March!!

Hey everyone!
It's been another nice few weeks in Ghana!! We've mainly been in Cape Coast, but we took a four day trip to Accra at the beginning of this trip. We stayed in a nice hostel (with an overhead fan!!!! luxurious!!!) and visited some historical sites, like the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and the house of W.E.B. Du Bois. We also went to the national museum of Ghana (not that exciting). And, there was also time for just walking around Accra and getting the feel of it. The best way to distinguish it from Cape Coast, it seems, is the incredible amount of traffic. Entire miles of freeway would just be entirely jammed up every morning, and it didn't seem to be due to any particular accident, but just because there are too many cars and too few lanes or streets for them to be on. just that made me glad to come back to Cape Coast after a few days! The cities do have lots of similarities, though. There's still a somewhat country feel to Accra, even though it has many city qualities - street vendors walking up and down between lanes of traffic, aggressive hawkers of artesanal goods, big buildings, a MALL. But there's still lots of green in between all the buildings; I'm not sure if after a decade or two, the green will have disappeared, or whether the city is just naturally pretty spread out and will stay way, leaving green spaces in between.

One amazing experience I had in Accra! We went to the mall one day (everyone was excited for American food), and my friend Kelsey and I were just walking along inside the mall when we saw crowds and crowds of people gathered outside the Panasonic store. Occasionally there was a shout or cheer from the crowd. We couldn't figure out what was going on, except that the crowd was getting bigger and bigger by the second. Finally, we went up to figure it out, and saw that inside the store, against one wall, they were broadcasting live the Ghana-Senegal soccer game, that I guess is part of an All african tournament that's been going on? We made our way into the crowd just as the game ended, tied, and the teams entered a shoot-off. They were tied for the first few shots, and then, Senegal shot and the Ghanaian goalie blocked the shot. The crowd went WILD!!! One woman practically jumped on top of me hugging me! People were shouting and skipping through the halls. Pretty quickly they got calmed down for Ghana's last shot - and it went in, signifying the end of the game, and a victory for Ghana. I have never heard so much noise inside a mall before. Everyone was jumping, dancing, and screaming...and by everyone, I mean the security guards, the cleaning ladies, businessmen and women who'd stopped to watch the end of the game, little children, the Panasonic store attendants....everyone!!! It was such a cool thing to experience.

Now we're back in Cape Coast, and have another week here before we leave for our trip to Northern Ghana, which everyone is VERY excited for. We're done with our Fante classes, and so now we're mostly having classes related to Ghanaian history and culture. Did I mention an incredible African dance workshop we had about a week ago? A few friends and I are really interested in taking more dance (and possibly drum) workshops in the time we have left in Cape Coast...we'll see if it's possible. I think it would be REALLY fun. I'm still planning to play with the jazz band I mentioned before, although I have yet to actually practice with them; we were going to meet up yesterday and then a series of miscommunications made that impossible...but we're planning to rehearse for the first time on Monday, and supposedly have our first show next Friday??? I'm dubious, but we'll see what happens.

I had a nice moment yesterday while walking home from town with Georgina. We were taking one of many shortcuts, down a dusty narrow path, among banana trees, that would end up at the highway that we would follow for a while in order to get home. I was just watching all the other people who were going along the path just like us - people in suits, dressed up, or in everyday clothes - and I was thinking about how in Ghana, just like in Ecuador, it seems like even people who are very well-off aren't "above" doing things like coming home from their fancy office and walking through dirt and mud, catching buses, lighting candles to deal with the constant power outages, etc. I like how it puts everyone a little more on the same level, even though obviously here there are huge varieties in economic classes, just like anywhere else. I guess I just like the willingness of people to revert back to a simpler lifestyle when necessity arises. I was thinking about all this, and just realized that I really do like Ghana, and I've grown to feel very comfortable here. I feel like I now know what to expect when I interact with people, and I understand better the ways in which they interact with me. I know my way around town (fairly well), and I love my host family...I'm hoping to land on an ISP topic that will let me live with them for the last month I'm here! I definitely feel like culture shock has come and gone, and I feel very stable. So that was nice! Then Georgina and I started singing, and as we walked by, people would look up and smile at us; I don't know if it's normal for people to sing on the street here, but nobody seemed to mind. We sang all the way home, and then my host mom taught me to make groundnut (peanut) soup. Delicious!!!!!

That's my update. I'll probably write again after our trip to the North. Love you everyone, hope you're doing well!

Love,
Sara