This weekend was our first weekend without any orientation programs. We did have a Welcome Durbar on Saturday which was fun. They served some American food, and I got to have salad for the first time. I miss vegetables, oh and olives. Oh and just about anything that isn't rice or chicken or eggs. My diet consists of starch, meat, fruit and carbs. I have to admit that I'm getting a little tired of the food selection here or lack there of. Today for example, the only available options were the night market aaaand the night market. I had an egg sandwich for breakfast and rice for lunch. For dinner I'm holding out to eat at the bar/hotel where we are watching the Super Bowl! I'm hoping for some pizza. Jake and I are going to check out some nicer restaurants in the near future and splurge every once in a while to maintain our sanity. Enough about food, it's making me hungry!
The Durbar was really interesting! They had a live African band with drummers and cowbells and also African dancers. The dancers were really cool. For their second number the three women danced around with pots of fire on their heads! It was crazy. The women here are so talented. They carry around EVERYTHING on their heads. It's really impressive. Some of the men do too but it's mostly women. The first day we were here I tried to carry a bag of little sachets of water on my head and made it three steps. The next morning my neck hurt.
The Durbar was at the Great Hall, which is the highest point on campus (is it sounding like Harry Potter yet?) The view from outside the building was incredible! There is a stretch that overlooks the whole city of Accra. They call it Accra by night. It's like a sea of a million little lights. I tried to take a picture but it didn't do it justice.
My weekends will actually be starting on Fridays, since I have no class! This Friday some girls and I decided to go to the Arts Center which is essentially another market. I ended up getting a Ghanaian dress to wear to the Durbar, beaded sandals, and some gifts to take home for people. To get to the market, we took a transit bus which was my first experience using city run public transportation. It was a double decker bus which was amusing. Inside it had a picture depicting the double decker bus dominating a little tro-tro (a van which is not city run) in an accident basically saying that buses are safer than tro-tros because they win in a collision. I think I've mentioned before that the advertising strategies here are blunt and often graphic! It's really entertaining. The trip to the Arts Center went smoothly, it was the return trip that was a bit more interesting.
Thursday is the day that I take my malaria medicine, as I described in my last post. This means that Fridays are also kind of rough with various medicine-related stomach and other issues. While we were waiting for a tro-tro on the way home I started to feel faint. I had warned some of the girls earlier in the trip that I'm a fainter. It's a lovely curse that goes along with being strawberry blond. (Thanks mom) So when I told them I was feeling light headed and a little nauseous we all decided it was best for a few of us to just get in a cab. It's a lot more expensive than a tro-tro, but I wasn't about to put a price on passing out on the side of the street at Tema Station. We got in a cab around 4:30pm so pretty close to rush hour. It took us an hour and forty five minutes to get back to campus, when it only took us about 45 to get to the market. Part of this delay had to do with the fact that our first cab broke down about half way home. We were sitting in traffic and the driver turned off the car. When he went to re-start it, the car wouldn't start. Luckily he flagged down a cab for us and negotiated with the driver to split what we had originally agreed to pay him. At least my initial Ghanaian car trouble experience is out of the way. I kind of have a feeling it won't be the last though!
Overall the first weekend was pretty good, all malaria-medication symptoms aside. On the subject of malaria, there are three girls who have already gotten it. Luckily they all are fine, though the first girl had quite a scare and was told if she waited one more day to go to the hospital she may not have made it. It's been a good lesson to the rest of the program that at the first sign of fever, aches or chills we need to force the person to get to the hospital. The problem with the first girl was that her fever kept going up and down so she was lulled into to thinking she was getting better.
Well I hate to end this post on such a somber note, but it's time for me to go eat some pizza! **I mean watch the Super Bowl...
Until my next adventure, happy reading!
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