Well, here I am. In Ghana. Crazy, no? I arrived at the airport last night around 9pm, me and 18 other NYU kids (there are 35 in total, a few of which don't actually go to NYU). I got to my dorm, Church Crescent, where I will be living for the next four and a half months. It's friggin' amazing. Seriously. I did not expect to come to Africa and live in what seems to be a beach resort. The rooms are huge and amazingly clean, high ceilings, a friendly kitchen, nice bedrooms, marble bathrooms, large terraces, etc., etc.
Of course, we must all remember that this is not the norm in Ghana. From what I hear, I am living in one of the more upscale middle/upper class neighborhoods called Labone. It's about a 15-20 minute drive from Accra, the capital city, which I have yet to experience. All in good time, though... The nieghborhood is primarily residential, although there appears to be plenty of businesses, vegetable stands, street vendors, coffee shops, hair salons, and such. There's lots of gorgeous trees, bushes, flowers, and whatnot growing in front of houses and around the neighborhood. Most everywhere is gated in and protected by security systems, or in the case of this residence, a guard and a security system. The buildings are very colorful, lots of normal white but also plenty or orange, pink, yellow, blue, and green buildings. There's pretty much always a good amount of people on the streets walking around. They seem very hospitable. Most everyone either greets you or kindly accepts a "good morning" and returns it. I won't speak too much more of the neighborhood since I haven't had a good chance to explore it. But as I said before, all in good time... Oh, and one more thing. The street signs here are really awesome. Instead of just labeling the streets with a name, they have lots of signs at most intersections that point in a certain direction and say, "Such and such restaurant" or "Labone Dental Clinic" or whatever might be down that road. I think it's pretty cool.
So, you may be wondering, what's the weather like in Ghana? Well, I've only been here a little over 24 hours. Here's what I've learned so far. For one, Ghana is hot. This I expected, and being from the Dirty South (what, what), heat is not such a shock. In fact, it's quite pleasant and relaxing. Right now we are in the Dry Season, although it is quite humid (it just isn't going to rain). There's an intense haze to the city. My guidebook tells me that this is because of winds that blow in dirt and dust from the Sahara Desert. If that's true, then that haze has traveled pretty far. It's especially easy to tell when an airplane passes overhead because it's actually quite difficult to see. So a glimpse at the sky will get you no clouds, no stars, a very small (though hot) sun, and a lot of haze. Besides that, there's a strange scent in the air, sort of a smoky smell - not bad, just strange.
So, let's see.... I guess I could write a bit about my day. I woke up around 6:30am, about when the sun came up. I awoke to the sounds of a person scrubbing stone, Ghanain babies crying, and a rooster. I also awoke quite hot, but hey, I guess I'll just have to get used to that one. I slept pretty well, although not very long since I slept a lot on the plane ride over. And oh yeah, I think I started experiences a few of the side effects of the Larium (my medication I take to prevent getting malaria). It wasn't bad or scary or anything, but I was having the weirdest thoughts as I was falling asleep last night. I don't even remember what they were now, but they were weird. Well, I do remember one thing. In my half-wake, half-sleep state I "dreamt" I saw my roomates shadow and he was standing over me. That did kind of freak me out. Although he was actually snuggled up nicely in his bed. Oh yeah, my roommate is a guy named Dipesh (like Depeche Mode, although I like to think of him more as Dipesh a la mode). He's really cool. He's into music, media, and politics. He plays the guitar and works on music production and whatnot, listens to a lot of reggae, makes people feel good when they are talking to him.
Okay, so back to my day. I woke up at 6:30, made some tea and got some tropical fruit juice. I walked outside to experience what I described earlier as the weather in Ghana. I did some hardcore stretches for about 30 minutes or so. I felt that I really wanted to be nice and stretched for my first day in Ghana. Apparantly I was the first one up, or at least that's what Linda, one of the CRA's here, told me. The first girl I saw up and out of the dorm (Tania) told me she was going for a jog with another girl (Samute - could be spelled wrong - it's like se-moo-tay), and so I decided to join them. It felt so good to just run around and let out a whole bunch of energy that I'm actually pretty surprised I had. We ran around the neighborhood for a while, although I had to drop out before they did. I got a little confused on my way back to Church Crescent, but luckily I ran into them on what I thought was the right road and they pointed me in the right direction. Then I had some water. And it was good. Then I made oatmeal. And it was fucking awesome. Oatmeal is probably the plainest and most wonderful food under the sun. I could not survive without it. Then I had some milk. And let me tell you, it tastes pretty weird. I don't want to say it's a bad taste, but it's definitely not a good taste. But what's even weirder is that you don't have to refrigerate this milk until it's been opened, at which point you must "consume rapidly."
Alright, so enough with breakfast. I showered, and then we all departed for orientation at the NYU academic center. The facility is very nice. Beautiful landscaping, stone walls, outdoor classrooms, water coolers, computers, lizards. All one could really want from an academic center. We met the staff and received little welcome speeches and whatnot. We went over our calendar of events for the semester which sounds super exciting. We have trips planned to Cape Coast, which was the departure point for slaves leaving Africa in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Kumasi, in the central part of the country, Tamale, in the north part, Wii falls, and um... maybe some other places. I don't remember right now. Then we went over all kinds of important safety information, most of which is fairly common sense when you consider the circumstances. Don't walk around with laptops, don't walk around after dark, especially alone, don't ride bikes at night, always be on the lookout, yadda yadda yadda. But as much as the staff stressed safety, they equally stressed that "Ghana is one of the safest places under the sun" (straight from Kenneth).
Then we had lunch at a restaurant called Headlines Hospitality. The food was super delicious. Worth noting were the watermelon juice, this very spicy spinach dish, fried plantains, curry chicken, and the assortment of vegetables. Then we came back home at which point I took a much needed and very refreshing nap. Then we had a meeting with the CRA's, Linda and Gerald, both delightful souls. They live with us in the Church Crescent compound and are hear to assist us in our experience living in Ghana as well as make sure we follow the rules about using electricity, cleaning, visitors, drugs, etc. We can have alcohol, which is a huge plus, as long as we don't get super wasted and act a fool. After the meeting, we went to dinner at Tante Marie, which we'll be eating at a lot this semester (dinner Monday through Friday). The food was fabulous. Apparently the restaurant is tops among West African cuisine. We had rice, chargrilled chicken (which rocked my world), vegetable soup, salad, little pizza thingies, plaintains, and some random spicy sauces. Mmmm... it was delicious. Then we all came back home and now here I am blogging the night away. So yeah, I think I'll go now. I'd love to write about all the amazing people I've met so far, students as well as staff, but well... I'm just tired of typing. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment