First Post from Ghana :)

Hey everyone!!

So I have arrived in Ghana, Africa and have internet in my room. The instant we landed the plane windows fogged up ... and when we stepped out it was like a sauna; super humid and very muggy. Your skin is always sweaty and sticky. However, night time is the best, there is a cool breeze that blows through our windows. It just stormed about 2 hours ago and you could see the storm coming from a distance and it took 5 minutes until it was officially down pouring. All the roads are dirt-covered so they immediately became flooded. Good thing mom packed me a poncho!! :) Bad thing cuz it rained there are now more mosquitoes around! Hopefully pools of water don't stay around long.

The first day we got in it was late so we were advised to take a shower before bed to make us feel better. My roommate (who is from Tennessee- and is SUPER sweet) went to take one and I was still organizing things in my room. Well I got everything settled and went to go to the showers only to find her in the sink washing her hair with very little water. When I asked why she told me that during her shower the water went out. So we had no water to shower with. We asked another girl who had been here a semester before and she said that last semester they were out of water for over a week cuz there was a shortage in the area ... so either you had to take a bucket shower or go to another building that may or may not have water. So far the water-shortage issue has not happened again this week.

Most of this week was filled with touring this ginormous campus that has an estimate 30,000 people attending it. The buildings are super far away might take me like 20-30 minutes to get to some of my classes by walking, which is so much further away then my gated Edgewood College. The rest of the week has been full of lectures on culture, safety, ettiquette and medical safety.

In particular today we went to this HUGE market in Medina. We were obviously the only white people around where as on campus you run into a few other foreigners there and people are more used to seeing white people. People at the market were very friendly and kept teaching us Twi (a common language spoken here). Everyone wanted us to buy something from them and others would just ask us if we would give them money. White people are called "Bruni's" so far little kids have come up to us bright eyed and waving yelling "Bruni, bruni, bruni!!" All of the children/babies are sooooo precious!

The food here isn't too bad. The first day we got here everything we incredibly spicy but now my tastebuds have adjusted and I am actually liking the food. The main staple here is rice served with sauce with either chicken or beef. So that is relative to what I eat every meal. Thus far as far as foreign food goes I have tried yam balls, fried plantains, and fresh pineapple from the market.

The craziest thing I have seen thus far is that there is a monkey tied to a tree in somones front yard so basically, they have a pet monkey!!! How crazy is that!!

Well I think this is enough for now. I miss everyone soooo much, please help me stay in contact with everyone with brief comments through email or facebook! I'll be updating often ... Take care!!

:)