one month in and the adventure continues

Hi everyone!

It has been awhile since I have updated and I apologize!  Internet was of course down again and I was unable to get to the internet and the week ended up just flying by.

Classes went well in the beginning of the week.  Monday was another long day of class and nothing too exciting to mention.  Tuesday was our last day with our scary Twi professor- he is very old and quite sick so we are getting a replacement now.  We are sorry he is sick but he is not the best teacher so we are all a little bit excited for a new professor.  Tuesday night our night class was cut short because one of the girls had an allergic reaction and needed to be brought to the hospital.  Thankfully, she is doing well now! Only down side is she can’t have Ghanaian ice cream which is really good.  Wednesday morning went well.  In the afternoon we had our fourth person go to the hospital.  Aside from the allergic reaction, 3 girls have also gotten bacteria infections from the food or water.  Hopefully we don’t have any more hospital trips the rest of our trip.  Drumming class was really fun, we now know an entire song and it sounds really good – for beginners anyway.  Dance class = not so good.  Unfortunately, I hurt my back in dance class and I have been lying down icing it since Wednesday afternoon.  Aleve and ice are my best friends right now.  The pain is slowly getting better but I will have to take it easy for awhile. 

Thursday was a strange day.  Nearly everyone started their NGO work this week so there were only 4 of us left at the hostel.  It was very quite and weird when you are used to the group of 18 of us.  I laid in bed all day and watched some Modern Family and worked on homework.  Friday morning I was finally able to go meet with my NGO.  After getting there in double the time it should have we arrived at SafeWater in Tema, Ghana.  I will be there with one other student, James.  We were taught how to put the filters together and learned a little bit about the structure of the organization.   James and I will be working on research for them for the next couple of months.  Many of the other students are doing service learning along with their research but there is not much for us to do at SafeWater so we will be focusing on research.  I was a little disappointed at first because I was looking forward to doing more work but I am getting more excited to start the research and it will be really helpful to them.  This upcoming Thursday we will be going out to the community to see where the filters are installed and what is going well and what could use improvement.  The rest of the semester will also include interviews and who knows where that will take us. 

Friday evening many of the people went out to a really cool Irish pub that is owned by a British guy.  It has a lot of similarities with home so I am really looking forward to going to that.  I stayed back because my back had been hurting and Shelby’s ankle is still in pain so we were able to hang out.  Shelby sprained her ankle just before leaving for Ghana and it is still bothering her at times. 

Saturday was spent working on homework together.  Saturday evening a few of us made spaghetti and it was so good.  That may be a new tradition.  We also went to a play.  It was a one man show and very… interesting.  There was nearly no dialogue and the beginning was really good, then it got really trippy and no one really knew what was going on.  It was an experience for sure.

This morning we met with a man who talked to us about Christian-Muslim relations throughout the world and how that has changed after the 9-11 attacks.  We followed the talk by a time of prayer and worship in honor of 9-11.  It is strange to not be home on a day like today and yet still feel connected.

As always, I love and miss you all dearly.  I have been here over a month now and there are still new things to experience and adjust to every day.  For those of you at Calvin, I hope you had a great first week of classes! 

Love.