Adjusting to a New Culture

Sorry it has taken me so long to write; the internet connection here has not been ideal, plus the orientation schedule has kept us all extremely busy this week. I guess I left off on last Tuesday when we took the tour of the city with the former mayor (who is actually one of the NYU professors as well), so I'll continue with what I remember starting Wednesday.

We woke early again and left on our bus at 8:15am to visit Ashesi University, which is a small private school in Ghana that we are allowed to take a few classes at if we wish. I still have not decided if I am taking one there, but I'll get back to my tentative class schedule later. After receiving a short lecture on the aims of the school and touring around the three main buildings, we went back to the NYU Academic Center for a discussion on the "Cultural Do's and Don'ts" of Ghana which included using only our right hand to hand or receive things from people, not offering to go out with someone unless you intend to pay for him/her, and calling elders "Auntie" or "Uncle" as a sign of respect. It may take awhile to remember these customs and many more that were explained to us, but I feel that many Ghanaians are understanding of our cultural ignorance and are willing to help us feel at home here. Afterwards we took our first tour of the University of Ghana, Legon, where most students here are taking at least one class because there are so many offered. As opposed to the 400 students at Ashesi, Legon is a public school comprised of over 30,000 students and offers a much larger selection of classes. We spent a few hours there registering in their system, since everything unfortuately for us takes much longer to process here than in the U.S. (another aspect that we will be forced to get used to), though we had to return the next day to actually register for the particular classes we wanted to take.

Immediately after returning to the Academic Center, we had a quick discussion about our internet connection with the IT director that ended up being a waste of time, especially since we were all exhausted. We then we took a trip out to Koala market in Osu, a different part of town, where we chose from a selection of imported products that were mostly too expensive for our student budget, so we did not get much besides essentials like soap and laundry detergent, as well as pasta for Daniella and me to cook with this weekend. We discovered that we will probably have to return there for other necessities like olive oil, since the outdoor markets did not supply any, but otherwise I would prefer to do most of my shopping at the cheap outdoor markets where we can bargain for many of the products.

Dinner that night was at Tante Marie again where we were served more Ghanaian food like rice (the most important food here, I've discovered), some sort of stewed meat, salad, and banana crepes for dessert.

Thursday we were allowed an extra hour to sleep, since we did not leave until 9am for our Medical Care lecture followed by a meeting with most of the NYU professors that introduced themselves and which classes they will be teaching. We then had lunch at Ashesi University where we would be eating if we take classes there, and returned to our dormitories to rest until dinner at 7pm and Sunshine Salads. One of my favorite meals so far was that night since it was all Indian food with basmati rice, salad with chickpeas and other vegetables, a chickpea curry-like dish, samosas, and paneer. I am loving having these two restaurants as our meal plan for the semester, since not only do we get a variety of food, but most of it is delicious as well! So after dinner we were taken out by our CRA's to a bar for a couple hours where we had drinks and danced with Ghanaians, which was a lot of fun. This one Ghanaian guy danced with me twice, though he didn't really talk to me at all which I found strange; he simply gave me a quick hug after each song ended and walked away. I also got hit on a few times by this Ghanaian woman, which was very odd since homosexuality is very taboo here, and a man lectured us on important things to remember while in Ghana after we told him we were American. He also expressed his great love for America that we've noticed is prevalent throughout the country since Obama visited in July. There are still thousands of posters everywhere saying "Akwaaba (welcome) President Obama!" so in contrast to the indifference that we experienced in most of Europe, the people here love us for being Americans.

Okay, I realize that this post is getting too long, so I will try to make the last few days brief. Yesterday we woke and went to a national art museum, though unfortunately I was feeling pretty sick and could not stay for the tour, so I was taken back to visit the nurse and then go back to my dorm to rest for a few hours. Around 1pm I was feeling a bit better and so joined the group as they departed for the University of Ghana for the third time (since I forgot to mention we returned there Thursday to register for our classes) to get our ID cards, though to our dismay we discovered that we cannot get them until next week. So instead we waited on the bus as a few in our group still had to register for classes, and I started feeling pretty sick again from the bumpy ride and lack of food all day. We finally returned home around 4:30 and I ate a little bread before lying in bed for another few hours, missing dinner since I had no appetite, and then I managed to finally talk to my dad on my new Ghana phone. One of the CRA's had very nicely asked the restaurant to prepare a chicken soup for me, so I sipped on that with some rice until I started to feel much better. A few of us girls then decided to watch When Harry Met Sally downstairs in the common area, which was really fun and a nice relief after feeling miserable all day.

Lastly, today we were allowed to sleep in until 9am and spent a couple hours in a two markets that were a lot of fun because everyone was very excited we could speak a little of their language and we got to practice our bargaining skills. We also just got to see the busy center of Accra where everyone does their shopping and spends most of their day, so I am looking forward to going there more often. I am loving this country increasingly more the more I see of it and its people, so the idea of spending four months here is not as daunting as it seemed at the beginning. In fact I am extremely excited to become more acclimated here and to really understand and experience the everyday lives of Ghanaians, if not most of Africa, so that I know my time here will have been worth it. I will let you know of my schedule next week once I have decided exactly what classes I'm taking and what organization I will volunteer for, but for now thanks for reading and I hope I've given you a positive perspective on Ghana so far!