Stuck.

Yesterday Alyssa and I went to the airport in early enough to check-in for an international flight in the US. Normally check-in counters don’t open more than 2 hours in advance of a flight so we thought we had plenty of time. The departure area was a mess and as we looked for the Virgin Nigeria counter Alyssa saw that was flight was boarding. I started pushing through people (not very nice, I realize) and ran to the ticket counter.
“Your flight is closed.”
After trying to clarify that we were on the Dakar flight, the one leaving at 10:25pm, we learned that our flight had already left… hours before it was supposed to. The next flight to Dakar? Tuesday. As we rebooked our tickets we learned that the flight almost ALWAYS switches times to leave a few hours early… didn’t we know that? Well, no worries, people usually miss the flight. They were able to tell us that the check-in for our second flight, the one leaving at “10:25pm” will be closed by 7:30pm. Our only option for leaving last night was to fly to South Africa and then be on stand-by… we obviously didn’t take that flight. Air Ivoirian had a flight at 9am that went to Dakar but it stopped in the Ivory Coast and you need a visa even if you just have a layover. To avoid being thrown in Ivoirian jail we decided to wait until Tuesday.
When we got back to the hotel, there was a Nigerian guy leaving who profusely apologized on behalf of his country and then told us that it’s happened to him a million times – flights leave early and they don’t tell anyone. Our hotel only had a room for last night, however, so we checked out this morning and into another hotel.
Today was Ghana’s first game of the world cup and it was fun to watch that here. During the first half the entire bar cheered every time Ghana had possession of the ball. People quieted down a little during the second half but the bar erupted in cheers and horns when Ghana scored. As an added bonus to the win, before the game the bar owner had the crowd pick 2 Ghanaian players and, if they scored, everyone in the bar would get a vodka and Coke. Luckily for us all, the player that scored the penalty was one of the free drink players. Vodka and coke must be a British drink (the owner of the bar is British) because neither of us had heard of making that combination. It was really interesting to see everyone SO excited behind one team. I hope World Cup Fever is strong in the US and I’m interested to see how it is in Senegal (whose team didn’t qualify).
So for another two days I am unwillingly on vacation. I’m thankful we were able to get a room, the flight isn’t too many days away, and everything’s going fairly smoothly… but I still can’t wait to get back to Bambey. I’m done being on African vacation and I want to be back in my own little corner of Africa. Hopefully we’ll only be stuck in Ghana for another two-ish days. Off to watch the Australia v. Germany game!
KO

Last day in Ghana

Alyssa and I leave Ghana later tonight, and I think we're both ready to get back. The vacation has been fun and Accra has so much to offer, and as much as I don't want to go back to fish and rice, it'll be nice to get back to my room. I called my host family last night to tell them I would hopefully be back to Bambey by lunch on Sunday - Youssou said hi in the background. Our flight leaves tonight at 11pm, so we're about the check out of the hotel and pick up some last minute souvenirs for people in Senegal. Sorry if the descriptions of Ghana have been lacking - maybe I'll make up for that when I'm back in Senegal.

I hope everyone enjoys the US v. England game today!

KO

LSAT and Shopping

Yesterday morning we took the LSAT at the US Embassy. There were another 2 peace corps volunteers and about 6 Africans. There really isn't much to blog about the test, but it went well and I'm glad it's over. After the test we went to Champ's... yes... the American franchise sports bar Champs... and had buffalo wings, nachos with guacamole, and celebratory beer. We continued the celebration by hitting the street and trying everything that looked good along the way. Everyone says Ghana has amazing street food so we had some grilled corn and some grilled bananas. We saw amazing looking grilled meat but were full from Champs. (A side note, I realize it sounds stupid to be eating street food in Africa but chances are it's prepared no differently than the food I eat daily.)We walked around and saw downtown Accra and then came back to the hotel. We ended up hanging out with a returned peace corps volunteer who now works for a micro-finance institution and his co-workers who are all at our hotel. In case you're visiting Ghana, while their beer "Star" is good, I would highly recommend the cider, "Savannah."
We slept in this morning and then hit the markets. Rumor is Ghana has excellent shopping and I have not been disappointed. We wandered through their main market and saw all of the crabs, fresh vegetables (including avocado which we can't get in Senegal), and pigs feet. Ghanaians are definitely different than Senegalese. Aside from the fact it's odd to hear people speaking English, they are calmer and way less aggressive. I didn't feel like anything was a fight like everything is in Senegal. Then we went to the market when Alyssa remembered the top souvenir on our list: Obama fabric. Within 10 minutes we had each bought 6 yards of fabric with Obama's face. It's amazing and I'll get pictures up after the trip. After the big market we headed towards the artisan/touristy market. We wandered up and down the different stalls and finally found a good jewelery stall. A lot of the jewelery is similar across West Africa and we were looking for Ghanaian pieces. We both bought a fair amount of glass necklaces and some metal pieces before heading to the fabric stalls. While looking around we passed a woman who said, "hey sister, come by wooden spoons for you mother." I actually almost bought spoons from her because I thought the marketing pitch was great but, sorry mom, I was on a mission for fabric,not spoons.
Ghana is known for kente cloth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kente_cloth) which is fairly expensive but we each found colors and designs we really liked. Sure I have no use for a heavy scarf now but once I'm out of Africa I will! Armed with successful purchases we headed back to the hotel, first grabbing lunch at a seafood restaurant near the hotel.
After a few hours of hanging out we tried to venture into the rain to see Iron Man 2. We jumped in the first cab we saw who then told us he had no interest in taking us to the movie theater because there would be traffic and made us get out. We were both soaking wet from the heavy rain and returned to the hotel within 5 minutes of leaving.

Ghana Day 2

Our plan to play into the lack of sleep to get on an "LSAT Schedule" worked and Alyssa and I got up around 7am without an alarm. We then went to breakfast and spent most of the morning studying. After working for a few hours we ventured outside of the hotel. I'd read online that Accra has a Chinese Restaurant that serves a dim sum menu on Sundays so we decided to check it out. Dakar has a delicious Chinese restaurant that's really low key, no decorations, simple tables - that kind of thing. Apparently always aiming to out-do Dakar, Dynasty Chinese restaurant in Accra is FANCY. The food was really good and the service was good which is a huge change from Senegal where good service means getting your food within 45 minutes of ordering and maybe having your order taken without having to find someone to take it. We walked around the Osu area after lunch and down a side street. I'm sure the rest of Ghana is nothing like this street was but the Ghanaian houses looked a little like Senegalese houses except they were all completely built and they were painted bright colors.

This afternoon was more studying and dinner was take out from lunch. We have one more day until the test and are just trying to lay low and stay in test mode. After the test we're going to try to go to the markets and take a day trip out of Accra to see just a hint more of Ghana. I have more to write about Accra compared to Dakar but that'll have to wait for another day.

KO

The Western World?

I left Bambey around 9am Friday morning and met up with several people for lunch in Thies. Afterwards 6 of us piled into a sept place and made our way to Dakar. We spent the rest of the day killing the 12 hours we had before leaving for Ghana. Finally around midnight we went to the airport and checked into the flight. We hung around the airport until 3:00am when we boarded. We were on the plane by 3:30 (after taking a bus to the plane) and took off around 4am. After taking off they dimmed the cabin lights. Then they turned them back on to serve us dinner (chicken and rice or fish and potatoes) at 5am. The lights were turned off around 6am and we landed at 7am. Fast forward to noon (after a shower and a nap): we went to the mall. Yes. The mall. It's like a normal indoor mall with a food court, nike store, puma store, apple store, a few other stores, and.... A MOVIE THEATER!
Because Ghana is an English speaking country they were playing a few recent American movies. After walking around we bought our tickets and went to see Sex and the City 2! I wish I could convey how excited we were when we found out it was playing, but I just don't think I can do it justice. Sure the movie was pretty horrible but we ate popcorn, sat in a movie theater, and watched a recent movie - it felt like I was back in the suburbs.
We're back at the hotel now and I am about to pass out working on about 3 hours of sleep over 36 hours. Tomorrow we are going to study and hang around. The test is on Tuesday - wish us luck, I'm sure I'll be posting more!

Certificates

Today I handed out certificates for the class and we took a class picture:


I also had a meeting with my scholarship girls and tried to arrange things for the summer. I asked a few of them what types of programing or things they would like me to try and organize over the summer. They all agreed on basketball and when I asked if they had anymore suggestions one said, "you mean we can do more than one thing?!" Things like that make my job easier. Two of the girls stayed after the meeting to help me grid the mural and one of them (the rest have class) is coming tomorrow morning to help me paint.

Other than things at the middle school today was more getting ready for leaving, some cleaning, laundry, and studying. Oh! The sheep now only bleat when someone walks by their area. If they start bleating when Youssou walks by he bleats back at them. These evening after the sheep and Youssou exchanged several rounds of bleating he yelled, "hahaha your mom is dinner somewhere!"

KO

Noppi Noppi! (Be quiet!)

For the last 20 or so hours our sheep have been bleating. When they first started I thought it was their normal calls for Youssou to feed them... when it carried on all night and continued this morning I realized something was up. Today during lunch they actually broke out of their pen and so I finally asked about all the noise. Miriam told me the mother had been taken to Dakar... so long mom sheep!

I started on the mural (finally) today. I've painted the background and so now I just have... pretty much the entire mural to do. 2.5 days until I go to Dakar (and then on to Ghana)! Time to study!

KO