So I took a hiatus from my blog (as Nana and Anand both rudely pointed out to me), but it was for reason. I guess I had so many thoughts in my head I found it tedious to decide what it was that I wanted to say. Nonetheless, here it goes, sorry to those of you who were actually keeping up with it.
I LOVE BEING HERE. School, which is usually a stressful thing for me as been cool. I like pretty much all my classes (it helps that I'm taking no science this semester) and despite some minor rescheduling I'm making the transition to learning here very smoothly. Its safe to say that I spend more time out of the classroom than in it, I'm going to start my volunteering soon so that should be interesting as well. The weather is starting to change as it hasn't been raining nearly as much as when we got here and the days are pretty warm.
So let me just start with this weekend since I've been away so long. I spend virtually all of my time with "the guys", my cousin Julian and his friends, UPenn, (sorry this is easier than individually naming you three), the girls from my program, and 2 other Ghanaian girls, and being around them has made this trip even better. They are all such cool people and we have too much fun together and very INTERESTING conversations. Friday we decided against going out in town and almost everyone came over my house and we ate and watched movies. It felt just like family as we they got on my nerves by arguing forever over what to watch, laughed, some slept, cleaned up and left at almost 5 a.m. Being the genius that I am I decided to have people over the night before my cape coast trip which departed at 6 am, needless to say I didn't sleep.
Saturday my group left for the weekend to Cape Coast which I knew would be a emotional, thought provoking, and inter sting trip. For those of you who don't know Cape Coast and Elmina are the famous sites of the British and Portuguese slave castles which sent a great number of the slaves to the U.S., the Islands and South America. Before going to the castles we went to the site where all of the slaves from the neighboring countries as well all came to have their last bath before being sent to the castles. Most of us had never heard of it and when are guide told us the history behind it, I all ready had a million images running through my head. We headed to the Elmina castle later that day and the experience was much of the same. I had been to the castle once before, but when your 10 years old and have never taken a history class being there doesn't have the same meaning. Elmina is my mother's hometown, and that brought the sentiment of being there to an even more personal level for me. I previously expressed my concerns with going in a rather large group, about 50 of us, and it came true as there were some people who just didn't take it seriously, one saying "if this wasn't a slave castle it would be a cool place to have a party". Luckily for me, starting at the last bath I tuned pretty much everyone out, there will always be fools, but its more likely in a big group. As I took pictures outside, I couldn't get out of my head the irony of something so ugly being surrounded by something so beautiful.
Sunday we woke up early and went to Kakum national park where we did a hike up to a mini course of 7 canopy bridges. I will call out by name Elonore, one of the girls, who I was extremely proud of for doing the hike despite being terribly sick all week including the day of the hike. Some people (who will remain nameless) freaked out and cursed and got angry, but still we all completed it and it wasn't really any worse than being on a roller coaster.
This week its back to school, I had my first assignment do this week, so hopefully I do well on that and we will see what adventures this week will bring. If its at all memorable I'm sure it will involve the rain.
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