Just a few more things....

It has been a while since I have posted, but things are going quite well. I have been busy preparing my questionnaire for household surveys I hope to complete in the Ashongman Estates neighborhood the following three weeks.

My friend Joe went home to Holland on Thursday. He had a wonderful visit to Ghana meeting up with old friends and coworkers as well as meeting me a new friend. He left me with some new friends here in Ghana that I am looking forward to get to know better throughout the next three months.

I had plans yesterday to go the interdenominational church service on campus, but I think my adventurous eating habits finally caught up to me. First the Ghanaians are extremely religious people, it doesn’t matter what religion you are, but only that you have some sort of faith. Since I’m not religious and share that I do not follow a specific religion they are often taken aback by this. I explain to them that I follow the golden rule.“One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.” Meaning in turn that if one wants to be religious I won’t judge that and I respect their faith and beliefs, so please don’t judge me for my lack of faith. But, even though I am not religious I have been told and invited by many people here to attend church services. I am willing to do this because I respect the fact that people have faith and I understand how religion plays an integral role of people’s lives here. I think for me to truly understand Ghanaian culture I must also experience some church services. So hopefully next Sunday I will make it to church, it’s been a long time!

Sunday was also the first day the electricity went out for a long period of time. I guess this isn’t unusual. Being on campus we are a bit luckier than most neighborhoods. I sometimes forget that things are quite different here when it comes to what we take for granted. Normal services like clean water, electricity, sewer, and in quite a few households cable and internet are not guaranteed. Here I do have water for washing and bathing, but I have to buy drinking water. Electricity is quite good, but the wifi internet is often spotty at the University. People do not have washers and dryers but do their laundry by hand, something I am learning quite quickly. I could pay someone, but I just think of it as my arm workout.

The rainy season is starting, so it will cool down and hopefully rain. With climate change weather has become even more unpredictable in Africa, which has become apparent on the global scale with increase droughts resulting in increased food insecurity and in worse case situations famine like the recent one in Somalia. It stormed on Saturday. It was sort of crazy, I didn’t know what was going on it got really dark and the wind was blowing. At first I thought it was raining, but then I realized it was the dust blowing in on the front of the storm. The wind blew and rained so hard it knocked tiles off the roofs. It was nice to have a thunderstorm, but I hope it doesn’t always rain like that because it will make it difficult for the farmers.

I have been quite adventurous with my eating, trying a lot of Ghanaian food. It is quite good, but hot and spicy, so I will take some pictures of the food and also what I will call the cafeteria….it is quite different than what you might picture in your own head.  

TaTa!