More Ghana experiences

Yesterday was our tour of Accra and the wood carving workshop! The workshop turned out to be all about drum making so we didn't get to actually carve anything, but it was interesting! After we learned how the drums were made, the man who owned the shop and some other people played some music and we also danced. Jake and I got pulled into the middle of the dancing circle which was pretty entertaining...mostly for everyone else! I just can't compete with Jake's shimmy! Everyone had a good laugh though and it was a fun afternoon.

The night before last night was probably one of the most entertaining! It was my first club experience in Accra. My friend Nastasia met some french men at Reggae night who have been living here working for a French company in Accra. They wanted to go out so they took us to this Italian Restaurant turned club by night called Bella Roma. It reminded me of a mix between a European and an American club with a little splash of Ghana. The women were dressed to the nines! I really felt under dressed in my sandals as opposed to the five inch heels that surrounded us. The men were a bit creepy, as is to be expected, but the Ghanaian men were SUCH GOOD DANCERS!!! This one man actually flipped my friend Kylee on the dance floor which was a complete surprise! When people here go to the club they stay out until like five or six in the morning so we have some work to do since we only stayed out until about 4 am. The most interesting part of the night was when we went to leave...

We bartered for a taxi as usual. My friend Kylee was sitting in the front seat of the taxi. All the windows were rolled down as most are because it's still pretty hot at night here. All of the sudden a group of younger boys surrounded the taxi and started yelling at us and talking to us asking "how are you how are you?" As soon as Kylee responded and looked at them, one reached into the cab and picked up her purse from her lap! We all screamed and our taxi driver yelled that he was going to call the  police. The boy MAGICALLY dropped the bag! I was sitting in the back on the passenger side and I instinctually jumped out of the car and grabbed the purse as the boy was running away. My adrenaline rush for the week! We were so so so lucky that he dropped it, but learned the valuable lesson of keeping a death grip on your purse even in the taxi! The night ended when we got back to the hostel with me getting stuck in a bathroom stall with a broken lock and having to shimmy out underneath the space. Overall a pretty funny evening.

Last night we just stayed in the hostel, but it was one of the girls' birthdays. Tradition here is that on someone's birthday you dump water all over them until they are soaking wet...no joke. It's called Punding (Ponding) I'm not sure of the exact spelling! So a bunch of us stayed up to pund Caroline into her 21st year. Our hostel has a courtyard in the middle so it is kind of shaped like a square/rectangle with an open center. About seven or eight of us stood on the second level and dumped buckets of water down on her into the courtyard. We definitely caught her off guard! We'll  have to get creative with punding again soon because a lot of people are having birthdays on this trip!

Today was the official first day of classes. I FINALLY finished registering! I'm taking two social work classes which will count for my Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies minor, two political science courses for my major and then Twi, the local language which is required by the program. Twi doesn't start until next week. I didn't  have class today, thought I normally will. The first week of classes here is pretty disorganized, as is the whole registration process. To register you have to go to each department...campus is super spread out and over a mile and a half long, so it is very walking intensive...especially with the heat. The times and buildings for the classes are posted at each department so you can't even sign up for classes until you have all of the times, which means you end up making multiple trips to each department. Luckily I'm  pretty much finished with the process, which is such a relief! It has definitely been the most frustrating part of my trip so far.

Well I think that's all for now! I'm off to go buy an internet modem at the mall so I can finally have access in my room! More to come during the first week of classes!