Hello!

As I write this it is a warm 35 or 95 degrees out. The sun has gone down, but the humidity remains, and I am feeling rather sticky! 

Let me see, what can I say about the last several days? It has been a rather low key week, with really no travel time, though on Monday morning at 5 a.m. our bus leaves for the northern region of Ghana. We will be traveling 12 hours the first day and then spending the next 10 days in the region. For this reason there won’t be another blog entry for a little while as I won’t have access to the internet up there!

Last friday night our entire group went out together-- group bonding I guess you could say. We ended up at this sports bar, which, it turns out, is where all the expats in Accra seem to congregate. It was called Champs Sports bar, and it pretty much smelled and looked like any sports bar you would find in the U.S. and Canada. It was fun to meet some new people, mostly men who are working for companies such as Nestle, Caterpillar (dad!) etc. I ended up meeting people from Australian, Lebanon, Germany, and Britain over the course of a couple hours. There was karaoke and the most inexpensive of beverages. It was really a great night-- except I lost my visa card, which if you know me at all- is not surprising in the least.

Saturday meant I was lazy. Seriously, as I write this I really have no idea what I did. I think it involved a lot of sleeping, some eating and movies-- all necessary once in a while. 

On Sunday several of us hopped on a tro-tro and headed to the Action Chapel in Accra. This is a prosperity gospel church-- and in both obvious and subtle ways the service revolves around money money money. The idea that more prayer and devotion to God will bring you more wealth (different kinds, but in particular material wealth) is the central theme of the church. The church is massive, and very decorated. There were around 2000 people in attendance, and about 100 ushers all wearing matching tuxedos. The church is lead by Arch Bishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, whose face I shall always remember because I now have a mug with his glamour shot plastered on it. Explanation: at the end of the service all new visitors were asked to stand, and once they had us standing we were summoned to the front of the church. Williams prayer for us and then told us he loved us and had gifts for us. We were then escorted to this room where in exchange for our contact information we were given lunch, a bag with a Williams glamour shot, and a mug with the same photo as found on the bag. 

When we got there we were escorted to our seats, and while we thought we were early it was realized that we were not. I guess the service had started at 9 a.m. and we arrived at 10. No worries, it didn’t end till 12:30 so we were still there for plenty of time. Aside from the numerous questions I have about the church, the way they interpret the Bible, and about Williams involvement in the church (I assume he does very well), there were things that I did like about the church. The music was great- a huge choir and a full band, and everyone was very hospitable. 

On Sunday night, one of our dance instructors was involved in a dance production called The Dream of Death. It involved many 400 level dance students performing traditional dances from the different regions of Ghana. It was a worthwhile experience and the performers were so great. Some of the dances we have been working on in our dance class were performed. We look nothing like the performers when they dance. Actually I would imagine we look pretty pathetic next to them.

  We also cooked on Sunday night..Italian! ( well sort of) Bruschetta bread made in a frying pan (actually not so bad) and pasta with some veggies! It was different, but tasted somewhat similar to what I would cook at home. That was good enough for me!

Monday was a typical class day- nothing exciting happened. A trip to the mall to do some birthday shopping, and some time drinking real coffee and a doughnut. 

Tuesday meant dance class (gah!) I have never sweat so much in my entire life as I do in that class. I usually hate going, but once I am there I thoroughly enjoy it. It was both Grace and Tom’s birthday’s today and so we celebrated them in several different ways. It involved pizza and ice cream- I enjoyed.

Today was again a class day, and we had our most interesting lecture thus far. Our guest lecturer gave a presentation on migration, livelihood and the informal sector in Ghana. This has been a topic which has intrigued me from the start of this trip, and so it was excellent to gain perspective from a Ghanaian economics professor. 

In Accra, migration is a huge problem. With a population of 3.5 million of which 500,00 people are part of a floating population- moving in and out on a daily basis, there are issues of poverty and space which need to be dealt with. In Accra alone there are 25 known slums, and enclaves, one of which hosts approximately 40,000 migrants from the north. Women from the north make up the majority of the migratory population. Most come with no skill set and quickly turn to work in the informal sector which of course has no structure and is frowned upon by city governance. While Ghana is one the faster developing of the developed world, 22% of the population still lives below the poverty line, and the average Ghanaian makes GH 70-95 a year (like 60 US dollars) Thinking through and seeing these statistics in person, has made these issues that much more real to me. I have been getting so overwhelmed as of late, with so many things to take in its hard to even know how to start processing. Looking solely at the issue of what poverty is within the Ghanaian context is of huge debate inside my head and with the people around me. It seems that everyone has a better solution than the next person or a different idea in solving the issues, or what they believe are the issues. -- if you want to know more ask to read my journal. I've realized lately how much interest I have in discussing and questioning the economic issues in any given country, how they relate to a person's well-being, and how development fits into that. If you want to talk more about it, I probably want to talk with you about it!

This afternoon was pretty relaxed. I went out for a small dinner (twice actually). I spent some time in the night market with my friends Daniel and Patrick eating some Banku with okra/palm nut soup and fish. This is very good. Banku is a dough that is made from fermented corn and cassava flour and cooked in hot water. Fufuo another local dish is quite similar except that it is pounded into a dough. I prefer Banku. Anyways, Daniel is from Ghana and incredibly articulate and intelligent, so basically I bombarded him with questions for a good hour on how he believes the above issues should be dealt with in Ghana..

For my second dinner I had some groundnut soup (groundnuts are what we call peanuts) with garden egg and onion. It too was delicious.

I think thats all for now. 

I am still not used to rats. I just came face to face with one in the bathroom. I am trying really hard but I really can find nothing beautiful about rats. I really wish I could, so I continue to think about what possible redeeming characteristics a rat may have--let me know if you think of any.

love.