tro tro tro

So last I left off saying that we were going to get a tent on the beach. Well half of that happened. We went to the beach, but no tent. It was so fun! Seven of us - Leah, Marlee, Caroline, Marika, Jake, Catja, and me - impromptu-ly decided to go to Kokrobite (ko-kro-bee-tay) for the night and enjoy the beach. We all packed up our very touristy backpacks and went on our way. To get to Kokrobite, we had to take a taxi to Kaneshie Market and from there we got on a trusty tro-tro. Getting everyone to the tro tro was quite a trip - Ghanaians aren't really known for good direction giving, and well we experienced that. People were pointing us in every direction to get to the Kokrobite tro tro, and somehow we found it! Oh tro tro, how I love thee. How to describe a tro tro? A tro tro is a sort of public transportion and is extremely cheap (55 pesewas to Kokrobite, about 45 minutes away). Cheap for many reasons. The cars are relatively broken down, no air conditioning, fit about 20 people in them, and well... pretty unsafe. But reliable? Yes. While waiting for the tro tro to take off, all of us purchased FAN ICE from the vendors outside the tro tro!!! Best thing of my life. Fan ice. Fan Ice is packaged ice cream in a little plastic bag where you bite off the corner and enjoy the deliciousness inside. Its only 40 pesewas. There are three flavors - Vanilla, Choco-Ice, and Yogo-Ice Strawberry. All very good - Choco-Ice is my favorite its like frozen chocolate milk. Mmm.. just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I've had about 8 Fan Ices since that tro-tro ride. Its becoming a bit of a problem haha. But it's the best especially when its soooo hot.

Okay, enough Fan Ice. Back to Kokrobite. The ride to Kokrobite was very interesting. We drove through some extrememly poor villages and by some very wealthy places. The disparity between the two is so ridiculous. The villages we drove through were cute and everyone just seemed so content in their little huts. The wealthy places were like mansions from Scottsdale. When we got off the tro tro at the last stop, I guess we looked pretty clueless and very WHITE because all of the villagers knew exactly where we were going and pointed us directly to the little hotel - Big Milly's Backyard.

Marlee and Marika checked us in and got us the last room vacant for the night. A one bedroom - two twin beds, one double bed. All the beds had mosquito nets and we felt like princesses under them haha. The bathroom was quite nice until later in the night I found my LEAST FAVORITE CREATURE - a cockroach. Just lingering behind the toilet. I recruited Catja and Jake to kill it, because I just couldn't.

Off to the beach! We walk out of the hotel onto the beautiful sandy beaches where a bunch of fishing boats are on shore waiting to go off shore to fish. There were also many vendors and African children running around. We played in the warm, warm water then went to lay on the beach. A bunch of chidren came to sell us stuff and play with us. A few of the girls were obsessed with our hair so they braided it and oh man, they need to learn how to not pull so hard. They were so cute though... I couldn't resist!

For dinner, we ate at the hotel and got free reggae night entry with our meal purchase. Pros and cons with this reggae night. Dancing all night long = pro. Having your room ten feet away from speakers = con. This music went until what seemed like ALL NIGHT LONG! The music was still on when my alarm went off at 5:30 am (reggae music still playing) for our trip to the monkey sanctuary! Anyone want to go see some monkeys? Silence. Please, don't all raise your hands at once. Well... we went back to sleep, no monkeys this trip. Back to sleep until we got up for the beach.

At the beach, we were again surrounded by children... fun for a while until they started begging us for money. We all felt really bad, but what could we do? We supported them by buying their bread for breakfast and played with them (which I think is much more valuable than a few pesewas). It makes me so sad... but we can't give money to everyone who asks for it. After this we tro tro-ed home. I spent a grand total of 16 cedi on transportion, food, and room for the whole weekend out! Yay.

That night, we went for Chinese food at Tip Top. Obruni, obruni. This labelling as a foreigner in Ghana can be very good and very bad. When we got to the restaurant, we sat down and started looking at the menus. We had been told that this place was "very cheap with big portions". Not so cheap after looking at the menu. There were about nine of us and we started talking. We had heard before that some restaurants give "Obruni" menus - i.e. foreigner/white people menus where the food is more expensive. So when we were ordering, we asked the waiter, and he pretty much told us that these were indeed obruni menus... but didn't do anything about it. Which sucks. It sucks being discriminated against, but I guess that's what they're told to do. The food nonetheless was delicious and I'd go back for some lo mein and sweet and sour chicken.

This week was our second week of classes, my first being on Monday afternoon at University of Ghana, Legon. Leah, Andrea, and I got to class on time. This classroom was huge! It was a lecture hall and I swear there were about 300 people in there. It was incredible. Everyone is talking, they're handing out some handouts... and everyone is waiting, waiting. About twenty minutes later, someone comes to the front of the class and announces that the professor who is supposed to teach the class didn't know that he was in fact the professor at all, so class was cancelled until next week. So... yeah. Still haven't had my psychology class. Tuesday, I decided to drop Reporting Africa, the journalism class because I felt really unprepared because it was pretty advanced. So instead I'm joining Documenting the African city, a documentary making class, where the whole class is beginners and we're going to make a 10-15 minute documentary! So I'll be a film maker once I leave Ghana. Plus my teacher is a doll, I love her. Then today I had my photo class with my very rude professor. Today we had our first critique on our portrait project and Marlee and me (haha yes funny) got reamed by our (excuse my language) bitch teacher. Ah, I know this is only the second week of class with him, but I think it's going to be a long semester. Tomorrow I start Popular African Music... I'm dropping Studio Art because its with the same professor as Photography. Lame. Oh, and I have Fridays off now! Wonderful!

Okay, so I mentioned that I'm in the Documenting class. Last night, we watched the four documentaries from last semester and they were so inspirational and so well done! I hope that my work comes out to be as moving! One of the films called At Post was about the 24 hour security guards that we have on staff at our two residence halls and at our academic center. It really showed another side of them and made me appreciate them and the work they do for us so much more. The film showed interviews with the guards about everything from their families to their working conditions and hobbies. Later on in the movie when showing the wages of many of the different jobs around Accra, i.e. phone card seller, fruit stand worker, clothes maker, etc. It showed the security guard wage to be $0.29/hour (80 cedi a month)! This was the least paid job of all of the mentioned ones in the film. This was so sad to listen to because they really do so much for us and work VERY long shifts - usually 12 hour shifts, but if someone doesn't come to let them go, they can go as long as 24 hours. This made us all very upset and we started to think of ways to help the security guards or make them feel more appreciated for what they do. We decided that we'd bring them home meals when we came back from dinner and two of the girls in my apartment are going to help them with English in return for help with their Twi homework. Talking with them you realize how much they want to do with their lives but how difficult it is. One wants to join the miliatary, another wants to go back to school, and another wants to get his driver's license so he can be a taxi driver. Yet, none of them have the resources to do these things with their lives. It's such a hard position to be in because we all want to help but we don't want to pitty them and at the same time at least they have a job - many people here don't even have that! It is ironic that we watched this documentary when we did because just the day before, Leah and I were on our way to UG when we were talking with Sammy, the driver, about how we, Leah and I, really haven't made in Ghanaian friends yet, when he started to tell us about how he has no friends. It was really sad and we tried to comfort him telling him that we were his friends and that if he went out he'd made friends. But he talked about how because of his job (driving us), he has no time to make friends and when he does make friends, they don't want to be his friend because he has no time to spend with them. Leah and I were just so sad and didn't really know what to say, but now we really want to show him how much he is appreciated and how we ARE his friends... so we're going to work on ways to do this! One of the other documentaries showed how Ghana has little to no middle class and therefore will never get its economy built up. Since so much is imported from the US and Europe, they have little room to build up their own economy because their own work gets put aside. Even things like their native language are "westernized" by using the Latin alphabet. These topics were so eye-opening and very informative, I'm happy we got to see the previous students' work.

Tonight, Marlee and I actually sat and talked with one of the security guards and one of his friends for a long time. It's so nice to get to know the people who do so much for you. We talked about his interests - Richard, the security guard, loves to sew and make men's clothing and loves soccer. Oti, his friend, is in school for engineering. Oti asked me what my birthmark is and when I told him it was a 'birthmark', he asked if a bunch of my relatives had the exact same thing. So, of course, I replied no, because noone else does. He went on to explain that a 'birthmark' here has the meaning of a physical trait that you have in common with a bunch of other people in your family. Like if Greer or Mom were to have the same birthmark. This was very interesting and fun to hear him talk about it!

Well... that's a lot! This weekend, we're going to Winneba - there's about 14 of us - to spend more time at the beach and maybe, if we're lucky, see SEA TURTLES!! But we'll see...

love love love