Weekend of Fun

This weekend was awesome! In fact, it might be titled epic. I met so many totally sweet internationals that it's not even funny. They are all sooo cool! I think you have to be a little nuts to come to Ghana in the first place just because it's so different from the US culture (note the posts below), but everyone has been really chill and down-to-earth.

Friday night I fell asleep at 7pm and slept until the next day. AKA. AWESOME NIGHT! I cannot tell you how much I needed to sleep. It was so good. I didn't even really hear the people screaming outside my door at 6am the next morning. I think maybe I'm just getting used to it.

Saturday night we went out to dinner with our program and they treated us to an amazing meal at Chez Afrique. P.S. Ghanaian food is super good. I will devote a whole post to it sometime soon. So after, we went to Ryan's Irish Pub in Osu (the trendy neighborhood of Accra). This is the only Irish pub in all of West Africa, so it's a rarity, and pretty cool. When the ten of us who went finally got there, it was surreal because everywhere we looked, there were WHITE PEOPLE. This is not a shock to anyone in the US, but once you come to Ghana- that's it... your quota of white people is over. No more. Like not allowed. So needless to say, we walked in a dreamlike state thinking the Mefloquine was finally causing those foretold hallucinations.

So here we were with all of the white people in all of Africa, at this one Irish pub. It was some kid's 20th birthday so all the people in his program were out celebrating. We joined in. And it was SWEET. After a while we went to a local dive called Bywel's and listened to some local music and got to make some local friends. It was back to regular, good-old, no white people Ghana. I made friends with this lady named Stella and she taught me a few phrases in Twi (pronounced Chwee). I like her. She was cool.

Afterwards, we went back to my room and ate cornflakes, the only cereal available in Ghana, then went to bed. It was great.

On another note, my Twi lessons will start this week. We are meeting with the prof tomorrow to arrange and negotiate a class time that works for all thirteen of us. Wish me luck! Pretty soon I will be able to tell people that no, I do not wish to give them my room number, and no, I will not be able to buy all their prescriptions for them. I mean I can already say it, but soon I can say it in Twi and that will be badass. Oh yeah.



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Random Bits

Best advertising tagline: "GEISHA SOAP: Lasts and lasts like a mother's love." I am not even kidding. I swear to God that I saw this very wording on an ad in this small village on the way to Akosombo. I thought it was so funny at the time. I mean come on... Geisha soap?? First of all that's just hilarious- I mean geisha's aren't exactly known for being pure and clean. And then why would someone ever equate soap to a mother's love? How cheesy can you get???

Marriage Proposal Count: 1 (So far only from an old man in the fruit market. I told him we'd have to see about that when he insisted I would marry him.)

Obruni Count: At least one hundred. I can't even describe the number of times I have been called an obruni by the children in the market, by guys trying to hit on me, by old people trying to sell me stuff. It is just insane. The dance class I am taking this semester is even called the "Special Obruni Dance Class." This would be like having "Cracka Break-Dancing Lessons" - totally inappropriate in America, but somehow acceptable here.

Total Days Without Water: 8. That's a bitch. No doubt the first thing I will do back home will be to take a looong HOT shower. Here, even when you get a shower, it's cold. Like, hell frozen over, cold. Not even joking cold. Teeth chattering cold. I think you get the idea.

Total Days I Am Glad I Came Here: 13. Every single day I know that no matter how hard it is, this is the best decision I have ever made. I am learning so much about what is really important in life. And that everything else is just a tiny bonus.


Bye for now. I'll post again soon. Hope you are all having a lovely week. AND HAPPY O-WEEK TO ALL YOU RICE PEOPLE. I better hear some awesome stories. I will not forget about Dis-O. (Even though you might :) haha)

I will also respond to any emails to my gmail account. Just give me some time. haleyeray@gmail.com