tuesday 1/13

Today was a great day. I finally got to see the village or town that I was hoping for. As I mentioned before, the last few days have felt like we’ve been operating tunnel-vision through a maze. We live in a neighborhood called Lebone, which is one of the nicer neighborhoods in Accra. It’s primarily made up of homes and a few restaurants, but there are lots of people on the sides of the roads selling everything from toilet paper to calling cards to bananas. The area of the city to the west of us is called Osu, and that is where “Circle” is. It’s kinda the Times Square of Accra, if that makes any sense. It’s much more open and there are driving circles like in Europe with cars traveling down both sides of the street driving much like they do in NY- kinda crazy and without following too many rules. Lined on the side of the road from end to end are vendors who will yell “Hello!” to you in order to draw you in to see their goods. Street vendors here are much more aggressive here than they are even in NY. They will come up to you and follow you and walk with you, handing you bracelets and wooden carved paddles and Obama T-shirts. No I’m not joking. Speaking of, everyone is really pro-Obama here, clearly, and have a lot of pride. In a letter I wrote to Eric I even mentioned that in the van coming from the airport they played this song (on repeat) about Obama. It sounded like local Ghanaians singing it’s pretty incredible to see the pride they have for him here. There’s a festival happening on inauguration day that I think we’re all going to. How cool to be here in Africa when the first African-American president is sworn in. Anyway, lined down the streets are people selling t-shirts, jerseys, beaded jewelry, Ghanaian flags, trashcans and other household appliances, fabrics and any other knickknack you can think of. That’s what makes me thing it’s a lot like Time Square- everything is overpriced and very touristy, except for maybe the fabrics. When we visit actual markets though I think we’ll begin to see some more fruit stands and handmade fabric stands and such. I’m just guessing though. There’s a grocery store in town called Koala, which has a lot of American brands and more specialty foods like Barilla pasta and stuff. We’re visiting that tomorrow.

The Circle in Osu

We ate at this place called Freddie’s, whose menu was very familiar (finally!). They serve all sorts of American food, and I ordered a chicken and cheese sandwhch. Mmmm it was good to give my mouth a break from all the spiciness. During lunch the power would go out for a few minutes and no one reacts or seems to notice at all. Christa, our associate director, says that in this part of the continent there are power fluctuations and power goes on and off all the time. It makes me laugh when I think about how we would (and do) react in America if the lights went out for even a few seconds. We have to turn the lights off and the AC off every time we’re not using them, because electricity is very expensive here and there’s not enough of it to use wastefully. Often Gillian and I use our computers in the dark just because we realize how unnecessary most additional lighting is.

Momma, these are some of the many fabrics! :)

Anyway, switching gears, today we also spent a lot of time at the Academic Center, which is NYU’s facility where we have our NYU classes. As I think I’ve mentioned, we can also take classes at University of Ghana, Legon (the public university) and Ashesi University (the small, private university of about 300 students). Did you know the government fully pays for all public university education? In return, upon graduation students spend a year doing “Federal Service,” which basically is a way to thank and repay your country for your education. It’s not the military or anything, but basically a year of full-time volunteer work. You receive a small stipend but no salary. In fact, our CRAs (Community Residential Advisors) are all doing their Federal Service now, and were assigned to the NYU Ghana campus. Anyway, at our Academic Center we had a few lectures on the history of Ghana, health safety (we know, it’s dangerous here, take your pills, wear sunscreen), and then took a Twi class taught by our Director, Auntie Anyidoh. I’ll practice my Twi below. There are over 40 languages spoken in Ghana, but Akan is spoken by about 40% of the population. Twi is a dialect of Akan, and is what most people in Accra speak, in addition to English and most likely several other dialects.

Maakye (pronounced mah-chey) is Good Morning

Wo de sen? (pronounced Woah-day-sin) is What is your name?

Me de Elizabeth (meh-day) is My name’s Elizabeth.

Thank you is “Medaase” (pronounced meh-dah-say)- we use this word a lot!

Yes is “Aane” (ah-nay) No is “Daabi” (Dehhh-bee)

The numbers to 5 are: Baako, Mmienu, Mmiensa, Enan, Enum

That’s all I’ll practice for now. Time for dinner at Sunshine Salads, the other place we have a meal plan to. It’s supposed to serve more American type foods. I’ll update later!

love love love