Classes and coconuts

Welcome to my second attempt at bloging! Or it is blogging? Oh no, I think the heat is going to my headJ you should feel extremely lucky that you have even anything to read, considering the entire country of Ghana had no internet for most of the day yesterday. It was wonderful to not be bothered by that at all.. except that it delayed my birthday wishes the the most glorious SOPHIA! Who turned a blissful 20 years old yesterday. Much love to her as she departs, I believe, from Peru today, and back to school. Safe flight my dear.

 Everything is going great, I feel so comfortable here already. Me and my friend Molly are just blogging here at the academic center where there is actually internet, on our way back from meeting with the seamstress! I just put in two orders with her, from sketches that I made on a piece of paper earlier. It is so easy here, I told her exactly what I wanted, gave her three yards of fabric that I bought at Makola Market the other day, and my dresses will be ready by tomorrow or Monday. A lot of people have gotten clothes already, and they are just beautiful!

 Some other highlights:

Reggae dancing on the beach again, every Wednesday! So that was really fun again. The warm air at nighttime is magic. We found a huge endangered sea turtle last time, and some guy asked us if we wanted him to kill it and then buy turtle meat from him. No thank you!

We’ve had a few of our classes this week, and I am having a great time, the professors are phenomenal, and really Ghanaian. Most of them have grown up here in Accra, and are great to talk to and ask about interesting things to do. We have so many field trips too in every class, which is exactly what we should be doing while we are here.

 My volunteering has been finalized and I will be working at New Horizon school helping teachers and students in the classroom in the mornings when `I have afternoon classes on `Tuesday and Thursday, and then `I will be working at the Micro Finance and Open Heart `agency on Fridays, and maybe Monday as well. Then friends and `I will be going to the Touch a `life orphanage on `Saturdays to volunteer and spend time with children of refugee women.

 Our program director, Christa,  the Tyra equivalent, is so cool. She has this country in the palm of her hand. She helped organize  events to support the relief effort in Haiti and we are invited to concerts this `Saturday and next Saturday nights, as “volunteers” where we get to see the biggest `hip life artists in the country and the rest of west Africa perform! `Rumor has it that Kofi Anan we also be there, but Christa has BBC, CNN, and all the media lined up to cover the concerts. I cant wait.

 We found a wonderful new restaurant, called “Melting Moments” that, literally, almost everyone has eaten at everyday this week for lunch in between classes, and trips to the beachJ. Its fantastic, we cant say enough good things thta its turned into  a big joke between everyone. it has everything that were missing, fresh salads, sandwiches, omelettes, and fantastic teas, cookies, iced coffee… stuff that’s harder to find. its my friends birthday today so we are going to lunch there AGAIN, and getting her one of their famous cakes from there I believe. All this said, don’t worry we are eating typical west African food every night at dinner, our meal plan is FANTASTIC, I cant say enough good things about the places that we are eating, and I will definitely make a point to coax everyone to branch out from this melting moments routine and try more local things! But it has been a wonderful adjustment place.

 I have a lot of friends that we have gone out with a couple times that `ive met at `ashesi and `University of Ghana, weve going to the beach, they join us for lunch sometimes, its been really fun. There a guy who just came from Cameroon, telling us all about his trip, and a girl who just came from Botswana. It great getting multiple perspectives.

Hm…I have been feeling great, no more Malarone side effects! And I have not gotten malaria or typhoid yet, so im good. (Sorry mom, bad joke.) Ive actually been going on a morning run everyday before it gets too hot, and it is a wonderful way to get to know the local vendors and neighbors. I just do a couple big loops weaving in and out of the neighborhood that we are in, and school children chase me sometimes, run with me, laughing and asking my name. I wave to the man who sells fresh coconuts and the women at the barbershop with the fantastic signs.  There are other students on the trip that do similar loops around the same time of day, and its fun running into them on the way.

I hope everything is great there, I hear SB is getting rained on in a major way, and probably most of California im assuming. Its most definitely not raining her, except we had one afternoon  lightning storm and it was so dramatic!

Sorry about lack of pictures, I think that there is something wrong with my memory card now, but at least I have them on my computer for now. I will ask Christa about a local place that I can go maybe to get it fixed? (mom, well talk details)…um the thing missing from my life at the moment is a guitar! My fingers are getting antsy! but I just made a plan while I was sitting here in the course of typing this blog, with a girl doing the same thing next to me, and we are going to go to a cool music store near `makola market tomorrow and see what we can find.

All my love to you, again, happy birthday to the loveliest Sophia, and I will blog again as soon as I get the chance.

Elena