove through. Upon arrival at the hospital, a man outside told us in awkward English, "Congratulations on your safety!" Thanks? Those who needed medical attention were admitted to the Tamale Teaching Hospital, and we waited around for a bit, and then drove to the STC station in Tamale. The bus drove away to be repaired, a.k.a. have a black garbage bag over the window, and clean the blood cascading down the front steps of the bus. Somehow, that took a few hours. In the meantime, Corinne and I tried to help Paulo, a young Italian man, who had his first initiation into Ghana, as this incident. He was working on some project in Burkina Faso, and then was going to spend some time in Ghana before heading back to Ouagadougou, Burkina for his flight there. We tried to assure him that was the first violent incident of that nature that we had seen in Ghana. He just wanted to go back to Burkina, feeling safer there. We provided him with whatever comfort we could muster, whether it be food, water, information, or just conversation. He was an extremely pleasant fellow. Too bad that incident would be what he remembered of Ghana. Finally after a few hours of sitting at the bus station, eating mangoes, donuts, and fried rice, watching various animals (ducks, goats, chickens, cats, crows, etc) mill about, and seeing some public urination, our bus arrived. We boarded it and drove until the following morning. Throughout the night, every time the bus slowed down suddenly, every person in front of us perked their heads up, I think in fear that another attacker may decide to accost us. We eventually reached Accra at 11:30 the next day, making the bus ride only 26 hours...yikes...

This incident did not make me feel any less safe in Ghana. The director of STC in Ouagadougou called Corinne and I on our cellphones to make sure we were okay. The director of my program was extremely helpful, and told me that there was a counselor, if we needed someone to talk to. And the way everyone was so kind and helpful to one another on the bus also showed me again as to why I love Ghana so much.

The last week or so I spent in Ghana was a blur. I had an exam and a paper to write, which was insignificant. I spent most of my time seeing wonderful people I had met on the trip. I had about three hours of sleep every night because I stayed out so late every night. I swam in the ocean a few times late at night / early morning. Drank some drinks. Cooked some meals for my friends. Watched Gouda practice under the trees one last time. Gave away lots of clothes. Had one last dance party or two with Angela in our room. I went to my internship one last time, and shed some tears on the way to the road to catch a tro-tro. It was a very tearful week, in fact. I did not want to leave my life where everyting was goin to be allrriiight. I enjoyed having no responsibility of a job or challenging classes, and having tons of time to learn from my environment and my position as foreigner. I enjoyed socializing to the maximum and doing things that I normally wouldn't do, i.e. getting down in the club, etc. I left without saying goodbye to a lot of people because it pained me to do so. In all, it was the greatest experience of my life, so far. Everything was not great all the time, but overall, it was stellar. It was everything I hoped it to be and more. I can't wait to go back.

"Are you boring?"

The British Consulate advises against visiting two countries on the African continent: Cote D'Ivoire (aka Ivory Coast) and Somalia. Guess where I went this weekend? The forbidden Cote D'Ivoire and it was well worth the risk! I visited the Cote D'Ivoirian embassy in Accra to get a visa, which I discovered I did not actually need after the fact, but they still gladly accepted my 7,000 CFA (Central African franc) equivalent to 17.5 GH cedis or about $17.50 USD. Each time I went to try to get this visa I didn't actually need, I kept an eye on my watch to see just how long the woman at the desk ignored me. The form she gave me was in French and English but the English part was cut off along the edge so I had to guess as to what I had to write in the blanks. I had to try to interact with the woman, who spoke as little as possible to me, and became irritated because I couldn't follow the instructions because I was not raised in a Francophone country. She kept opening the sliding glass window from her chair with her pen and slamming the door shut each time she had to deal with me. I didn't have to write all of that, but it's just amusing how sometimes people in the world's easiest jobs such as this one can be so rude.

Enduring the rudeness and unnecessary visit to the Ivoirian embassy was a drop in the bucket compared to the next step in our journey: getting there. We (my friend Corinne, and two other girls I haven't traveled with, Aly and Meghan) had to take a STC bus to Abidjan, the economic capital of Cote D'Ivoire, which left at 4:00 AM and we had to report to the station at 3:00. We woke up at 2:00 and were at the station when were supposed to be, but the bus did not actually leave until 5:15 A.M. When we boarded the bus, the seats Corinne and I were assigned and their vicinity exuded a rather offensive odor. We were somewhat self-conscious for the first two hours of our journey because we kept thinking to ourselves, "Is that me?!" It smelled like we were sitting in the crotch of a marathon runner that did not bother to bathe for a week or so. We tried to mask the odor by dotting some vegan lip balm under our noses to smell cinnamon or citrus instead of crotch.

The bus ride was LONG. It took 14 hours in total to get there. But it was a beautiful ride, too. We rode along the entire coast of Ghana as we traveled west into Cote D'Ivoire and then winded, I mean sped way too fast for a bus full of people and bags of all the rice of Thailand, through the jungles and oil palm, rubber, banana, and pineapple plantations (you know, where there used to be rainforest? It's okay, multinational corporations, I mean the Cote D'Ivoirian people need rubber!) Evil.

From other people that had went to Cote D'Ivoire and from what I read about the country's instability I was a little apprehensive about going there. I heard that I would be hassled incessantly by guards and police and always asked for my passport and a bribe. I also worried about being mugged or even another civil war starting. Not long after crossing the Ivoirian border, our bus stopped because there was something in the road. All of a sudden, someone banged on the side of our bus with their fist and yelled, "Get off the bus! Everyone! Get off the bus now!" No one knew what was going on. I looked down the bus aisle from my seat and saw that there were people coming towards our bus from the opposite direction. I was freaking out inside, but I remained calm and did as the military man told us. It turned out that there was just a truck that had crashed into the bridge we were crossing, and it was easier for the bus to maneuver around the truck that was blocking a good deal of the road and was relieved of some of its weight so everyone got off. Thanks military man for scaring all of us. It wasn't that urgent!

By 8:30 PM, we were finally in Abidjan. It is a beautiful city. Cote D'Ivoire was the gem of Africa at one point in that it was economically strong because of its natural resources. The French definitely invested in infrastructure there and this was apparent because the city was developed. The city is on the water, where a river meets the ocean. It's very modern, and felt eerily like an American city, only right smack dab in the middle of West Africa. The city must have been spectacular in its heyday but when its stability faltered the French were like, "See ya lataaa, Cote D'Ivoire! Good luck!" and this is apparent in the dilapidation around the edges, and the urban poor surrounding the city.

I don't know if we just lucked out with our social experience in Cote D'Ivoire or what, but as soon as we got off the bus, we met amazing people. When we went to a hotel we saw in the guidebook as a budget option and were turned away, the person at the front desk help us get another hotel and even came out to our cab to tell the driver, in French, the directions to the hotel. When we reached our Hotel, Hotel Provencal, we were famished. We asked someone if she knew of a good restaurant we could go to at that hour. She piled into the cab with us, and took us to the restaurant she recommended, L'Automatique, which was diner-style Lebanese food. When we arrived at the place, she was going to go back in the cab to return to the hotel, but we told her that we would treat her to dinner because of our gratitude. Only one of us spoke French, not a whole lot, but more than enough to get us anything we might need. So it was an interesting time trying to communicate with Kathe, the French-speaking Moroccan woman, when 75% of us did not speak any French aside from things like, "Thank you!" and "Hello!" It was a great night actually. Great food (a protein bomb in my stomach!), and great, cross-cultural and -lingual interaction!

The next day, we woke up to explore the region of Treichville and other districts of the city. When we came downstairs from our octagonally-shaped rooms on the roof of the hotel, we met Jacque, an Ivoirian, who became our friend, and guide to Abidjan. We walked around and saw all kinds of crafts such as wooden carvings and beads. One man tried to sell me a single bead for 15,000 CFA ($37 USD) and then proceeded to try to convince me that it was a good price. Thanks, but no thanks. We bought some corn on the cob while walking around on the streets, and one lady took the cob out of Meghan's hand, broke it in half, took half, and gave the other half to Meghan, all without asking her for it. Because the city is broken up by the lagoon, there is a ferry service that allows people to easily get from one part of a city to another. We took this ferry and enjoyed the salt air and seeing a different perspective of the city. I asked a passenger to take a picture of the four of us while we were on the ferry. I handed the camera to her and she had it facing the wrong way, the lens facing her, so I saw as she drew it closer to her, her eye grow enormous and staring in the screen. I can't describe it well, but it was hilarious. Just take my word for it, okay? We had a small meal at La Caravalle, another Lebanese restaurant (I don't think you understand how tired we are of rice and other starch readily available in Ghana) and had some Lebanese dessert (basboosa!). Amazing. We then continued our walk and stumbled across a Muslim community. There was a huge green and white mosque and an street with a series of stalls which sold the Qu'ran, prayer mats, and other Muslim wares. It was a beautiful site. We talked with the people hanging around there and looked at the things, unfamiliar to our own lives, that the vendors were selling. I felt very far away from home because of these differences and the poverty in this area, as we watched life go by.

It was great to meet someone that could take us around the city. Jacque was a character for sure. How could you not love his thick African French accent? He spoke enough English to be able to communicate with us, but there were still some awkward English. "I am strong, but I will not fight...unless I'm hungry." I guess that made sense in context, but it was a strange way of saying things. And also, (I've heard this twice), something that seems to get lost in translation: "Are you boring?" This was directed at me, when I was standing in the group of my friends and not speaking so instead of saying "Are you bored?", "Are you boring?" was used instead. Yeah, don't mind me, I'm just standing here without any hobbies. On a more serious note, Meghan asked Jacque about what he remembered about the war. He told us that the hotel, where he works, is near a police training academy. At commencement, the graduates of the academy shoot guns into the air at the ceremony. One night, Jacque heard gunshots in the middle of the night, and thought that it was from the academy, and went back to sleep. However, it was the beginning of the civil war. Jacque could not leave the hotel for his house for three days because of the violence happening down on the streets. Cote D'Ivoire is said to be a violent place. Hearing this story in addition to hearing about the political system there and how the people have been promised an election that never came for several years, and are worse off financially because of what happened with the war, I can understand why this country would be so volatile. People are fed up.

On Monday, we went to see this outdoor laundrette where about 275 Burkinabe people gather in a river near the Parc du Banco (a park you should not go to by yourself because there are several convicts hiding out there...) to wash clothing. Jacque took us to see this. It was neat to see, but I felt a little voyeuristic. We then went to visit St. Paul's Cathedral which was made of white stucco with a blue roof and a huge swirling spire which ("the finger of God" we called it) made it an impressive monument on the hill overlooking the city. This beautiful and immense cathedral was located amidst abject poverty, which again questions the need for such ornate and expensive architecture for a place of worship, when the surrounding community is suffering so much. The houses of the villages were so close together, and some were perched on the edge of a mud cliff that would probably be gone the next time it rained.

The rest of the day (btw it was Corinne's birthday on Monday!) was spent exploring the Le Plateau district. It was a very chic part of Abidjan with cafes and successful business, and trees lining the streets. We went to get some traditional Ivoirian food for lunch, which is very similar to Ghanaian food. I had some grated cassava, which looked and tasted like tangy couscous. I asked for something vegan in the best way I could, and I got some vegetables floating in a meat and/or fish-filled broth. The concept of vegetarianism is not understood here. If you say you do not eat meat or fish, they will give you something that does not have visible chunks of meat in it, but is most likely cooked with meat and fish. Corinne had all of the food that I was served. I eventually had some stew made with cocoyam leaves which was basically like a spinach stew, and I was a little suspicious about it actually being vegan...After exploring Le Plateau, we headed back to our hotel and then celebrated Corinne's birthday over Lebanese food, and later ice cream/sorbet, pastries, and coffee at a patisserie!

So that was Cote D'Ivoire. It was the exact opposite of what I was expecting and I loved it. We were supposed to leave at at 7:00 for Accra, so we were there at 630, but I did not realize that 7:00 actually meant that the bus would leave at 9:30. We finally arrived in Ghana at 11:00 PM. I was happy to be back. The people in Ghana are wonderful in how friendly they are. I miss Ghana when I leave it. Anyway, I have to run as I am leaving for Niger soon with Corinne. I am not looking forward to the bus ride that will take longer than 30 hours. Deep vein thrombosis here I come. I hope those accompanying us to Niger have bathed prior to boarding the bus...Have a great week!

Peace.
-RM.

Greetings, comrades. I come to write to you about the little land known as Togo and some other details of the week of course.

I am currently parasite-free, well I suspect I may have an eye infection but that's small potatoes. What I am trying to say is that I'm parasite-free and enjoying life again. This week was pretty quiet. I went to an art show opening on Tuesday at the Goethe Institut, the German Cultural Center, in downtown Accra. The show featured recycled art composed of refuse salvaged from the site of the former Goethe Institut in Lome, Togo, which had been down burned during "political disturbances" there in 2005. Angela and I went with our friend Jonas, a genuine German!, which was an enjoyable time for us Deutschphiles, well at least Angela and I are Deutschphiles, because the experience was obnoxiously German. My productivity level in my daily life has decreased considerably now that I live with Angela, and don't avoid going to my room anymore. So, going to the Goethe Institut for some cultural enlightenment through Togolese recycled art was a welcome change in my daily and weekly routine.

I'm getting a little frustrated with my internship. As much as I love the people I work with there, I have barely anything to do. I have definitely received a firsthand look at the Ghana healthcare system and just how limited resources there are, but I wish I was actually helping people. I guess I do the tedious and mindless work no one wants to do, so maybe I'm relieving someone. It's just a lot of time to be doing nothing. But like I said, I love the people I work with. I brought my iPod with a playlist I made for Eric, one of the staff who has enlightened me the most about Ghana's political system, his hometown of Kumasi, and this week, the meaning of the strange things written on tro-tros (maybe he shouldn't have enlightened me, as I find less humor in those inscriptions!). It was humorous to see him rocking out to my head phones and 'pod while walking around the clinic going about business as usual.

On Wednesday, I went to get my visa at the Togolese embassy. It was quite the process as usual. What a fool I was to think that it would go smoothly, but after going to get passport photos taken (again), getting cedis exchanged for CFAs (Central African francs) (without being ripped off, thankfully), and finally returning to the embassy with everything in order, I was granted a Togolese visa! On Friday morning, I left for Togo.

I went to Adangbe, Togo with Fire (his real name is Daetey) and his friend Papa. Adangbe is the name of the village in which Fire (and Papa) grew up in. It is about an hour away from Lome, Togo, the capital. We left Legon, Ghana for Togo at 6 AM sharp, and headed to downtown Accra Tema station to catch a tro to the border. Papa left Fire and I because he had to go buy a towel (?) so he disappeared for a while, as we waited in the trotro. It was filling up, and Papa was still not in the back row beside us...the tro-tro mate started freaking out, because Papa was still not filling his seat and our tro-tro was causing a jam in the already crowded tro-tro park. So we got out of the tro-tro and wondered where Papa was because he was not answering his phone. Our getting there seemed to be off to a rocky start and this was only the beginning. When we finally got a tro headed to the border, Aflao, it broke down not too far from the border. We caught another tro-tro, and after crossing the border with no hassles, we took a tro to Lome and then went to take a car to Fire's village. I could not believe the condition of the car, and I was even more incredulous when seven people and all of their wares piled into this vehicle. Not surprisingly, we did not reach our destination in this vehicle. We had to take yet another car to the village.

Finally by the late afternoon, we made it to Adangbe! The village is in a very rural area about an hour from Lome. There is no electricity or running water. The toilet is a raised concrete square platform and I would not go there at night because about two dozen cockroaches liked to hang out there... It was nice to meet Fire's family and see where he spent as he says, his "kidtime" (childhood, to you and I), however, I cannot speak Ewe or French, except for things such as "thank you" and "good evening" and those things can only go so far. It was awkward times because of this language barrier. I spent a lot of time reading 'Jude the Obscure' and my Lonely Planet West Africa guide book. Perhaps Burkina Faso and Niger soon? I tried to interact with people as much as I could, but I felt awkward because I couldn't speak with anyone. When I was reading, I would sometimes hear some stirring outside my window and when I would look up from my book there would be one or two or sometimes five children staring in at me. Then, I would try to communicate and fail miserably. My West Africa guidebook has a section in the back which lists some basic phrases in colonial and indigenous languages so I was able to stammer, "Je...um... m'appelle..Rachel" (My name is Rachel) and other basic conversation essentials. During one visit to my window, they presented me with a few fresh pesticide-free mangoes from the trees growing there. I loved the kids though. I made an effort to try to socialize with the people in the village and I had the most success with the kids I think. I went outside and sat with them and tried to interact. They kept feeding me mangoes and coconut, which was welcome because my body never seemed to want to part with any of the food I had there...even after about ten small mangoes and two or three papayas I was still uncomfortable gastrointestinally....ugh...

Fire's family practices a traditional African religion. Fire's uncle is the fetish priest of the village, and if something were to happen to Fire's uncle, then Fire would take the role as village priest. I enjoyed this aspect of the weekend most. I was thankful that I could take a lot of pictures of the shrines, rituals, etc. When I would meet with Fire's relatives in the shrine area, we would have to drink a shot of gin, and when doing this, you drink some, and then pour some on the ground for the ancestors. Monday is the sacred day in Fire's religion. When I woke up on Monday, Fire had me wear a piece of white fabric as a shirt, and he also wore white. We went to the shrine, where we had to remove our sandals, and then lift our feet over a terracotta dish of smoldering medley of things I could not distinguish. We let the smoke grace the soles of our feet and then the underside of one arm, encircled our backs, and then brought it under the other arm. Then we went outside of the shrine and sat while Fire talked to his father who was inside of the shrine. He talked of things he needed in his life onto a CFA (Central African franc) coin, and I did the same. We also drank more gin...not exactly what I wanted to drink first thing in the morning..and then we went to another shrine to perform a similar ritual.

Bob Marley Day was on Sunday, and the big festival I was supposed to go to was about that, which I discovered once I got to Togo. Fire is a rasta man, so he was all about that day. There was a reggae show which he sang in and played an instrument he crafted out of the soles of two flip-flops cut into two circles and impaled with two sticks for mallets, and then filled two buckets of water and placed two overturned calabash bowls inside and used this as a percussion instrument..ingenious! When I saw Fire sharpening the sticks to use for the mallets, I thought he was going to use it in some animal sacrifice...thankfully for me, and the many unsuspecting goats and chickens roaming about the village, this was not the case! The show was fun. I was pretty beat, but I did a little African dancing with Fire and his relatives, so that was enjoyable. The village is certainly suffering from poverty, but the way people treated me, you would think they had not a trouble in the world. They prepared vegan meals specially for me. I enjoyed cabbage stew that was not filled with parasites or meat, various forms of starch, and perhaps the best salad I've ever tasted.

On Monday, we returned to Ghana, and I was glad to be back. In Togo, they get around with 'moto-taxis' which are simply motorcycles that are used like taxis! Soo much fun, but frightening at the same time because drivers of any vehicle here are like kamikazes, the roads are not always maintained, and the cities are often crowded. Lome also has the amazing baguettes ( Thanks France for colonizing Togo at some point!) plus avocado, tomato, and onion! Mmmmm..Ghana's bread..not as good. I have no internet time left! Agh!

Peace.
Akosua Dede

Finally, an internet connection that works! I hope you have had a good week.

Last Friday night, several of my friends and I went to see a dance production put on by the School of Dance and Performing Arts here at the U of Ghana. I was reluctant to go at first because I have heard that past productions were terrible, but maybe that's because this school does not specialize in Western musicals such as "The Sound of Music." The dance production we saw was called "AbCdom: The Creeping Menace." AbCdom means "crazy" in Twi. It was excellent! The venue was an outdoor theater on campus. The choreography and music was fantastic. The storyline was somewhat strange because it was about drugs and a Jesus-like figure stopped the destructiveness the drugs was having on people, and even resurrected someone who had overdosed...I'm not sure how much I dug that message..but the dancing was fabulous. I wish I had as much coordination and rhythm those people have, just in their thumbnail.

This past weekend, CIEE took us to Kumasi. Kumasi has been my favorite city that I've visited thus far in Ghana. It's the second most populous city in Ghana and home of the Ashanti people. Kumasi is the culture capital of Ghana. It's less crowded and not nearly as overwhelming as Accra. People live in large family houses here because to the Ashanti people, family means extended family, and this family lives together. Kumasi is not as urbanized as Accra and full of trees. The ride took about six hours by bus. I love getting out of Accra. I try to look out the window at the beautiful scenery as long as I can before falling asleep. When we arrive at our destination, we visited Bonwire, a village which makes kente cloth. Kente cloth was originally woven by the Ashantis. Now, it is woven Ashanti people and those who are not Ashanti, and is a cultural symbol of Ghana. It is woven on long looms with thread that are tied to something on the ground about ten feet away. It's hard to describe. I'll show you pictures! The cloth is beautiful. It's vividly colored and each pattern has a particular significance. The larger more complicated designs may take months to complete. Amazing.

Next, we visited Lake Bosumtwe, which is about 30 kilometers from Kumasi. Lake Bosumtwe is the largest natural lake in Ghana. It is a crater lake surrounded by mountains. It was spectacular. Twenty-four villages that encircle the lake depend on it for its tilapia and water. We went for a swim in the lake. It was no refuge from the equatorial heat however because it was shallow where we were swimming and in the direct sunlight, so the 90 degree heat was more refreshing that the water! We took a boat ride out into the lake, and I was a little worried at times, because as with any vehicle in Ghana, (Honda Camry-sized cabs = can fit 7 people, tro-tros = 25 people, etc) it was overloaded and the motor was groaning...we made it back without sinking into the lake thankfully. There was a man putting fishing nets out in the lake and sitting on a wooden plank as a vessel. If I remember correctly, there is a taboo about going out onto the lake in dugout canoes, so that is why people use planks as vessels.

The Kumasi Central Market is the largest open air market in West Africa, and we were lucky enough to go there. I only got to visit the outskirts of it, and it was too overwhelming to buy anything. I don't know if you've ever smelled fresh meat, but it is the most nauseating smell to ever grace my nostrils. I try not to be annoying about my aversion to the once-living flesh of my animal friends, but this stench makes me gag. So the meat smell also prevented me from stopping and looking around more at the wares being sold at the market. I met a bunch of market ladies, who loved my pitiful attempt at Twi, and asked for my phone number. Now when I meet men on the street, and they ask for my number, I do not provide them with such information. I will also not give women my number. I was foolish enough to give one market lady, Abenaa, my number, who gave it to the five others surrounding her, to be called eight times by various numbers. "I want you to take me abroad." Okay! Just tell me when you want to go. I have oodles of cash money.

We visited the Ashanti chief's former palace, which is now a museum. It was in a lush gated area with peacocks on the lawn. We had to sit down and watch a video before we began our tour about the Ashanti chief and people. There was a humorous segment of the video in which the narrator told about how the Ashanti people are a peaceful people, but the clip showed Ashanti people toting some serious guns. We had an enthusiastic tour guide with a strange sense of humor, Opoku, who took us on a light-hearted journey through Ashanti history.

We were supposed to stay in Kumasi Friday, Saturday, and leave Sunday morning. There was nothing planned for us on Sunday morning except for relaxing. Recently, the Ghana Music Awards were taking place in Accra to commend the best hip-life, high-life, etc artists of Ghana (and Nigeria). P Square is one of these artists popular enough to win an award at the Ghana Music Awards. I may have mentioned previously that P Square is the creator of the song, "Do Me", and from this song alone, I, and several of my friends are die hard fans. We got drift of the news that P Square was going to be playing at Labadi Beach, which is about 10 or 15 minutes from Legon, on Sunday at noon. Eight P Square fans woke up at 4:45 A.M. Sunday to leave at 5:30 in a tro-tro sized vehicle back to the U of G in time to see our Nigerians perform their hit single. We arrived in the Greater Accra area around 10:30, but then our information source informed us that the show was starting at 2:00. But then the rainy season made itself known and it poured rain from a little before two until about 4:30 P.M. During the storm, our information source told us that the show would be at 5:00, so then when we got to the beach at 5:00 P.M., 5:00 P.M. actually meant the show was at 8:00 P.M. Luckily our friend Daniel was there to protect my friends Angela, Corinne, Heather, and myself, somewhat, but we were still harassed at the worst place in Ghana for harassment of females: Labadi Beach. Finally, the show began. We saw Tinny (pronounced like you and I say "tiny": Angela and I joked around by peering at the stage as if we couldn't see Tinny because he was so small we couldn't see him....har har..), who is a big name in Ghana, Asem, AbCdom, Nameless (from Kenya, and there's a reason why he doesn't deserve a name - terrrrible.) anndd Ja Rule!, who was as profane as ever, and greeted the crowd with "What the F--- 's Up, Ghaaana!" in his signature ultra gravelly voice. You can count on the most terrible tidbits of American culture to corrupt every other nation in the world. So after enduring all of the aforementioned artists, guess who did NOT show up to this show? Yes, you guessed it. P Square. You know, the artist which the past 27 hours of our lives revolved around. What a letdown!

The week following this weekend was pretty quiet as I was sick all week with giardia or amoeba parasites, I'm not sure which, setting up shop in my intestines. So imagine a "running stomach" for six days straight. Not so fun. Cabbage stew strikes again...

On Monday, I sent my first and last packages from the Accra Post Office. I hate going to the post office on campus because of the rudeness that emanates from the surly workers there. Accra was even worse. Sorry rude lady with the world's easiest job that I have never sent a package out of your country, and don't know which of the ambiguous windows to go to first...or...how to package my package...and to be foolish enough to think that a box would be sensible to put my wares into...or writing in the corner was a foolish place for me to write the return address....or that 27 stamps in postage instead of a rubber stamp saying GH cedis of postage makes sense?!?!..So the bottom line is that it was expensive, time-consuming, and grated my nerves a little bit...Thankfully, Corinne was there to help me laugh through the ridiculousness of all the interactions I had there.

Luckily, the day of the post office also marked a day of great news. I received a text from Angela that said, "hey - remember the time we both hated our roommates and the drew (university) girls moved out and they made us roommates? move in tomorrow" I was sooo excited! Non-awkward times at last! This also made me think about how disappointed I am with my experience with my Ghanaian roommate. I was wishing and hoping that living with a Ghanaian roommate would be a great experience, and I would learn a lot from this person. Boy was I wrong. I learned all about her, because that's all we talked about, but it just made me want to stereotype about Ghanaian women. The only thing she invited me to was church. I think I'll pass. I just did not luck out here in the roommate department. So I moved all of my things out while Hurricane Meredith was out of the room, to avoid even more awkwardness. I left a note that simply said, "I moved out." I did not write her name or my name on the note. Then Angela and I moved into our new room. Room 228! I saw Meredith when I was in the hall, and she told me she had found my note, and asked where I was living now, with a huge smile on her face. This was the most pleasant she had ever been with me...was I really sure I wanted to move away from this sweet-natured girl? You bet I was sure. This is exactly what she wanted me to do. I heard later that she complained to the housing department that I did not tell her sooner that I was moving out. She was not really concerned, she just wanted to get me in trouble somehow. Angela is a great roommate. We have sleep marathons now and I never hear her come in the room if I'm sleeping. People actually want to come in our room because there is an absence of a cold Ghanaian woman scowling at them when they come in. Angela calls it the new "It Room" because everyone wants to be there! I also received the sweetest card from my sweet Mom and Dad, which may have been the nicest things they have said to me, as well as a post card from Hong Kong from my friend Dan, which made this day even better! :-)

My friend Amy, from Minnesota, is one of my favorite people in this world. I realize how much I like her when I see her interact with new people. She always includes everyone and makes people feel comfortable. It's really nice. Plus she says things like, "Holy Cow." Love it. She called me up earlier in the week and told me about the May Day holiday and the May Day tradition she has grown up with. On May Day, the tradition is to go to a friend's door, place a basket of candy on the doorstep, knock on the door, and then run away. So we went to Shop Rite on Tuesday, and bought paper and candy. We, and my friend Maddie and occasionally Andrew (Alovi), then spent the evening making some woven paper baskets. We spent Wednesday doing this as well, and some on Thursday morning. It was a daunting task for sure. We ended up making over 40 baskets. We made one for every person in our program that lived on campus, and for some of the U-Pals as well. Paper and candy were both limiting reactants in this equation, and our cash supply too, so we unfortunately could not make more. The delivering of the baskets made the task of making them even more rewarding. Everyone that was actually in their rooms loved them. May Day was also Andrew's birthday, so we went to Jerry's Spot for drinks and then to the Basement to get down. The Basement always has the best event fliers. This event "Reloaded" had humor in the dresscode for men: "Smart and Responsible" ...whatever that means...

Friday I went to the doctor because a running stomach for 6 days was entirely too much for my comfort...Nyaho Hospital is recommended by the US Embassy, but I don't think I would even recommend it. I have gone with friends who have suspected they had malaria. Not only does each visit take forever, but the doctors have said things such as, "Well, the blood test says you don't have malaria, but I think you have it." So my friend Heather may or have not have malaria, but it is certain that she has 40 dollars less than she had before going to Nyaho. A girl in another program actually did have malaria but it was misdiagnosed as urinary tract infection, so her malaria became dangerously worse because it was going untreated!!! Yikes. So...after hearing about this, I did not go to Nyaho, but Akai House Clinic. The healthcare workers were nice, professional, and did everything in a timely fashion. I apparently lost ten pounds. I was tested for typhoid, and I was given a prescription for the parasites giardia and amoebas. I think I had one of those parasites because I'm just going to say I'm having a pretty solid day...

Over the weekend, Angela and I went to The Loom, which is an art gallery in downtown Accra. I enjoyed it immensely. There were some paintings that really struck me because they captured everyday life here so well. There was jewelry, paintings, sculpture, batik fabric, kente cloth, books, postcards, carvings, etc. On our way to a tro-tro, a man got our attention and pointed to a car with a Caucasian man as its passenger, and said, "Hey, Who is this man, You know him, right?" Of course.

Angela and I also visited MmaxMart, which is Oburoni City basically. I feel like I'm committing a crime when I go to places like this because everything is so expensive in the store, compared to the people outside on the sidewalk making a living selling bananas for 10 cents a piece. However, I was having quite the aversion to Ghanaian food, so a falafel sandwich filled with vegetables hit the spot, and I did not spend a fortune on such a treat.

I had somewhat of a "I wish I was in the U.S." week. I missed organization this week. I miss cooking. I miss eating food that I am more sure than not that there are not pathogens lurking within it. I just felt kind of dead this week and that made me somewhat discouraged. I am loving Ghana again though. I miss you all though. I hope you had the best weekend.

PEACE!
Akosua Dede

Good morning! I should have written this yesterday when I was brimming with joy because CIEE is the best study abroad program EVER. I was having some roommate problems, as you may know, and everything came to head last week when Hurricane Meredith came ashore and was classified as a category 5 storm apparently. I sent my program director, Kwasi-Gyasi Gyamerah an email about the issues I was having. He promptly replied and told me that Abenaa, the assistant program director, would get in touch with me. My phone finally kicked the bucket this weekend, so when she was trying to reach me, I was unreachable. I went to the CIEE office yesterday to speak with Abenaa. And this is where I love CIEE. Abenaa listened to my Princess Meredith saga with concern. ("Oh! [a Ghanaian sound, one of many, which I will show you, which means, 'I can't believe that!'] This is serious!") Abenaa told me that she would find me a new place to live and the problem will be resolved soon. I don't think I'm going to even have to move out of my building, ISH 2. After that meeting, I felt even better about CIEE. I know that if I have any problem at all, the staff here are approachable, professional, and will efficiently address any concerns I may have.

Later that day, we had a group meeting at Chez Afrique, a restaurant/bar which has live bands on Fridays and Saturdays. The group meeting was a way to voice any concerns or comments we may have about how everything is going, including housing, academics, Ghanaians, security, CIEE, group trips, etc. It was wonderful. First of all, we were fed. Free food, especially food that is not rice, is always a plus. Secondly, it was such a nice atmosphere to have this meeting. Everyone was jovial and it's so easy to get along with the program directors. It was nice to hear how everyone is doing. I am so elated to be part of CIEE because it is an island of organization in this sea of disorganization. It has made adjusting here much easier than had I not been part of this program.

Nothing else is new really. I've been busy with going to the Dodowa Health Centre. It takes a large chunk out of my day because commuting there takes about 3 hours total. I love going there because the dispensary staff is so wonderful. It may have very little to do with my sociology field of study, but I am learning things I did not know prior to going there, especially in the realm of the inner workings of health care, the Ghana Health Service, specifically. I worked on a powerpoint presentation about quality assurance with Harriet, the staff supervisor, who has taken me under her wing and given me various tasks to complete. When we were writing the conclusion of the presentation, a reality of the health care system in Ghana became even more apparent to me. The concluding statement went something like this, "...We cannot expect money from anywhere. We have little resources and must do what we need to do with what we have." This was disheartening, considering my family doctor gives us free samples of prescription drugs, marking the abundance of resources we have. I discovered another real life example of a problem in Ghana: underemployment. I asked Harriet is she liked working at the dispensary. She hesitated for a short while and then responded with a 'no.' She then went on to explain that she has a bachelor's degree in pharmacy, and a master's in public health. Not only was she overqualified for her position at the dispensary, but she was working in a field that she does not particularly enjoy. Employment in Ghana is high, and for those who are educated, such as Harriet, appropriate employment is hard to come by. No wonder qualified educated individuals flee the country to places such as the UK or the US to seek employment. The brain drain is happening.

I have to venture to Dodowa now. Have the best day! Peace.

-Akosua Dede (The name that Evans, in the dispensary, has given me because I am born on Sunday [Kwasiada (Sunday)--> Akosua] and I was the first born girl in my family [Dede] - I introduce myself with this name now. Oh, the reactions I get from Ghanaians. They act as if I've told them the funniest joke in history. It's also easier to use this name because it's a name that they can understand and pronounce. When I try to use Rachel, they think it's Rita, Ritchel, Richeal, Richie, Richard?, and recently Lena?)

I hope you all had a good weekend! I can't believe my eldest cousin is getting married! I remember when she was stealing eggs out of my basket at Oma's Easter egg hunt. I wish I could have come to the extravaganza over the weekend. I miss you all.

Over the weekend, I went to what you would think would be a solemn event: a funeral. However, in Ghana, and Togo, too, funerals are more a celebration of life than about death. Fire, my Togolese friend, invited me and a few of my friends to attend the funeral of his late aunt. Tons of his family came to Ghana for the funeral. Fire has a huge family, and by huge I mean enormous. His father has three wives, and as Fire puts it quite bluntly in his thick accent, "My father likes sex" and rightly so as there are 18 children altogether, and eight in Fire's family alone. Yikes. At the funeral, there was music, singing, dancing, eating, merriment. There is mourning, but that comes prior to the actual funeral. Compared to what you see in the US of A, you would have thought you had stumbled in on a wedding, despite the dark clothing.

On Sunday, a few of my friends and I headed to Gomoa Fetteh, which is a coastal village about an hour, hour an a half, west of Accra. We took a trotro to Kaneshie Market, which is always an overwhelming place. There's a huge market there and its also a portal for travel by trotro and bus to cities throughout Ghana. As always, being in this white skin of mine, harassment from vendors, trotro mates, cab drivers, you name it is to be expected. My favorite hawkers are those who try to sell me gender-specific things like men's underwear or pants. Does it really look like I want to buy that? On this particular day, the harassment level was especially high, and I was not in the mood. We were to meet our other friends that were already at the beach, and we were trying to find out where that beach was exactly. There are these guys we call Fan Milk men, which sell ice cream, yogurt, juice by this brand Fan Milk, and they have this in a box on their bike, and in the front they sell pastries (beware, most pastries have meat in them...mmm) and things that look like spring rolls which are actually filled with noodles or rice, I can't tell, and rolled up in a wonton wrapper and fried. Weird. Anyway, the Fan Milk man makes everyone aware of the wares he is peddling by honking a horn on his bicycle. That horn usual is not irksome to me. Things changed on this fateful day. So we were standing in Kaneshie Market, at midday, so it was about 800 degrees Celsius with the oppressive African sun beating down on us, we were confused about where we were going because our friends that were already at the beach were not picking their phones, and we were being harassed by a trotro mate, "Where are you going? Where are you going? I can take you!" We don't know where we are going!! Combine these irritants with the most abrasive Fan Milk horn you will ever hear and the Fan Milk boy who kept following us with that horn, and saying, "Please, buy some." Can't you see I'm a vegan and don't enjoy meat pies?!? I nearly had a meltdown because of the sensory overload.

Finally, we found the tro that was heading in our direction. After sitting in the respective tro for several minutes and avoiding the stares of people selling toothpaste ("Yeahhhss, 'paste!" which included "Angola" toothpaste and "Holy Smile" toothpaste.), toys, eggs, water, meat pies ("Yeahssss, meat pie!"), etc, we finally left for Gomoa Fetteh. It took us about an hour and a half to get there. We had to take a cab from the junction and we finally arrived in the village of Gomoa Fetteh. A woman in passing called me, "White man!" Maybe that's why those vendors were trying to sell me men's clothing. The beach was spectacular. It was fringed by coconut palms and there was no one around. I feel that there are a myriad of places like this in Africa, unspoiled natural wonders that no one wants to approach. The water was blue green, the waves were big but the undertow and riptide were not strong so the big waves were not intimidating. The floor did not drop off so swimming was enjoyable. The water was unnaturally warm. We were there from 230-530 about and it was a perfect amount of time to soak up the beauty of this place. I was at peace with the world floating in the ocean that day. The weather was perfect, I was with good friends, and I was surrounded by beautiful Ghana. I was enjoying life to the maximum. When we finally left, the sun was setting and it was a spectacular drive through rural Ghana. The light was perfect. Everyone in the taxi was quiet from a mixture of being tired and of being in awe of the sights they were seeing.

I hope you find yourself enjoying this beautiful country. Not only are the people incredible and the way of life agreeable, but it is a spectacular place to visit for its natural beauty. I think people forget about Africa in that sense. Africa is not just for safaris.

P.S. Happy Earth Day! Do some recycling for me as I am unable to do that here... :-(

Disclaimer: I am sure this will be pretty irritating to read. I'm having some domestic troubles, and I need to do some therapeutic writing. However, this writing is also powered by emotion and you may find my misfortune humorous.

Yesterday marked a momentous occasion. It was the day I fell ill with a touch of homesickness. I longed to live in my Beacon House with my pal Valerie and everyone else. I don't think that Meeko attacking my leg every time I entered the room in which he was present would have phased me. I say this because last night, Hurricane Meredith came ashore, and I was in the eye of the storm.

So last night, some of my friends and I were getting some ideas of places to travel to with our guide books and calendars. There was maybe six of us in the room at once. We had the door open and we were not sitting on her bed or anything. We were not eating or drinking in the room. All of the sudden, I felt the icy breeze of the Hurricane herself, with fiancee in tow, enter the room. She looked as if she just walked into the room and saw us engaged in a drunken orgy or some other activity worth getting upset over. She closed the door and we evacuated because it was awkward times in there. When I returned later, she had it out with me. "Rachel, that was ridiculous! Those people were all over the room! Dragging dirt in! With the doors open!" I thought we were just sitting and looking at our guidebooks and not causing any problems, but boy was I mistaken. Sorely mistaken! Then she went on and made me aware of all the other problems she had with me. I apparently am a slob. Granted I am not the neatest, I don't think I'm a total pig. Some of my messiness, is because I leave my things out because I don't want to make noise in the morning when I leave for my internship early in the morning anywhere from 5:00 AM to 8:00 at the latest and wake her. She accused me of "exposing all of my things" in my wardrobe. The reason I do that is because I don't want to open the door to the balcony to dry my towel wet from the shower because the door is right near her head and that would wake her. So I deal with a slightly moldy towel, but how repulsive of me to expose my things. Who would want to see my soap! Or my shoes! Gasp! So when she went to sweep, I said, let me do it, because she accused me of never helping her. And when I offered to help her, she said, 'No, you don't know how!' (because Ghanaians use this weird ergonomically-unfriendly broom, which you have to hunch over and probably cause all kinds of lumbar problems after frequent use.) So don't hold it against me! I told her. Ugh.

She also complained about how I always turn off the radio. Perhaps it didn't phase her ever that I am not a God-fearing Christian, and I do not want to hear gospel music 25 hours a day, including when I'm trying to sleep, and it doesn't stop unless the electricity goes out. But boy, when I wake up, I feel saved. Hallelujah!

Anyway, I have had two issues with her, and I have politely made my voice heard, although not much was done after my requests on her part in response. I just asked her not to put the key in the door so I could get in the room, and I have turned the radio off on occasion, but only when I'm trying to read or sleep. She has turned the radio back on in both situations. So in our argument, she held it against me. "You always turn the radio off when I have it on!" You mean, when I'm trying to sleep? When she came to live in the hostel, after arriving four weeks late, she said she was going to arrange the room how it was last semester. I said that was fine, but she moved my bed to the opposite side of the room, near the door where every door below me could be heard slamming, people in the hallway were heard talking, sweeping, the sun blinding me. It just was not pleasant and I did not get more than four hours of sleep each night I tried sleeping in this new arrangement. When I requested to change where my bed was, she acted as if I
asked to put her bed in the hallway, and her desk in the courtyard. Her fiancee told me, "Sometimes you just need to adjust." I should have known that was going to be how this whole experience was going to go. Yes, I need to adjust, because Meredith will not. So anyway, Meredith explained she liked having music on all the time and it wasn't bothersome last semester to her roommate because the room was arranged the way Meredith loved and the radio was closer to Meredith. I'm sorry, is it last semester still? I really apologize for not being able to sleep. And this is the best part. I can't remember her exact words, but she said that when I leave, I won't have to deal with the radio, and she will, meaning that all of my turning out is wearing out the on/off switch. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the radio on at all times. Actually, I haven't been using the switch. I've just been slamming the radio against the wall until it stops making noise, because I'm a pretty terrible person to live with. I have no respect for anyone really.

The worst part of this whole ordeal is that Meredith never once mentioned that she had any gripes with me. How unfair to explode at me without saying a word about anything. I felt terrible last night. I could feel my heart in my chest, my hands were shaking, and I felt nauseous. I left my room because her arguments were going nowhere and it was very clear that I am an unwanted guest in her room. I went to find my friends and they made me feel infinitely better. I am grateful to have me the people I know here. I just hate that I have avoid going to my room now because of the tension that saturates it. I am going to talk to my director to get a room change. There are some Drew University students moving out this week or next, and there are rumors of some single rooms being available. I just don't think it will be enjoyable for either of us to be in the same room. Any relationship we were developing has been mortally wounded by the events of last night. The way she talked to me last night and created the situation in the first place just won't fly with me. We have nothing in common and she seems like a spoiled brat that will have her way, or the highway.

On a more positive note, I received a card from my sister yesterday, and it could not have come at a better time. It certainly brightened my day. :-)

For those of you who sat through that, sorry. I hope you found some of it enjoyable. I feel a bit better. Enjoy your day.

PEACE.