tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23962068705363768552024-02-08T12:01:18.157-08:00Ghan-awayEmily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-64311904360950264512010-11-04T20:31:00.000-07:002010-11-06T01:46:34.844-07:00SorrrrryyyUmmmm... so I'm a terrible person. Hopefully it is not news to any of you by this point that I did not die in a Ghanaian hospital and that I enjoyed the rest of my stay immensely and I am now home and safe. <br />I don't know what I had that made me so sick. The doctors kept telling me that they were running tests and that they would give me results soon. Buuuut, on the last day I was there, they came in and asked me, "Did we ever draw blood for tests to find out what you have?" Um, I have no idea. Remember the part where I was delirious when I came in here? Anyway, they didn't know what was wrong with me and I'll never know. They did treat me for malaria, but they treat everyone for malaria just in case, so that doesn't mean much. <br />Isaac (now my wonderful boyfriend) came to visit multiple times a day which was more than fantastic. Furthermore, he brought food that wasn't the fish soup the hospital tried to get me to eat! <br />By the last day I was very fed up with being in the hospital and feeling quite ick. Finally some guy I had never seen before but who seemed to be in charge told me that he recommended I stay for another night but that I could go. So I left. And I instantly felt much much better! Because hospitals are happiness suckers. Also, they burned trash outside my window. And didn't have running water in the bathroom. Just saying. <br />On the bright side, my hospital bill, for three days stay, IV fluid for each day, and medication including malaria treatment totaled to less than $15. Whoa. Maybe Ghana's not such a bad place to be sick after all. <br />And after that I continued to have a wonderful stay in Ghana and would super like to go back very soon! Can we talk about how cold Maryland is in November?! Gross.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-18398272386579280292010-04-05T05:51:00.000-07:002010-04-05T13:09:58.233-07:00Excuse Number 1 Part 1: Intro to Ghanaian Hospitals22 March 2010<br /><br />Felt a little dizzy today at breakfast. I looked around and decided this wasn't too surprising. A heavy haze stuck in the air everywhere I looked. I've been told different things, but I think we're supposed to be moving into the rainy season right now. Instead, we're experiencing hamatan, the crazy dusty season, to an extreme. All this dust makes breathing trickier. Plus it feels pretty gross. As if there wasn't already enough dust around.<br />Later I went to class, grabbed a meat pie and plantain chips, and headed to the Shoprite at the mall to get stuff to make dinner. Shoprite sells all kinds of American type groceries. Tonight, I planned to make dinner for my friend Isaac and his friends, because when I've gone to hang out with them the past couple days, they've been making awesome Ghanaian food for me. So I planned to make some awesome American food for them. Gumbo, to be precise. As I wandered through the isles, grabbing ingredients, thinking got trickier and the dizziness moved into mild nausea. So I hurried on up, finished my shopping, checked out, and settled on an overpriced taxi to rush home (I paid almost $4 for a ride home from the mall!) The driver, Raymond, was very nice though, even if a bit talkative for me to handle in my current state. I got back to my room, fell on my bed and decided that only something very important was going to get me up. No cooking tonight. <br />A couple hours later I believe, Isaac came up to visit found me in my not so healthy state. I will add now that my sheets were at the time hanging to dry and not on my bed. Therefore, Isaac's original plan was to have me go over to his room (in the building next door) so I could sleep on a made bed and get some food. <br />We made it down the three flights of stairs reasonably well, but I think that rather exhausted me, and about halfway across the parking lot I decided I absolutely had to sit down. Which made us rethink the "just resting" plan. Isaac and his roommate Joe got a taxi to go to the health office on campus. Throughout the ride however, I very quickly grew much sicker and after I got sick twice we changed our route to head to the University hospital emergency room. (Sorry for the gory details, just being thorough. This *is* a hospital story.)<br />Contrary to popular belief, Ghanaian hospitals are not all candy and rainbows. They led me into a room, for some reason without Isaac or Joe. I had to ask to sit down. I don't know if they intended me to stand that whole time or not, but that certainly wasn't going to happen. Seconds after sitting, I put my head on my arm on the desk and nodded off. This happened multiple times, because they kept waking me up to ask repeated questions about my symptoms and what I had eaten and other things that I had a vague memory of but no clear ability to answer. I was OUT of it. They finally decided they got all the information they thought they'd get out of me and led me to a rubber mattress with a rubber pillow in a room with 7 other occupants. <br />I laid there alone for a bit and waited for the poking, prodding, and questioning to commence. And commence it did. The grand opening was an IV, one of my greatest personal terrors. That was followed by one rather large needle with unknown purpose in each thigh. After this, they asked a couple more questions, introduced me to a number of people I'd never remember, and finally let Isaac and Joe come visit. They made sure everything was okay (relatively speaking) and Isaac said he'd come visit tomorrow. For now though, they had to leave because it was late and visiting hours were over.<br />I knew I wouldn't sleep with that thing sticking in my hand to connect me to an unwieldy pole, so I thanked God that I had just put two weeks worth of minutes on my phone, because texting was all I had to distract me and keep me sane. <br />Eventually, nature called. I was still attached to a pole which had only vaguely effective wheels and no one was in the room to help. I could see some nurses a couple rooms away. I had a task ahead of me. I needed to get their attention but not that of the seven sleeping patients around me. Or get across the room on my own with my friend the pole. So I tried for the first by attempting the second, getting up my energy to drag the pole across the room. My plan worked perfectly. A man came to help and said that since the fluid had finished dripping he could simply take it off. So he attempted to do so with me just standing there. I started getting dizzy and told the man that I needed to sit down, but he told me he was almost done. Almost was not good enough. I took a seat right on the floor. He kept on doing what he was doing. When he finished I told him that I was hungry. He said, "At this hour? No, we don't have any food for you right now." Alright then. Washroom it is. <br />Got back to the bed still hungry, but also very tired, and though I still was quite aware of having a needle in my hand, at least it wasn't attached to anything that could fall on me, so I was able to get to sleep.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-86655524851592176442010-04-05T05:40:00.000-07:002010-04-05T05:51:24.063-07:00If any of you are still bothering to check, I have not fallen off the face of the Earth!Hey all, it’s been a while, I know, and I’m sorry. I also know excuses are lame, but I’m going to give them. Because whether they are acceptable ones or not, (I think they are) they do make for interesting stories. Also, you may or may not know by this point that I’m near bald. That story’s coming too. I haven't really been recording the small details the past couple weeks so I'm afraid those that I don't remember are lost forever. You will just have to guess what I have been doing. Because I know you care what I have been doing every second of my life. Anyway, the next couple posts will be some snapshots of the past couple weeks.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-38805064055746007942010-03-14T08:02:00.000-07:002010-03-14T08:05:15.432-07:00Delicious Freedom6 March 2010<br />It’s Ghanaian Independence Day! We woke up at 4 something in the morning to catch transportation to Independence Square, where we heard that there would be parades and a possible sighting of Ghana’s President Atta-Mills. It turned out we did not need to get there that early. We got seats very easily and sat around for quite a while with nothing happening. Then the parade started. It was not terribly much more exciting. Different schools and groups marched, and their marching was impressive and it was nice to see all the different uniforms, but it got a bit monotonous after a while and the seats were not super comfy. The president rode by at one point in a little car, but I was looking at the wrong place at the wrong time and missed it. I did catch a glimpse of him through the window of his car. Woo? <br />Then we went back to the hostel and celebrated independence the only way we knew how—-with an American style BBQ! And that was delicious. We ate our fill of hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, and bacon-wrapped shrimp. Yum. Oh, the taste of freedom.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-29833240068440044792010-03-14T05:13:00.000-07:002010-03-14T07:49:54.976-07:00A Ravens Fan in Ghana?!2 March 2010<br />Today I did some mad crazy bargaining at Madina Market! I hopped on a tro-tro between classes to get some rugby wear, i.e., cleats and clothes that can get destroyed. I mustered all the Twi I knew and whipped out my bargaining skills. I’ll put prices in U.S. equivalents to simplify. I got cleats bargained down from $14.50 to $6.60. Then I deviated from my goal a bit when my eye caught sight of sports jerseys. I’ve wanted a Ghana football jersey for some time now. That was a bit of a splurge. He initially asked for $23.30 for the jersey and shorts, but I got the set down to $10. Just to warn you, I will be quite an obnoxious fan when I get back to the states and watch Ghana's Black Stars in the World Cup. It’ll be great. Furthermore, my friend Hafiz told me later that I had gotten a good deal. It was good to know, because I had no idea what a reasonable price is in the U.S., let alone here. <br />Anyway. I got two t-shirts for 30 cents each. I paid $1.30 for a pair of shorts and got another pair ‘dashed’. That means she threw in another pair of shorts for free. Yes free. I paid the same for another pair of shorts elsewhere, but when I got back to the hostel, showing off the results of my savvy, I found that there was a U.S. dollar in the pocket. So… I paid 30 cents for those shorts. Which is good, because they didn’t fit. Oh well. <br />But going back to that bit about the U.S. dollar. I see people wearing or selling clothing, t-shirts in particular that is very clearly shipped used from the U.S. It’s crazy but exciting seeing people wearing very place specific shirts in Ghana. At first I felt it would be weird to point this out to someone, but I’ve found that it can be exciting on both sides. For example, one day at rugby, I saw my team mate wearing a Bowie Baysox t-shirt. (Baysox are a baseball farm team in my area.) I told him they were my home team, and he was very interested and asked what sport they played, if they were any good, and how they were doing this season.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-63166075110939873972010-03-13T17:39:00.000-08:002010-03-14T05:12:19.379-07:00Got 'To-go' Home.28 February 2010<br />This morning we started off the day with bread and cheese. Some people were really excited to have cheese, even though it was pretty much just American cheese. Dairy in general is not highly prevalent in Ghana and usually expensive. I however was excited to have a new kind of bread. I haven’t actually gotten tired of Ghana’s sugar bread, but variety can be fun, and here they have delicious and perfectly wonderful baguettes! Yay French influence!<br />Then we went to a fetish market, for which apparently Togo and Benin are pretty famous. This is where people go to buy items for Voodoo spells. Yes, like dead animals. It’s common to practice Christianity and still use or at least acknowledge Voodoo in both Togo and Ghana, and I believe other areas as well, but I haven’t done research to back up other areas. These ideas aren’t so much blended together as was the case with Santeria, but coexist separately with little or no dogmatic issue. Kwame, our coordinator’s husband explained that most people in these areas believe in Voodoo but many, like he, think it is unwise to mess with it. Though our coordinators assured us that this was a normally functioning market, created for the purpose of buying items for Voodoo, the whole place still had a rather touristy feel. To elaborate, at the end, we got a group picture with the tour guide in which a number of our group were holding various animal skulls. Beyond the normal reasons this would seem a tad odd, I was confused by what seems a contradiction to me. Before traveling here, we were wanted that in Togo, many people did not want their pictures taken because they believe that you cannot get an image of someone without taking a part of that person. But at the market, you could pay a number of CFAs (French West African currency) extra to take as many pictures as you want. Actually, to be accurate, he did set a limit. It was something like 18,000 photos. Tangents aside, the whole picture-taking business was unclear and fishy to me.<br />After our refreshing pit stop, we got back on the road. I'm not sure how many of you are following news about Togo, but their presidential election is set for Thursday. So as we got close to the border, we saw people all around the road waving signs, shouting and selling related merchandise. They were almost all wearing yellow, the color of the leading opposition candidate, Emmanuel Bob-Akitani. In Togo, there is one dominant party. Others are allowed to run, but have little chance of winning. You'd never guess it from the displays we saw here. People ran up to cars with fliers, shoving handfuls into open windows. It was quite chaotic. I was very glad to be with people who knew what they were doing. We all got across the border in one piece and continued with the road trip. When we got to the hostel I jumped on the internet to find a status from Miki letting everyone know she was a-ok. <br />And I apologize for the title. Had 'To-go' with the blog theme, no?Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-87549778564917465982010-03-13T17:22:00.000-08:002010-03-13T17:39:10.187-08:00Where'd the Maple Syrup Go?27 February 2010 <br />Our Ghana visas only last two months, so this weekend landed us with some mandatory travel time. Because we've been here almost two months? Whoa. Anyway, the third country I’ve ever gone to: Togo! We drove about three hours to Aflao, Ghana, which is at the border. Now, I’ve never been to the U.S./ Canada border, but I discussed with a couple of friends that there are probably one or two differences. And I’m not talking about temperature. The border checkpoint thingy to get into Togo had… character. And by that I mean it would be kind to call it a shack. There were nails sticking out of boards here and there and the nine of us struggled to find flat surfaces to fill out our bilingual paperwork. (Togo is a French speaking country. Ghana is completely surrounded by French speaking countries.) As we tried to determine whether our ‘point of entry’ was in Ghana or Togo, vendors were passing back and forth across the border. This went smoothly for them for a while, but for no reason as far as I can tell, a border employee suddenly decided he did not want this. So he grabbed a wood plank (with nails sticking out, of course) and closed off their path and yelled at the vendors to get away. On second thought, I imagine that’s exactly what the U.S./ Canada border is like, no?<br />Anyhoo, we got through and went to a German restaurant (because apparently there’s German influence in Togo as well) and ate delicious food and then walked around the city a bit. ‘The city’ is Lome, by the way, the capital of Togo, and we found it to be much cleaner than Accra, which was nice.<br />At some point during the trip, I heard about the earthquake in Chile. This was horrible timing. Being in Togo, I had no phone signal and no way to get online. For those of you who don’t know, my good friend Miki is studying abroad in Santiago this semester. Right where the earthquake hit. I have no way of finding out anything about her until tomorrow evening. Meanwhile, I was surrounded by coverage. It seemed like everyone was talking about it, and when we got back to the hotel, we stupidly watched CNN, which of course showed nothing but constant re-tallying of death tolls and footage of destruction. This could only make me more worried, because no matter what they said, they couldn’t tell me about Miki specifically. Stress and suspense. Sorry if it’s weird to read this, Miki.<br />Something interesting I did note while watching the news: the news anchor at one point said something to the effect of “Let’s see what the president has to say.” It took a moment to think which they were speaking of, but I figured it must be the Chilean president. Wrong. It was a surprise visit from Obama! “The” president. Obviously. Keep in mind we were watching World CNN, with British anchors I believe, in Togo, showing Chilean earthquake coverage. But everyone needs to hear the United State’s opinion on everything, so there he was. <br />To be fair though, he is speaking for two countries. (I feel as though I’ve explained this in another post, but I can’t find where I did, so I will continue. Forgive me if I’m wrong.) Yes, at least two. Because the Ghanaians claim him as their own. In fact, one man told me that Barack Obama is actually Ghanaian and that after he finishes his eight years of presidency, he will come and live in Ghana. I have been told by people that they love us (Americans) because Obama is our president. Little bonus today-- here’s a song a bunch of prominent Ghanaian musicians put together when he came to visit Cape Coast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZCJRAbB4P8 (‘Akwaba’ means ‘welcome in Twi) Some of us have decided that we would like to write letters to our president thanking him for making our stay in Ghana welcoming. Fun fact though: Despite the fact that Ghanaians don’t approve of the wars we have going on, they really liked Bush as well. In fact, I’ve heard that Africa is the only country where Bush’s approval ratings went up through his presidency. <br />Anyway, Togo was nice from what we could tell, but we’re only spending the one night, so I don’t think we’re getting a whole lot out of the area. Unfortunately, our coordinator seems to be unimpressed with Togo and wants to go and come as quickly as possible. Oh well, we’ll see what tomorrow holds for us.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-53643355490522237882010-03-07T17:23:00.000-08:002010-03-07T17:25:54.857-08:00A Little Short of Island Paradise20 February 2010<br />Today our group went on a cruise to Dodi Island. The cruise itself was pleasant, though not terribly exciting. I had less neutral feelings about the destination. Dodi Island is a tiny, uninhabited bit of land where very poor Ghanaians sail out to make money from tourists from the cruise. The only structures on this island are a couple pavilions and a sidewalk that goes from one side of the island to the other. When we got off, we were surrounded by children who took us by the hands and followed us as we walked on the sidewalk, past women and children singing quietly and playing on plastic gas can drums. One of these girls, who looked about five, had a baby strapped to her back and was walking around the island like this, presumably all day. We walked up and back on the sidewalk very uncomfortably with children surrounding us, begging for money. Then we got back on our air-conditioned boat with a live band, toilet paper, and large plates of food.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-87038219242006559622010-03-07T17:16:00.000-08:002010-03-07T17:22:43.807-08:00A Day at Wli19 February 2010<br />Today we hiked to Wli Falls. The destination is a waterfall that empties into a shallow pool that is a perfect, cool temperature for swimming. We stayed there for about two hours and I was excited to find that you could actually stand directly under the waterfall. I've always wanted to do that!Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-50921982631502662922010-03-07T17:13:00.000-08:002010-03-07T17:16:28.233-08:00A Trip to Third Grade18 February 2010<br />This morning we left for the Volta region of Ghana, which is in the upper eastern area. The car ride was rather bumpy and unpleasant. I think there was more speed bump than flat road on the way there. <br />We first took a gander at the Akosombo Dam on Lake Volta. Lake Volta is man-made and provides electricity to most of Ghana and other surrounding countries. Our guide was redundant, paused a lot unnecessarily, and spoke to us like we were idiots. I’ll give an example of the last: “I’m sure that many of you were very excited when you found you would be coming here, but I imagine that if someone asked you what a dam is, we would have problems. So let me take you back to third grade…” He also reassured us that despite what we may have thought, the water was not "electrocuted", and that that was not the way electricity worked. As you can imagine, this tour was both annoying and hilarious. But it was all worth it, because mom, you will be happy to know that I got another marriage proposal on the tour.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-7733650881195400772010-02-28T15:31:00.000-08:002010-02-28T15:45:12.906-08:00Rugby17 February 2010<br />I did a very exciting thing today. I got up at 5:30 am with friends Will and Alex. That’s not the exciting part. Today, I went to rugby practice. I can’t explain how excited I am about learning to play rugby. A little bit of me has always wanted to play I think, but I've never had the opportunity. Rugby takes the best parts of American football (tackling) and soccer (continuous play) and adds some other awesomeness to make the best sport ever.<br />Admittedly, today’s practice was not a whiz-bang success. I had eaten a pretty decent bit of breakfast, because I get hungry in the morning. And we did some really intense warm-ups. And I got fairly nauseous. I’m not at all deterred though. I’m so excited to play. <br />Later, I went to watch a rugby game to pick up the basic rules. I met some of the players and had quite a fantastic time. I absolutely cannot wait to get out there and tackle people. You will be hearing updates.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-58051137750171501642010-02-28T15:29:00.000-08:002010-02-28T15:30:36.730-08:00Just had to share this with you...16 February 2010<br />Today, I was sitting on a wall outside a department building and reading, all peaceful-like. I will say, it was a nice place to sit. A man walking by noticed this, and said, “Hey, I like where you are sitting!” I told him thank you.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-67033565915528746852010-02-28T15:27:00.000-08:002010-02-28T15:29:18.844-08:00Jesus in Twi15 February 2010<br />Today I made a wonderful purchase. There is a video store in the market near my hostel that sells delightful pirated films. I was fortunate enough to happen upon one called Jesus in Twi. The front is a Google image collage of Jesus-y pictures. The back has 28 different films that are apparently contained on the DVD. Some are about Jesus. Some are about Samson and Delilah, Noah, Abraham, etc. Some are about Viroin Mary, I suppose the lesser-known twin sister of Jesus’ mother. Three are about Thomas Jefferson. And three are about Claire Bloom. Because what is a Jesus movie without Thomas Jefferson and Claire Bloom, that’s what I’d like to know. I know that you are all waiting eagerly in anticipation to see this movie, and I will be happy to share it when I get back.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-66684410561495404542010-02-28T15:24:00.000-08:002010-02-28T15:26:49.169-08:00Any day dedicated to chocolate is okay by me.14 February 2010<br />Today is Valentine’s Day! Better known by some in Ghana as National Chocolate Day! I like that. I celebrated by going out with Elsa, Julia, and Kelly and getting a pedicure for about $4. My feet have never looked so white to me. It was an amusing/ slightly embarrassing experience. The pumice stone tickled something ridiculous and I couldn’t help but laugh a lot and it was very difficult to stay still. The women working there thought this was really funny. I asked if Ghanaians thought it tickled ever, and laughed and said no. I don’t know how this is true. Having people rub things on your feet is a terribly tickly experience. <br />Beauty and the Beast ended tonight! Yay, I have a life again!Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-77225959040009832392010-02-28T14:56:00.001-08:002010-02-28T15:24:05.578-08:00Moving Up in the Bimbette World12 February 2010<br />Tonight I got a more attractive purple dress and a delicious, black, big, wavy hair wig. It’s amazing. On one hand, I’m a little disappointed I won’t look like a total cornball anymore, but on the other hand, I still look ridiculous, and in a slightly more theme appropriate, flattering way. I’m well pleased. <br />Also, we made bacon-wrapped shrimp and kebabs for dinner. So amazing.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-29430745270813468182010-02-28T14:43:00.000-08:002010-02-28T14:45:57.943-08:00Annie and the Beast11 February 2010<br />Thursday’s my day off. I never thought I’d have a day off of classes, but here it is. I didn’t accomplish much, but I did clean off my chair. And boy, it’s really clean now. <br />Tonight was opening night for Beauty and the Beast. It was also our first day using costumes. Mine was a lovely pink lacy prom dress. Also a black mobcap. I had been told I’d get a wig, but they couldn’t find it, so they threw that on me. Interestingly, the Ghanaians didn’t find it funny. Of all the things they laugh at me for, this was perfectly normal. I knew I wasn’t safe from ridicule though. Elsa and Emily were there to laugh at me backstage and a bunch of friends came to watch. I was prepared for high hilarity. <br />It was to come in another form, however. Three minutes before the show opened, (which was 27 minutes after it was billed to open) the costume woman approached me with a wig. This was not any old wig. This was a little orphan Annie wig. Reddish and big time curly. And I flaunted it proudly about the stage and the show was wonderful, if ridiculously clumsy in every aspect. And there are pictures! Unfortunately for you, they will be of no use for blackmailing purposes, because I have no shame in these matters.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-9737096787646247462010-02-25T04:19:00.000-08:002010-02-25T04:21:49.659-08:00Notes from My Interior Design ExperienceNotes: I give these to you word for word from my notes. Only the bits in brackets are my own additions for clarification.<br /><br />Sitting Room, Drawing Room<br />-room for conjures<br />-luxury, elegance, and extreme comfort<br />-window treatment designed accordingly<br />-fullness= excess fabric<br />-rule to remember- Length is elegance.<br /> -floor length curtains<br />-most lavish valences/perlments {not sure if this is the right word}, which are covers above curtains. <br />-keep bows out<br />-pleated frills rather than gathered (gathered are better suited for bedroom)<br />Study or Office<br />-Window treatment for man’s study/ office<br /> -should preserve room’s masculine character; therefore…<br /> -avoid too many curves and frills<br /> -go for very organized, tailored pleats<br /> -curtain in lovely , bold color<br /> -art as a finishing touch<br />-In a man or woman study, room should be easy to work in; therefore…<br /> -let a lot of light in<br /> -go easy on the depth of curtains<br />Dining Room<br />-Room in which you entertain guests for hours<br /> -So, it is fun.<br />-You should perhaps have something other than what you have in other rooms. <br />-Because room will usually be occupied after dark, use warm colors to enhance both curtains and perlments/ valances like the dining room with up lighters placed on the floor. {I don’t know what this sentence means.}<br />-Uplighters: other sources of light, like candles, picture lights, and wall scones {No, ‘scones’ is not a typo. I’m not sure if they are the same as sconces or not, but she actually wrote this word on the board and it was spelled just so.)<br />Kitchen<br />-If you have a farmhouse type kitchen, which exposes walls, brick work, you have a very smart kitchen which is very high-tech.<br />And that’s when I realized I was in the wrong class and had to go to my voice lesson! I’m stuck with such suspence!Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-6238021031857583532010-02-25T04:09:00.000-08:002010-02-25T04:19:24.546-08:00Quest for the Hidden Housing Design Class9 February 2010 <br />I went to all of my classes today and none of them ran. I also went to two of my not classes by mistake. I went to both thinking they were my house design class. I’m really excited about this elusive course. I’m obviously really excited about it, because it runs at 7:15 am and I got myself up all cheerful like to attend. Okay, I didn’t get there exactly on time. I got there though, and the professor had some equations and such up on the board. I figured that made sense, writing blueprints and all. Who am I to say what goes on in a housing design class? It was a little worrisome, though, as I have not taken math since high school. Nevertheless, I was exciting to learn about building houses and I did my best to catch everything. He talked a lot about pressure and force. It was a flashback to my senior physics class. I looked around and saw someone with a physics formula handbook. I leaned over to the guy next to me. “Is this house design or a physics class?” It was a physics class. That explained the flashback pretty well. I quietly got up and left. <br />I went back to the Home Science department to see what they knew. The answer was not much. I mean really, why should the Home Science office know when its courses are being offered? They told me to come back later in the afternoon.<br />So after pop band I headed back over there. On the way, I met a Nigerian named Frank who insisted upon walking me there. We talked about this and that and he asked if I was married. I told him no and asked if he was married. He laughed at me and said no. What was I thinking asking something so silly? Then he told me that he had met the love of his life. I told him that was nice. “Ask me who she is,” he said. I did. “You are standing right next to me,” he said. Then he asked if that made me happy. I said that I didn’t know him well enough to know if that was a happy thing and “Oh, there’s the Home Science Department! Nice meeting you Frank!” Then I slipped into the conveniently present home science office. Sorry Frank, but I’m sending you back out to find a new soul mate. <br />I asked if they knew anything about the course yet and they told me it was going on right then. This was slightly problematic because I had my voice lesson in an hour and this class was two and a half hours long. I figured I’d at least go check it out. <br />This was not my home design class. It was, however, one of the most entertaining classes I have attended. Because textbooks are not widely used in Ghanaian schools, some class lectures consist almost entirely of professors reading notes line by line, repeating each line a number of times, and students copying verbatim. In general, this would seem to me a monotonous way to gather information and I am fortunate enough to not have any such classes. In this case though, it added to the amusement of the situation. <br />Again, it took me a while to figure out that I wasn’t in the right class. The professor began talking about the way to furnish a sitting/ dining room. I had not expected anything interior, but thought that maybe I had misinterpreted the course description. This isn’t at all what I had wanted to learn, but some of the things she said were very unintentionally funny to me and I thought I could enjoy this class anyway. (I am going to type out the notes for you in another post because they are wonderful.) She moved on to talk about other rooms in the house and then passed around a sign in sheet and a syllabus. That’s when I realized I was in Interior Design. And I left to go to voice. I must say, I’m a little bummed that I won’t get to find out what type of frills are appropriate in a household washroom.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-91931935117675038472010-02-25T03:17:00.002-08:002010-02-28T14:22:24.950-08:00I Could Trup Rachel Ray's 40 Dollars a Day So Hardcorely in Ghana.7 February 2010<br />I woke up with a ginormous breakfast offered at the resort this morning before packing up and heading to Anomabo Beach. We took in lunch and had a lovely and relaxing time there and drove back to campus. <br />This evening I decided I’d finally try waakye, which is basically beans and rice. I’m not the biggest fan of beans, but this meal costs a mere 50 pesewas, which is about 30 cents, so I figured this would be a great time to start liking them. I got red gravy, which is a tomato-based sauce, and plantains mixed in. It was all right. I think I would not deal well with eating this more than twice a week. It’s just not very exciting. <br />By the way, I don’t think I had mentioned before that I found some groundnut soup in the market near our hostel a few days ago. I was really excited to have some of this after enjoying it so at Mercy’s house, and again, it was 50 pesewas. But… I got the soup in a plastic bag. Like the type you put produce in at the grocery store. I had planned to eat right there at the market, so I had to work with what I was given. (I found later that I could have gone to ask her for a bowl. Oops.) Anyway, My friend shared his spoon and I ate it straight out of the bag. I had a moderate amount of success before spilling half of it on my skirt. That was uncomfortable. And the soup was only so-so. Oh well. I will continue my quest for super cheap food. I know there’s more out there.<br />After that, we Americans needed to get our Superbowl fix. We headed to an ex-pat sports bar downtown called Champs. That was a little strange. Going through the doors was like walking into America. A bunch of white, drinking beer and watching football in the air conditioning. Because that's totally my American experience... Anyway... Almost everyone had their heads screwed on straight. In other words, they all were rooting for the Saints. Watching the game was a pretty nifty home-like experience even though I don’t get super into football at home. Sadly, we had lame Ghanaian commercials. We all missed our Clydesdales.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-57975780685962244192010-02-25T03:09:00.000-08:002010-02-25T03:17:05.342-08:00Bit of a Facebook Plug6 February 2010<br />After breakfast, we began our morning at the Kakum Forest Reserve. There, we did a canopy walk. At its highest point, we were 160 metres up among the trees. Yes, metres. I was born to speak British. The idea was to see wildlife, but we only saw a couple monkeys briefly. Nevertheless, it was nifty walking that high up in the air on a spiff little bridge. There are pictures of this and the rest of the trip on Facebook, check it out! <br />We took the van to the Cape Coast Town and were let loose to explore for a few hours. We were rather hungry so we all started off with some lunch. From my seat at the table, I had the restaurant straight ahead, the town to my left, the beach to my right, and another slave castle behind me. Quite the set of views. A man in the restaurant was playing Bob Marley songs and he when he came to Redemption Song I got chills.<br />After lunch, we went to the castle that had been our dining scenery. The castle was roughly the same as the other, but the tour was much better. After the tour, we went out into the heart of the city where we wandered onto less traveled roads full of children playing, many of whom probably rarely see oburonis. They walked around with us and were excited for us to take pictures of them making crazy faces so they could run back over and see the results. The best one I got featured a girl holding a chicken over another girl’s head. Again, it’s on Facebook, check it out. Along the sides of the road, we saw many people playing a game that looked like checkers. My friend John was interested, so he asked a couple of men how to play. They eagerly brought him and the rest of us over to sit and had John take a shot at the game. It starts off the same as regular checkers, but you can go backwards and the kings do something weird. The most important difference though, is that you can’t simply place your piece where you want it to go. Through the Ghanaians’ example, we learned that you must slam the piece down on the board. It’s way more interesting that way and a good way to wake your opponent up if you’ve taken too long on your turn.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-19677640598742342952010-02-18T00:32:00.000-08:002010-02-18T04:06:27.284-08:00Breaking Out of the City5 February 2010<br />We’re in Cape Coast today! The Brockport group is taking a weekend trip to this town that’s about three hours west of Accra. We crowded ourselves into the epic and wonderful Brockport van that’s basically a non-dilapidated tro-tro and made our way out this morning. <br />Our first stop was Elmina Castle, a Portuguese structure used for slave trade. We went at the end of the day and our guide seemed to have some place he’d rather be. Unfortunately, this was reflected in the tour. Nevertheless, we saw the space, and after hearing much about slavery back home, it was interesting hearing stories in and from Africa. Also a little odd. Everyone was respectful, but no one seemed caught up in emotion either, and it was difficult knowing how to react myself. <br />After that, we went to our hotel. Our hotel with running water and toilet paper and air conditioning and hot water that we actually wanted because of the air conditioning. It was a little overwhelming. We loafed around there a bit and had a dance party and a lovely time.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-84273178426607293082010-02-17T15:24:00.000-08:002010-02-18T00:32:12.593-08:00Lazing on a Thursday Afternoon4 February 2010<br />I spent all day dropping classes. It really took all day. I had to go to each department separately and some places told me I needed to pick up forms from buildings across campus before talking to them. Gah. It’s easy to spend a lot of time doing very little here. In most cases, it’s not really a big deal though. When the music department told me I needed to walk across campus to get a piece of paper they easily could have kept in their own office, I figured I’d add one more casual stroll in the lovely balmy weather. So I wandered my way across campus. No point in rushing. It’s not like I had anything else to do today.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-37845774423110304172010-02-17T14:13:00.000-08:002010-02-17T14:41:02.392-08:00Dawn of the Apocalypse3 February 2010<br />We had a semi-productive morning rehearsal for Beauty and the Beast this morning. Whoa. <br />I went to choir today. I think it’ll be a really great course. We’ll be learning songs in English and Twi, and OH MY GRACIOUS THERE ARE SO MANY GUYS. And they sing beautifully. And many of them are basses. Beautiful basses. Like, there are more men than women. I don’t know how to deal with how excited I am about this. For those of you who don’t know, Goucher usually has to hire tenors and basses for chorus. And they’re all over the place here. And did I mention they sound amazing? <br />So obviously they don’t have me singing tenor. In fact, I went to sit in the alto section and my voice professor came over to me and asked, “Are you sure you sing alto?” I told him that’s what I generally sing, but that I could sing something else. He told me that I was definitely a soprano and told me to go sit there, further adding to my voice identity crisis. I love my fellow sopranos! <br />Only problem: In addition to our Wednesday afternoon class, we meet at 7:30am on Fridays. Yuck. Ghanains get up so early. Also, funny thing: I meet with my 3 credit classes about 1-2 hours a week. I meet with my 1 credit classes 3-5 hours a week. Go figure.<br />Doing something at rehearsal + guys in choir = Grab your towels folks, the end is near.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-71385015689783276992010-02-13T04:22:00.000-08:002010-02-13T05:53:48.552-08:00T.I.G.2 February 2010<br />I had my first voice lesson today! It was really exciting to sing some classical material again. Right now, I am working on <span style="font-style:italic;">Where’er You Walk</span>, by Handel. I really enjoyed my lesson, but not surprisingly, it was a little strange. It was held in the same classroom as my Music in Southern Africa class, which can hold 50 or so students. There were a few people in the classroom when I got there, and they just stayed and hung out during my lesson. Sometimes they sang along. Sometimes they came in early when they did so. And in the back of my head, I knew this was amusing and odd, but it didn’t really faze me. I’m sure back home I’d be really annoyed and distracted if someone did that, (and Richard would never have it) but here I just rolled with it. It’d be really useful if I could carry that tolerance back to the States, but there are many things that I feel I just accept because I am in Ghana. As we and even the Ghanaians say, "TIG." This is Ghana. Prepare yourself for anything. Anything.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2396206870536376855.post-15206237705670572462010-02-13T03:53:00.001-08:002010-02-13T04:21:50.430-08:00Not My Classiest Day1 February 2010<br />I went to Music in Southern Africa again today. The professor showed up with 15 minutes left to the end of class. This didn’t seem to bother him or the other students. He started setting up the projector. This didn’t go very well, so we sat there doing nothing still. After about ten minutes of no success, he wrote a website up on the board and told us how to find two articles that we were to read for homework. And said we’d have a quiz on them next week. Someone came in to help with the projector and about ten minutes later they had it up and working. Though he had already given us instructions, our professor really wanted to go to the website and show us exactly where we needed to go. And we did some more waiting. But the internet wasn’t to keen on working that day, as is often the case on campus, and he could not pull up the site. For some reason though, he was able to get the Wikipedia site to load and he looked up similar articles there and gave us an overview of what we’d be reading. By the time he finished, he had kept us all but 15 minutes of an extra class period. This is the only class I absolutely cannot drop. Ugh.<br />My Conflict in Society professor did show at all today. What a bummer. I had hoped to elaborate my tree drawing/ conflict model.Emily Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13084304018601104551noreply@blogger.com0