January 10, 2008 January 11, 2008

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Nancy Alexandrina Anthony
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1 There are things about Ghana that I learned before visiting the country. I took a class on Africa in the 21st century but we focused more on Nigeria so I did not learn about Ghana there as much. I heard about Ghana from two Ghanaians. One of my very good friends, who attends Hopkins, is 100% proud Ghanaian. He loves his country, and he swears all Ghanaians have the same country pride that he does. In fact, when he heard I was going on the intersession trip to Ghana he began singing the national anthem. He even did a little dance to go with it, and normally he isn t as loud and outgoing. Another Ghanaian man came to Hopkins for a summer master s program at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and complained about American customs. He said that in Ghana people are more friendly and enjoy conversing with one another about everything from politics to personal health. So I came to Ghana with many preconceived notions. January 10, 2008 Our first night here started late because the seemingly endless plane ride was delayed. That night we met Professor Williams briefly on the ride from the airport to the hotel. I guess the first thing to note is that getting off the plane and into the bus was an experience. First, as we were walking out of the airport the electricity went out. It reminded me of a documentary I watched once on Nollywood, because, in the movie, the director was having to stop filming every few minutes because the electricity would cut off and he would yell for someone to crank up the generator. The lights did not go out because of a storm outside, which is often the only cause for electricity outages in the US, but because of the lack of electricity in the area. I assumed that Ghana also had a lack of electricity. Unconsciously, I noticed the lack of electricity before I ever got off the plane. Flying into the populous city of Accra looked a lot like flying over rural South Carolina, the city lights were few and far between. At first, the lack of city lights seemed comforting because I have never quite enjoyed the blinding city lights, but it didn t take long to realize that the lack of city lights meant limited street lights. Coming out of the airport at night was frightening. It was very dark and there were so many people standing right outside the airport doors. I now see how the population could be almost four and one- half million! At first I saw all the seemingly rural land and thought the population would be smaller but the number of people outside the airport was astonishing. There were police there as well and they helped us (sort of) get to the awaiting bus. There were also quite a large number of homeless people sleeping outside the airport. I thought of BWI and quickly realized that the police there would make sure that no homeless people were around. I even thought of how on my first day at work at the Hopkins dorms the managers told us to keep homeless people from coming into the buildings. No one bothered the people sleeping outside Ghana s airport though; in fact, their existence seemed to be ignored by most. And I wonder which tactic is worse. January 11, 2008

2 At breakfast this morning we got to know Professor Williams better. Then for the first time, in what feels like many times to come, we experienced Ghana s traffic. It took us like two hours to tour the city, which should probably not take more than 30 minutes under normal conditions. The roads don t have very many stop signs, street signs, stop lights, or any other road lines. There were a few police officers at intersects directing traffic, but I couldn t help but wonder if it would be cheaper just to put up a street light with a camera attached for people who run red lights. It seems like paying someone to direct traffic all day would be much more expensive. I liked the driving there though, it actually reminded me of how I often drive in the states. It seemed like everyone just did what they wanted to in order to get what they want, and everyone else just knew to stay out of the way or slam on breaks. There were a lot of close calls. Professor Williams described Accra in great detail and I wish I could remember everything he said. There was just so much to see! There is a strange gutter system here though that I wonder if it is present anywhere else. The tops of the gutters are not covered so people often just seem to dump their garbage into the gutter system. I don t know how or if the gutters ever get cleaned out because it doesn t seem like water ever really moves through the gutters, all the water appears pretty stagnant. Professor Williams did say something interesting about how people get rid of garbage in the city. He said that the trash collection had become a part of the private sector so if someone could not afford to pay a garbage collector then they would just discard their garbage anywhere. It took a while to process what he meant but after a while I noticed the trash piling up. A lot of trash is burnt off, but that poses the danger of starting real fires considering how dry everything is during this season. We went by a camp, I believe it was called Sodom and Gomorrah, and the trash pile was unbelievable. It looked like a surreal refugee camp from a movie, there was a huge fence around the whole squatters settlement and I could see the houses in the distance that looked nothing like a stable home. The trash pile probably covered a good acre of land, and some of it was being burnt off as we passed it. There were animals eating in the trash dump as well. I think the public health professors at Hopkins could spend a week talking about the implications of their way of life. It just didn t seem like anyone could live there. After a tour of the city we saw the University of Ghana, which was a huge contrast. First of all, the University of Ghana is huge!! It took us about thirty minutes to tour it in a bus, and it seems like it has a degree for everything imaginable. Professor Williams told us that people who graduate from the university often see that they can make more money elsewhere so they don t stay in Ghana after graduating. I know that Ghana has been modernizing and building more but I wonder what they have been doing to keep their graduates. I wonder if they even find this to be of concern. I think the biggest problem in Ghana that I ve seen so far, and that I hear about often is the rise of unemployment. If educated Ghanaians stayed and found jobs then they could train the less educated workforce. In theory, more people would end up with jobs. The incentive just isn t available for graduates to stay in Ghana. Even my good friend who attends Hopkins said he would never go back to Ghana permanently, and he has a great deal of country pride. At the university we heard our first lecture by Professor Irene Odotei on colonial and post- colonial Ghana. The lecture was good and I took a lot of notes, but I don t know how it will help me with paper writing. I

3 guess I won t write on that topic seeing as I ve never had an affinity for history. It was still interesting to hear about Ghana s history. It s hard to imagine that they only got independence 50 years ago, my dad is older than that. January 12, 2008 Today we went to woodcarving village and I almost thought I needed to exchange out a lot more money but things are remarkably cheap here. We visited the Botanical Gardens first. There we smelt a lot of the different plants that grow in the area. Things like cinnamon, all spice, and eucalyptus were there along with about twenty others. I would never have been able to tell the difference between all the different smells if our tour guide wasn t there telling us. We also saw these pretty awesome plants that have retracting leaves that push together when you touch them. There was also a slightly scary rusty helicopter on the lawn that had been let at the Botanical Gardens years ago. It was a bit out of place but past settlers seem to have left many things other than the helicopter up there. They also brought in many strange plants. I don t think I ever expected to see bamboo in Ghana but a small patch of it is thriving at the gardens. I think a lot of the things planted there were just for experimentation. It seems like settlers that came through just tried many different plants on the land to see which ones took. After lunch at the Aburi Gardens, which later made me sick, we visited the woodcarving village. It seemed like less of a village and more like a long strip of stores along the street. I bartered for the first time! I think I did okay, but of course I probably spent more than I should have. After we were back in Accra we visited the first president s, Kwame Nkrumah, mausoleum. When we first walked in, I saw this big beat up statue. It was missing a head, part of its arm, and a large chunk of its leg. The guide later told us that the beat up statue was actually one of Kwame Nkrumah that was destroyed once he lost power. It was strange to think of him as ever being hated, especially since the statue at the front of the mausoleum is a very regal replica of the former president. Now the former president is honored a great deal, so the first statue we saw seems to be out of place. It was interesting to see that he wasn t always as respected. January 13, 2008 We left for Cape Coast and Elmina castle really early this morning. I couldn t sleep on the bus so I was pretty tired when we finally got there. I thought I would have reacted more emotionally toward the castle, but I guess it was just because I couldn t hear all of what the tour guide was saying. The violence of the time period seems so far away, like some story we hear and try not to think about too much. It s a horrible thing to say, because to make up for the past we need to remember all the wrongs that occurred, but it s hard to wrap my mind about all that violence. Just the things that the guards did to the women is enough to make one squeamish. They showed us the door that the slaves would have to pass through to get onto the boat, the door of no return. It was so small, but he said that at that point all the slaves would be small enough to fit through that hole in the wall. I just couldn t seem to believe it at first. In most of the movies about slaves coming to the America s I ve seen big, strong men being forced to work on plantations, men that could never fit through that small hole. It was a lot to process, so much that it may be another year

4 before I could think about the castle and actually put into words how I felt. I think a place like that has to enter your mind gradually because the horror of it is too much for a small- town suburban American, who has always felt protected and safe, to absorb. January 14, 2008 Today felt like another class day at Hopkins. The lecture styles are not much different from Hopkins classes, in my opinion. Our first lecture started a bit late. It reminded me of when the Ghanaian man I met at Hopkins talked about his country. He was attempting to describe Ghana to me. He said that people in Ghana are much more laid back and that they never rush. He said that when he gets into a cab to go to work, he could get talking with the cab driver and be an hour late to work. Our lecturer was about forty- five minutes late which made the American in me get a little frustrated. I guess his lecture made up for it though. He was very knowledgeable about economics but he was also able to explain it to me in simple terms. I had never taken an interest in the economy before, but his passion for the subject made it seem much more interesting. He talked more about the structures set up to monitor the economies of the world than just the economy of Ghana. I wish he had talked more about Ghana s economy and where he saw it going. I thought that he would have only talked about Ghana s economy but I understand that we need the background first. We took a crazy fast tour of the W.E.B DuBois Center, which I would have liked to tour again at a much slower rate. I feel like I don t know anything about W.E.B DuBois, and this was a good opportunity to find out more about him. I honestly didn t know he had anything to do with Ghana, much less had lived there for so many years. Once we were done with our ten minute tour, which seemed to have left the tour guide a bit frustrated, we went back for our second lecture of the day. This lecture was about the role of Ghanaian women. I love it when you learn something and then see the same thing working in action. Dr. Akosua Darkwa taught us that onions are often sold by men and since the market is seen as a female sphere, the men sell the onions outside the markets. It was exciting to see the males on the outside of the market. I guess in any country or culture the female is associated with food. She also taught us a lot about how chiefs are often chosen through the mother s lineage. It reminded me of how the Jewish lineage runs, and makes a lot more sense than lineage through the father s line. I wanted to ask her more questions, but the lights went out at the school so I knew it was time for us to go. I wanted to hear about women in the military because as we were driving back to the school I saw a woman in a military uniform directing traffic, but she is the only woman I ever saw. January 15, 2008 We were supposed to have two more lectures today but our last lecturer had to cancel so we went shopping instead! It was a nice turn of events, although I m sure the lecturer would have been good to hear. I heard he was good at tying up everything we have learned thus far, since he was supposed to be our very last lecturer. Anyway the first lecturer, Dr. K. Ohene- Kanadu talked at great length about how mining is affecting health in the region. When I first heard about his lecture I

5 thought he would be talking a lot more about sanitation because of the gutters and garbage around the city. He did talk about how healthcare has evolved throughout Ghana, and how now they have a program called the National Healthcare Scheme, which from the name didn t sound too nice. Malaria was also a huge concern because it kills more people than Aids/HIV. I have about ten pages of notes from his lecture, it is kind of insane. We probably could have talked about healthcare and the environment for a month and not really put a dent into the issue. I wonder if Ghana will ever change from leaded gas. I wonder if the gutters will ever be covered and if a new form of garbage collection will emerge. There are just so many things to think about, but people appear to be surviving in their environment. I just don t know how well they are surviving. In most of my public health classes, we look at health conditions and environmental conditions like the one s seen in Ghana and compare the conditions to the US and other westernized nations. Of course, now in the US and other westernized nations people die from chronic diseases instead of infections, so I don t know if the same will happen if Ghana modernizes to the point of having McDonald s. January 16,2008 Tonight we will not be staying in Accra. This morning we left for Kumasi at like the break of dawn. We went through their Central Market, the smell of which I may never forget. In all my days I have not thought that westernized countries should go into another country and impose rules, laws, or regulations onto them, but for a second when I saw the food in the Central Market I cracked. There were bugs all over the food that they were selling, the gutters looked like something out of a horror movie, and the smell was unspeakable. I couldn t see a lot around me because I was so worried about stepping into something so I kept my eyes on the ground. I ve never had an experience like that before. I kept thinking that someone should do something about the bugs on the food. I heard that if you are exposed to germs and infections that you could build up a tolerance to such things. I wonder if there are a lot of cases of food illness or if they have grown accustomed to how things are kept. So many things happened today and we were late as usual, but I m far too tired to write it all. I guess the jet lag is finally catching up with me. January 17, 2008 Today was the most fun day I think I ve ever had! First we visited the bead village where I made a killing off of necklaces and bracelets. They are gorgeous! I can t believe they make most of the jewelry out of glass bottles. I bought my sister a necklace and bracelet set and I can t wait to tell her how they were made. It s funny to think that a person could have drunk out of your necklace before. We then went to another village. I saw how they make the ink to stamp on the Adinkra symbols onto cloth. We each stamped our own symbol. I picked the one for diligence, which I felt a little bad for afterwards because that symbol isn t often used. The man ended up getting me a brand new Adinkra symbol for diligence to use. We also went to the Kente weaving village. I wish I had bought a big blanket while I was there. I always feel bad about watching them put so much working into something and then buying it so cheaply. Our guide told us that making the kente cloth takes a really long time.

6 Then each of the small strips of kente cloth has to be sewn together to make a big blanket. I should probably be paying more for it than twenty dollars. After all our shopping at the different villages we went to a museum about the past Ashanti kings. Then we went back to Accra, very slowly. It was about the longest trip ever. We saw a brush fire along the way. No one was even attending to it. The fire was just kind of running wild and seemed to be breezing through the woods very easily. I was glad no homes were around. I pictured the people near the fire just picking up their things and leaving because there wouldn t be any fire trucks to put out the fire. January 18, 2008 Our day of community service was short and sweet, but once we got back to the hotel I was exhausted. It has been a while since I ve been picking up cinderblocks and laying cement. I never thought that things I learned from Habitat for Humanity prove to be helpful on other trips but I guess I was wrong. Apparently I can smooth on mortar like no other. The children at the school seemed nice, but a lot of the older girls did not want to talk a lot and the younger children just loved to have their picture taken. We were building a computer lab for the school, but we left at 1. Some of the other girls on the trip were laughing because we were supposed to leave at 4 but I was pretty glad we left early. January 19, 2008 Our free day was filled with shopping and packing as could be expected. I got my mumu dress though! I m sure I spent more for it than I should have, but it was nice to trade with pens for the first time. That night was our last one in Ghana and everyone was pretty upset about leaving. Our last night was pretty amazing though. The musicians and dancers were amazing! I truly did not want to leave Ghana after that. Our flight was the next day, which I did not look forward too. It was so hard to say goodbye to everything. I keep wishing that I could go back sometime but I don t really know if I will logically be able to go. I want to travel after college, but it seems like college is really the only time to travel. I m glad I got to see and learn about Ghana. I don t think I will be having another experience like it again. Although now I have to go home to write a paper, I m sure that will make my experience seem less pleasant. Now that I m back in the states I realize what an amazing opportunity I took part in. Of course, everyone is jealous as they should be that I went instead of them. I am beginning to realize how much of a pain I m going to be to everyone when I continually say things like Well when I was in Ghana we did I sense a lot of dirty looks in my future. I wish I could go again, I would even ride through all the traffic, or rather get stuck in all the traffic, again. I wish I had done more and bought more and stayed longer but I guess I ll just have to wait until next years trip. I ve already begun asking Mr. Colon if returning participants get a discount. He s going to look into I think.

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