Bonjour Yavoes

Oh my GOD this semester is over! But the adventure certainly did not end with exams! My mom and I just got back to Accra from the most outrageous trek through Togo and Benin. I can’t get over how every single country is so incredibly different in language, scenery, attitude, and food. And so easily accessible in comparison to international traveling from the US. All you have to do is spend a few hours on a crummy bus and you go into a completely different universe.

Our journey started out in Lome, the shore-side capital of Togo. My mom was absolutely delighted to be in the seemingly familiar realm of Franco-everything. Of course, as soon as you step the border, there are baguettes and French speakers. We crossed the border at night, which is always nerve-wracking on foot. These borders are just such a hassle! I can’t even fathom the amount of money I have spent on visas and all that nonsense. And with every embarkation and disembarkation, you have to fill our this extensive paper work (that you know is just going straight in the garbage can! Its all bureaucracy) At the Togo border, one of the passport agents actually asked my mom for her contact info (as many people do, its thought of more as an autograph...NOT) and RIPPED apart her visa paper work in order to write it down! Ha, of course.

The next day we went to a village on the coast called Aneho, which has a pretty amazing fetish market. Moving this far east of Ghana, you are really getting in voodoo territory. Historically, most of the slaves that were exported from this area were brought to Brazil and Haiti, which are well known for their inherited voodoo culture. It’s so funny how Hollywood has made voodoo seem so scary! After now having coming into closer contact with it, I can vouch for the fact that it is just like most other religions. You have an intermediary between yourself and God in order to pray for things. All the skulls, skins and stones are just this: intermediaries. Each item is thought to have certain symbolic properties and you use them according to the objective of your prayer. And most of the traditional prayers and rituals are for warding of evil spirits. It was really nice though; we got to talk to a very nice fetish priest who explained all the meanings.























From the very first day, the character of Togolese people seems to be very different. First of all, besides kids calling out “yavoe, yavoe” (the local term for white person), people just don’t approach you as much as they do in Ghana. Also, the corruption is by far more obvious. Driving along the main coastal road, every car is stopped in ten-minute intervals by cops who are expecting to receive something of an informal toll. Very uncomfortable and we always wondered if the drivers were charged more for having us whiteys in the car. This is not particularly surprising because Togo is considered to be pretty politically and socially unstable. Whatever that means, they did have a somewhat recent military coup that is still having an effect on the attitude of many people. It seemed to me that people were much more likely to take advantage of foreigners.

We learned this the HARD way when we went to the passport agency to extent visas (again with that nonsense) and our cab driver insisted that we owed him more money. Now I don’t know if I would say that my mother is generally a hot tempered woman, but I think that the emotional strain of just being on the road in Africa loosened her buttons…so to speak, lol. She actually screamed bloody murder at this cab driver, calling him a liar etc. I have additionally learned the hard way that you just don’t cause a scene like that in public because it makes people nervous and they tend to act extremely irrationally. That mob mentality just took over in the parking lot and before we knew it there were about 30 people, including cops, surrounding us and yelling at….my mother! It’s so characteristic because she was making the most noise; I think that people assumed she was the criminal. And they weren’t about to let justice slip into the hands of this apparently rich American. Of course we caved and gave the guy the extra money, but it was really scary because they were grabbing and her and her suitcase and making all sorts of ridiculous threats. Hopefully that was a lesson learned.




















Needless to say, we were relieved to get the hell out of Togo, even if it was by way of yet another crummy car jammed with hella people in the back seat. We ended up jumping out of the car early in order to take a motorcycle taxi to the beautiful Gran Popo beach. It was so incredible. That sunset was one of the most stunning I have ever seen.

In a nearby town, Ouidah, we visited the local python temple, which essentially consists of a fetish prayer site and a room with a ton of pythons free for picture taking. We were lucky to have the python fetish priest’s sons as our guides. The role of the fetish priest is passed down from father to son and they are marked with two lines on each cheek, one on each temple and one on the forehead. You have to wonder whether or not they are really passionate about their position considering that they didn’t choose it. Aside from petting pythons and doing a fetish ritual, we had a most interesting debate with the guides. Upon hearing that we were American, we started discussion our upcoming elections. They were absolutely adamant that a black man would never become the president of the US, Their reasoning was that people were far too racists and that Bush’s power was too strong to allow it to happen. Frankly, it was pretty humiliating to realize yet again that this is how the rest of the world views us. As a bunch of racist fools. No matter how much I tried to convince them of the existence of a ‘movement’ years of exploitation by the white world rigidly defined their perspective. But I got their contact information on the pretense of getting in touch as soon as I would be able to say “I told you so!!” I hope we can prove them wrong!

























SO on to Coutounou, the economic capital of Benin. It was really awesome to see this place because for as much as I define my self as a city gal! I really haven’t enjoyed the cities I have been in here. In contrast to the cities I love (a la New York of Paris) the cities here aren’t half as culturally vibrant as the rural areas. But Coutounou is poppin! And the people seem to be very intellectual and diverse. All those speeding moto-taxis also known as zemi-johns were also pretty fly. It’s funny how our standards for safety and sanitation have plummeted. Case in point, picture zooming around a city with no stop lights on a rickety moto with no helmet, cuddled up against the sweaty back of a stranger. MMM. It was too fun though.



From Coutounou, we went to the town of Ganvie, the city on stilts. This place is crazy. It’s a city of around 30,000 built on a lake. All the people get around in wooden pirogues and their houses are all on stilts. They ended up there as an escape from the Dahomey Empire during the 15th century (?). Once established, their bizarre location also allowed them to escape slave capturing. We woke up and went out on the pirogue at 5am and watched the fishermen go out and the market women who have themselves set up on the boats, working by candlelight. So incredible!





















From there, we traveled on to Abomey, the former center of the Dahomey Empire. Despite a very bloody past, the kingdom provides the same kind of cultural inheritance as the Ashanti kingdom does in Ghana. There was a great museum that was made within the ruins of some of the last Dahomeyan kings, including a temple painted in human blood and a throne mounted on the human skulls of the king's enemies. Badass.



















Up in the north of Benin we went to visit the Somba country. Their houses are constructed like small mud fortresses. Each room has a very specific meaning and function. For example, they keep the elders in the bottom floor along with the animals because that is seen as the room for beings that are soon to die. How interesting. The most fascinating aspect of this trek was seeing how the Somba people have become modernized as a result of contact with the Western world. They were allegedly not wearing clothing up until the 1970’s. As a result of this, they have gained the reputation of being that stereotype of the extremely primitive African society that so many tourists want to see. But they seem to be trying to portray the opposite now. I saw many women that were walking around topless and then seemed to cover up on account of my presence. They also have these elaborate tours through their houses that are genuinely but definitely feel like they are trying to prove something.

Interesting to note. So this picture with the guys standing outside the car with huge jugs of what looks like olive oil...This is actually the way that gasoline is sold/bought/traded. My mom and I took this shared taxi and after about 30 minutes of traveling, he stopped in order to sell the five jugs of gasoline that he had in the trunk..... we were traveling with enough gas to blow up a small building!!!! The guys buying the gas were handling the stuff like it was mineral water, putting their mouths on the tubes and everything. And the driver was so blase about it, that 'c'est comme ca' sensibility. At this point in the journey, however, we were less pissed that he had put our lives in danger and more delighted that we had the opportunity to take sweet pics of such an outrageous situation.




























































From the beginning, we decided that our ultimate goal of this journey was to see some daggone wild animals! For as many people that have asked about the giraffes and lions, I have not seen anything of the sort! (Although my neighborhood does seem like a goat farm at times) We FINALLY made it up to Penjari national park and saw some elephants, warthogs, monkeys, biches, etc. It was so fun to sit on the roof of our truck and search for these animals that were so damn elusive. The elephants were especially fun because their destruction was absolutely everywhere! They are so enormous; they just knock down trees wherever they go. I love them. It was such a sad scene to see this lonely elephant grazing all by himself because he had been rejected from the pack for being too old. OOooh so sad and so cute.

And the baboons. Hmmm. They certainly are not very afraid of humans. Although you are not allowed to feed the animals, there was this park guard feeding one of the pink-bottomed baboons. The problem is that when you start to give them food, they become so demanding for more! My mom goes into our car to get a mango….for herself!....while the baboon was near. And that baboon charged her! Haaaaa. What a funny scene! He jumps up at my mom and was grabbing at her for about ten seconds before she finally tossed the goods. Yet another lesson learned.

The adventures in Africa are absolutely endless. I don’t want to go home! But I know that adventures will await me anywhere I go as long as I make them happen. This was officially the last trek for now, but I have a feeling I’ll be back……!

After around 25 hours of shooting and 50 hours of editing, we finally finished our documentary! I’m not sure if I will ever be satisfied with the film because I really don’t think that the truth can be properly conveyed. But nonetheless, it’s damn good product! If I may say so!

Once we completed the process, I think it occurred to the group (there were four of us) that we really needed to do something in return for the guys being so incredibly open and helpful with our project. With the political relations between Ghanaians and the Liberian refugees being what they are at this time, they really put themselves in danger by coming out on film admitting to being former combatants. At this point, the government seems to be searching for any possible reasons to deport people; defining yourself as a soldier is certainly reason enough. Not to mention the fact that on the refugee camp itself there is a huge contingent of people that would seek revenge against them if they knew the crimes they had committed. So in addition to having the utmost respect for them for being so incredibly courageous, we decided to organize a small party for them.

It was so hard to go through the process of making the film, seeing how difficult their olives were and not feel like there was anything I could do to help. Realistically, I don’t have the means to adopt every single person that needs help, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t do anything. So in comes my mother!

After assessing the situation, the most essential thing they needed was food and travel bags for journey (either back to Liberia or a surrounding country). So my mom decided to come out and visit/have her own adventure and before leaving she agreed to organize a small fundraiser amongst friends and her Rotary Club to bring over money for money and bags.

So we held the party for them and bought around $200 in groceries for them and distributed around 30 bags. We also made another shorter promotional film for their rehabilitation program in order to gain more financial support from donators. One really crazy thing about our ‘donation’ was that we bought two large sacks of rice for a staggering $100! Food prices are completely out of control right now and even though we were able to help the group of 15 eat for around three weeks, I can’t help but worry about what will happen after that and how many more people there are out there who just can’t afford to eat.

The soiree was the most joyous and symbolic occasion because Westerners come in and out of their lives all the time promising to help and then abandoning ship for whatever reason. We said we would help them out, and we did. The mutual trust that has resulted with these guys who essentially don’t trust is so inspiring! I can’t believe that I almost gave up on helping because I was so confused about how to help. If only we all made a commitment to help people to the best of our ability.

In all, I can’t even express my gratitude for having met these people. It’s not that ego-boost of ‘helping the helpless’ but the sheer joy of helping people you truly care about. I feel like I made friends with these guys and they have taught me more about strength and resilience than I could have imagined. I don’t know what will happen to them in the future. I can’t help but worry that their inevitable split up will leave many of them lost and if I am in the US there isn’t much I can do about that. How will I even know where they are without them having phones or computers? I am trying to brainstorm my ideas now about how I can help them from home. Because I don’t want to look back at my experience with them several months from now as just something I did. It was so much more than that and if my commitment is to do everything in my power, I have a lot more to do.


**If you have any interest in seeing our film, Lost Boys of Liberia, please! contact me at truthsong@yahoo.com. I will make it happen, even if that involves you having to hang out with me! Unfortunately, in order to protect the identities of the people in the film, they have asked that the film not be posted on the web. However, it is our objective to to increase awareness about child soldiering and the more people that see it, the better. So holler!

So I am in the middle of working on a documentary that is inciting a serious existential crisis!! What’s new, I guess?

The film is actually an assignment for a class I am taking, but it has become so much more than just a school project. As I mentioned before, I have been volunteering (or maybe, just hanging out is more accurate) at the Liberian Refugee Camp right outside of Accra. During my days there, I befriended a few former child soldiers that live there and run a farm way out in the backwoods of the camp. They are really wonderful people although they have been completely isolated by the camp and are sort of socially pressured back into the bush where they say they feel the most comfortable. My group decided to make our film about them back in February, but it wasn’t until the last few weeks that we seemed to be in over our heads.

While this was intended to be a pretty uncomplicated student film, in the last three weeks, the situation on the camp was heated up considerably when the refugees staged a protest against the UNHCR (the division of the UN that is responsible for caring for refugees) demanding more money to be able to go back to Liberia. Their demands come at a vital time because after 18 year of existence, the camp is being closed down. The refugees either have the opportunity to integrate into Ghanaian society or go back home. The UNHCR offered them $100 each to be able to go back to Liberia, if that is what they chose to do.

$100. Are they serious? How could you expect to be able to restart your entire life on that amount of money when a half bag of rice costs $20. And many of these people don’t have any idea if their relatives are still alive. Not to mention the fact that it is doubtful that the Liberian economy is capable of accommodating many thousands of refugees. This protest must have really offended the Ghanaian government because the amount of international press coverage it got insinuated that the Ghanaians in some way were mistreating the refugees. Why else would they so adamantly refuse to just settle in Ghana…

It offended them to the extent that the national police came in and arrested many of the protesters on false charges starting riots, taking their clothes of in some tribal ritual, etc. Having been there for the protests myself, I know that these charges were false. But many people were arrested and deported back to Liberia (with nothing) as a result.

For the former child soldiers, this protest really endangered them because; knowing that there are ex-combatants living on the camp, the Minister of the Interior declared them a national threat to security. His declaration assumed that they, being ‘rebels’ were planning some movement against the government. As a result of all this tension, international volunteers have been banned from the camp for fear that we are investigators of some sort. So how are we supposed to make a film about people being targeted by the government when we are barred from even getting near them?

Well we sneak on the camp, that’s how. So every time we go there, with our cameras and boom mics! (how conspicuous!), it’s a mad dash off the bus through a side entrance. Also, because many of the former child soldiers are really concerned about their safety, they are worried that their identities will be revealed in our film. The fact that they even agreed to participate is a great indication of just how much they trust us. So we have such a heavy duty of protecting them because if the film were to get in the wrong hands, they could be in real danger.

Besides having to be very sneaky to get this film done, I am just so struck with sadness the more I come to understand the situation that the people I have come to know as friends are in. I had always known that they were former child soldiers, but I had never heard their stories in such detail. What I found out was just really disturbing.

Everyone’s story was so incredibly different. Some of the guys had seen their parents killed right in front of them and were then kidnapped and forced to fight. Some being as young as 12 years old at the time. They were then beaten and force fed drugs. They were forced to carry out extremely violent orders under the threat that if they didn’t cooperate, they would be killed themselves. Talk about kill or be killed. Other people volunteered themselves to fight because the rebels were the only people with access to food, and their families would otherwise starve. In these cases, it was like they were forced to cooperate with the enemy as a means of survival.

And some of the specific stories. My god. One of the guys was telling me about how he had to witness rebels kill a pregnant women and cut up her stomach, taking bets on whether the child would be a boy or a girl. And what was he supposed to say in that situation? Nothing,

And what is more disturbing is that I don’t really know the truth in terms of to what extent these guys were involved in the violence. There is so much that I could never understand and so many pieces of the story that I am not hearing. But all I can do is accept the truth that they have created for themselves. Because if that is how they get by, than it’s good enough. Right?

But wait, documentaries are supposed to be about exposing the truth. But what if the truth is more of an acceptance of half-truth? I really don’t like this process because honestly, I feel like I am manipulating these people’s life stories to fit my own understanding of the ‘truth’ when in reality I don’t even understand the half of it.

And I am so sad for them. While everyone else in the camp is making arrangements to go home, they are forced to keep running away from home, many of them are afraid that if they go back, other Liberians will seek revenge on them for having killed relatives. Or even worse, that they will be convicted of their crimes by a government that may hold it against them that they essentially ran away. They frequently have little education because they haven’t been able to afford it, have no jobs because nobody will hire former child soldiers and have little sympathy as many people don’t care that they were just children when they committed such violence. And not to mention the sad reality that former child soldiers are too frequently recruited to fight as mercenaries in other countries’ civil wars. And let’s consider how many countries around us are engaged in such conflicts. So what are they supposed to do when all many of them know how to do is fight?

Besides just being confused about how I am supposed to portray their situation through such a seemingly shallow medium as film, I am worried because I care about these people. They aren’t just characters or ideas. And yet I feel so helpless because I just don’t know how I could possibly help them. Any suggestions?

Searching for White

Another bomb weekend of traveling! I think the greatest thing about our location in Accra is the accessibility to all other amazing locations. Haha. Not that this city isn’t fun to stay in, but it is just so easy to travel to the most incredible places. This weekend, it was a town in the Eastern Region. Ada Foah.

This is a stretch of land where the Volta River meets the ocean. There are a bunch of islands that line the estuary that you can take a boat out to. First of all, a location that you can only get to by boat! Yes! We ended up going to a really beautiful (and affordable!) hostel out by the mouth of the river. The hotel rooms were actually small huts built on the beach. I’m talking sand floor and everything. It was a really interesting scene, because as you look to your right, you have a typical beach scene. White sands. Standard Ghana garbage everywhere. And then to your left is an incredible lake scene. Placid waters. Standard Ghana garbage everywhere. These two vibes so close together!

We walked along the beach, through this standard Ghana garbage, for a few hours to the tip the peninsula where you can actually see the waters of the river and ocean. As we neared this point, we saw two men standing at the shore just watching the horizon. After a somewhat unintelligible conversation (hand gestures may have been involved), we found out that they were fishermen who stand there all day watching for patches of white. Once they see the white, they know there are fish, so they can throw their nets out. Can you imagine this being your job? Standing and watching for white.

So that night we partied along the island with a bunch of tech students from Accra. We had some good conversations about “the difference between blacks and whites” (as one of the other students put it). At this point, I think I am used to the degree of openness about race here. Conversations like this happen all the time and they rarely occur because they hold some resentment against me for being white. Rather, they are born out of genuine curiosity, which I really appreciate. I wish we could have such open dialogue about race in the US

But I have to give my country credit. For all Ghanaians that have asked me if the US really is as racist as people say it is, I usually respond that ‘yes, racist institutions are significant part of our country’s history, but at least we have a perpetual debate about it. Even if that debate is manifested as racial tension, at least we recognize its existence to some extent.

The next morning, we took a small canoe out to one of the islands to visit a shrine. This was no tourist’s shrine; it was strictly local. Judging by the locals’ reactions, we were the first whiteys they had seen in a while. The fact that we were actually able to do this with relatively little suspicion is largely due to the Ghanaian friends that traveled with us. They translated everything, including the part of the conversation where the priest wanted us to pay GHc10 to get in. “But it’s free to pray!” Well we did go inside the shrine and participated, or observed, a ceremony. First of all, let me set this scene. The shrine was slightly smaller than my bedroom, with a sand floor and rafters on the ceiling that had drums hanging down from them. At the front of the shrine were three wooden statues that were decorated to extent that they were the focal point of worship. The statues were dressed up with fabrics, knives and animal skulls. All had their mouths carved open and had drips of what may (or may not) have been blood dribbling down…..Hmmm. Well then, let the ceremony begin. Prayers were recited (that I didn’t understand, of course); we went through rituals (that I didn’t understand, of course) and concluded the ceremony by pouring the gift of Schnapps that we had brought him on the wooden statues. And then, by some cosmic miracle!, he dropped some of the alcohol at the feet of the statues and three clouds of smoke exploded to ceiling! Very cool. We thanked the priest for having us by kneeling and shaking his hand. As a parting gift, he gave us a bottle of holy water, which actually smelled more like sewage water but who is judging, really?

We drove back to Accra on motorcycles. Which was sweet!! I have to be honest that I was completely terrified for my first bike ride, but I discovered that pretending that you actually ARE as badass as you LOOK eases the fear. Riding through like that really makes you feel like you are touching the scenery. Like you are a part of the landscape that you usually only see behind glass. Really amazing. Although riding on a motorcycle in a bathing suit and shorts through Ghana…on a Sunday…attracted some dirty looks.

Cherie M'Bife

Before I start explain this epic journey, I need to offer a disclaimer. If there is one thing that I have learned along my travels it’s that my knowledge and understanding of the world is modest at best. My perceptions of these experiences are purely my own and don’t really say anything about ‘what the world is like’ or ‘what Africa is like’. I’m learning more and more that there is no such thing as absolute reality. I guess I’m trying to say, please don’t take me too seriously. With that said…..

Kathleen and I decided that we should probably go to Mali after listening to Amadou & Miriam for the thousandth time, chillin’ as usual. It seemed logical that if these outrageous musicians were from Mali, that must be where it’s at. After failing to assemble any sort of travel group, it ended up that the two of us would be traveling alone.

First step was taking a charter bus from Accra to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. This leg of the journey takes 24 hours…and we spent 5 hours just waiting in the parking lot to leave Accra. Needless to say that we were slightly neurotic by the time we got off the bus. It actually had air conditioning, leg room, padded seats! By the time we arrived in Ouga, there were people littering the aisle (because of course they oversold the bus), babies were crying and I’m pretty sure someone peed on the ground.

Ironically, this ride would be the most comfortable and hassle free of the whole vacation. When we reach the border of Burkina Faso, the passengers all had to get off the bus and literally walk across the border. How incredible that as soon as you pass this invisible line, the language changes, the food changes, the landscape changes. The Ghanaians that were on our bus were suddenly the ones at the outsider’s disadvantage because they didn’t speak French. Spending the last few months as the ultimate outsider, it felt pretty good to be able to assist a Ghanaian in speaking French.



















Additionally, as soon as I passed into Burkina, the poverty was more palpable than anything I had seen in Ghana. Little boys surrounded me almost instantly begging for cadeaux (the French word for ‘present’, a favorite in Francophone W. Africa). And they are so thin. It never occurred to me to use the plumpness of many Ghanaians as a sign of relative economic stability. But seeing severely malnourished children with such regularity began to put into perspective the intensity of poverty in these countries. As it turns out, Mali and Burkina Faso are respectively the 3rd and 4th poorest countries in the world.

Getting to Ouga was completely hectic because all of the sudden, French was the norm, CFA was the currency and this time we were in a real city. Not to knock Accra, but this is by no means an industrialized city. But Ouaga has huge buildings! And such interesting people. Many of the women there shave their eyebrows and pencil them in so dramatically adding some tropical colored eye shadow to top off the Burkinabe look. And everyone rides mopeds in Ouaga, even the women in their long skirts. I gather that it is seen as a huge luxury to own a car, which is clear judging by the crazy expensive cab rides. After crashing the night in a cute little hotel, the plan was to exchange money and get our transit visas extended the next morning and head for Mali that afternoon.

Travel lesson one: don’t even think about ‘planning’ a trip through W. Africa. Because every hassle that you could think of will get in your way. First of all, the immigration office is a very unofficial looking room with piles of papers and passports conspicuously cluttering the floors and desks. We approach one of the officers who told us with a stone-cold face that he wouldn’t be able to work on our passports for at least five business days. Utterly panicked that we would have to spend 5 days in a country with a meningitis outbreak, another customer informed us that this man only wanted a cadeaux. A bribe. Hearing so much about corruption, this was the first time that I had to abide by these unspoken rules. Miraculously, after slipping the passport agent CFA5 (about $10), his face suddenly lit up, he wanted us to teach us English and he would make sure that it was done within 24 hours. Leaving my passport, the essence of my being!, with this snake was seriously nerve-wracking. Knowing that we weren’t going to get to Mali that day, I set out to exchange money. Come to find out, US dollars are completely worthless outside the US. No bank would take my money! I had to go to about 6 banks to get it done. Travel lesson number 2: this world operates in Euros.

So the next day, we come back to find that the passport agency is closed for the afternoon because there is a special market going on downtown. A market so special as to shut down government institutions. Imagine that. But lucky for us that when you pay someone a bribe, they are really obliged to take care you. In this situation at least. We got in touch with the agent we dealt with and he actually came down and opened the office.

We got on bus #2 and traveled about three hours to a small town West of Ouaga called Ouagiyouha. The plan was to take some sort of official bus into Mali. So let’s talk about the criteria for a real bus. It has a logo on the side, individual seating and it doesn’t pack passengers into the isle. Too bad for us that this would be the last official bus we would take.

As soon as we pulled up to the bus station men on the streets started questioning us in shady tones, “Mali? Mali? Dogon Country? Dogon Country?”. It was almost as if they were selling drugs, and although we were buying, I was hesitant to tell I was hesitant to tell all 
these men exactly what my travel plans were. But such is Africa; it's not seen as a breach of privacy when people ask you 
where you are going, where you live, where you are from etc. When we found out that there was, indeed, no bus into Mali, we 
had to link up with this man who was allegedly a 'guide' who lead us to a bush taxi that was planning on going to the Malian 
border town of Koro. 


This ride ended up being an infamous bush taxi, which is essentially similar to the public transportation in Ghana (the stripped 
down industrial van with at least 20 people in it) aside from the fact that these cars are guaranteed to break down at least once 
along your journey. We were waiting for around two hours and ended up just paying for the extra seats so we would have to 
travel at night. Of course this made us stand out as those white women with cash to spare, so the guy that had lead us to the 
car immediately wanted to be compensated for his troubles. After I said that I wouldn't give him any money, he told me that 
he wanted my silver necklace. How rude! Or desperate? His persistence taught me something crucial about people who demand bribes - if you start to get angry, it makes them nervous and more forceful. I think that my matching his aggression was making the situation worse. Only Kathleen relentless smile and 'I don't understand what you mean??' trick got me out of that one.


















About ten minutes into the trek towards the border, we got a flat tire. During the interim of the fix-up. This Nigerian girl 
started asking Kathleen for money because she didn't have her visa to get into Mali and she would need funds to bribe the 
officers.....a bribe once removed!! haha it's only with the understanding I gained on the course of this trip that I can actually 
find that outrageousness funny. When we finally crossed the border, it felt like such an accomplishment!! Soon enough, the landscape really started to morph into what you would picture a savannah to look like. We even saw camels! (which is actually really unlikely, although it was exciting regardless!) That land just has such a strong energy, it’s really breathtaking. It’s as if just standing on this ancient land makes you feel like you are making some pilgrimage of some sort.

After a few other rides, we eventually reached Kani Kombole where we were going to start out on our Dogon Country Adventure. For the number of guides that questioned us along the way about Dogon, we didn’t even know what to expect of the area. As we were driving through the barren savannah, with the orange dust flying around the car, we came up on the enormous plateau that is Dogon Country. Along escarpment is where one of the oldest civilizations on earth survived for ages by building cliff dwellings into the side of this enormous plateau. The Dogon people even managed to avoid being captured by slave traders because nobody could make their way up to the rocky villages. How exactly they were able to survive for so long and so far away from any water supply (the Niger river is at least 5 hours away) is beyond me. And because this is Africa, you can just roam about the cliff villages, which are still in incredible shape, at will. No ropes or fees.

We had already hired a guide over the phone that agreed to meet us in Kani Kombole to start our hiking trip along the plateau. We got his name from a German girl that we met back in Ouaga. Travel Lesson: Do NOT hire people that you have never met face to face. Now Kathleen is going to kill me because we agreed to never speak of this incident (and we really haven’t). But here’s what happened. The guy that met us there was basically there to collect half of our money and send us off with another tour guide who coincidentally didn’t have a guide’s certification card. Not that the card is an indication of how trust worthy the guide is. But when you are out in the middle of the savannah hiking for days in the middle of nowhere, you want to be sure that your guide knows the area. If only for the sake of safety. And besides, what was this guy doing agreeing that he would do the job over the phone to only pimp out another guide? I should have trusted my initial instinct because that just didn’t seem honest, but I conceded. The guide pimp even went as far as to draft up a contract about what we expected from the tour. About fifteen minutes after the guide pimp left us with this uncertified guy, it was clear that we was absolutely not fit to take us through this journey. It was just bad vibes. What should have been an easy return, became the most dramatic situation of our entire trip. We had already paid 6000 CFA (which is around $100) as an advance and we just wanted our money back so we could find a suitable guide. And he refused to give our money back! Citing that we had signed a contract, lets get the guide pimp back here and talk it through, I will give you the money but let me just keep it in my pocket while we talk. I mean this guy turned so shady, so fast. I can’t believe it. Kathleen pretty much took over from there because she is an actress and therefore better at dictating people’s behavior. But when I saw how upset she was getting, I stepped in and told him he was a liar and a thief in French. Obviously that only made it worse.

While she was inside a hostel arguing with this guy, I was sitting outside with waves of Malian children saying hello to me only to ask for soccer balls, pens, money, gifts, treats. It was really sad because as soon as I told them I had no gifts, they would loose interest and leave. One of the little boys was even pointing to a handicapped kid sitting in a wagon saying, “You see? He’s sick, give me money”. Exact words (all in French of course). I felt like everyone was just trying to take me for all I was worth from all directions!

But after about two hours of tense discussions, we got a portion of our money back. I was mainly irritated at myself for even letting that happen, because I had a gut feeling about it and just went along because I didn’t think I had a choice. But now I know! If your intuition is saying something to you, you always have a choice. It was also a harsh realization that you are getting taken advantage of everywhere you turn.

Our last resort was to call a guide that we had met in a Malian border town, Souliman. Both of us had positive feelings about him and the day we’d met him was actually his birthday. We should have known that was the cosmos guiding us together! After that whole drama with the shady guide, we were overjoyed to have this kind-hearted soul join us for what would turn out to be the most amazing journey.

That night, we slept on the roof of a tourist hostel. It was the most incredible thing to be sleeping under the brightest stars I have ever seen listening to the call to prayer coming from the mosque just next door. With the moon illuminating the form of this giant plateau just to my right, I felt so protected by the strength of the land. Thankfully the faith in humanity that I’d lost that afternoon restored itself to some faith in the universe.

The next morning, we got started on our two-day, 15km hike to the top of the plateau. Souliman, who was actually handicapped from polio when he was a child, was leading the way, bringing us up into the cliff dwellings along the way. The hike ended at this village that was built on top of the rocky plateau. Here, we visited the local fetish priest and walked out to the actual cliff where you can see the entire savannah. That was a sight I will NEVER forget.



The next stop was Mopti, the city along the Niger River. Getting out of Dogon country was so small task. We had to drive in a rickety station wagon along ROCK for about three hours. I had heard that the roads out here were poor, but these weren’t even roads, it was just rock. But it was a gorgeous drive nonetheless, passing by the most fragrant onion farms I have ever seen.

In Mopti, we met a 15-year old boy who became our guide. Here’s the thing with Mali, they really have no industry outside of tourism. This fact pervades almost every detail of your trip. Most of the kindness that is extended, the inflated prices and the fact that you will end up getting a guide every step of the way. After enough people come and hassle you about being your guide (“I give you the good price!” “Show you everything!!”), you just go with the one that you get good vibes from. This 15-year old had it. Like many kids in Mali, although he was 15, he actually looked about 9 years old as a result of just not having enough to eat. He took us out on the Niger where we visited a Tuareg village and went swimming in the water. Swimming in the Niger may not be hygienically advisable, but I went in my clothes, so it was kind of a necessary baptism.

That evening, we made a friend, Abu Bakr, who took us to his house to have dinner on his roof. His house was right next to the central mosque in Mopti, so we had an amazing view not only the men praying inside the mosque courtyard, but the people throughout the neighborhood performing the sundown prayers on their roofs. On Abu Bakr’s roof, we were first treated to the customary three cups of tea. This tradition goes like this: the first is called “strong as death”, the second is “mild as life” and the third is “sweet as love”. With every cup of tea, they put more and more sugar, so the last one really is sweet as death. And allegedly, if you are given a fourth cup of tea, it means that you aren’t welcome in that person’s home. Every proper Malian reception includes this ritual, no matter how damn hot it is!


















The next day, we headed out the town of Djenne, home of the famous mud mosque. In order to get there, we had to take the crappiest ride of the whole trip! We took a bache, which is essentially a pickup truck with some wooden benches set up in back. The two of us took turns squeezing on the bench and sitting on a tire on the floor…..for four hours!! But Djenne was completely worth the trek. This town is straight out of Aladdin, if I may be so politically incorrect. There is a peaceful air about Djenne, until you come to the main square where this incredibly powerful mosque is. It was built in the 13th century, making it one of the oldest of its kind in the world. Despite its age, and UNESCO’s tireless efforts to preserve it as a tourist site, locals still pray in the mosque. Or local men, I should say. From as much as I could gather, Muslim or not, women are not generally allowed into the mosque. For as ridiculous as I think that may be, the throngs of contemplative Muslim grandpas walking to prayer were really quite beautiful. But I still couldn’t help but wonder, what were the women doing?

Because nightlife isn’t so poppin’ in Djenne, going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 6am to the dawn call to prayer is totally acceptable. We were lucky enough to be there for the famous Monday market. On this day, a huge market is set up around the mosque and people come from all over to exchange. I was walking through with my friend Mike (a lone traveler that we linked up with along our travelers) and he decided to buy a package of potato cakes to try and to share with the kids that were already surrounding us asking for cadeaux. What started out as an orderly line to receive the cakes suddenly turned into a competition between the kids to get the most. Before we knew it, they all came in for the food at once and were actually scraping at each other to get a bite. It was just such a pathetic scene. They actually seemed like pigeons fighting for breads. I think this was one of the first times that it really struck me that these people are not just struggling. They are hungry.

Bona fide hunger is something that I have never experienced myself and have never truly seen. Another image I remember as driving that helplessness home was at a bus station where I saw this little kid who must have been about two years old, scraping away at dirty dishes trying to eat whatever he could. Right by my feet. How disgusting do I feel that I haven’t been legitimately hungry a day in my life? And our 15-year old guide in Mopti who said he doesn’t go to school because he is too hungry to waste time like that. How horrible do I feel that I stuff my face every night in Accra? Hunger is a kind of suffering that I just can’t imagine, but that I have to understand.

On the way back to Mopti from Djenne, we had yet another bush taxi breakdown situation and yet another life lesson. OF course! As a general rule, no matter how upset you may be that you are stuck on the side of the road in Africa for hours on end, unless the locals are making noise, you must grin and bear it. But in this case, it was getting late and the last thing we wanted to do was sit on the side of the road in the dark. So there were a few European tourists in our small bush taxi who had been chatting us up and comparing travel tips. They were all older than us, so it was nice to have that sort of parental exchange with someone. Despite their friendliness when we were smooth sailing, as soon as that bus broke down, it was African survivalist mentality in full effect. I don’t know why, but it seems that white people frequently do that out here. Everything is all chill and ‘yea one love, we’re in Africa, man’ and then as soon as anything goes wrong it’s every man for himself. These other tourists quickly flagged down another bush taxi that had been hired out by even more Euro tourists that agreed to take them to Mopti. And would you believe that when I asked if there was enough room for Kathleen and I, these previously charming adult tourists dispassionately said “Nope, no space”, leaving the two of us to sit precariously in the sweaty setting sun. I even went up to the window of their bush taxi, nearly begging them to take us, and a woman, older than my own mother, looked me in the face and said “No, there is no space” and turned her back on me, the other tourists in the van completely ignoring my pleas and my obvious plight. How dare they!? I mean we are clearly young girls out here all alone, and we clearly needed help. Why would someone just refuse to help?

And then I recalled the hundreds of Malian children that I’m sure I similarly snubbed through taxi windows. When they are really the ones who need help. They asked for money, and I said no so many times. I had money every time. Of course this wasn’t out of malice, obviously you can’t give money to every single person who asks for it. But that rationalization didn’t make me feel any better about getting a taste of my own medicine. And then I just got to feeling like crap about humanity. I mean, how can it be that we just tune out calls for help just because we hear them so frequently?

In the end, it was the callous tourists’ guide who came and told Kathleen and I that we should get in the other bush taxi. And of course, there was more than enough space for us. In retrospect, I realize how completely hypocritical and selfish it was for me to even think that I deserved to be ‘saved’ from that bush taxi breakdown. After all, the rest of the Malians would still have to wait for God knows how long for another car to come. And what I think that just because I am a foreigner, I should be saved? As you can see this adventure inspired a great deal of self-examination and challenging of my own hypocrisy.

We had planned to get back to Burkina that day, but when we returned to Mopti, there was no bus. No explanation, just no bus. But the delay reunited us with our 15-year old guide and gave us the courage to drink the local water. Which ended up being perfectly sanitary. By sanitary, I just been that it didn’t make me horribly ill! HAHA

We ended up leaving a day later to Burkina on a bush taxi that crossed the border overnight. Yikes. Not advisable. We were so cramped in that car, I was actually snuggling with the teenage boy sitting next to me. Before we crossed the border, we actually stopped in a parking lot….for about three hours. Of course nobody told us that a nap stop would occur. And we were nearly the only women on the bus! I wrapped my scarf around my head to just cover up as some of the white skin that seemed to be a liability at the time. Although this is completely dangerous, it occurred to me at the time, that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it (aside from running into the dark and desolate savannah screaming for my mommy, of course). If I was going to sit in this parking lot, that’s just what was going to happen. We eventually got to the border before they were open and we sat by a fire with all the Malian men on our bus and talked politics. The Malians are generally very serene people. Maybe it’s their meditative air that put me at ease considering the absurdity of the situation. Regardless, crossing the Burkina border as the sun was rising on the savannah is something I will never forget.

Although we thought we were in the clear, when we got dropped off in Burkina, we realized after about 5 minutes that we weren’t even in the right city. Woops. We were supposed to get a bus back home from Ouga. Well we were about 6 hours away!!! Ahhhh, one thing after another, I tell you. So we managed yet another ride that day. When we finally got on our way back to Ghana, we started out on round 2 of the 24 hour journey clawing our way through fighting passengers onto a non-air conditioned bus with school bus seats. At this point, it was only normal that I lean on the shoulder of the middle-aged man next me in order to catch some sleep. I mean, whatever, man! Hahaha.

Retelling this story sounds a lot more like torture than a proper vacation. But I have to say, that I have never learned so much about myself and about the world in such a short period of time. I love Ghana dearly, but there is some energy up there that you don’t find in the same way here. The energy of a truly thick history. Energy of suffering that I had never been able to conceptualize. It may have been torture at times, but I was broken down and emptied of so many things that had been ailing my perspective on life. And hopefully, fingers crossed, refilled with humility. I wouldn’t trade that for any vacation.

We finally arrived to Accra 5 days later than we had intended. Dirty. Sweaty. Sunburned. Tired. Enlightened. And locked out of our room for hours. Go figure.

Coasting

My weekend trip to Cape Coast made me realize that going to NYU means that I am officially ballin’. Despite deeply rooted resentment against the university for past injustices, when they deicide to plan something nice, they really go all out. It was so nice to be spoiled by a five-star hotel, hot water, and swimming pool. Aaah. As a program, we traveled three hours to the coastal town of Cape Coast, which used to be the central hub of West African slave trade. There seem to be relatively few tourist attractions in this country, so seeing the slave castles and crumbling European structures served as a reminder of how profound the history of Ghana actually is.

Walking into the whitewashed slave castle at Elmina, my attitude was almost immediately tuned to pensive guilt. Walking through there as a white person, you are really a dog with your tail between their legs. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling to have guilt over something that you didn’t actually do! But all of us, coming from such different backgrounds, proceeded through the whole thing like a kind of funeral march. One of the most horrifying things for me was walking into the female slave dungeon and still being able to smell the feces, urine, and menstrual blood that the some 300 women were forced to live in for up to 3 months. I never really realized just how jaded we’ve become about slavery. Like it’s something that hasn’t left a nasty residue on our society. Being able to go to the origin of this holocaust on humanity was definitely a much-needed reminder.

One of the strangest things about the castle is that regardless of its dark past, it still serves as the center of town. This is a terrible comparison but picture a Jewish community built around Auschwitz. People live in the crumbling European buildings that used to house slave traders. The fisherman have their boats docked up against the same shore that their ancestor’s were hauled off of in shackles. It just seems symbolically sinister.

After the intensity of the slave castle, we went to Kakum national park where the Ghana’s most lush rainforest is. The coolest thing ever! We did a canopy walk, which is basically a rickety system of wooden bridges, several hundred feet above the ground and all held together by ropes connected to the trees. Terrifying! The weekend trip was especially cool because it really brought to light what an amazing group of students we have here. We all have such great chemistry and positivity flowing! How much do I love this country?

Apateshi at 8am

This past weekend, I went to the village of Dzodze, the town where my drum master grew up. We went to record some traditional music and in the meantime, I learned so much about village living and how they make it work. Its just so amazing how the standards for living can be so different, but their standard for living well is just the same. You don’t need a running toilet in order to be happy.

So in this picture, you can see some of the houses that are made out of concrete. And in the forefront here is the grave of my drum master’s grandfather. Under normal circumstances, staying right in the middle of a graveyard would be ridiculously creepy, but it actually felt really neutral. Borderline comforting to have the ancestors so close. Haha. But yea, their graveyards are completely intermingled with the housing and community facilities.

Among the notable ‘community facilities’ would be the bathroom situation. For as taboo as it is in America, I feel like I talk about bathroom issues constantly. But it’s just that bathroom issues in Ghana are so goddamned hysterical! I mean the bathroom is constantly and issue, so I guess you have to make it hysterical. So you pee in a concrete room/stall that stands just outside the house. The floor of the room has a small hole that works for drainage. The thing that I found the most surprising was that I found myself taking a bucket shower in the same concrete room/stall that I had peed in the night before… Not so sanitary…and yet! If it works for them its as good as gold for me. The craziest bathroom issue in Dzodze was the ‘other bathroom’. The house of dump. The shack of shit! If you will. So it is a little bamboo house that looks similar to the one in the picture above that is built around a large pit dug in the ground. Bamboo shoots are laid over the pit in order for you to balance your self. Interesting….

The food we ate here was incredible! Shockingly, it was some of the first food I’ve eaten in Ghana that didn’t make me sick. The meals are all basic. Rice balls that expand to fill your stomach, fresh tilapia, fried fish. You can always measure hospitality by the presentation of meals and I was really touched by how well they took care of us. You figure that these people have so little by Western standards of living, and yet, their generosity is so incredibly sincere. I have so much to learn.

So Saturday we got to hang out with the priestess of the local shrine and danced agbaja for hours. Here is a picture of the priestess in all her diva glory. This is just one of many traditional drum rhythms that include not only the various drum parts, but a story and dance. When white people do agbaja, it sort of looks like a hilarious chicken dance. Haha. The priestess was a completely magnetic woman. Every time she would get up to dance, the other woman would kneel to their knees and raise their hands to her. With her were women that were in spiritual training. They are the ladies wearing white cloth and white powder on their skin. After an hour of listening to this intense drumming, you start to feel a little bit possessed. Especially after a few shots of apateshi, the local grain alcohol, which you certainly can’t refuse when offered!

After the dancing and drumming, we went to greet the village chief and pay our respects. It’s all formalities, really. But it seems natural that if you are a visitor, you should let the village’s caretaker know that you’ve come and thank him for having you. So next time I have visitors in New York, we’ll go to town hall and pay Bloomberg some respects. Haha!

One of the funniest things I saw in Dzodze was this kid wearing an Osama Bin Laden shirt. How bizarre is that? I can’t even fathom the journey that shirt must have taken to even get to this tiny village in the middle of Africa and into this boy’s hands. We all started taking pictures of him, and I don’t think that he had any idea why. One of the villagers saw us laughing about this shirt and started commenting “yes, yes, Bin Laden”. But it was all in jokes. In retrospect, it’s really weird that we would be laughing about something that would cause hysterical protest in the US. We should have asked the kid to trade him for this shirt!

Obruni, Take My Picture!

In the process of trying to unravel the stereotypes that are commonly held by the West about “Africans”, I think I should share some of the perceptions that Ghanaians hold about Westerners. Their perceptions seem to be especially present in their language.

First of all, obruni, means white person in Twi. People on the street will call you this just to get your attention. Or they may just call you ‘white’. “Hey, white!!” Haha. It’s pretty funny actually that they assume Westerners have any idea what that means. Children will especially start screaming “obruni!!!” It’s not meant to be taken offensively; it’s mostly intended to be a form of recognition that you are indeed different. In case you’d forgotten. I’ve heard that it’s actually not that inappropriate to respond with bibini (which means black person). Oddly enough, the term has come to also refer to any foreigner, so it isn’t uncommon for a black American to be called obruni. Being hardwired as an American, I find it incredible that the ‘racial tension’ is so nonexistent (or simply unacknowledged) that we can call each other out like that. Can you imagine walking down the street and greeting someone with “Hey, black woman!” It’s so incredibly bizarre how we avoid acknowledging other people’s ethnicity.

Another way they refer to white Westerners is by calling us all “Akosua”. Ghanaians, of Asante origin at least, are named after the day they were born. Akosua means a girl born on Sunday. They refer to us all as “Sunday” because when the white man came to Ghana, he forced the people to change their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. How interesting! Again, it’s hysterical that they call us that and assume it’s a name we should be familiar with. At first I just though everyone was trying to guess my name!

I’m sure this is the case in many African nations, a white man is either assumed to have a camera or a cross around his neck. I can’t even count the number of time that people have asked me what my ‘mission’ is in Ghana. “So where are you volunteering?” As if volunteering is the only thing for a white person to do here. I really can’t stand that! That assumption only cultivates the victim//hero relationship, which does nothing for genuine understanding. The weird thing is, there really are an astounding number of white people on some ‘mission’ here in Ghana.

Its no epiphany that people here generally think Westerners are tremendously rich, but an experience at Liberia camp the other day really put it into perspective. Frequently, when you approach a group of kids here, they will crowd around you, hold your hand; play with your hair, etc. These kids aren’t quite so enthusiastic. The only thing one of them said to me was “Hey obruni, take my picture!” It’s so funny to see how camera-toting tourists have formed their perceptions of Westerners in great part. No wonder they think we are all so wealthy! And when I really think about it, its incredibly ostentatious to whip out a digital camera that costs more than what many of these people won’t make in a year. Needless to say, I haven’t taken too many pictures.

Liberia and Back

So much to say and yet I’m not really sure what to think. The longer my stay in Ghana, the more I become tangled up in the paradox between hope and hopelessness. If you have never been to Africa, it is probable that your perceptions of this place are more informed by cultural stereotypes a la Heart of Darkness than reality. Speaking for myself, I didn’t have a clue. I referred to Africa as the ‘dark continent’ in my first blog for god’s sake! We expect Africa to be helpless and when I first arrived, I think I was so delighted with the level of success and development that I stopped looking for the cobwebs. I was overcome with successful black owned business, notions of Pan-Africanism and overarching optimism. I forgot that ugliness is sometimes so buried that you can be walking all over it and never even notice.

Today, I went to the Buduburam Liberian Refugee Camp where I’m teaching a public speaking class with my friend Candace. When you walk onto the refugee camp, you are taken aback by how much this place seems like a city in its own right. This camp is unique because while the civil war is over Liberia, politically speaking, refugees remain on the camp because they can’t return. You can tell that these temporary shacks have been made into permanent homes. For some people, they are unable to return because the situation is Liberia is even worse than it was before. Not to mention the fact that Ghanaians won’t give these people jobs, so they have no money to make the journey….

This situation is particularly distressing for the former child-soldiers that are living at the camp. I’m ashamed to say that the only thing I really knew about child soldiers was from what I saw in Blood Diamond (we all seriously need to stop watching movies about Africa!). These ‘children’ are actually about 24 years old now and have been essentially exiled from society because of the violence that they were forced into at the average age of 10. Oddly enough, these men that are supposed to be the most dangerous are actually some of the most hospitable and genuine people that I have encountered in Ghana. Certainly, my first platonic interaction with men! My friend, Emily is doing a trust building workshop with these guys, so in between my classes, I get to go hang out too. Their willingness to tell their stories really surprised me. I’m just so horrified at humanity right now. That these people should have suffered these things. Killing their own families and friends, watching their brothers be killed, having their ears cut off for trying to escape, forced into drug addiction. And the most incredible thing is that they are all so grateful for us to be there because “we have so much to teach them”. What kind of knowledge can I possibly offer?

Disenchanted

Now that the honeymoon has ended, I’m being exposed to a bit of the reality of this country. I’m learning a lot more about the history and it makes it much harder to remain frustrated with the slow pace of Ghana. First of all, when the colonialists where here, they made sure to suppress industry here in order to maintain African states’ dependence on foreign products. In 2007, that means that this country missed out on the industrial revolution that makes our world work at hyper-speed. So when I’m going ‘grocery shopping’ I’m usually going to the woman who sells eggs, the woman who sells pineapples and then the woman who sells onions. The fact that such a simple process takes soo much longer was infuriating last week. But the fact is that, that’s the stage of development that this infrastructure is at right now. People are much more frequently operating businesses from the load they carry on their heads. And although it’s hard to get used to, it’s beautiful. I get to see the chickens that lay my eggs every day on my way to school!

I have to face it, there are ugly things about the world, and this place is no different. I’m learning to categorize that ugly things as ‘TIA’ (This is Africa), which is was we all say whenever something happens that would just never happen in the US. And those things are a huge part of this experience. So people have been mugged, friends have turned out to be criminals and the cops hit on you while holding semi-automatic riffles. Ghana isn’t perfect.

Then there are the little things that just SUCK. For example: open-sewers. Whereas sewers in the US are underground, they are open for you to look at, smell, and fall into! They are full of litter and animals grazing in them. Not pleasant at all. This isn’t incredibly common, but people publicly pee in them also. It also really sucks that as a foreigner, you get special prices for everything. Because there aren’t price tags on most things, you ask for the price and then bargain. While I’m learning to accept it, it drives me crazy that we are usually given prices that are at least 30% more than what they would normally cost. I came up with a new rationalization for this today though. I can’t really be mad about that though because in America, I’m all for taxing the rich. Well, there are no taxes here, so in a lot of ways, its just informal taxation. Other things that can be a hassle: water pressure that is less than a faucet, Internet or lack thereof and NO COFFEE! But as a visitor, it’s a good practice in acceptance to be without. Period.

So on Friday night, we went to club that actually ended up being a hooker joint. Woops. I think most of the men there thought we were prostitutes, but at this point I’ve got the polite ‘I don’t want you anywhere near me’ conversation down pat! Ha! But we made friends with some of the girls there and its is just so incredibly sad that they should be forced into that position. Never having actually had a conversation with a prostitute before, it was interesting to say the least. My big question is: why is that even allowed? I mean prostitution is clearly illegal here, but it’s not like any cops are at this parking lot filled with prostitutes and buyers. It was just so casual and out in the open. My friend Kathleen and I are discussing making a documentary about the ‘Ladies of the Night’. Because their profession isn’t such a crime that they should have to hide, they seem like they want to talk. Although I’m not really sure if some of them want us as friends or customers….

I’ve been wondering this week what the Ghanaian perception of American culture is like. At a glance, they seem like they couldn’t care less about American pop culture or politics. I remember seeing in China how obsessed they were with American celebrities. It was like they were copying and pasting certain parts of American culture into their own hybrid youth culture. Here, America is more associated with green cards than red carpets. When I tell people that I’m from New York (that’s right, I’m not quick to say that I’m from ‘America’), I can’t gage any reaction whatsoever. They don’t seem resentful, but they certainly don’t seem impressed.

America does play a huge role in the development of this country not only in the form of financial aid, but in the form of immigration. In many ways, the development of this country has been impeded by the amount of educated Ghanaians who leave the country to find that ‘better life’. And getting a visa here is nearly impossible, so the people that are going over are the elite class.

I haven’t heard much about Ghanaian thoughts on American politics other than a song I heard on the radio last week called “Barak Obama”. The lyrics go, “The white man will never let the black man become president, no matter how many votes her gets”. It’s the first mention of politics and the first acknowledgement of racism in America that I’ve seen. Hopefully we can prove them wrong!

Burn Your Daily Planner

Ghana is so laid back, man. We are actually fully reclined. An my New York mind is trying its hardest to be accepting. But good god. Even after being here for two weeks, I am noticing a change in myself. The thing is with this experience is that, well, it’s really hard! Usually when people study abroad it's this really relaxing, effortless experience, academic and otherwise. But Ghana is not effortless at all, it’s really challenging. It’s rough on the body and demanding of the spirit. This feeling was the most aptly realized as I was in the dingy bathroom of some dingy restaurant coping with what we students call the fox-trot, swatting helplessly at a mosquito and muttering “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you”….

Being here makes me feel so vulnerable, because there is nowhere to hide. You absolutely have to stand up to the challenges that come your way. You have to be smart about your health; take your pills and eat carefully. You have to stand up in social situations; you will always be identified as a foreigner and people will call you out on the street. But for as challenging as this whole situation is, it makes me feel strong. It makes me feel capable of anything. And therefore, I’m excited to wake up every morning and tackle the day.

Classes started this week. To a semi-rough start no doubt! The thing is with Ghana, that everything is soo incredibly laid back that you can’t expect anything but the unexpected. So showing up to class only to find out that the professor was busy that day or that the course has been canceled is no big surprise…quite different in comparison with the obsessive-compulsive way that I’m used to approaching school in New York.

Especially with the African Cup being held this weekend, the traffic is absolutely bananas. Accra is expecting 1 million visitors for the soccer fest. Now obviously the infrastructure of the city is absolutely not fit to support that many people. In fact, the University of Ghana has postponed its spring semester in order to house the soccer players (would that ever happen in the US? Not a chance!) In order to get to the University of Ghana from my house it takes about an hour, which would usually be 30 minutes (and 15 minutes, tops, if this were New York!) But nonetheless, the games start this weekend and we are all hyped about it because the Ghanaians are all about national pride!

As a side note-I got a job! Of course I got a job…in Ghana. Haha! How could I possibly not super stuff even the most laidback schedule? But this is an interesting one, for sure. I’m going to be doing an Internship with the Bokoor African Music Archive Foundation. Basically, my job is to sort out tons and tons of vinyl recordings that will eventually be digitized compiled in an Internet database. I also get to do research many of the different musicians and musical movements and write reference articles. Sweet!! The man who is in charge of the whole deal is John Collins, who is basically the Einstein of West African music. I’m so incredibly lucky to get to work and study with him.

A note on the NYU students I’m here with. They are so chill! Before coming, I had imagined that there would be a lot of righteous humanitarians and tree-huggin hippies. Not that I am either of those things…. But they are not like that at all! The only sweeping term is that these kids are risk-takers. My roommate, Kathleen is the illest! Really though, everyone is so intelligent and compassionate. Truckin….!

Buffalo Soldier, Dreadlock Rasta

Rasta parties! Who knew that rastas were the greatest people on earth? This Wednesday, some friends in Accra and I went to a Reggae party on Labadi Beach. We heard about the party from an orientation on safety that noted this party as one to avoid. Rastas are really no match for a gaggle of American girls, so we figured our odds were good. Trying to get to the party was an adventure in of itself because there are no addresses on the beach! So we had to go through a swanky hotel and bribe the security guard with GC5 in order to even get on the beach. Following the sounds of Marley we pulled up to the party and pretty instantly had a fan club. Every single one of us got a Rasta friend and copiously enjoyed their generosity! The funniest thing about the rastas is that the next night we went to another bar in Osu, the downtown area where we live, and we saw the same bunch of people! Accra is a small town. Hey, yea, imagine running into you here...hmmm? Besides the enjoyment of partaking in the Rasta rights of passage, their friendliness is really a testament to the fabulosity of the Ghanaian people. They are so incredibly hospitable!

Welcoming and beautiful. They are incredibly ethereal and graceful. Many of the people walk around the streets with huge items balanced on their heads. Whether it’s bananas or an enormous rack of sunglasses, you see people weaving the streets with things on their heads. The most incredible thing is that they NEVER bump into each other or trip and drop their load. Its really interesting because they don’t need Gucci bags to make them look classy, no matter how little they have, they manage to be incredibly graceful and elegant.

Today, we went to a town about an hour and a half away from Accra called Torgome. It was positioned as a ‘visit’ to a traditional village, but it was really a paid program by a tour company. Nonetheless, touristy doesn’t necessarily mean inauthentic here in Ghana. We stepped off the bus and 50 children swarmed around us waving and trying to hold our hands. I just need to say that these kids are the CUTEST. They are so full of life and joy. They play well with each other and are very polite. Mind you, they have what we would consider next to nothing. Then we partook in the opening greetings and naming ceremony. We shook the elders’ hands (with our right hands, because its disrespectful to use the left!) and were seated for prayers. Each one of us was then adopted, in some sense, by a family of the village; we were given names and sweet bracelets. It was nice, drumming and dancing with everyone. The dancing was really interesting, because you can see how their dancing has so influenced dancing in this country. Fast footwork and booty shakin!! The younger children dance much more aggressively I think because it’s seen as inappropriate for the older girls.

I had a great time at this village; it was awesome to see a functioning community that has so few of the tech tools that we consider necessary for survival. However, I left confused. Finding out that they get paid to let foreigners come in and peep made me think that it wasn’t all that genuine. And it makes me feel phony that I played with all these beautiful children and had such good conversations, only to never see the people ever again. And that’s the view of Westerners that they get every time visitors come? Maybe I’m overanalyzing it because for the most part, ‘tourists’ in Ghana are doing extremely genuine work. So were pretty engaged in cultivating understanding. But how can I maintain my integrity here and not become a humanitarian that only participates to inflate her ego?

Akwaaba!

Who knew how blissful a mid-day shower in Sub-Saharan Africa would be? Even though the water pressure fails completely about every 30 seconds and the hot water is really only about lukewarm, having a shower here is one of the great pleasures of Ghanaian living. My first few days in Ghana!! DANG!! I landed on the Dark Continent just as the sun was rising Monday morning and I was just so completely beside myself! Partly terrified that I would get malaria as soon as I stepped off the plane and partly confused because it kinda looked like L.A. with kente cloth everywhere. But as soon as I went through immigration and had to pretend that I actually understood the Ghanaian English, I knew I had arrived!!

I had absolutely no expectations of what things would be like before I came here and I’m glad that I didn’t make any attempts. The weather is absolutely gorgeous here, probably getting only up to 90 degrees. I’m expecting is to get much hotter because right now, we are living through the time of year when all the dust from the desert comes down and hovers over the city before settling. Kind of nasty and not so breathing friendly, but not too bad.

The people here are so incredibly friendly! Last night was the first break in our intense orientation schedule that allowed us to actually go out and see what this place is like. We went to a local bar called ‘After One’. Well as Kathleen accurately noted, it wasn’t exactly a bar, but more of a drinking shack. A drinking shack with no roof and a bucket in the bathroom. Haaaaaa. But with 40’s at 1.50 cedi (which is the equivalent of about $1.40 USD) and a pool table, who can really be choosey? But we played pool with some of the locals and found out our Ghanaian names. Here, people are named after the day of the week that they’re born. So, Yefre me Afiya! (That’s Twi for my name is….Friday…haha!)