but for now we are young

things are calmer. more settled in and feeling more at home because patterns are emerging. i now always remember my toilet-paper-to-go. and some of us gather for tea-time every morning which kind of means talking for hours with hiked-up nightgowns in front of fans until we have class. and i have managed to significantly reduce the mildew-y scent of my hand-washed and hung-to-dry towels, though a lingering smell is still haunting me and everyone who hates wet-towel smell. i hate wet-towel smell more than anything. i will conquer mildew in due time.

this is where i live, Volta Hall, the all-girls dorm that is constantly crawling with all-hormones boys. the sign speaks for itself. and isn't the courtyard pretty?

one of my roommates, anjalee
for wilder

my corner


AIDS signs like this everywhere and all over
the campus is covered but the lack of dialog renders them useless. my professor made a joke about people thinking you have HIV if you're too skinny and the whole class laughed and i was confused about the comedic value. students also giggle at the mention of domestic abuse. sex is taboo, yet many or most students are sexually active. so you don't tell anyone when you have sex and rape is easier and people will laugh at you if you buy condoms from the pharmacy. only recently condoms have been made available on top of the counter instead of behind the glass in order to minimize embarrassment. but the stigma still prevents their purchase.


the tro-tro station just outside of campus, how we get around.
the main road right outside of campus

my friend quincy
he does passport photos on campus and he did all of mine for class registration. i try to visit frequently. he likes my cameras so i bring them by and we talk. business is slow so we sit uninterrupted, against the red cloth backdrop of his passport set-up. this photograph is from when i first showed him my polaroid camera. i asked if he had any family with the aim of suggesting he put it up for them but he said no. he became instantly saddened and i changed the subject but i could still see it in his eyes.



our dressmaker, Lydia
she laughs a lot and hurried her hands to fix hair before photographs. we bring fabric and barely explain and she knows exactly what we want.

her apprentice, Jennifer
she is beautiful. she scrambles for measurements and squeals 'me too' when i take out my camera to photograph Lydia.



a monkey fiasco
this is where i buy water, soymilk, and occasionally peach juice. it's a two-minute walk from Volta Hall, if that. a monkey on the loose meant women screaming and running. i can't get over the fact that there was a monkey swinging around the corner store. oh, africa.

my friend, belinda
Belinda's interests: Akon, her hat, gang signs, Sean Paul. first she insisted on dozens of photos of herself, a video of her rapping, then a photo with me but NOT smiling 'adwoa stop smiling NO smiling' [see below]. adwoa is my day name, monday-born, pronounced 'ad-joo-a.' Belinda sings a lot and told me i was bad at doing the gang-sign-poses of her creation. i tried really hard but will refrain from posting those photos. they're kind of incriminating.


a day trip to Aburi: beautiful botanical garden, an overgrown cemetery, village children hugging and tugging, blues.


the garden. everything big big big. the trees majestic.





the sleepy village. colorful.










this side of the blue

so you can see

                

     

 cape coast, slave castles

chicken and rice, sankofa, tooth-cracking, etc.

hello hello i'm alive, i swear. albeit an only recently healed swelled ankle, mosquito bites all up my leg because i clearly trapped one in my net last night, the contraction of malaria by two other students, an almost lost tooth, and a huge bruise on my knee that decidedly resembles (according to the consensus of UC EAP) a tie-dye print,a globe, or in my opinion, the giant scar not far from it acquired rollerblading down wilder's hill in front of cars. sorry i havent been a good blogger i've sparingly had internet but from now on i should be able to update every few days. i hope. i will. ALSO. someone deleted all my photos. hundreds. of photos from my first week of doing things here so i'll put up pictures tomorrow of new things and not anything that i write about today. so sad. but a lot of things dont go as planned here. and it's kind of liberating though it kind of sounds awful.

i think so far i really like ghana. and the people. the nicest people i have ever met. and true. everyone and everything simple and true.

my first day was perfect. a drummer took us to his village to hear him and a family of musicians play just in their backyard with chickens and dogs and little naked kids. a beautiful family like father like son like daughter hands flying over drums, hands flying hearts flying. the music is in their steps here and their words and their handshake. shake and snap. i kind of suck at the snap part but i can't tell if it's because i have always been really bad at snapping or because everyone's hands are sweaty all the time. the sun started setting and we go to get drinks at a 'bar'--plastic chairs outside a shack glowing with one blue light. reggae, glass bottles in a bucket on the dirt ground between us. dusk settling in means more deet and sliding down in our chairs with cold drinks and everything is more beautiful with a pink sky.

later that night we go to the beach to celebrate bob marley's birthday. live music and dancing to the reggae and the waves and the men insistent 'you california girls? california girls know whassssssuuuppp.' i dont argue. the beach was smooth-sand, dream-like beautiful in the dark, mirror-water silhouettes and everything.

the next day we started our 4 day trip driving ACROSS THE COUNTRY. in a bumpy bus on bumpier roads, 25 of us packed together and sticky. at the hostels we watch football and root for ghana to take the cup. but egypt won so it was a win-win for me. we watched in crowded hostel tv rooms filled with ghanaians and the entire room stands and screams and jumps and more if a player falls, if a player is close to the goal, if a player misses a goal, if a player makes a goal, if the opposing team is snobby. basically this means standing screaming jumping always. we stand scream jump too.

we stop by waterfalls in the middle of the road trip and while we're all climbing rocks someone above me slides down and takes me with her and i slip on on waterfall-rock-slime and land face first,mouth open, front teeth against rock. i seriously thought i lost a tooth and blood would be pouring from my mouth but i was ok. there's a faint crack visible in some light and later that night my roommate tells me 'you may have to deal with the fact that your tooth might turn brown then black, die, and fall out.' haaah. war scar? story for awkward parties? its been a week and no discoloration thus far. will keep you posted.

little girls and boys here have beautiful eyes and want to wave and smile and shake hands and we all wave and smile and shake hands.

one day i sat on a croodile at a crocodile pond. then we watched it eat a live hen. mmm.

speaking of carnivores,the vegetarian gods hate me right now.

but meat is soo good. except i have a feeling when i get back being a vegetarian will be an exciting deviation from the current dietary trends:
chicken and rice
chicken and rice
chicken and rice
beef and rice
chicken and rice

yesterday i tried goat meat.

there's plantains with everything. (sandman!)

i think i'm learning a lot about people here.

i picked out the symbol 'sankofa' to be stamped on woven fabric with homemade dye at a cloth-making village.
sankofa: return and take it
it is no taboo to return and fetch it when you forget. you can always undo your mistakes.

photos of where i live and slave castles and tree canopy walks tomorrow!

this is from the 'environmental health issues brochure'
facts and quotes:
cleanliness is next go Godliness

i thought that was funny. be clean. because if you're not...hell?

i forgot to mention heat. SO HOT. you sweat like crazy. like you could collect buckets and buckets of your sweat but instead you walk around wiping your face with handkerchiefs and when there's a breeze it's heaven. when we're all in the girls dorm at night we just laze and lounge half-naked and hot and sticky talking or reading or games and no sudden movements because you might break a sweat. although you're probably already sweating so it probably wouldn't matter.

i probably miss you and i swear i'll be a true blogger. if youre still reading this sorry this is so long everything will be shorter and mostly photos but i think this is long because describing things here is hard.

p.s.
listening to music or journaling or reading with a flashlight under a mosquito net that descends from the ceiling all around you makes you feel like you're planning an adventure every night before bed. if life seems dull a mosquito net may be just what you need.

ack! i'm in accra is a lie

because i'm not. yet. basically instead of ack-ing in accra the last days have been passport-losing and new visa-getting. traffic tickets and hospital smells. and my mom drove over an entire center divider in an attempt to make a u-turn a few feet too short of where cars don't drive over center dividers.

but no worries! the ack-ing will shortly ensue when i fly from l.a. to london to accra on february 4th. and to make up for lost orientation days i have loyally dog-eared my Lonely Planet, underlining genius endeavors in creative travel literature.

for example, page 329:

HOW MUCH?

music cd - C90,000

inner-city taxi - C8000

coffin in the shape of a Mercedes - C5 million

HAH! it's like a mastercard commercial! for coffins. that are car-shaped.

next time, from ghana! if i don't lose my passport...