I will be home in two months from April 7th

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Like usual I had class at eleven thirty, but I decided to get up early so I could get reading done before class began. On my way out of my room I saw Atsu and realized I missed his dance rehearsal for the first time. I was disappointed in myself; I have not done something that irresponsible in a long time. I blatantly forgot about practice, I did not call him, or let anyone know I would not be there. He was not angry because people miss all the time, but I still could not get over the fact that I did something so irresponsible. I did something else unusual this morning also. I took the bus to class, most people choose not to walk to the new n block because it is about a thirty five to forty minute walk, but I always walk because I find it wasteful to pay to get to class. However, my legs were a bit sore when I woke up this morning, I was running a little late, and as I was walking out of the hostel I heard the bus honk. All of these things combined forced me to hop on the bus and take it for the first time. I have promised myself that I will not do that again unless it is a situation where I have to take it, the last thing I need is to dependent on a bus that I have no idea when it will arrive.
Someone I know was on the bus and I learned she was actually in my class, so I sat with her and we were able to keep each other busy while our monotonous teacher went over something he already taught at a snails pace last week. After class I had to go straight to the CIEE office to work out my schedule for next semester. I was able to choose all of the classes I found interesting and the teachers I like in a short time. I spent the rest of the time on the Internet before I had to go to Twi class. After Twi I came back to my room, made myself some oatmeal, and got ready for dance. By this time my legs were no longer soar and I was excited to get back to our dance since I did not go to my usual practices on Friday and Saturday. The dance went well, I am beginning to hear the music better and follow the master drummer for the new piece we are working on. At the closing of dance I stayed behind to rehearse what I had missed from Atsu’s dance, which only took about fifteen minutes. This can give you an idea about how productive our three-hour practice is. I headed back to the room, did hours worth of reading which I have fallen terribly behind on and went to bed.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I had to register for classes today, which I was really nervous about, but I assume I had a good time slot because I did not have an issue getting into any of the classes I wanted. The time slot was supposed to be during one of my classes and thankfully the class was canceled so I did not have to skip class to register. I got all of my first choices and it took about two minutes. I have never had such an easy time registering and I was freaking out about it because you never know if the Internet will work here. Right after I registered it actually went out for about ten minutes before it began working again, things like this prove to me there must be a God. After I registered I went to meet with my advisor who did not show up, what a surprise and then I headed off to the hostel. I did not get reading done like I hoped because I had to get ready for dance with Astu and I had a meeting to possible be in a high life music video. However, they are shooting a weekend that I will be traveling, so I am not able to participate. I am not the disappointed considering I do not think I would be very good in a music video. After dance I watched a movie and went to bed way later than expected.
Also on the way out of class today my shoe broke, so I had to walk with one flip flop all the way back to the hostel with tons of people staring at me on the way. I stained them with blood and they broke in two places, so I decided to just throw them out and not attempt to get them fixed.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Today I got up at 5:40 like usual, ate breakfast, which is something new for me and got ready for work. I was ready earlier than usual, so I decided to just head out. The ride to work was not terrible and I arrived about forty minutes early. This left me time to explore Osu for a little while to find the white oats that are only one fifty as apposed to two fifty. I finally found them, so I got two packs one for me and one for a friend since the night market is out of them and headed over to work with about twenty minutes for myself before I had to start working. I still have not been given my new project, so I am just doing odd things that need to be done around the office. Although I still feel useful at times, I do spend a lot of time just sitting around getting my personal matters taken care of. I got to leave work early since there was not much for me to complete, so I was back on campus by around one. I was able to do all of my laundry excluding my towels and get reading done before it was time to go to dance.
There were about half the amount of people at dance then usual, due to the fact that we perform one dance for forty minutes straight without learning anything new. The point of doing this is to help us learn the music, although I don’t think it is working. Since many people are unhappy with the class, they have made the decision to no longer show up. I on the other hand am thrilled with the results. We not only have more space, we also spend more time dancing. I don’t mind that we are not learning any new steps; I just enjoy actually spending the time in dance class dancing. Therefore, dance class was great in my opinion.
When I got back to the room I got ready to go out and went off to Tantra, which once again was relatively empty. There were quite a bit of people from ISH there and in the end we all ended up having a great time. We left the club at three when it closed and half of the group continued on to a different club, but I decided to go back to the hostel.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Today I could have slept in, but for some reason I woke up at around six thirty and was unable to fall back to sleep. I was forced to get up out of bed and I decided to start soaking my towels, so I could get them washed. After I finished my laundry I saw Hannah and she told me they would be making smoothies and cinnamon toast for brunch. I was able to indulge on fruits and it was fantastic. We then went to a woman’s house to weave baskets. The experience was phenomenal and we cannot wait to return. I made a basket that is blue and gold for the bathroom in my apartment at school next year. I am going to use it to put Potpourri in and I am thrilled about it. We watched little girls sing and dance, we created wonderful baskets, and we received bracelets to match our baskets, so all in all it was a wonderful day that took from one to seven.
When we got back I decided to go out, so I got ready and waited for people to return from one of the hostels that they were watching a performance at. Two of the boys Peter and Sam came back to ISH to pick me up, so we could go to the Roof Top and the other half went straight to the club. When they arrived they learned that it was closed, so we picked a different club and they went there just to find out that it was twenty cedis each to get in. They got frustrated and decided to come back to the hostel and the two boys I was with made the decision to go to Venus. Therefore, I stayed back because it is a hooka bar, which I have no interest in. So we spent hours attempting to find somewhere to go and I ended up not going out.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

This morning I was suppose to wake up at seven so that I could leave by seven forty-five for the Eastern Region of Ghana. Instead I woke up at 8:06, freaked out, got dressed, packed my bag as quickly as possible, and ran out to the bus. As I was doing these things I had decided that I had missed the bus and I would need to find some way to get there on my own, because it is one of the CIEE trips so it is a free weekend of traveling that I would not want to miss. But as I walked outside I caught sight of the bus hopped on and it pulled away. It is moments like these that prove there is a God. They were not waiting for me they just happened to be running twenty minutes late.
We headed off first to a woodcarving workshop in Aburi, which was terribly disappointing. It was a man that spoke to us for about two minutes and then we got one hour to shop at an art market. We got back in the car and went to Aburi Botanical Gardens, which also consisted of a short tour. We were able to smell different spices that come from trees, climb in a hollow tree, and play in a broken helicopter. We also got to eat small berries and star fruit, so although we did not learn much it was beautiful and entertaining. We then had lunch, which is always exciting on CIEE trips and headed off to Tetteh Quarshie’s Cocoa Farm. We tasted cocoa from the plant and then we tried chocolate from in the dried seed. The first plant tasted slimy and sweet and the second seed tasted bitter and extremely strong. We learned about how the cocoa is grown, dried, and then exported to the rest of the world. It was a nice tour, but once again shorter than we expected. We then went back to the Capital View Hotel where we had several hours of free time before dinner. I was able to use the Internet, take a warm shower, sit in air conditioning, and then go out and sit by the pool. After dinner I went swimming in a pool with warm water, which was nice considering it was a bit cool outside which doesn’t happen often. We hung out in the room for a while and then we went to a club at the hotel. There was no one there except the ten people we went with, but we made it fun by dancing for several hours. After the club we all went off to bed, because we had breakfast the following day at seven.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I went down for breakfast to learn they would be serving cereal, not just any cereal but coco puffs. You may not think this is exciting, but cereal is one of the foods many of us miss the most, so it was thrilling. And since they make the milk taste like chocolate the fact that the milk is powdered milk does not ruin the cereal. I also had an egg, beans, and oatmeal, which were all delicious and I was so full I could barely walk. The next thing on the agenda was going to Boti Falls to hike to a three-headed palm tree and then swim in the waterfalls.
No one realized that we would be going on a hike, so we all had on flip-flops and inappropriate clothing, but we proceeded nonetheless. The hike was much easier then the hikes from last weekend, but there were difficult parts due to the fact that it had rained and the walkway was slippery. We made it to a large rock that we paid fifty peswas to climb up. When the leaders of CIEE finally arrived they got in a fight with the kids that charged us to go up the rock for about twenty minutes. None of us really minded paying, but the u-pals were holding their ground insisting that we were cheated. We did not get our money back, but we enjoyed the rock anyway. There was a fantastic view and we were able to just relax.
The point of the hike was to get to the three headed palm tree, but after the fight everyone decided it was not worth it and turned back. However, I figured that I would not be returning and we had already made it about an hours distance so we might as well complete the journey. Se two of the u-pals, Mickey and Gideon and I headed off to the palm tree. We arrived in about ten minutes to a less than exciting tree in the middle of a village. It was worth the journey since we had already gone so far, but I would not suggest it to anyone else. Although I loved the hike and am happy we went on it.
We were able to hike back quick enough to catch up with the rest of the group and make to the falls at the same time as the group. We ran right into the water because we were dripping sweet from every part of our bodies, I could feel the sweet dripping down my face, arms and legs. The water was freezing, but it felt amazing. I climbed the rocks, went under the fall, and just swam around for about an hour before it was time to leave. The falls were only about a five-minute walk from the main gate, so we were back on the bus in no time. We returned to the hotel for a delicious lunch consisting of rice balls with soup and goat meat, chicken, jollof rice with tomato sauce, and cabbage with salad cream (mayonnaise). We traveled back to the bus and made our way back to the hostel arriving a little before five, earlier than any other trip in the past. It was a nice weekend and although the first day was slightly disappointing the falls made up for it.
When I returned I learned that it had rained and I still had about five pieces of clothing on the clothesline because they were still wet when I left for the Eastern Region. Therefore, I will need to rewash those clothes, which I was not excited about. However, I got over it put them in the dirty clothes and began to do some reading. When I completed my assignment I watched the King’s Speech, which I greatly enjoyed and then went to bed.