When I took this long to post, I was really getting into the Ghanaian spirit.

13 January 2010
Today I signed up for classes! Er, class. I’m registered for a dance class, but the music office was not open for registration today. For registration day. They said that they would be there tomorrow.
We took the tro-tro to Madina market today. The tro-tro is quite an experience. This common form of public transportation is a clunky, ginormous van that holds up to I believe 24 people and weaves around traffic and cuts through gas station parking lots and pulls around other vehicles by going off road. I find this particularly interesting, because in every other aspect I have noted, Ghanaians have adopted a leisurely pace in everything they do. If I run somewhere, I sense people looking at me strangely, perhaps wondering if something is wrong. I’ve fallen into this idea rather easily and am enjoying the absence of rushing and tight deadlines. If I have a longer wait in an office or restaurant, I have more time to talk with those around me, gather my thoughts, and maybe even bask in some air conditioning.
But then we hop aboard a tro-tro and it’s back to impatience and hustling. The tro-tro is not my favorite mode of transportation. Hard to beat the prices though. In the market I got sunglasses, hangers, and a phone. So I do have a phone number, and you’re welcome to call me with it if you want, as I won’t be charged anything for receiving calls, but I imagine it could be pricey for you. In any case, my number is 00233 0274788332.
We had dinner at our orientation leader Mercy’s again and I tried red gravy, which is delicious. It’s generally some mix of tomatoes, onions, peppers, and whatever else, and it is usually spicy and put on rice. We eat a lot of rice here. I really love red gravy.
Julia and I have a fantastic plan. We realized that no has his or her birthday this semester, and this made us sad. So we decided that we would pick alternate birthdays for everyone and a theme for each. Birthdays are the best.
I tried plantain chips today. They are delicious. They sell both ripe and non-ripe ones. I recommend the non-ripe ones if you should ever come upon that decision.
There is a seamstress who comes to our hostel twice a week. She brings in pre-made dresses that we can try on and buy, but she also has material that we can look for and choose a dress pattern we like and order. She does beautiful work and sells these dresses for 10 cedi (less than $10). I ordered a pink and purple metallic-ish dress before returning to my room to unpack and realize that all of the dresses I had bought were pink and purple. Oh well. I’m so excited to see it!