Prelude: before I start my blog post this time, there is a little comment I want to make about some misunderstandings of a previous post. As I was writing my post on poverty, I thought I was being clear that the little argument between Eliya and I about the fanmilk man on the bus was an anecdote I was using to inspire my own thoughtfulness in reacting to poverty, charity, and exchange here in Ghana. It seems as though some saw the post as a debate between Eliya’s stance on poverty and my own, and its my fault that I never explicitly said this was not so. So just so we’re all on the same page – I hope most of us were there to start with – that post was not discussing Eliya’s entire stance of poverty (that might take a thesis to argue with, not a few paragraphs), but Eliya’s one point on poverty in that short 15 minutes on the bus. I was interested in seeing what would happen if we generalize that point, apply it in every instance rather than just once, in hope that universalizing it would help me react to it intelligibly. Actually, Eliya and I agree on many, many things here – at least when I calm down from rapping Mac Miller songs enough to have a semi-intelligent conversation – and the main difference between us in this one instance was whether getting cheated out of 10 pesawas by this fanmilk man attacks the principle of the matter or isn’t even worth much of a thought at that moment. Anyway, hope we’re all crystal… crystal clear, that is J!
What I really want to talk about today is something I’ve also had some people ask me (wow, looks like I’m reacting to people’s comments a lot lately, so post comments and talk to me!!) – what exactly do you do every day there in Ghana, what does your daily life there look and feel like? For the longest time, this was an impossible question to answer because things were literally changing from day-to-day too drastically: from orientation to registering for classes to exploring Accra. Finally though, after a 5 weeks or so of being here, I think I’ve begun settling into somewhat of a rhythm and hopefully I can fill you all in on what my daily life here is actually like this semester.
The first thing you have to know is some basic information about what exactly I’m doing here, who I spend time with, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsy-pop, etc. I am here studying at the University of Ghana, one of the most prestigious universities in West Africa (and making real strides to become internationally recognized in the near future), which resides in Legon (a northern neighborhood of Greater Accra) here on the Southern coast of Ghana. I am taking several classes here including: Ghana Society and Culture (mandatory Orientation class), Ghanaian Drumming (hoping to bring a kpanlogo drum back to the states :D), Political and Economic Reform of Post-Colonial African States, Wildlife Management (pretty much the only reason I’m taking this class is because all the students get to go on a fieldtrip to Mole, the largest National Park in Ghana), and Introduction to Economic Anthropology. I am also conducting research here, under Professor Gavua who co-teaches my Economic Anthropology course, about changing business culture in the Medina Marketplace… maybe I’ll have a whole post about my research when I actually feel like I’m getting somewhere with it :P.
I’m living on the fourth floor of Legon Hall Annex B, an all-male Ghanaian dormitory right on campus (maybe a 10-15 minute walk to most classes… the campus is maybe double the size of UC Berkeley). The only international students in the whole dorm are me and my three friends here, living in two rooms right next to each other at the end of the fourth floor hall: Devin (the supa chilled-out UC Santa Cruzian on his second semester in Ghana) and Theo (my roommate during orientation, just happens to be the new star on the University of Ghana basketball team *cough* no biggie *cough*, also from Berkeley, and is apparently the certified hunk of the group) in one room, and Carlin (the sweet, artistic, crazy event-planning hopeless romantic of a roommate from UC San Diego) and I in the last room. We’re pretty much inseparable, except for Carlin who’s at Dance class most of the day. We’re pretty great! The others I spend most of my time with include the Volta girls (who are mostly women from our orientation that decided to live in Volta Hall with Ghanaian students rather than the International Student Hostel) and the local friends we’ve made so far. There are 10 Volta girls: Eliya (who’s my bestie from back home), Anneke (the half-dutch cutie and fellow co-oper, from Cloyne, at UC Berkeley), Mallory (our ray of sunshine from UC Santa Cruz), Carmen (the oh-so serene hippy and fellow co-oper, from Lothlorien, at Berkeley), Zoe (the laid back girl from Humboldt sleeping in our room right now because she had “a little” too much to drink last night), Kassy (the sassy big momma of the group from UC Riverside), Aesha (who has the best laugh ever and just celebrated her 21st birthday here yesterday), Jessica (who’s our favorite quiet little mouse), Ariel (who has a sparkling smile and gorgeous Hebrew tattoo - even though she’s not Jewish, this is her second semester here), and Heidi (who is a ball of fun, always interested in talking with me about Israel, and is also on her 2nd semester here). My good local friends here so far include Daniel (who must have a new girl around him every time I talk with him), Jamal (“smash it and quit it and leave it and forget it”), Alvin (the serene, religious, intellectual), Viviana (a gold-medalist in West African track who made ramen with us this week), Abdul (the high-achiever who runs the Planned Parenthood program on campus, serves as a Chief on the Student Traditional Council, and cooks a mean groundnut soup), and Gyimah (who was one of our student-guides on our orientation and is just such a the funniest, most thoughtful, well-to-do guy I’ve met here). Mmmmm, ok we’ll stop there for now, but that seems like a good start!
Alriiight, so now that you all have some sort of semblance of what exactly is around me every day, I’ll try to give you an idea of the rhythm I’ve been getting into. Pretty much my weeks are broken up into three categories: weekdays except for Tuesday, Tuesday, and weekends (includes Friday). Here we go! Most weekdays, except for Tuesday, pretty much feel the same. I wake up in the morning at the way-too-darn-early time of 8:30am or so, immediately jump up and grab my shower caddy (otherwise I’ll fall right back to sleep), and take a cold shower to wake myself up if we have running water. On the couple days a week that we don’t have running water, I’ll take a bucket shower if “the tap” on our floor is working (its connected to a big tank on our roof that fills up as a back-up when the water is running) and have so far refused to shower when the tap is out and I’d have to walk up and down four floors with a heavy water bucket (the longest I’ve gone is 2 days without showering, so not so bad, and deodorant fixes all that anyway, right :P?). I end up going to class usually starting at 9:30am, grabbing a large hunk of bread with groundnut paste (what Ghanaians call peanut butter) from the lady selling porridge outside of our building on my way, and am usually the only one taking notes on my laptop (not that others don’t have one, I’m not sure why they don’t take notes with it) during class. After class, I usually head over to IPO (the International Programs Office) where I can get my fix of free-wifi in for the day, use the bathroom if the bathrooms in Legon are way too gross (which is usually the way they are, especially when the water runs out… don’t even get me started), and see some other friends that are passing through. Eventually, I begin to starve and have to wretch from the computer and hobble out of IPO to go grab some food at BushK (or Bush Canteen… why they use a “K” for the shortcut is beyond me). I usually call a friend to join me - or run into some people I know because we all pretty much eat there - and enjoy some red-red (red bean stew with Avocado if they have it), fufu (mashed cassava, with texture somewhere between jello and mashed potatoes, in “light” or chicken soup that’s nothing like our chicken soup), or indomie (literally Ramen, out of the same-looking boxes we have, just with a different brand name). I usually end up making my way home after that, hanging around the room (maybe doing laundry, writing, or reading) and eventually grab Theo and Devin to play some basketball… only to pass out on my bed with the fan cranked up to uber-high 2-3 hours later attempting to recuperate. Dinner is usually the same every day with all the guys playing “nose-goes” for who has to run downstairs to grab us some delicious egg-and-sausage sandwiches (to which we always add some laughing cow cheese, the only kind of cheese they readily have here, some tomatoes, and some tapatio we snagged from home). The evenings vary, depending on how much energy we have or whether there’s something going on that night, but could be anything ranging from: hanging out with our floormates, watching some It’s Always Sunny (or other hilarious American sitcom), or making our way to Volta to spend time with the girls (and catch some free wifi that they are lucky to have in their rooms).
Tuesdays are different because I have no class that day so it has become designated “research day.” That means I wake up at 5:30am – a little piece of me dies every time I have to wake up that early – so I can shower and get to Medina Market by 6:30am to help some of the friends/contacts I’ve already made set up their shops. I spend the morning in Medina and head back to campus in the early afternoon, where I grab a quick bite to eat, and end up typing up the fieldnotes for the ethnography that day. Then, I usually do some supplementary anthropological reading, relax, and end up working on my thesis (from back home, which I’m still not done with) at night. Or at least… that’s the plan J. Weekends are always different, which is what makes them so exciting, but I think I’ve settled on traveling every other weekend (like last weekend when I went to Ada). Those weekends will always be filled with random, crazy adventures hopefully – so not much rhythm to fill you in on there. Otherwise, I’m sleeping in back home, reading, working on my thesis, hanging out, learning how to cook Ghanaian dishes with friends, and always finding random, interesting, fun things to do at night. Last night, for example, we ended up turning down an offer to go to a local concert on campus to have a Karoake Night with all the girls at Volta and took off around midnight for a Saturday night boxing match with Devin, Theo, Andrew, and Eric in downtown Accra. The night before was spent in Osu, the main night-life district in Accra, with all our friends feeding Aesha drinks at a bar (and watching her dance a little too raunchily with some strangers thereafter) for her 21st birthday. Both of those nights were awesome and typical of my weekend shenanigans when I’m not traveling!
Hope you all now gained a little bit of insight into my daily life here in Ghana, I’m having a wonderful lazy Sunday as I write this blog post at the moment, so hope you all are having a wonderful weekend as well and I’ll write to you again soon!
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