I finally managed to get a picture up on my profile! That is me with the monkey that bit me in Cote d'Ivoire (before it attacked me). I know by this time it is too late to even bother with more pictures since I will be returning home next weekend, but I just thought I would give you a small preview. I apologize once again for the delay in writing, but this week has been so hectic that I am surprised I have even found this short time to post. We are in the midst of final exams and writing our last papers, as well as other projects many of us are involved in like community service, internships, and documentary films. Yesterday I spent the entire day between rehearsal for our dance performance, which was last night, and writing a 10 page paper due today that was not even assigned to us until Monday afternoon. None of us understand how most of these professors expect us to commit so much time to each of their classes, especially when we are in our final days here and want to enjoy Ghana as much as we can before we leave, so forgive me if I sound frustrated at this time. Hopefully by the end of next week when all of my academic work is finished I will have more positive relfections on these classes and the professors. I will say that all of them have been great up until these finals when they suddenly got very strict, and that I enjoyed learning from them throughout the semester, especially the dance instructor who is a well-known choreographer throughout the entire continent of Africa. I hope to get a film of our performance last night from one of my friends, since I think it went very well and was so much fun that I will want to have a visual memory of it forever; plus I want to show it to those of you back home who are interested in seeing a contemporary African dance performance. Our associate director actually arrived too late last night and missed the performance, so she asked us all to reinact it tonight at our Farewell dinner that they are hosting for us at the restaurant where we ate on our first day here, called Headlines Hospitality. Unless we throw a going away party ourselves next week, this will probably be our last gathering of everyone in the program including the staff, which will be both sad and wonderful to celebrate one last time.
My other classes are pretty much over now, except for a 6 page paper I have to write for one of them due next week, and I have to say I enjoyed them but was a little disappointed with the way some of them were carried out. Especially the University of Ghana class- Black Diaspora. First of all, it took about 20 minutes to get there every week, which normally would not have bothered me except for the fact that we had to go there about 3 times the first couple weeks just to register in the class and I had to return another time to get my student ID that was only available on one particular day of the week. Then we had to go to a tutorial to discuss the readings from the lectures, which made sense, but NYU decided that for some reason we needed more credit for this course so they created another recitation that we all had to attend each week for two hours to discuss slavery issues and anything else in Ghana that has impacted us. It was fine at the beginning until we started receiving assigned readings and a presentation at the end that most of us did not have time to coordinate, though we were forced to somehow make time in our schedules. What was most disappointing about the course itself, though, was that the majority of our readings were photocopies from American high school textbooks rather than scholarly articles written in Ghana and we learned more about African Americans than the natives of Africa. Luckily our final was last week, so I never have to return to University of Ghana, although I am a bit nostaligic now since it is a beautiful campus and I spent so much time there this semester.
My Society, Culture, and Modernization class has been fairly easy compared to my others since our papers due every other week have been almost free-writing about certain topics he gives us without any strict guidelines. Our final paper due next week is on any topic of our choice, and I and another student have decided to write about our personal experiences in Ghana and how our views have changed since the beginning of the semester after traveling and meeting more people. It should be the least stressful of all my finals, especially since it will allow me to reflect on my time here in a more concise manner since I have not been able to really do that yet.
Unfortunately my dance class is not yet finished after our performance this week since we also have a written final next week on the differences between the different African dances. We have all agreed that this class has been a bit too demanding for a dance class, since we also had a short paper due a couple weeks ago and practically all of yesterday was devoted to rehearsing. Otherwise, I should have some time next week to do some of the last few things I want to like shop for gifts/souvenirs and spend time with my friends who I will not see nearly as often next year in New York.
Since this may be one of my last posts, I want to quickly mention my trip last weekend before I forget since it was one of my favorites. We went on a four-hour drive to a rural area where the largest waterfall in West Africa lies, called Wli Falls, and hiked through a forest filled with butterflies and wild fruits (pineapples and bananas, though none were ripe enough to pick) to reach the falls. It was beautiful and I took many pictures and even a short video so I can always look back on the experience. We all came in our bathing suits and waded into the water, which was just deep enough for us to swim around, then we swam under the falls themselves for an even more exhilirating experience. I cannot express how I felt standing under there screaming and laughing with my friends; we all agreed that it made us feel like small children again who were stress-free and without any worries at all except for maybe falling on the rocks. I only wish we could have stayed longer.
Okay, that's all for now, but I will hopefully write one more time next week before leaving Ghana to say my final farewells and give one last reflection on my experience here. Ciao for now!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Our Final Weeks...
We have really begun the countdown to our departure from Ghana now with just a little over 4 weeks left. I cannot believe nearly 3 months have gone by since I stepped foot off that plane and entered Africa for the first time, yet here I am. Anxiety is starting to kick in as I realize there is still so much I want to do before I leave and that time with my new friends is now diminishing, as we all know we will not be able to see each other nearly as often in New York next semester. We are all very much looking forward to going home, but I also know that leaving Ghana will be very difficult since it has been the cause of enormous growth in all of us.
I apologize for not updating as often, but the internet connection has actually gotten worse and I have just not had many chances. So you may have to wait to hear about much of what I have left out until I get home, but for now I will just mention the more significant events that have taken place recently or will happen soon. Last weekend we threw a birthday party for one of our group with a plethora of food and dancing, which was a lot of fun and what I hope to do for my own birthday in a few weeks. Then on Sunday night a small group of us went to a new Italian restaurant for dinner called Leonardo da Vinci’s that had amazing service and delicious food (and not just because we miss Italian food). We received a complimentary starter of bruschetta and then all shared an octopus salad and caprese salad before our second course of many pastas. We split a dish of cannelloni with meat sauce, four cheese risotto, and gnocchi with shrimp and tomato sauce that just melted in your mouth. Plus they were constantly replacing our bread that we used for dipping in the sauces, so by the end we were all extremely full. We still managed to each down a cappuccino from a real Itaiian espresso machine, however, which was a wonderful ending to the weekend. I feel only slightly guilty that I spent a couple hours at an Italian restaurant while in Ghana, since I do not feel that I can completely immerse myself in the African culture at every moment of every day or I would go crazy.
Although our long weekend trips are over, we still have couple day trips this semester to some picturesque areas of the southern region of Ghana. This past weekend we took a day trip to Aburi Gardens, a botanical garden a couple hours outside of Accra that is beautiful. It was filled with exotic trees and plants native to Ghana, many of which are used to make herbs and spices that we learned about and got to experiment with. We smelled the bark of a tree where cinnamon comes from as well as the leaves used to make allspice, and then tasted the outside of a cocoa bean (the inside of which is used to make chocolate). After the tour we had the freedom of riding bikes around the park for an hour before eating lunch and heading out to a craft market where we bought some souvenirs. It was a very enjoyable day, and definitely not as exhausting as most of our other trips that required at least a day of travel.
This weekend I am going with one of my classes to a rural village a couple hours east of Accra where the professor grew up to witness the rural life of Ghana. I am very excited since I know it will be a unique experience.
The volunteering at the Autism center is going fairly well, by the way, though I am a little frustrated with the attitudes of some of the staff. Many of them are not very friendly to me unless they need me to do something and they will often ignore certain children that get violent and start running around uncontrollably. I have not been trained in how to deal with this behavior so I know that I cannot do anything to help control them, but I wish the staff members who obviously do this for a living would make more of an effort to teach these children that it is wrong to hurt themselves and others. Otherwise, I do enjoy having some of the children come up to me and just lightly touch me out of curiosity or give me a hug in affection, which makes my going there worth it in the end. I am not doing anything of great significance for the center, but I am spending some of my free time just sitting and coloring with these children that often do not receive any other love or affection from family or the rest of the community. It is rewarding enough to know that my time with them is appreciated.
Today is registration day for next semester, and everyone here is even more stressed than usual since we are unsure whether or not the internet will be working at the time we all need it. I am still finalizing what classes I want to take, but I am pretty sure they will all be for my major and minor, which are Anthropology and Psychology respectively. My choices for now are Anthropology of Language, Anthropology of Science, Medical Anthropology, and Cognitive Neuroscience, though I am trying to find a way to change one of the Anthropology classes to a Psychology class that fits in my schedule so I am not taking too many scientific classes. They all sound very interesting, though, so I will let you know once I have made my final decisions and am safely registered.
I apologize for not updating as often, but the internet connection has actually gotten worse and I have just not had many chances. So you may have to wait to hear about much of what I have left out until I get home, but for now I will just mention the more significant events that have taken place recently or will happen soon. Last weekend we threw a birthday party for one of our group with a plethora of food and dancing, which was a lot of fun and what I hope to do for my own birthday in a few weeks. Then on Sunday night a small group of us went to a new Italian restaurant for dinner called Leonardo da Vinci’s that had amazing service and delicious food (and not just because we miss Italian food). We received a complimentary starter of bruschetta and then all shared an octopus salad and caprese salad before our second course of many pastas. We split a dish of cannelloni with meat sauce, four cheese risotto, and gnocchi with shrimp and tomato sauce that just melted in your mouth. Plus they were constantly replacing our bread that we used for dipping in the sauces, so by the end we were all extremely full. We still managed to each down a cappuccino from a real Itaiian espresso machine, however, which was a wonderful ending to the weekend. I feel only slightly guilty that I spent a couple hours at an Italian restaurant while in Ghana, since I do not feel that I can completely immerse myself in the African culture at every moment of every day or I would go crazy.
Although our long weekend trips are over, we still have couple day trips this semester to some picturesque areas of the southern region of Ghana. This past weekend we took a day trip to Aburi Gardens, a botanical garden a couple hours outside of Accra that is beautiful. It was filled with exotic trees and plants native to Ghana, many of which are used to make herbs and spices that we learned about and got to experiment with. We smelled the bark of a tree where cinnamon comes from as well as the leaves used to make allspice, and then tasted the outside of a cocoa bean (the inside of which is used to make chocolate). After the tour we had the freedom of riding bikes around the park for an hour before eating lunch and heading out to a craft market where we bought some souvenirs. It was a very enjoyable day, and definitely not as exhausting as most of our other trips that required at least a day of travel.
This weekend I am going with one of my classes to a rural village a couple hours east of Accra where the professor grew up to witness the rural life of Ghana. I am very excited since I know it will be a unique experience.
The volunteering at the Autism center is going fairly well, by the way, though I am a little frustrated with the attitudes of some of the staff. Many of them are not very friendly to me unless they need me to do something and they will often ignore certain children that get violent and start running around uncontrollably. I have not been trained in how to deal with this behavior so I know that I cannot do anything to help control them, but I wish the staff members who obviously do this for a living would make more of an effort to teach these children that it is wrong to hurt themselves and others. Otherwise, I do enjoy having some of the children come up to me and just lightly touch me out of curiosity or give me a hug in affection, which makes my going there worth it in the end. I am not doing anything of great significance for the center, but I am spending some of my free time just sitting and coloring with these children that often do not receive any other love or affection from family or the rest of the community. It is rewarding enough to know that my time with them is appreciated.
Today is registration day for next semester, and everyone here is even more stressed than usual since we are unsure whether or not the internet will be working at the time we all need it. I am still finalizing what classes I want to take, but I am pretty sure they will all be for my major and minor, which are Anthropology and Psychology respectively. My choices for now are Anthropology of Language, Anthropology of Science, Medical Anthropology, and Cognitive Neuroscience, though I am trying to find a way to change one of the Anthropology classes to a Psychology class that fits in my schedule so I am not taking too many scientific classes. They all sound very interesting, though, so I will let you know once I have made my final decisions and am safely registered.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
A Spirtual Journey
I realize that I have not posted in awhile, but it has gotten increasingly difficult to take the time to sit down and write these past few weeks with all my activities and the internet not functioning often. In fact, I have not used the internet much at all except to check and respond to emails since that is my first priority, and it is actually very refreshing. I like not being dependent on it all the time and being forced to find other ways to occupy my time such as going out to a market, reading and drawing, or spending quality time with my new friends cooking, watching movies, or just talking. I am definitely learning to better appreciate the most important aspects of life; the things that make me happy.
This past weekend was probably the most amazing experience I have had since being in Ghana thus far, though I am afraid that once again I will be unable to explicitly describe how it has affected me since I am still trying to figure that out myself. I just know that my spiritual and belief systems have shifted greatly and that I feel much more inspired to make a positive impact on the world before I die. We took a 12 hour bus ride to a town in Northern Ghana called Tamale that was actually very different culturally than the southern region where we live. I won’t go into details, but I found the people to be less obtrusive and more genuinely friendly while in Accra they only seem interested in us because we are foreigners and can offer them opportunities and large amounts of money according to their conceptions. We left Accra at 4:30am Thursday morning and arrived in Kumasi 5-6 hours later for our halfway stop to stretch, use the restroom, and get some snacks before continuing up another 6 hours to Tamale where we arrived at about 5pm. The women at the guesthouse where we stayed had prepared us a simple meal of pasta with tomato sauce when once we rested about an hour in our rooms, which was a very nice change from jollof rice and plaintains that are always served here in Accra. The next morning we woke early for a breakfast of warm baguettes and then went to a Muslim mosque where we were given a tour and had the opportunity to ask about the customs of Muslims in Ghana, which was very interesting. After that we went to a medical clinic started by this doctor who was the only surviving child of a very poor family and had the most inspiring personality and philosophies on life. Just listening to him speak about how he loves helping the homeless (who are typically shunned in Ghanaian society and thought to be “mad”) and how he relies on the charity of others for his funding rather than asking for money from those who are not willing to give it. He also explained how he feels all religions are related and have common beliefs, which after thinking about it myself, I also think is very true. I cannot explain everything he said or how he said it, but he was the most genuinely selfless and happy person I have ever met and was an inspiration to all of us. Whenever I start to lose faith in humanity, I will always think of him and remember that those types of people actually do exist in this world.
After that emotional and spiritual activity, we went in three different groups to visit Diviners, which are like psychics or fortune tellers, but much more respected here in Ghana. Each person in my group of 10 was “divined” separately, yet most of us received similar fortunes and advice that could either be very vague or very specific but not be attributable to that particular person. For example, Daniella was told that she would fall in love with an African American man when she returns to the U.S. and move with him to another state, when anyone who knows her well enough is certain that she will never leave New York, especially for another person since she is very independent. I was basically told that I am very healthy and will live a long time, but that I worry too much and it is affecting my studies. However, everything will turn out well as long as I pray and perform this ritual he described for me: I have to find five different grains (rice, corn, etc.), four cocoa nuts, a piece of cloth, and some mutton and give it to a pair of twins. I had some trouble trying not to laugh as I was told this, especially since the translator who transmitted the information to me did not believe in anything the Diviner was saying and basically spit it out at me quickly as though it had no value. That definitely ruined the experience for all of us, so we exchanged stories afterward and had our laughs then. It was an interesting experience, even if I felt it was a waste of time, because those spiritual men are so highly regarded in this society and a major part of the culture in Ghana.
The next day we took a 2 hour bus ride east of Tamale to a slave camp where many slaves were captured by different African tribes before being transported down to the coast. It was a very emotional experience looking at the beautiful landscape and imagining all the horrible things that happened there, especially since it was extremely hot and humid as well. I do not feel like delving into my feelings on this topic at the moment, since it is still fresh in my mind and very sensitive, but at some point I would like to tell all of you about it who may never get a chance to come here and experience it yourselves. We then took a trip out to a rural village where a group of widows (who are very badly treated in Ghana because they are usually thought to have murdered their husbands) get together to weave baskets and fans and other beautiful objects in order to make money and help raise their children. They were all extremely friendly and lovely women, and it was wonderful to spend time with them and their children as we know that they receive very little generosity elsewhere. We all purchased some things from them and then made our way back to Tamale for the night where we brooded over the fact that it was Halloween and we were missing it entirely. A member of our group did perform a ghost story on the spot for many of us that did scare us quite a bit, but that was the extent of our Halloween celebration this year. We are hoping to celebrate some more this week by watching scary movies and making candy (since most American candy is not available here), but otherwise we will just have to live without a major holiday for one year.
On Sunday we left again at 4:30am and arrived back in Accra before 5pm, which was surprisingly nice, so many of us just relaxed before going out to dinner since we did not have much food to make at home. I went with Daniella and a now good friend Joey to an Italian restaurant called Leonardo da Vinci’s, which was a wonderful experience after not having gone to a good restaurant in a long time. The service was great and our pasta dish that we ordered was delicious, plus we were given bread and bruschetta free of charge when we sat down. The three of us are hoping to go back there again soon, since it was almost like being back in Italy but without even leaving Africa.
This weekend we are throwing a big birthday party for a member of our group, which should be very fun and a nice break from all this traveling. Otherwise, I am just keeping busy with my classes and volunteering and spending time with my wonderful new friends here, so there is not much else to tell for now.
This past weekend was probably the most amazing experience I have had since being in Ghana thus far, though I am afraid that once again I will be unable to explicitly describe how it has affected me since I am still trying to figure that out myself. I just know that my spiritual and belief systems have shifted greatly and that I feel much more inspired to make a positive impact on the world before I die. We took a 12 hour bus ride to a town in Northern Ghana called Tamale that was actually very different culturally than the southern region where we live. I won’t go into details, but I found the people to be less obtrusive and more genuinely friendly while in Accra they only seem interested in us because we are foreigners and can offer them opportunities and large amounts of money according to their conceptions. We left Accra at 4:30am Thursday morning and arrived in Kumasi 5-6 hours later for our halfway stop to stretch, use the restroom, and get some snacks before continuing up another 6 hours to Tamale where we arrived at about 5pm. The women at the guesthouse where we stayed had prepared us a simple meal of pasta with tomato sauce when once we rested about an hour in our rooms, which was a very nice change from jollof rice and plaintains that are always served here in Accra. The next morning we woke early for a breakfast of warm baguettes and then went to a Muslim mosque where we were given a tour and had the opportunity to ask about the customs of Muslims in Ghana, which was very interesting. After that we went to a medical clinic started by this doctor who was the only surviving child of a very poor family and had the most inspiring personality and philosophies on life. Just listening to him speak about how he loves helping the homeless (who are typically shunned in Ghanaian society and thought to be “mad”) and how he relies on the charity of others for his funding rather than asking for money from those who are not willing to give it. He also explained how he feels all religions are related and have common beliefs, which after thinking about it myself, I also think is very true. I cannot explain everything he said or how he said it, but he was the most genuinely selfless and happy person I have ever met and was an inspiration to all of us. Whenever I start to lose faith in humanity, I will always think of him and remember that those types of people actually do exist in this world.
After that emotional and spiritual activity, we went in three different groups to visit Diviners, which are like psychics or fortune tellers, but much more respected here in Ghana. Each person in my group of 10 was “divined” separately, yet most of us received similar fortunes and advice that could either be very vague or very specific but not be attributable to that particular person. For example, Daniella was told that she would fall in love with an African American man when she returns to the U.S. and move with him to another state, when anyone who knows her well enough is certain that she will never leave New York, especially for another person since she is very independent. I was basically told that I am very healthy and will live a long time, but that I worry too much and it is affecting my studies. However, everything will turn out well as long as I pray and perform this ritual he described for me: I have to find five different grains (rice, corn, etc.), four cocoa nuts, a piece of cloth, and some mutton and give it to a pair of twins. I had some trouble trying not to laugh as I was told this, especially since the translator who transmitted the information to me did not believe in anything the Diviner was saying and basically spit it out at me quickly as though it had no value. That definitely ruined the experience for all of us, so we exchanged stories afterward and had our laughs then. It was an interesting experience, even if I felt it was a waste of time, because those spiritual men are so highly regarded in this society and a major part of the culture in Ghana.
The next day we took a 2 hour bus ride east of Tamale to a slave camp where many slaves were captured by different African tribes before being transported down to the coast. It was a very emotional experience looking at the beautiful landscape and imagining all the horrible things that happened there, especially since it was extremely hot and humid as well. I do not feel like delving into my feelings on this topic at the moment, since it is still fresh in my mind and very sensitive, but at some point I would like to tell all of you about it who may never get a chance to come here and experience it yourselves. We then took a trip out to a rural village where a group of widows (who are very badly treated in Ghana because they are usually thought to have murdered their husbands) get together to weave baskets and fans and other beautiful objects in order to make money and help raise their children. They were all extremely friendly and lovely women, and it was wonderful to spend time with them and their children as we know that they receive very little generosity elsewhere. We all purchased some things from them and then made our way back to Tamale for the night where we brooded over the fact that it was Halloween and we were missing it entirely. A member of our group did perform a ghost story on the spot for many of us that did scare us quite a bit, but that was the extent of our Halloween celebration this year. We are hoping to celebrate some more this week by watching scary movies and making candy (since most American candy is not available here), but otherwise we will just have to live without a major holiday for one year.
On Sunday we left again at 4:30am and arrived back in Accra before 5pm, which was surprisingly nice, so many of us just relaxed before going out to dinner since we did not have much food to make at home. I went with Daniella and a now good friend Joey to an Italian restaurant called Leonardo da Vinci’s, which was a wonderful experience after not having gone to a good restaurant in a long time. The service was great and our pasta dish that we ordered was delicious, plus we were given bread and bruschetta free of charge when we sat down. The three of us are hoping to go back there again soon, since it was almost like being back in Italy but without even leaving Africa.
This weekend we are throwing a big birthday party for a member of our group, which should be very fun and a nice break from all this traveling. Otherwise, I am just keeping busy with my classes and volunteering and spending time with my wonderful new friends here, so there is not much else to tell for now.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Monkey Bite; my experience in Cote d'Ivoire
There is so much to say about this past week, yet I have no words to describe my experience in Cote d’Ivoire. You will all have to bear with me as I attempt to explain everything that happened without exposing how jumbled my thoughts and feelings are at this moment. I am sure that I will not be able to appreciate it all to the extent that it should be recognized as a pivotal experience in my life until much later, for now I will simply give you most of the details as they occurred consecutively.
First I will mention that the night before we left for our trip without much information about where we were staying or what we were going to do, the six of us were put in touch with the owners of one of our meal plan restaurants that happened to be from Cote d’Ivoire. We were only hoping to receive more detailed information about things to do and were pleasantly surprised to have them offer to contact their relatives back home that could provide a place for us to stay in the capital city of Abidjan. We were given contact information so that once we arrived, they would pick us up at the bus station, which was also very comforting. So that night we got a few hours of sleep before heading to the bus station at 3:00am for our 4:00am bus that would arrive in Abidjan at about 6:00pm, though unfortunately we did not leave until after 5:00am and arrive until close to 8:00pm. While the bus ride was excruciatingly long compared to road trips I have been on before, it helped that I was exhausted from lack of sleep and dozed most of the trip. However, once we landed in Abidjan, we waited about 20 minutes before being met by a couple members of our host family who escorted us back to the two separate houses we would be staying in the first couple nights (3 of us in one and 3 in the other). They chatted with us for awhile in French (a couple girls in the group had to translate for the rest of us who do not speak the language) and very graciously provided us with ice cold drinks and then a large meal before sending us off to bed.
The next morning, they brought us along to church with them, which was very interesting because the service was in French and included African gospel singers so although I could not understand exactly what has happening or being said, I felt like I experienced a great mixture of French-Afircan culture. When we returned home, a light lunch was presented to us by the family and we spent relaxing time around the house until they took us to another home of one of the family members where dinner was again made for us and we spent more quality time with locals.
To express our gratitude for everything they were doing for us, the six of us decided to cook dinner for our host family the next day that included some of our signature dishes. We made a trip to the supermarket where we discovered a large selection of cheese, which we had all been missing greatly since it is an expensive luxury in Accra, so we based our decisions on what to make on that as a main ingredient. Our meal consisted of an onion and goat cheese tart, roasted eggplant and tomato with herbs, pasta with vegetables, chicken, and gorgonzola cheese, and chocolate mousse for dessert. The family loved it all, as did we, though we almost regretted it the next morning when we all woke up a bit sick from eating so much of what our bodies had not consumed since we came to Ghana. I ignorantly made the decision that night as well to eat the chicken when I had not touched meat in two months, so unfortunately I woke very early to throw up and ended up feeling nauseous the entire day. Luckily our only plan for the day was to go to the beach in a town less than an hour away called Grand Basam, so I accompanied the group to a beach house the family had there and slept inside all day while the rest of them went out to the beach. Due to my inability to do anything other than sleep, that day is pretty much a blur to me now. We did stay the night, however, so the next morning I woke feeling very refreshed and was able to join the others to the beach this time where we spent hours chatting, reading, playing in the water, an taking pictures. It was definitely a nice respite after feeling so awful the day before, though I have to admit that I did feel very taken care of since the family constantly checked on me and gave me medicine. After that, however, I barely ate anything the rest of my time there except bread and crackers because I started to feel nauseous anytime I smelled or looked at food they made us which I still do not know the reason for except that my body must not be used to the ingredients and flavors. That night we returned to Abidjan to eat and sleep before waking early the next morning for a full day of activities.
On Thursday, we did a few errands in the morning like getting money from the bank and buying bus tickets for our ride home the next day before visiting a cathedral where a few of us had emotional moments. After we gathered ourselves together, we left and went to a local zoo, about which I am still trying to understand my feelings. It was different than any zoo I have visited in the United States in that it seemed very disorganized and the animals not well cared for; a few monkeys roamed free from cages and a few were solitarily confined to a tiny cell where they had no room to expel their energy. I had to look away from the lions after a couple minutes because their skinny, underfed bodies made me almost sick to my stomach as I tried to understand why they were treated this way. The boys in our host family (Jean-Claude and Paulin) did not seem to share the depression most of us felt and simply threw pieces of banana through the bars to the different animals as though that would make up for their maltreatment each day. And as a side note, I just want to mention that one of the small monkeys that was roaming around the entrance actually bit me and the men working there who witnessed it did nothing. I was told that the monkey was vaccinated and I would be fine, but I could not help but worry when my wound started to puff and bruise, which it still looks like now. I am perfectly fine, but am still in shock that I would attacked by an animal in a zoo of all places and simply look back on the moment in a humorous light. After that trip, we were taken to a rural village in another section of the town where we were given food and played music on drums that we danced to for a short time. It was a lot of fun, though most of us were not feeling well, so we left early and stopped at the supermarket once more to buy a few gifts for our host family as well as some souvenirs for the bus ride the next day (cheese and baguettes). That bus ride seemed even longer than the first because I was getting anxious to be back in Accra and was very nauseous once again, so when we did arrive I went straight up to my bed with nothing but hot tea in my stomach.
Yesterday and today I have been spending inside recovering and exchanging stories with everyone else in the dorm who traveled to other places like Togo to the east of Ghana and some beaches within Ghana. No one this semester was able to leave West Africa due to the expense, but most people had interesting experiences anyway and we all agree that we prefer Ghana to the surrounding countries. I will try to reflect more in my next post, but for now I just want to let you know that I am safe and sound back in Accra and that I had a very unique experience this past week; whether it impacted me in a positive or negative way I am still unsure, but I know that I have definitely learned much about myself that I either was unable to see or just refused to acknowledge before.
First I will mention that the night before we left for our trip without much information about where we were staying or what we were going to do, the six of us were put in touch with the owners of one of our meal plan restaurants that happened to be from Cote d’Ivoire. We were only hoping to receive more detailed information about things to do and were pleasantly surprised to have them offer to contact their relatives back home that could provide a place for us to stay in the capital city of Abidjan. We were given contact information so that once we arrived, they would pick us up at the bus station, which was also very comforting. So that night we got a few hours of sleep before heading to the bus station at 3:00am for our 4:00am bus that would arrive in Abidjan at about 6:00pm, though unfortunately we did not leave until after 5:00am and arrive until close to 8:00pm. While the bus ride was excruciatingly long compared to road trips I have been on before, it helped that I was exhausted from lack of sleep and dozed most of the trip. However, once we landed in Abidjan, we waited about 20 minutes before being met by a couple members of our host family who escorted us back to the two separate houses we would be staying in the first couple nights (3 of us in one and 3 in the other). They chatted with us for awhile in French (a couple girls in the group had to translate for the rest of us who do not speak the language) and very graciously provided us with ice cold drinks and then a large meal before sending us off to bed.
The next morning, they brought us along to church with them, which was very interesting because the service was in French and included African gospel singers so although I could not understand exactly what has happening or being said, I felt like I experienced a great mixture of French-Afircan culture. When we returned home, a light lunch was presented to us by the family and we spent relaxing time around the house until they took us to another home of one of the family members where dinner was again made for us and we spent more quality time with locals.
To express our gratitude for everything they were doing for us, the six of us decided to cook dinner for our host family the next day that included some of our signature dishes. We made a trip to the supermarket where we discovered a large selection of cheese, which we had all been missing greatly since it is an expensive luxury in Accra, so we based our decisions on what to make on that as a main ingredient. Our meal consisted of an onion and goat cheese tart, roasted eggplant and tomato with herbs, pasta with vegetables, chicken, and gorgonzola cheese, and chocolate mousse for dessert. The family loved it all, as did we, though we almost regretted it the next morning when we all woke up a bit sick from eating so much of what our bodies had not consumed since we came to Ghana. I ignorantly made the decision that night as well to eat the chicken when I had not touched meat in two months, so unfortunately I woke very early to throw up and ended up feeling nauseous the entire day. Luckily our only plan for the day was to go to the beach in a town less than an hour away called Grand Basam, so I accompanied the group to a beach house the family had there and slept inside all day while the rest of them went out to the beach. Due to my inability to do anything other than sleep, that day is pretty much a blur to me now. We did stay the night, however, so the next morning I woke feeling very refreshed and was able to join the others to the beach this time where we spent hours chatting, reading, playing in the water, an taking pictures. It was definitely a nice respite after feeling so awful the day before, though I have to admit that I did feel very taken care of since the family constantly checked on me and gave me medicine. After that, however, I barely ate anything the rest of my time there except bread and crackers because I started to feel nauseous anytime I smelled or looked at food they made us which I still do not know the reason for except that my body must not be used to the ingredients and flavors. That night we returned to Abidjan to eat and sleep before waking early the next morning for a full day of activities.
On Thursday, we did a few errands in the morning like getting money from the bank and buying bus tickets for our ride home the next day before visiting a cathedral where a few of us had emotional moments. After we gathered ourselves together, we left and went to a local zoo, about which I am still trying to understand my feelings. It was different than any zoo I have visited in the United States in that it seemed very disorganized and the animals not well cared for; a few monkeys roamed free from cages and a few were solitarily confined to a tiny cell where they had no room to expel their energy. I had to look away from the lions after a couple minutes because their skinny, underfed bodies made me almost sick to my stomach as I tried to understand why they were treated this way. The boys in our host family (Jean-Claude and Paulin) did not seem to share the depression most of us felt and simply threw pieces of banana through the bars to the different animals as though that would make up for their maltreatment each day. And as a side note, I just want to mention that one of the small monkeys that was roaming around the entrance actually bit me and the men working there who witnessed it did nothing. I was told that the monkey was vaccinated and I would be fine, but I could not help but worry when my wound started to puff and bruise, which it still looks like now. I am perfectly fine, but am still in shock that I would attacked by an animal in a zoo of all places and simply look back on the moment in a humorous light. After that trip, we were taken to a rural village in another section of the town where we were given food and played music on drums that we danced to for a short time. It was a lot of fun, though most of us were not feeling well, so we left early and stopped at the supermarket once more to buy a few gifts for our host family as well as some souvenirs for the bus ride the next day (cheese and baguettes). That bus ride seemed even longer than the first because I was getting anxious to be back in Accra and was very nauseous once again, so when we did arrive I went straight up to my bed with nothing but hot tea in my stomach.
Yesterday and today I have been spending inside recovering and exchanging stories with everyone else in the dorm who traveled to other places like Togo to the east of Ghana and some beaches within Ghana. No one this semester was able to leave West Africa due to the expense, but most people had interesting experiences anyway and we all agree that we prefer Ghana to the surrounding countries. I will try to reflect more in my next post, but for now I just want to let you know that I am safe and sound back in Accra and that I had a very unique experience this past week; whether it impacted me in a positive or negative way I am still unsure, but I know that I have definitely learned much about myself that I either was unable to see or just refused to acknowledge before.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Change in fall break trip plans...
Well, it turns out that the visa to get into Burkina Faso costs around 100 U.S. dollars, more or less depending on what they want to charge you at the border, so most of us had to rule that country out since it is so expensive. Instead a small group of us have decided to travel west to Cote d'Ivoire, which I'm sure many people have heard is relatively unstable right now due to conflicts with the political system. However, it should be safe enough for us to get to the capital city of Abidjan, which is about an 8 hour drive from Accra, and stay there a few days. I am not entirely sure what else we are doing in the country, since we have not all come together and discussed it yet, but from what I have researched it looks very interesting and different. We applied for a visa a few days ago, which will be ready tomorrow, and we are planning to leave Saturday around 3am so we are traveling during the day and arrive by the evening instead of traveling overnight. When we return to Ghana, we are hoping to travel up north to Mole National Park where we can see wildlife like elephants and baboons as well as other monkeys, though it will be another long trip getting up there. I can already tell that this break will be fairly stressful and time consuming, but it will definitely be an adventure and will force me out of my comfort zone, which is all a part of the experience.
I will update again when we return in a little over a week, so wish me luck!
I will update again when we return in a little over a week, so wish me luck!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Fall break trip plans
I’m sorry it has been so long since my last post, but I did not have anything major to talk about since last week. Last weekend was pretty uneventful except for our large group outing to a sushi restaurant called Monsoon on Saturday night. The food was surprisingly good (Daniella and I shared vegetable tempura, spicy tuna roll, and a platter of mixed salmon and tuna sashimi and rolls), and not ridiculously expensive like we were expecting. Most dishes were between 9 and 16 cedis (probably about 5 to 12 U.S. dollars), so we did not feel too guilty ordering a lot of food. We needed a night to splurge on good food anyway, since most of us are growing tired of eating rice, plantains, and mixed vegetables nearly everyday. A few of us have decided to go there at least once every couple weeks, if not every week, to share a couple appetizers and have a drink in the very nice lounge they also happen to have. I forgot to mention that before we left the restaurant, after someone complained to the manager about an extra charge on the bill, we each received a free shot of B52, which I found surprisingly good. Most of you know that I am not a huge fan of alcohol, but this was very sweet (a mixture of Bailey’s and Kahlua), so I was even hoping for another one after I finished it. I think I have finally found my drink, strangely enough, in Africa.
Speaking of discovering things here, we had a very interesting discussion last night about racial differences among our group that allowed us to all evaluate our experiences here so far. Many of us have realized that being here as a minority for the first time has made us self-reflect much more and get more in touch with parts of ourselves that we may have overlooked while in the U.S. For example, a girl from a Jewish family spoke about how she feels much more Jewish being here in a predominately Christian country where she has to search for others with whom to share the holidays and traditions. It was nice to be so open about our races as well, since my experience in the U.S. is that it would be awkward to approach the subject with someone of a different race that may be sensitive about it. We did point out that coming here to Ghana in the first place was to leave our comfort zone, so why not talk about a subject we would normally be too nervous to discuss since it is on all our minds everyday? I for one definitely feel much more aware of my skin color and my background when I walk outside everyday, and am always wondering whether the African-Americans in our group feel the same way or have more a sense of belonging. What surprised me was that each one of them actually feels very differently, as do many of us with lighter skin, which made us realize that our experience here is very much shaped by our personal experiences back in the U.S. and our views of the world.
This weekend we have another two day trip; though this time it is to another large city called Kumasi about 6 hours north of Accra. It apparently is famous for its enormous market (the largest in west Africa), so we are advised to bring money for souvenirs and whatever else we find interesting. I will put the full itinerary in a separate post since it takes up a lot of room, but I will mention that we have to leave by 5am tomorrow morning since it is such a long trip and the traffic can get horrendous. I am not as excited for this trip as I was for the last one, since we are going to another big city that will probably also be very westernized and modern, but it should be nice to see another area of Ghana. Speaking of traveling, we are all pretty frantic about figuring out our plans for fall break, since it is very difficult deciding where to go that will not be expensive or difficult to get to. Daniella, Ivy, and I spoke with Christa, the associate director of NYU in Ghana, today about ideas of where to go and have basically decided to take a bus up to Burkina Faso right above Ghana. From what we have heard and read about the country, it sounds like a great choice since it is one of the safest countries in west Africa and has a lot of natural beauty and wildlife. I personally want to see as much African wildlife as possible, so I am in charge of researching game reserves up there while Daniella and Ivy figure out most of the transportation and visa fees. I will help with that too of course, but it just makes it easier when we all have separate jobs to worry about. We may be joined as well by a girl in the other dorm named Caitlin who I am slowly getting to know better, which will be nice since it will give us a chance to bond more. Traveling is by far the best way to get to know someone in my opinion; that’s how I learned to love Daniella in Florence after all. We will keep researching next week, so I will let you know our final decisions when we make them.
Speaking of discovering things here, we had a very interesting discussion last night about racial differences among our group that allowed us to all evaluate our experiences here so far. Many of us have realized that being here as a minority for the first time has made us self-reflect much more and get more in touch with parts of ourselves that we may have overlooked while in the U.S. For example, a girl from a Jewish family spoke about how she feels much more Jewish being here in a predominately Christian country where she has to search for others with whom to share the holidays and traditions. It was nice to be so open about our races as well, since my experience in the U.S. is that it would be awkward to approach the subject with someone of a different race that may be sensitive about it. We did point out that coming here to Ghana in the first place was to leave our comfort zone, so why not talk about a subject we would normally be too nervous to discuss since it is on all our minds everyday? I for one definitely feel much more aware of my skin color and my background when I walk outside everyday, and am always wondering whether the African-Americans in our group feel the same way or have more a sense of belonging. What surprised me was that each one of them actually feels very differently, as do many of us with lighter skin, which made us realize that our experience here is very much shaped by our personal experiences back in the U.S. and our views of the world.
This weekend we have another two day trip; though this time it is to another large city called Kumasi about 6 hours north of Accra. It apparently is famous for its enormous market (the largest in west Africa), so we are advised to bring money for souvenirs and whatever else we find interesting. I will put the full itinerary in a separate post since it takes up a lot of room, but I will mention that we have to leave by 5am tomorrow morning since it is such a long trip and the traffic can get horrendous. I am not as excited for this trip as I was for the last one, since we are going to another big city that will probably also be very westernized and modern, but it should be nice to see another area of Ghana. Speaking of traveling, we are all pretty frantic about figuring out our plans for fall break, since it is very difficult deciding where to go that will not be expensive or difficult to get to. Daniella, Ivy, and I spoke with Christa, the associate director of NYU in Ghana, today about ideas of where to go and have basically decided to take a bus up to Burkina Faso right above Ghana. From what we have heard and read about the country, it sounds like a great choice since it is one of the safest countries in west Africa and has a lot of natural beauty and wildlife. I personally want to see as much African wildlife as possible, so I am in charge of researching game reserves up there while Daniella and Ivy figure out most of the transportation and visa fees. I will help with that too of course, but it just makes it easier when we all have separate jobs to worry about. We may be joined as well by a girl in the other dorm named Caitlin who I am slowly getting to know better, which will be nice since it will give us a chance to bond more. Traveling is by far the best way to get to know someone in my opinion; that’s how I learned to love Daniella in Florence after all. We will keep researching next week, so I will let you know our final decisions when we make them.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Re-evaluating Africa and Becoming Acclimated
Although I have not had the most exciting last couple weeks in terms of being productive and exploring the country, I am starting to feel more at home here in Accra. Of course I am not entirely comfortable with walking around alone and finding my way to and from many areas of the town, but I am beginning to better understand how the people here live and why. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never been here, since many of the realizations I have come to have been only through seeing things with my own eyes. Yet I will say that the history of the slave trade has definitely impacted the way of life in this entire country and the ones surrounding it in ways that I had never known. Learning about slavery in the United States has been a totally different experience than seeing where it began here in Africa, especially since in America we always focused more on slavery in America rather than the slave trade itself. All we knew was that slaves were taken from the west coast of Africa, but we did not delve into why they were traded and how they were so easily captured. I did not know that when the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, Africa pretty much did not exist— it was instead composed of different tribes that were not connected to one another whatsoever. So African chiefs were not ashamed to sell the captured prisoners from other tribes to the European traders that arrived with stronger weapons and different variety of food. There were no African nations; the borders were determined later by the Europeans when they established their presence here and fought for control. Even today, the city of Accra is divided into sections with different tribes who speak totally different languages and have various cultural practices and beliefs. They are only grouped into one city according to foreigners, yet many people here will call themselves Akan or Ewe (two of the main tribes) instead of Ghanaian. National pride is growing, of course, since Ghana achieved its independence, but the majority of its people do not understand the concept of a nation. This is only the surface of much of what I have learned thus far, but I just thought I would share some of it with most of you who I’m sure did not know any of this either. Sometimes I am very disappointed with American education; it is so centered on the U.S. and often fails to expose us to important facts about the rest of the world, especially those it does not consider a threat.
This last weekend many people participated in a homestay with a local Ghanaian family, though I chose not to take part since I was not comfortable with the idea of spending three days with a strange family alone. However, I did discover afterward that some people were placed in groups with small, wealthy families, so it was not a very uncomfortable experience at all. We have another opportunity to do it in November, so I am planning to participate that weekend. But this weekend did not go to waste, since many others who did not do the homestay came over Saturday night and we all cooked a large dinner together. We made pasta alla norma (rigatoni with tomato sauce and roasted eggplant), breadsticks (my mom’s famous recipe), stir-fry noodles with vegetables, french fries, french toast, chocolate chip cookie dough, and an apple pie. Everything was from scratch, of course, and turned out delicious. Someone brought wine as well, so we all (about 10 of us) sat down to eat and chat together for a long time, which was a lot of fun. We have decided to do this at least once a month, and I think are doing it again this coming weekend since everyone will be around and it is the only free weekend for the next few weeks. I’ve never had this many friends that love to cook, even if only a little, so I am ecstatic to have nights like that to look forward to. We have also decided to have a huge Halloween party, but I will keep you updated on that as it gets closer.
I want to mention once again how much I love my new friends here. I love that there is always someone here to talk to or hang out with when I make lunch or just walk into another room. I can find time to be alone, of course, which I did last night when I chose to not attend dinner and instead stay home and make myself something, but I never get lonely. We all have similar interests and can always find a movie to watch or something to chat about, yet we also have our own personal interests and reasons for being here that make us unique. Almost every night a few of us will gather in someone’s room coincidentally and end up talking for awhile or will happen upon each other eating downstairs and join them until a bunch of us are laughing and telling stories all night. It is definitely more difficult to have independent lives here than in New York, since most places we have to go in pairs or groups to be safe and avoid extra attention while the opposite is true in the city. We are not accustomed to having so much extra time either (without internet I might add), so we spend it together since it makes more sense than sitting alone in our rooms doing nothing. Watching movies together has become a normal routine every week, sometimes a few days in a row. But don’t get the impression that we sit around watching movies all the time and don’t find other ways to spend our time more valuably; in fact, we go on outings to the markets fairly often to purchase food, jewelery, fabric, and other souvenirs and do homework and volunteering. Most of us have chosen to volunteer at different organizations, though some are in groups of three or four, and we have only begun to determine our schedules. I think I mentioned before that I will hopefully be going to the Autism Awareness Center every Thursday (and possibly Friday) for the whole day since it would be easier than going for a few hours in between classes on other days. I only have classes Monday through Wednesday, since each one meets only once a week for two to three hours at a time, so I have the whole weekend free to do what I want. I can only volunteer during the week since that is when the children are at the center, but most weekends NYU has something planned for us so I will not get bored.
Anyway, that’s pretty much what has been happening lately; I’ll let you know when something else exciting comes up, but for now I wanted you to know that I am getting myself acclimated to living here and falling into a more comfortable routine.
This last weekend many people participated in a homestay with a local Ghanaian family, though I chose not to take part since I was not comfortable with the idea of spending three days with a strange family alone. However, I did discover afterward that some people were placed in groups with small, wealthy families, so it was not a very uncomfortable experience at all. We have another opportunity to do it in November, so I am planning to participate that weekend. But this weekend did not go to waste, since many others who did not do the homestay came over Saturday night and we all cooked a large dinner together. We made pasta alla norma (rigatoni with tomato sauce and roasted eggplant), breadsticks (my mom’s famous recipe), stir-fry noodles with vegetables, french fries, french toast, chocolate chip cookie dough, and an apple pie. Everything was from scratch, of course, and turned out delicious. Someone brought wine as well, so we all (about 10 of us) sat down to eat and chat together for a long time, which was a lot of fun. We have decided to do this at least once a month, and I think are doing it again this coming weekend since everyone will be around and it is the only free weekend for the next few weeks. I’ve never had this many friends that love to cook, even if only a little, so I am ecstatic to have nights like that to look forward to. We have also decided to have a huge Halloween party, but I will keep you updated on that as it gets closer.
I want to mention once again how much I love my new friends here. I love that there is always someone here to talk to or hang out with when I make lunch or just walk into another room. I can find time to be alone, of course, which I did last night when I chose to not attend dinner and instead stay home and make myself something, but I never get lonely. We all have similar interests and can always find a movie to watch or something to chat about, yet we also have our own personal interests and reasons for being here that make us unique. Almost every night a few of us will gather in someone’s room coincidentally and end up talking for awhile or will happen upon each other eating downstairs and join them until a bunch of us are laughing and telling stories all night. It is definitely more difficult to have independent lives here than in New York, since most places we have to go in pairs or groups to be safe and avoid extra attention while the opposite is true in the city. We are not accustomed to having so much extra time either (without internet I might add), so we spend it together since it makes more sense than sitting alone in our rooms doing nothing. Watching movies together has become a normal routine every week, sometimes a few days in a row. But don’t get the impression that we sit around watching movies all the time and don’t find other ways to spend our time more valuably; in fact, we go on outings to the markets fairly often to purchase food, jewelery, fabric, and other souvenirs and do homework and volunteering. Most of us have chosen to volunteer at different organizations, though some are in groups of three or four, and we have only begun to determine our schedules. I think I mentioned before that I will hopefully be going to the Autism Awareness Center every Thursday (and possibly Friday) for the whole day since it would be easier than going for a few hours in between classes on other days. I only have classes Monday through Wednesday, since each one meets only once a week for two to three hours at a time, so I have the whole weekend free to do what I want. I can only volunteer during the week since that is when the children are at the center, but most weekends NYU has something planned for us so I will not get bored.
Anyway, that’s pretty much what has been happening lately; I’ll let you know when something else exciting comes up, but for now I wanted you to know that I am getting myself acclimated to living here and falling into a more comfortable routine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
