a little bit of home in ghana

Hello all!

Here is a list of things that you take for granted back in America:

1. Toilet paper in the bathrooms provided for you and not having to take it every where with you.
2. Clean water and not having to but it or purify it.
3. Mosquitoes that don’t want to kill you so you can sleep in the open and not under a mosquito net.

Things that are awesome in Ghana:

1. The exchange rate is awesome so food is really cheap.
2. There are lots of seamstresses who will measure you and make you pretty dresses. Already done that. Beautiful fabrics!
3. It’s a great weight loss program with the abundance of walking and lack of processed food.

With each day we are becoming more accustomed to being in Ghana and we are figuring out life in a new country.  Sunday night we were able to go to the seamstress and she measured us for dresses that we got to pick out the style and fabric on.  I can’t wait to get it next Sunday! She does a wonderful job making these clothes.

Monday we had the day off so we all headed to the mall to relax.  We weren’t quite brave enough to jump back in the tro-tros quite yet so we took the taxis which are a tad more expensive but not so scary.  The mall here is just like the malls back home except even bigger and nicer.  We went to the food court and I was able to get some pizza to eat so I was a very happy girl as you all can imagine knowing how much I love my pizza.  It was comforting having a little piece of home here.  I wouldn’t want to make it a habit just being an American here, I want to experience the Ghanaian culture, but it is nice to know that it is there whenever I need a comforting reminder of home.  They also have a grocery store in the mall so we wandered that for a bit, comparing prices and experiences of the market.  I also got peanut butter as a staple comfort food to eat with bread.  Filling and delicious, and the bread is from the market so I got the best of both worlds.  Before leaving the mall we all decided we wanted to just sit and relax and continue our little snippet of home so we went to see a movie.  We chose Horrible Bosses which was a decently good comedy and it was good to laugh.  The theater was very nice and I nearly forgot I was in Ghana being in there but it was good to laugh and relax and turned out to be a very good day.  For dinner we had the group eat at the professors flat which was nice to sit and eat together and we learned a little bit about the home stays we will be doing sometime in August.  We will be living in a village for a week (more on that later when it actually happens.)  Then we played some Phase 10 and talked to conclude the night and continue bonding. 

Today we had a final orientation.  We learned where our classes would be, where the library is, and met some of our professors.  We also got a schedule of our classes and went over our first syllabus.  We have classes Monday-Wednesday from 10:30 until 9 except Tuesday when we are done at 6.  We will have a lot to do it seems like but I’m ready to learn a lot of very interesting things.  Thursdays and Fridays will be left open for our weekend trips or our service learning/ research topics.  Im excited to meet with the SafeWater team here in Ghana and learn what I will be doing but I have not been able to meet with them yet.  Ghanaian culture isn’t quite on time or good at scheduling.  You would all be so proud of me for adjusting to that. Oh and after orientation we headed to the market for lunch and I got another chicken kabob thing.  These things are so good.

Now we are relaxing until we leave for our trip tomorrow afternoon for our group retreat before classes begin on Monday.  I will update again when I get back on Friday or Saturday.

Love and miss you all!

Here is a picture of the night market across the street from our dorm where we get most of our meals