I like your structure.

The last few days have been quite a whirlwind of little experiences. On Friday we went to the market again to buy fabric. Friday night we dropped off some of our newest purchases at Marjorie's for more clothes! These dresses--they're getting to be a bit addictive...we must be careful.

Yesterday was a very relaxing day. Whitney, Holley and I stayed in and watched three movies--yes three. I know many of you may be shocked to hear that, considering I do not watch many movies in general, but it was definitely a necessary step to recuperating from the craziness that has been the past two weeks. I got a little antsy in the middle of the second one, so I went for a walk to buy more phone credit. About 10 feet into my walk, two ladies came up to me and started talking. One of them lives two houses over and is named Jillian (I think). The other had a baby strapped to her back and is named Barbara. Note about babies: women here use cloth to literally strap their babies to their backs. I'll have to show a picture at some point. The women I met were telling me that they don't like the way that we carry babies at home--people here would say you are hurting the baby. They like to have their children strapped to their back to keep their hands free to work. It's really cute.

Anyways, Jillian told me she would really like to have me as a friend and that she liked my "structure". When I obviously didn't understand what that meant, she said she liked my height (I've heard that a lot since being here). Throughout the whole conversation she was saying at random times that she liked my structure--it was quite amusing. She started walking with me down to the little shops down the street. She apparently works in a Russian man's house and lives there with her three children. She introduced me to her mom and sister who both work at little stands. She told me I have to come back and buy something from her mom when I need food. I also met her sister's children, 5 year old twins named Prince and Princess. They were so cute! A few other little kids were playing a game in the dirt and looked up and laughed at us, pointing and calling me "Obruni!" I couldn't tell if they were making fun of me, but they were really cute.

We walked back and stopped at Jillian's house. She called all her kids out to meet me, two boys of 2 and 7 and a girl of 5. The girl's name is Porschia. She was adorable too! Jillian worked on teaching me Twi and random things about the culture. She wants me to stop by sometime soon to say hi, so I think I'll go by tomorrow. It was a really cool experience to feel a little more immersed in life here.

Today, Holley, Whit and I went to this incredible incredible INCREDIBLE smoothie shop called "Smoothy's." Whitney was not a fan because she doesn't like fruit, but I'm pretty sure I'll be getting smoothies there daily. I don't remember exactly which fruit was in mine, but there are some 30 something combinations and the three we tried today were just delicious. I'm going to try all combinations this semester. I'm officially obsessed.

Then we wandered around Osu, the center of Accra, for several hours. We saw a ton of little kids there too. One little girl ran up, grabbed my hand, and just walked with us. The kids were all so excited to see three tall white girls wandering their streets. The area we were wandering was not as affluent as where I live. It's hard to describe what it looked like, but there were just tons of little shops, people's homes with their clothes hanging on the clothes line out back, chickens and dogs wandering the streets...it was really colorful. There were not a ton of people around, but it seems like most places around here shut down on Sundays, so that was not surprising. It was another really great adventure in just seeing some more of the culture around here.

Tomorrow is week two of classes. I still have some reading to do for Global Connections (the reading has not been very interesting so far, but it's all intro stuff) but I did my Twi earlier. I'm excited to keep picking up more of it! People laugh when I try to say things, but oh well. Eventually I may start to blend in!

Psh, yeah right. But that's okay. Sometimes it is fun being an obruni!

How to create world peace: teach dance!

More classes! Yesterday I went to an African Music and Dance class at Ashesi University. My professor is this little old Ghanian man with a hippie mind. His philosophy on war is that conflict exists because people don't dance. He thinks dance is a way to have a mind-body connection and express ourselves in a non-violent way. I love him.

The class is going to be...interesting. It's made up of about 8 NYU students, some kids from CIEE (another study abroad program) and some Ghanians. We had to go around and say why we were taking the class, and the biggest reason why was because we can't dance and want to learn how (one of my reasons). We're graded on participation, so we basically just have to try. My professor thinks everyone has rhythm, but I don't think he has seen me try yet. It's going to be interesting! Yesterday was awesome though. We had an hour and a half of introduction and lecture, then an hour and a half of practical stuff. We're starting with basic beats on instruments to get ourselves to internalize the rhythm. I got to play a beat on a bell, but there were also those shakers with the beads on the outside, and some amazing drums. We're going to learn how to play all three :-D I'm so excited. We have to do a public performance at the end of the semester, wearing traditional clothes and everything. I'll have to try to get someone to record it so I can show everyone my killer moves.

I also randomly joined the Twi language class. I was really nervous about doing it after my experience with Arabic being so difficult last fall, but I'm so glad I went to Twi! It is taught by the director of my program. She is amazing. The class was incredibly unstructured and really focused on conversational Twi. We started out learning all about ways to barter, then moved to names of foods, then how to barter with a cab driver, etc. It's all just really useful.

Today I had my last class, Health and Society. Not much to report on it, since it was mainly just a basic history of health advances in societies and whatnot. It seems interesting though, and a lot of my friend are in that class.

Last night we went out to a salsa dancing place, then to reggae music on the beach. It was this crazy place right on the water with a huge stage and Rastas playing reggae all night! About half of our program went. Everyone we met was really nice, and it was so much fun being by the water all night.

Today we went to a mall. When I say a mall, I mean a mall. It was really bizarre, because we expected there to at least be some sort of twist to make it different from the malls that we are used to in America, but you could actually pick up this mall and put it in Maryland and it would fit in. I managed to buy some food for my house!

Walking up to the mall, all of these little kids who look Middle Eastern kept running up to us and grabbing our hands. They would ask us to "dash" (give) them some money or food. It was really sad because they were so cute, but you could see their parents close by and it's obvious that they were trained to beg to us. As much as we wanted to give them something, we were told that we shouldn't, because it encourages their behavior and their parents. If we give them something, it's supposed to be pens or markers or something that encourages them to go to school. :-/ it's hard not to give them anything though.

Today's food update: vegetable curry for dinner. I wanted to eat it all!

A few more pictures below:

A bunch of us before going to reggae on the beach! Alex, me, Kalin, Whitney, Holley, Miranda, Brenda, and Christina. Alex and Brenda are wearing skirts made here, and Whit, Hols and I all have new dresses on.

This little boy was watching me after the trip to the market when we were waiting for everyone to get back on the bus. Oh goodness,  I wanted to take him with me.

Pictures from our adventures earlier this week! We have a statue of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president.

Then we have some pictures on one of the walls outside the fort in Jamestown that used to be a slave trading post.

View from the fort in Jamestown.

Some girls that lived in the fort. They were adorable!

Inside the fort.

A few pics

A few pictures! More coming soon, but they take forever to load. Below you will see Whitney, Holley and me (yes, they are that tall too!) in our new dresses, the outside of one of the four houses here, and the view from the upstairs of our house looking into the common room. Nice, right? Notice the risk game on the table in the middle of our house.

Risks in Ghana

Day two of classes is finished, and oh what a day. It started insanely early with an 8am class for my internship. There are probably 10 of us in that class, which is an hour an a half a week plus 1 to 10 hours of interning at a local NGO. I'm not quite sure what my placement will be yet, but I'll keep you posted. Anyways, the class was...well, it went by eventually. The first 30 minutes or so were spent coming up with "Ground Rules" for our class. Being such smart NYU students, we came up with things such as 1. Be respectful,  2. Communicate and 3. Support Each Other. Time well spent.

The next period of time was writing down our expectations and fears of our internships. There was a very very specific way to do this--by folding a piece of paper in half, then writing "Expectations" at the top of one column, and "Fears" at the top of the other. 

If you get the gist, we were feeling a bit...unchallenged? It was a hard beginning to the day. The last activity was actually probably the most immature, but it was at least fun. We had to draw a picture of an animal that represented us and talk about why. I, of course, drew a penguin (hehe Fairy). It looked a little like an owl, but that's okay. We had to tell Jennifer, our professor, about our families and where we grew up. The drawing of pictures took us wayyy longer than it should have, but like I said, at least it was fun.

So that class will be interesting. I'm really happy with the people who are in the class, and think we'll have some really good discussions about our internships, the work that the NGOs are doing, non-profits in general, etc. I'm excited to get into all of that.

I was running on very little sleep, because last night my whole house was up playing games until about 3 am, then Whitney and I were chatting until 4. We're only together for 4 months, so you know, we've got to cram in as much bonding as possible. More on that later. But so I came back and had a wonderful relaxing nap before going to my one and only class at the University of Ghana, titled "Politics in Developing Countries in West Africa."

I was really hoping this would be a good course. Two of my closest friends here, Whitney and Holley, were going to take it with me. We got there on time, got good seats in the lecture hall, and were oh so excited for things to start. About 96% of the students were international students (there were less than 50 people too). I think there's a reason why Ghanaian's don't take this class though: Ghanaian's go to bookstores and read textbooks. Let me explain.

Our professor came in and started talking. He explained that he was going to start with the lecture, which was logical. He then proceeded to go to the podium and read each sentence of a book to us. We were expected to copy down each word he was reading to us. So basically, we were copying the book he was reading into our notebooks.

The three of us exchanged looks, but decided to wait a bit. Maybe this was just the intro, or maybe the material would be more challenging after the first few minutes. But no, it was not. A few questions came up from the group, but every time an interesting discussion of different cultures and perceptions of democracy came up, the professor would squash it like a bug. He did pose some questions to us though, like "Do you know what apartheid was?" and "Do you know what the Cold War was?" And the class was two hours long.

So today's classes were not nearly as good as my one was yesterday, but I'm still excited for the internship and I'm dropping the class at Uni Ghana. I'm sad not to take a class there--the campus is gorgeous and everyone seems so nice, but it's a 30 minute drive and the classes I have been interested in have been somewhat of a letdown. Tomorrow I'm taking an African Dance and Drumming class at the other local university, for which I am incredibly excited. Hopefully they won't laugh at me too much, although I hear that the locals just think we're hilarious when we try to dance.

Last night I was introduced to the lovely game of Risk, a manifest-destiny-esque board game. About half of my program was hanging out in my wonderful living room (we apparently have the welcome-to-our-home vibe going on) and some of the guys were starting a game. They taught me how to play and I am hooked! We took a break because two of them were going out, but sadly one of the other guys from my house knocked into the board late last night. It was a wreck, so we decided we had to start a new game! By that point, it was about midnight and everyone except the five people living in our house (me, Whitney, Joe, Camilo, and Parker) had left. So we thought it would be nice to start a house game, play for a bit, and come back to it tomorrow.

I don't know who of you have played Risk, but it is intense. It's not the type of game you can play for a half hour and then go to bed. Instead, it's the type of game that you play for two hours until you and Parker are completely wiped off the earth by Camilo, then stay up for another hour to watch him battle Whitney and Joe. The game is still going on and I am just so anxious for it to be over so we can start a new one, now that I know how to not die so quickly (I may not have lasted two hours, might have been more like an hour...maybe).

Anyways, Risk probably is not nearly as fun to read about as Ghanaian food, but no worries! I'm about to go eat dinner at my favorite place so far and the menu looks delicious for tonight!

Two posts in one day?! I'm on a roll.

I can already tell, things are going to be rough here (sarcasm). I had my first day of classes today. My first class was going to be an African dance class at the University of Ghana, but apparently it meets twice a week and I can't make the second meeting. So, instead, Holley and I wandered around the University of Ghana, so that she could drop her Russian class. Then, exhausted from the first real exercise (of walking) we have really experienced in the African heat, we decided to hang out and get lunch. Unfortunately, I don't think that the lady serving lunch appreciated my vegetarianism. I ended up eating jollof rice and fried plantains. It wasn't the healthiest lunch, but it was delicious!

Why are all of my entries about food?

Anyways, while we were eating at a table, these three girls sat down and introduced themselves. They were really interested in us, asking what we were studying and where we were from. We couldn't talk long, because we had to get back for the bus, but they asked for our phone numbers and if we had facebook. They laughed and told us that they knew we would, because "All Americans have facebook!" They were surprised that we didn't have twitter. Oh, how accurate their perceptions of us are.

We came back and a few of us got our first dresses, made by Marjorie, a local dress-maker. We had bought fabric at the market on Saturday and showed her the types we wanted. The dresses were cheap and tailored just to fit us. They are beautiful and fantastic and I'm so excited for her! In a few minutes, we're going to her place to get the final dresses, which she made adjustments to, and maybe to place orders for more dresses. I'm going to come home with so many clothes! I promise I'll put up pictures showing them soon!

Later this afternoon I had my second class, called Global Connections: Accra. It's taught by Prof Nat, the guy who gave us the tour earlier this week and is the former mayor of Accra. I love him. I want to be best friends with him. He's just great. Today was a brief overview of the class and syllabus, and we have reading for next week. It's going to be fantastic!

Fun fact of the day: Accra is famous for huge mud ant hills built by fire ants, and the city is thought to be named after "Nkiam" which is the word for ants.

Obruni obruni!

Obruni means "foreigner" or "white person." We heard it a ton on Saturday when we went to two different markets--that and "white girls, white girls!!!" One of the markets is an outdoor shopping market that is incredibly beautiful and chaotic, but unlike anything I have ever been to in the US. I had gone one time before when I was here in March. There they have pretty much everything you could ever need at these little stands. They have fabric stands, cosmetic stands, electronic stands, little packaged food stands. The stands are in no logical order, just thrown next to each other, and a lot of them are similar. They're all crammed in this massive area, some in concrete buildings so they can be stacked on top of each other. There are about a zillion people wandering among them through these tiny little alleys, a lot of them balancing huge boxes or buckets on their heads. It's incredible to see, but can be somewhat overwhelming in the heat.

The other market is an art market that we also went to in March. It's filled with tons of souvenirs and beautiful crafts. There is a ton of jewelry and dresses and masks and wooden sculptures and wall hangings and just amazing things. You have to barter for everything here. The general rule of thumb I was taught is that you should always ask for half or less of what they ask for. That works sometimes, but on occasion they will try to really rip you off and ask for something like 80 cedis for two dresses. Then, you can sometimes get them down to 25 cedis or something similar. Must try not to be ripped off!

Yesterday was kind of a catch-up day. We all went to a brunch at a restaurant nearby. Then there was an optional trip to the beach. I had not slept very much, so I decided to stay home and sleep for three hours. It was fantastic. Then a whole group of us discovered we were really hungry and decided to sample some Chinese food from Accra! There is a place about a ten minute walk from here. We went and ordered and then sat and waited for literally an hour and a half for our food. Now, it was 12 people and apparently getting your food at restaurants takes much longer in Ghana than the US. But an hour and a half? We all started out chatty and bubbly, reading some tabloids from about 2006. After about a half hour, we started to get hungry, and you all know that hungry Maggie is not happy Maggie. That's how it seems to be with the rest of our group too. After what felt like forever, we got our food and came back to our house to eat it. The food was similar to Chinese food back home, but some of the flavors tasted slightly different. The egg rolls were a lot more doughy, but still delicious and wonderful. My life is apparently beginning to revolve around food.

When we were right outside of the Chinese place, this whole group of children ran up to us. Oh dear god, the children here are beau-ti-ful. They are so so so gorgeous and adorable. A little boy of no more than two waddled up to us and just kept waving and saying hi. Ahh. I may come home with an African baby...just kidding! But really.

Fun stuff: Our hot water heater sparked and started smoking while Whitney was showering. Because of this, we have no hot water. We could use other people's showers, but that would require taking all of our stuff to another house. So, we take cold showers. Really really short cold showers. It's actually not as bad as it sounds.

More on food: Yesterday, my friend Holley bought pineapple and my other friend Alex bought avocado from little street vendors. I don't think I need to reiterate how amazing the pineapple is, but ahhh it is so good. The avocado tasted different from avocado at home. It was really really rich, almost buttery. Oh it was so good.

I'm about to go get ready for my first class of the day: an African dance class at a local university! I actually will probably have to drop it, because it conflicts with my internship class on Tuesdays, but I'm at least going the first day to see how it is. It's going to be quite interesting--my dancing skills are rather sub-par to begin with, but I'm hoping that by some twist of fate I'm a natural at African traditional dance...Hopefully I'll get to meet some Ghanians too. Weeeee

Must post before the internet runs away...again

Woooo so the internet in my house goes out all the time, hence the long post after four days!

Things are really good so far. We've been waking up early for orientation, going to lectures and on little excursions all throughout the day, then staying up late hanging out and making friends (and yes, I am making friends--yayyy)! It's an insane schedule, but only for a bit longer.

Our first day was started by a staff intro and then a delicious lunch at this really awesome Ghanian restaurant. We had traditional West African food, which consisted of fufu (apparently it can be many things, but this time was rice that is pounded into balls and soaked in water or something like that), peanut soup (but it had chicken in it, so I didn't try it), a really good spinach thing that I don't remember the name of, fermented corn balls, and an eggplant fish thing. There may have been some other things, and I know they told us the names, but my memory has apparently lost all of them but fufu. We also had fruit juice.

We drink fruit juice about eight times a day here (maybe not eight). You should know that the fruit juice here is incredible for two reasons: 1. the juice is more exotic (pineapple and coconut, guava, mango, and pear are just a few of the common ones) and 2. the fruit here is to die for. My mouth is watering just thinking about the fruit. The mango is...I have no words. The pineapple doesn't even taste like a pineapple from home. It's almost entirely white and sweet and juicy. The fruit is probably my favorite food so far.

So anyways, the food was fantastic. I got to sit next to the director of our program, Auntie Akosua (in Ghana, you refer to elders by Auntie or Uncle, and peers by Brother or Sister). I got to talk to her about her past and how she ended up at NYU in Ghana. She got to ask me my opinions of the health care battle back home and of Obama's performance so far this year.

Speaking of Obama, he is everywhere. On the streets, there are signs everywhere with President John Atta Mills of Ghana and President Obama, with the words "Akwaaba" (welcome) on them. People on the street walk up to cars to sell random things, such as little American flags with Obama's face on them (they also sell plantain chips and little bags of water--all of which is in huge baskets balanced on their heads). But the best Obama thing I saw was the new Obama Hotel. Yes, a hotel was renamed after Barack Obama. It is amazing.

Tuesday, we had a lecture introducing us to Accra. The talk was given by Professor Nat Amarteifio, an NYU professor and former mayor of Accra. I had seen him when I was here in March, and for the second time, he was incredible. He's teaching a class this semester called Global Connections: Accra, that I really want to switch into now. He gave a basic run down on the history of Ghana. Then, we all piled onto a coach bus and got a tour of Accra.

Accra is really interesting. It's insanely diverse and one section kind of runs into the next. The part that we are staying in is a very wealthy part. The houses are huge and people drive really nice cars. When driving through it, you suddenly get to Jamestown, an old area of Accra where a lot of original buildings from colonial times are still standing. In general, the area is unsafe and really poor. It was easy to see that when driving through (again, on a coach bus--makes us really fit in).

Professor N took us to an old fort where slaves were kept before being shipped across the Ocean. It was a really strange excursion. The fort that we were going into has actually become a house for people, so we were literally going into their houses. There were some children wandering around a big open area in the middle, and lots of adults around the sides. The children smiled at us and told us we were beautiful when we were leaving. The adults just stared. It was pretty uncomfortable, because their stares were most certainly not welcoming. We completely understood--we were entering their homes. It was still strange though.

All in all, it was a pretty incredible trip. Professor N is teaching a class that I'm taking this semester, called Global Connections: Accra. Apparently, we get to go on lots of similar trips all around the city. I'm pumpedddd.

Other crazy things that we have done so far:
- Taken our first intensive Twi class. I suck at it, but I'm trying really hard! Word I use the most: pronounced ma-da-si (thank you). I have no idea how to spell it.
- Gone to the University of Ghana, Legon to register for classes. It is a little insane there. There are 30,000 students and the organization is pretty non-existent. I found it interesting and funny, but some people were getting pretty frustrated. They keep telling us to practice the number one rule in Ghana: be patient (only slightly different from New York...right).
- Learned about cultural dos and don'ts. Some key don'ts: don't use your left hand...for basically anything, don't cross your legs in the presence of a traditional ruler, don't ask anyone to go to eat with you unless you intend to pay for them, and don't be offended if you are proposed to (in most cases).

Tomorrow we get to go to visit traditional coffin makers and shops! But for now, maadwo (goodnight)! Love to all!

And so it begins...

Currently, I am lying in my bed in my dorm room in Ghana! It is almost 2:30 am, so I'm not going to write too much, but here's a quick little intro into the few things that have happened so far.

I traveled here with a girl named Sarah that I know from work. She's an absolute sweetheart, and it was so great having someone to travel with me. We took a 7 hour flight from Newark, NJ to London yesterday. We didn't really have enough time to make it into the city, but it was still nice to break up the flight. Last night we stayed at a hotel, got dinner there, and got a little bit of sleep. We had breakfast at the hotel this morning, then went back to the airport to go to Ghana! 

When we first boarded the plane, there was a little incident with a man who was a criminal being deported back to Ghana on our flight. He didn't want to go. He stopped yelling after about 10 minutes, and the flight attendant informed us that it would be okay, because he was handcuffed and accompanied by two police officers. It worked out to be fine for the rest of the flight, but it certainly shook up our nerves.

The rest of the flight went perfectly. It was another long 7 hours of flying, but we got to see some great views of the Sahara Desert (I'll post some pictures later this week). It was really exciting to land, knowing that we were entering our home for the next four months!

It turns out about half of our study abroad program was on that flight. Sarah and I met a bunch of people in line at immigration. Then, we managed to get our luggage and make our way out of the airport. A few pieces of luggage didn't make it, but thankfully none of the missing bags were mine. The director of the program and one of the CRAs (Community Resource Advisors) met us with a NYU in Ghana sign. We loaded all of our luggage into a couple of vans, and made our way to our dorms.

I'm rooming with a girl from New Hampshire named Whitney. We actually started talking in line to board the flight to Ghana, and she seems really great. We live in a complex of four little houses with apartments in between for the CRAs. There are a couple little courtyards for the complex and balconies for each of the houses. Whitney and I share a house with three guys (I think there are five in our program? haha). There are bathrooms connected to each of the bedrooms, a common area thats about as big as the living room in my house, a little dining area with 6 chairs, a kitchen (that was stocked with food and drinks when we got here) and a washer/dryer. I'm not going to lie--it's a really sweet deal (pictures later this week).

We all loaded back into the vans to go get some food, since it was 10:30 and we hadn't eaten in hours. There were only a few places open, so we stopped and ordered some pizza to take back. We first ordered two large pizzas for 8 of us. Then we discovered that large pizzas in Accra are about the size of small or medium pizzas in the US. We ended up ordering some more to make sure we all got plenty of food.

We came back and ate the pizza in the dining area of our house. It was really fun to get to chat with some of the people that are going to be my comrades for the next four months. Everyone seems really different, but really fun. It's going to be interesting living with this small of a program (I think there are about 30 of us) and getting to know everyone so well.

Around midnight, Whitney and I headed up to our room to unpack. It took several hours, but we have plenty of space for the two of us. We actually have an extra bed, because my bed is a bunk bed. All of the beds are doubles though, which is really nice. We have four closets, all of which quickly filled with our stuff.

This "quick" update has turned into a play-by-play of the past 24 hours. Tomorrow, we have orientation stuff all day and for most of the evening. It's going to be a busy week!

I'm so excited to be here. And now, I'm quite tired. Time to sleep my first sleep of this crazy adventure :-D.