Well, in three hours a shuttle is going to pick me up and take me to the airport. Right now I'm in the "kitchen" making myself some Indo Mie which is basically Top Ramen but it taste a lot better so I'm enjoying the last of good junk food. Given that was really the only good junk food. I'm pretty excited for something to eat aside from Indo Mie, Egg sandwiches, rice and more types of rice.

I just wanted to thank everyone one last time for all your support in my sometimes crazy urges, like moving to Africa. Aside from a few frustrations I really have had a wonderful and culturally enlightening experience.

I thank you all again and will hopefully see everyone soon.

Sami

It's been a pretty relaxing two weeks. Halloween is also Linda's birthday so in celebration of both Linda and I headed to Axim for the weekend. Axim is about four hours from Accra/Legon. Gordon recommended it from when he was here last summer. It has some of the most beautiful beaches in Ghana. Seeing as I haven't been to all the beaches in Ghana I can't say for sure but it was amazing that's for sure.
We did have two small bouts of bad luck though. The first was all on me. While walking to get off campus to the tro-tro station I slipped in mud. On level ground! I was completely covered in mud! Leave it to me the one time I fall for it to be on level ground and while I'm on my way out to take a relaxing weekend. We did finally arrive in Axim after two taxis, one bus, one tro-tro and another taxi. The beach was absolutely beautiful and we made friends with the owner Jonas and his cousin Eddie. Eddie was staying in the same building complex that we were. Eddie got to talking to Linda so I let the cat out of the bag that it was her birthday. Best decision of the weekend in my opinion. We were invited for a drinks at the restaurant. Very interesting conversation. Eddie is half Dutch and lived in Europe, so is is very westernized. Jonas had also lived in Germany but we never really got around to talking about that since he was usually busy berating his employees. Somehow we managed to no longer be guest and be friends that he felt comfortable doing business in front. This made his intern, Sara (from Australia, arrived 2 weeks ago) very uncomfortable.
The conversation got even more interesting as the night went on and Eddie continued to rant his observations about Ghanian culture. Including the hot topic of religion. Religion here is everything. You are either a traditionalist, muslim or christian. Traditionalist are looked down upon by people who consider themselves more western, and therefore cultured and elite. And Christianity is pretty insane. For those of you who haven't realized I'm not a very religious person. Your standard Ghanian probably thinks that I am a sad soul who hasn't found God and needs to be saved. To be fair no one has said that outright. But it sure as Buddha has been implied. Back on track now....
Eddie made the interesting link between the suppression of women in African culture and the massive amount of women who attended Christian church. Here's Eddie's theory in a nutshell; Women are ignored by men and used as "baby machines" while it's expected for men to have more than one women at a time. The women get frustrated and upset then decide to spend there time with one of the few men who will give them the time of day, a preacher. The preacher eventually realizes his power over the women and uses his position to secure petty cash and "services" to the church. Seems very logical and plausible to me.
The next day my plan of doing nothing but sitting on the beach and finishing the Twilight Saga (I know guilty pleasure) went off without a hitch. Two days before we left for the trip I finally received the final three books in the series and then faithfully became a hermit for both days and finished the final book that night at the beach. In case you were curious. I love and hate the series. They are definitely young adult books but highly addicting. Unfortunately because they are young adult books there's a cheesy end were basically everyone gets a happy little fairy tale ending, even if that involves a complete 180 in character. In my opinion you can not have crazy subject matter as vampires that glitter in the daylight and I love triangle between a werewolf/shape-shifter, a vampire and a human AND have the fairy tale ending. It's too much. Throw a little tragedy in there for God's sake! I was going crazy with frustration at the author. Good thing I was at the beach. I would still recommend the series with the exception of the final book it's pretty fantastic.
The next day, Sunday, we left to go back to Accra and for about 30 minutes thought we were stranded. The Tro station was basically empty, which is a feat I thought I would never live to see. We did finally get to Takoradi where there is a connecting Tro/Buses to Accra. Linda and I befriended a girl who was also going to Accra and hopped a Tro with her. It worked out to be faster and cheaper than the bus system we had taken to Takoradi from Accra. The rest of the week was rather uneventful.
This past Friday I left with Joshua to go to Adafoa for the weekend. Adafoa is a town where you can catch boats to take you out to the islands that lie between where the Volta River and the Atlantic Ocean meets. We honestly didn't really know exactly what we were doing, we just showed up at Adafoa after negotiating three different enormous Tro stations and then asked a taxi driver to take us to the docks. We didn't know what the island was called and honestly I still don't know. We just asked to be taken to someplace we could spend the night. Luckily there seemed to be only one place available. The people were great the place is great if you like slightly rustic getaways. There was no proper floor anywhere. All sand, all the time. You could rent a hut, that really is a hut by the way, grass walls and grass ceiling for 10 CD ($9.5ish) a night with a double bed in it. Sand floor. Oh and a mosquito net of course. Joshua and I went straight to the ocean for a swim. The hotel claimed that the river is parasite free. But if you have read any information on scary/horrifying African fresh water parasites you wouldn't swim in the river. I have and so I didn't. It still surprised me how many people were braving the waters. The ocean's more fun anyway. Our first night we collapsed pretty early from travel.
Next day we made friends with two American women, one of whom had been living in Nigeria for the past few months. From her stories I never want to live in/go to Nigeria. According to her Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) gives a surprisingly accurate portrayal of Nigerian culture. All about drama, money, power and controlling women. This girl was very interesting and I'll admit I'm kinda jealous she has spent roughly the past two years traveling the world. She has basically explored the entire continent of Africa and most of Asia. She saved up money while working for a sketchy sounding organization in San Fransico. She couldn't give any details but said that they basically started underground grassroots movements against rival companies of those who hired them. Sounded kinda illegal and even sketchier considered she was 28 and while living in a major city in the USA had still managed to save up enough money to take a two year long vacation around the world.
Anyway back to the island. The rooms were cheap but the boat rides out were not. The girls and Joshua and I decided to split a tour boat. It went to Rum Island. The samples at Rum Island were two giant shot glasses of basically home brewed Rum. Needless to say we were all a little tipsy when we left Rum Island. Each of us carrying faithfully our 1.5 liter water-bottle that had been filled with Rum, back to the boat. Joshua and I decided in celebration of Obama winning and in mourning of Proposition 8 passing in California that we were going to celebrate/mourn all day long. It was the most relaxing weekend I've had in Ghana. There were tons of Brits there too, we made a lot of friends.
We got back into Accra really quickly the next day. Adafoa is only about an hour and a half away. Just in time for me. I had started coming down with a horrible cold that was not yet horrible and I had burnt my back to smithereens. Up until today the cold has been hell and I've skipped my classes because 1) I don't want to spread it and 2) I really don't feel like been trapped in a 95 degree classroom for two hours when my nose is pretending to be a faucet and a can't go more then 2 minutes without almost coughing up a lunge. You know what, let's reverse that order. I'm not that selfless I just didn't want to go to class sick. Not spreading sickness was a happy side effect. Last night I think I woke my room mate up from my coughing. Oops. O well she'll live. For those of you who are going to email me about this. I'd like to let you know that I realize that alcohol plus cold do not go well together but to be fair the night before I started getting sick I was stuck in traffic on the way to Osu. Stuck in traffic in Accra equals sucking down all kinds of car fumes and smoke for a couple hours. I thought the beginning of my cold was just allergies from all the pollution I breathed in the day before.
Nothing really exciting has happened this week. I've been playing the role of a hermit most of the week coating myself in a wonderful combination of Vicks vapor rub and aloe vera gel. The result is everyone thinking I am a lot sicker than I really am due to the lovely sheen given off by both aloe and vicks that makes me look like I have a sickly sweat. Life was boring until today. I received a notice that I could go and pick up the package I got from home. However in my stir-crazy boredom I had cleaned out my purses and wardrobe trying to find something to do. Turns out that's not much of a cure for boredom when all your belongings can fit in a hiker's backpack and a carry-on. Back to the point. I dragged Linda to the Post Office with me. Presented my form declaring that yes someone back home loved me enough to send me gifts. Alright, it didn't say exactly that ...but close. The women at the desk then asked for a form of ID. Which normally I always have on me but today was the day I decided to clean out my purse and I had neglected to make sure everything was back in when I left for the city center Post Office, which took an hour to get to by the way. Never have I been so upset about cleaning. We did end up running into Amanda, a ISEP girl, and she needed a lift home because the customs agent had taken all her money. So one good thing came out of it.
Well that's all the news you guys have been missing out on. Sorry again about the lack of updates. Between my laziness, the internet's laziness and sleeping a cold off most of this week I haven't been a very diligent blogger. My apologizes.
On a happier note I like to let everyone know that my Uncle Doug and Aunt Dee rock my world. They sent me the last three books of the Twilight series. Along with helping me kill time, they ended the suspense. Also, word has gotten out amongst the Yanks that I have the entire series here in Ghana. I now practically have a waiting list of people who want to get the books. I haven't exploited anyone yet but hey, when in Rome right! I won't feel right as an Oburni to have come to Africa and not exploited anyone. Even if it's other Obrunis.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Sami

Here's a quick peek into village life:
I wake up on a bare mattress in a bare concrete room which is adjacent to another bare concert room. These two rooms make up the "house" which is the living quarters of the care-taker of the buildings that are under construction for the after-school program, Medamfo pa's. Attached to the house is a walled off slab of concrete, on a slope with a small hole at one corner, this serves as the drain. This is our bathroom. Yes bathroom, not just toilet but also were we take our bucket showers.
So I wake up on in these concrete room to Earth, Wind and Fire, followed by Faith Hill and then Maya playing on the radio outside. I slowly got up and had some "porridge" which consisted of ground millet and tons of ginger. Not very good at all. Then we proceeded to "weed", weeding african style means cutting grass with a machete. I am officially a failure as an African villager. The night before it took us an hour to boil water over an open flame and there is much more skill required to mow a lawn in African. Especially when mowing the lawn means hacking away at the ground with a jungle weapon..
All and all the weekend was kind of a bust and a bit sketchy quit honestly. Linda and I went up there with two guys from Medamfo pa's program. Which is an after-school program in "Social Welfare" , the slums. They have been working in this village since 2005 trying to build the facilities for a program there and they claim to go every weekend. However, the school that was currently there was much much bigger than the building they were building. And the school itself was having problems with teacher shortages. Linda and I were trying to figure out how they plan to staff their program.
Later in the afternoon some kids came around to check out the local freak show aka the two white girls. We got around to reading with them. That was a struggle. Both the boys said they were 15 but I would put them around 12 or 13. Neither of them could speak english well and when we tried to read with them, one could barely get the letters right and the other could only read about 6 out of 10 words. Kwami and Solomon, the two guys from Medamfo pa's, didn't even really seem to realize how much they were struggling. Then again their english wasn't that great either.
In the end I don't think we will go back there. It doesn't seem very legitimate. And for other reasons that we won't go into I really doubt how often they even go up to the village. We had the sneaking suspicion that they only went up this weekend because I had called and asked to tag along. No water, no electricity, a building were there seems to be no progress being made and a questionable reasoning for being there equals Sam and Linda aren't going back.
Well, now that my volunteer ventures are falling through I'm getting pretty frustrated since the academics are a bit of a joke. I choose Ghana because I wanted to volunteer and I like the class selection.
Well as I explained before the volunteering is not really working out and all the real NGOs have filled up and the classes keep on testing my patience. On Monday I walked out of class. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was sitting there the entire time going through in my head how I was going to tell this lecturer, the head of the Political Science Dept., how he was a horrible teacher. So before I got the chance I left about halfway through the class. Never before this year would I ever consider leaving a class in the middle of lecture. But then again none of my lectures before this year had been reading a text, that was assigned to read weeks ago, out-loud in class and try and pass it off as teaching. The next day was a holiday, the end of Ramadan, so no classes on my busiest class day. No classes Wednesday, don't have any on that day. Then Thursday I had my joke Social Work class, which is usually just my lecturer explaining rather poorly the ideas of the chapter, which are much clearer in the book. However, this class is a huge step up from my other classes. At least he's trying to teach. Also my Twi class was cancelled so basically I'm taking 21 credits and I still managed to only have one class this week. Also I am almost done with all my homework for the semester.
Well now that I'm done complaining about all my great Ghanian plans falling through I think I'm going to go for a walk and see the bright-side. Which I think is that I have 2 more months left of no work,no real schooling and lots of spare time.

Hope everyone else is having more luck.
Sami

Update: I haven't been able to post this since I originally wrote it earlier this week. So here's what's new in Ghana:
I just got back from BASCO which is an orphanage outside of Ghana. Some of the other students have been working there helping to prepare for a fund-raising event, today's event. Which the rest of us were invited to join in on. BASCO is a real organization, self-funding and they house and feed about 150 kids who are either legal orphans or who have parents who can not provide for them. It was really fun playing with the kids all day but it started to downpour about half way through the ceremony and I'm afraid that didn't raise as much money as they would have hoped. They need new wells because there is rust in the current wells and during the dry season they dry up quickly. Anyway I thought I have been complaining a lot but I know my situation isn't bad exp. compared to these kids so I thought I would let you read one of there stories that was presented today:

(by they way this is her life in her own words I was asked to type it up for her to present earlier last week)

Veronica ----------

I was told by my grandmum that my mum was raped by a teacher in school. She became pregnant. When my grandmum and my mum informed him about the pregnancy he told them he was not responsible so my mum should abort the pregnancy. My mum told him she was afraid she would die as a result of the abortion. When she delivered me peacefully she developed the spirit of hatred towards me even though I was young. My grandmother advised her to take very good care of me, but she refused to do so. My mum told my grandmum that she does not want to see me because whenever she seem me she remembers the past.
One day she told my grandmother she is going to the city to look for a job so she should take care of me. She went and nobody heard from her. We were in the house one day when a messenger came to the house and informed us of the death of my mum. My grandmum became sad because she hadn’t seen her for a very long time. My grandmum who was sick at the time became worse and she was sent to the hospital. She was sent to the hospital for an operation as a result of stomach cancer. After the operation she was okay and was sent to the house, but after about two weeks she became sick again and was set back to the hospital. She did not sleep at the hospital but rather hired a house in town and I was to go and stay with her. At that place I did everything for her including bathing her and giving her a chamber pot whenever she feels to visit the latrine. When she finished I had to send it to the latrine, pour it inside and wash the chamber pot. Again I make sure I prepared food for her to eat so that she can take her drugs.
One day I was told by one of the elders in the family to go home so that a grown person would come and stay with my grandmum. Exactly one week after I got home a messenger came and informed us that my grandmum is dead. I became hopeless because I know none of her relatives would help me. I became neglected in the house and a burden to the family. My uncle who was then in the city came and told the elders that he wanted to send me to his house. I became excited because I know that I will attend school but I wasn’t happy because they sacked me even though I am studying because I have not paid my school fees.
I asked my uncle one day where father is and he told me my father died a long time due to lorry accident. I asked him if I can get my dad’s photograph and he said no because my dad ran away so he doesn’t know him. I became sad because I have never felt the love of a parent in my life. My uncle who is retired from his pastoral duties told me he will send me to an orphanage home called BASCO. I became happy because I knew he cannot add me to his five children. In 1999 I was sent to Kofirdua by my uncle and Rev. Victor brought me to BASCO where I have now felt a father’s love and I am doing well in my studies. I am now in Senior High School and I can proudly say I will be a nurse and I know God will help me


Well that should put everyone's life back into perspective. I hope everyone is having a great weekend
Sami