Funerals, Fundraising, Findings:)

I haven’t been very good about blogging lately, but I am hereby going to attempt to make it up!

I think the last time I was here was when we had just arrived home from our paragliding/ Easter weekend in Togo, so I have a lot to catch up on!

The last two weeks have been wonderfully busy. I have done a lot of work trying to pull together a fundraiser with my friend to support education in Ghana, specifically to help fund New Horizon. I actually just had a meeting with the president and founder of the school today, Mrs. Francois, and it went really well. I am hoping to connect New Horizon with some special needs schools in the U.S., so that they can have a network to share ideas, new technologies, and the students could be able to communicate with each other. I also am hoping to hire someone here to update their website so that many of the goods, like baskets, cloth, dolls, doormats, could be sold online, internationally! If the students had a steady outlet for their products, I think that it would benefit the school tremendously.
I also joined her other organization, called PACID which stands for Parents Association for Children with Intellectual Disability. I am going to be an associate member, helping to fundraise and be an advocate for the organization from back in America. The goal of PACID is to raise awareness of parents who have children with psychological issues. Many parents here in Ghana and in many other countries do not understand the science behind these disabilities. And tend to shun, ignore, or even kill their children that are disabled. It is not uncommon for parents to lock their afflicted children in a room out of embarrassment of their condition, or out of fear. People tend to think that mentally disabled people are possessed by the devil, or cursed in some way. The goal of PACID is to send representatives out into villages all over Ghana to meet with these parents and educate them about the reality that is intellectual disability. Mrs. Francois spoke so eloquently about all of these issues, and I was so moved to do something to help. A dutch organization helped to begin PACID in the early 2000s, but unfortunately because PACID does not have enough funds, and is dormant at the moment. I am hoping to really focus on raising funds for them in the future.

These last few weekends have been very eventful! The warm nights have been particularly enticing lately and we have been known to maybe go out for dancing and drinks on a Tuesday, Wednesday night…it is a wonderful way to relax, and meet so many people. Our dancing has gotten more decidedly African as well, I think we owe that to our dance class!
Two Fridays ago, a group of us was invited to the funeral rites part of the funeral for the former first lady of Ghana. One of our professors here at our campus is her daughter. We were so lucky to be there. We had to all get specific dresses made for it, with white and black patterned material which is customary to wear to funerals like these. We had to wear black headscarves, and everything. It was incredible experience. There were thousands of people in the park and everyone had to circulate at some point and shake the hands of everyone sitting in the front row. You had to be announced and everything. It was pretty incredible. AND, as icing on the cake, Stevie Wonder was there! Apparently he was a very close friend of the family and sang at the ceremony. Wow. It was a surreal experience. On Saturday, I visited an art gallery for one of my classes, and then a group of about 15 of us headed to Big Milly’s in the late afternoon for a little beach time, a beautiful Italian dinner all other and then some dancing on the beach with fresh coconut pineapple juice before passing out in our respective bungalows. Ahh. Pretty nice.
We returned home on Sunday for a lovely evening all together, grocery shopping, making dinner, and watching a movie in our house. (The residential setup here is that there are four houses around a courtyard. Each house has about 5 people living in it, with its own kitchen and three bathrooms, and a living room and dining room. We are all very aware of how lucky we are to have a setup like this here. Anyways, I live in house 2, with Molly, Heather, Anna and Sara. Lets just say that our house is the crazy house. We are all loud, incredibly social, and a little wacky, so our house is where everyone comes whenever we all get together. I love it, it reminds me of home!)
This last weekend was also fantastic. We went on an NYU trip up to Tamale in Northern Ghana for four days, leaving last Thursday. The bus ride is twelve hours, so both Thursday and Sunday weren’t very eventful because we were in transit for most of the day, but in general, the rides weren’t bad at all. My patience has grown considerably since I have been living here. It is a necessary aspect of being here, one must learn to slow down, and wait. In Tamale, we stayed at cool guesthouse, showers over the toilet, typical box-like rooms, but it was a fun experience! Two women were in change of all the cooking and we got some wonderful home cooked meals and delicious breakfasts from them which was so sweet! The first full day we were there, we were able to go and visit the largest mosque in northern Ghana, which was incredible. We had to dress very conservatively; so all had to buy shawls outside before going inside! Then we visited a medical clinic, that was one of the most moving experience I have ever had in my life. It is run by a man named Dr. Abdulai, who grew up orphaned and homeless, but never the less, decided to begin this free clinic for the poor. He has never done any fundraising in his life, but has been able to sustain all of his patients in this incredible place simply through donations. There is a fully equipped operating room, and rooms to house patients who have been completely abandoned. We met several patients who were afflicted by leprosy and left for dead by their families, as well as some who had absolutely nowhere else to go in the world. Dr. Abdulai has taken them all in. But, amazingly, the place is not large, but it is not overrun either. It is one of the most well-managed places I have ever been to. It houses the people that absolutely need to be housed, and it treats things like ulcers, fistulas, and illnesses that absolutely need to be treated. It is staffed by volunteers, mostly Africans, but a few foreigners, and everything that he has has been “a gift from god.” He lives by the idea that whatever happens to the clinic is all about “divine providence.” It is a sentiment felt by many here in Ghana.
After the clinic, we visited some diviners, who me met with and they told us about ourselves and our futures. It was incredibly amusing, and usually involved that we needed to pay him ten cedi(Ghanaian currency) and sacrifice a white fowl for the “benefit of the village children.” Hmm… lets just say it was an experience, but nothing to be taken to heart! The next day we visited the Pikaro Slave camp, near the border of Burkina Faso!, which was really fascinating. When we visited Elmina Castle earlier this trip, one was so aware of the divide and tension between the slave and the white man, and the feelings of guilt, race, and sadness that accompany that divide. But here, it was so much more complex because this slave trade was primarily about Africans selling Africans. Chiefs and other villages in Africa during the slave trade would capture and enslave other Africans to send them to slave camps to be shipped abroad, with generous compensation from the colonizers. It was so interesting to see that we can’t blame any certain group for something like the slave trade. Just by being human, everyone is responsible for making sure things like this do not happen. We saw the slave conditions, and one again, it was so hard to imagine that humanity is capable of such atrocity.
After the camp, we visited a camp of widows who specialized in basket-weaving. I sat with babies and children on my lap for most of the afternoon watching the women create such beautiful pieces. It was lovely. We came home later for a nice dinner and early sleep because we had to wake up at 4 am to get the bus back to Accra. Big weekend, left us all with a lot to think about.
On another note, I have been kidnapping my friend Justice’s guitar as of late and playing A LOT. I haven’t been able to play easily here because I don’t have a guitar for myself, but I have been feeling so amazing since I have been playing again. Wow, its crazy how much it fuels me! School has been great, I have been working on final projects so that the big push at the end wont be too overwhelming, and I want to focus on being here, in Ghana and not so much school work.
I feel like I just wrote everything out that has been on my mind, in no particular order…welcome to Elena’s brain everyone! Hope you enjoy☺

Love to All, I’ll check in soon. Can’t wait to see you !

Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend? Like Valentine’s Day, once again I think it is safe to say that I had a different Easter here than I have ever had before.
It began early in the morning on Friday, when we decided to catch an early morning tro-tro and head to Nkwakwa to the fifth annual paragliding festival! We were not told much about it but decided on a whim that when else were we going to be given the opportunity to go paragliding in Ghana? None of us had ever been before, but we were ready and very excited. We caught a taxi to the place where we were told, and had a beautiful ride up a rainforested mountain, awed at the lush greenery. At the top, we came to the festival. It was phenomenal! There were important people from all over Ghana, leaders and chiefs, and everyone was playing music. We ended up waiting around for the entire day before our time came to go, but every second was worth it. There were pilots who came from South Africa to fly with you, and I got to go first, strapped into a harness and literally ran and jumped off of a cliff, thousands of feet off the ground into the air. I cannot describe how incredibly exhilarating it was, and so unbelievably peaceful. Up in the air, everything is so quiet. There were huge birds circling us as we went higher and higher, until we were in the clouds. The sun was getting low in the sky, and the lighting was exceptional. It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. We landed in a small field at the end in the next town over, and I waited until the rest of my friends had landed. We ended up going out for drinks with all of the paragliding instructors, and one was from Santa Barbara! It was wonderful talking to him about home! We caught a tro-tro back to Accra that night and had a late dinner, hanging out with the rest of the group. We were all on fire, so elated from our day.
The next morning, Saturday, Anna, Camilla, Mara and I headed to the Togo border, getting there about one in the afternoon. It was completely surreal to walk across the dusty, red-dirt border, and I was aware of how different it was from normal border crossings, in airplanes. We did have to go through immigration and fill out a few forms, but it was relatively easy. And the best part is that we don’t have to pay for a Visa extension now because if you leave the country and come back, you get an extended sixty-day period! We crossed the border and took a taxi to the charming Hotel Galion, this adorable little white hotel run by a little French man. Togo is a Francophone country so everyone spoke French which was hard for me because I am used to doing a lot of talking and I couldn’t because I don’t know enough French! I got to get on that☺. We relaxed and had a lovely French lunch and headed to the Voodoo Fetish market, which is actually a large part of Togolese culture. We met the chief and he talked to us for a while, prayed for us, and we got small trinkets. The actual market was pretty disturbing. I have never seen so many dead animals before. There were heads of monkeys, dogs, leaopards, lizards, birds…the smell was overwhelming. There were also voodoo dolls of course, and I got a safe travel omen for good luck. I was a little relived actually though when we left, it was a lot to handle. We returned to our hotel for a sunset walk on the beach before heading to dinner at Koh Samai, a fantastic Thai and Sushi restaurant if you can believe it. It was one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. I had Thai tofu soup in a giant coconut shell with lemongrass, ginger…mmmm! We were very happy girls. We wanted to go out to get a cocktail or something after dinner and went to this club that had been advertised positively in the guidebook, so we took a taxi and got there, immediately ushered into a booth. It was then that we were able to look around. There were scantily clad women everywhere, dancing into a mirror, with an older woman watching everything. The “bar” literally had one kind of beer and some soda and there were two white men hanging out surrounded by women at the end of the bar. It was at this moment that Camilla said, “ You guys, we are in a brothel, and that is the madame,” pointing to the older woman. Then it clicked. We politely stood up and walked out. Hahaha. What an experience. On the street we doubled over laughing. What a night!
Easter Sunday we went to Togoville, after a lovely petit dejeune of omelettes and baguettes, taking a taxi with our new friends Moritz and Bobby, volunteers from Germany and the U.S. We took a canoe across, toured the church and walked around the historically voodoo city. Then we got yummy fresh bread and avocados and had a picnic on the shore of Lac Togo, swimming and luxuriating in the wonderful day. Then we went and met a voodoo priestess! We had to take off our clothes and wrap a piece of fabric around ourselves, and had to pour libation with her to her dieties… it was a crazy experience! We took a canoe back late afternoon back to the Hotel Galion, and read and journaled on our balcony until after dark. We ventured then to Le Triskett, a beautiful French garden restaurant. I got to call Mom from the hotel and heard that mattie was searching downtown for her Easter basket, set up by Dad! It was lovely to picture. We all had an exceptional evening hanging out with our new friends and slept very well☺
On Monday, we headed back to Accra on the tro-tro, and I was able to run, go shopping for fabric for a funeral dress I will need for Friday and have dinner with everyone! We watched New York I Love You, which made us all miss the city, but also made us so happy that we are here right now. What an incredible experience.

A little funny story too, I had the book Confessions of a Shopaholic in my bag on the way back from Togo that I had picked up from the hotel, but I finished it in the tro-tro. Then an elderly Ghanainan man behind me asked me to borrow it! I was so delighted that I just gave it to him! He read it, entranced the entire rest of the ride!

I miss and love you all, Happy Easter, Passover, Spring!