Goo Black Stars!

What to do in Legon on a saturday night on campus? Unlike what you would think for most college campuses, the answer here is church! A few people in one of my geology classes have been pestering me for weeks to go to church with them (not unusual here) so I finally gave in on Saturday night because an Archbishop who has traveled all over and is supposed to be great was leading the service.
I didn't know what to expect, we arrived at 8pm to a crowd of thousands of students, a massive stage, live band, a huge screen for those in the back to see, and it was being broadcast on tv. I was pretty stoked at first just because it was more of a big gospel dance party than anything. Plus now I had some leverage for not going to church with them at 6am on Sundays. Before the service started, a woman preacher came on and starting singing, praising god, and apparently I missed the cue to start praying. I thought everyone lost interest and started talking amongst themselves. I looked around and I was the lone girl standing eyes wide open at every single person with their eyes closed, shaking, and praying. Usually things like this don't scare me at all but the crowd overwhelmed me and I began sweating through my sweater. Ahh I'm going to throw up, ahh deep breath. I ran into the bushes and caught some fresh air. When I got back, the people I was with didn't even notice I was gone because they were still praying with their eyes closed, phew. I thought I could stand it but another bout of nausea came on. I wondered if this meant god hated me for only going to Sunday school for the donuts at Nonni and Grandpa's after. Luckily one of our program's student leaders and our good friend was a few rows in front of me and I told him I felt sick. He laughed at me "Oh this is overwhelming here, I understand." I really think it was something I ate but nevertheless he nicely walked me back and I went to bed. Ghanaian Church-1, Jane-0.

Sunday morning we left at 6am for Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana to watch the Ghana national soccer team play Sudan. We got there around noon and the game was scheduled to start at 3pm even the tickets said 3pm. You'd think we would know better after being here for two months about how time works in Ghana. Anything that is supposed to start at a certain time usually will take an hour or more (I'm really not exaggerating). But in my mind this was an official event so we entered the stadium around 3 ready for the game! The sprinklers were giving the field a nice drink at 3:15 and there was one man walking around the grass. We sat around talked with some people around us and as asked in our white girl voices: "Uh when is the game going to start?" "5 o'clock." GMT (Ghana man time) never ceases to fail! We enjoyed the atmosphere around us as the time passed before the game and the stadium filled up. Sure enough, at 5:05 the whistles went off and everyone went nuts! Vuvuzelas and drummers surrounded us and we anticipated the moment a goal was scored, I was nervous I would need a helmet or a weapon. Unfortunately that never happened as the game was pretty uneventful and ended up 0-0. It was so great though, I just needed a plate of garlic fries and some frozen lemonade and I'd be golden. We escaped just before the masses of people and hopped onto the bus as an intense lightning and rain storm hit. It was a long ride back but worth it to experience the soccer culture here. Plus I got a really awesome hat, sooo worth it. Off to Togo tomorrow morning, let's see what those years of french did for me!

Jane in the Jungle

Finally we got out of the city and into the jungle! After a friday night of staying up until 5am studying really hard in my room, we woke up at 9am packed up and headed out to the road to catch a tro tro to go to Boti Falls. We met up with the two boys traveling with us, we all assumed the others would know where to go, ha false. We asked around and after two easy tro tro trips through green hills, jungle, and cocoa farms arrived at the entrance to Boti Falls around 4pm. We walked down to the water falls which we could hear from the entrance and it makes sense why. When we got down there we were all blasted by intense wind and mist from the falls, and the pool the falls emptied into actually had waves. We explored around a bit, took some nerdy tourist photos and then headed back up to the main entrance and asked an old lady where "umbrella rock" was, a place some of our friends had hiked to a couple weeks earlier. She pointed in a few directions so we just picked one and started hiking. We went up, down, over ravines through a cool cavern type thing, and finally up a steep gorge to where we could see the rock. Mushroom Rock would be more appropriate. We were all in heaven, we climbed up the wooden ladders to the top threw our stuff down and soaked in the green valley surrounding us. That night, we slept up on the rock with lightning and thunder storms surrounding us but somehow we didn't get rained on. In the morning we cooked okra stew that one of the boys brought the fixings for. Some little kids from a nearby village came over to us and hopped up on a rock nearby and started singing and dancing "Who let the dogs out? whooo whooo whooo whoo," one of the cutest things I've ever seen. They brought us tomatoes (which we forgot) for our stew and then invited us to their village which was just a short walk away. We shared some stew and they laughed at us and invited us back anytime. We hiked back to the main entrance and just as it started raining got onto a tro tro heading in the right direction and made it back to campus in great time. It was by far the best trip I have taken yet here, peaceful, outside, and cheap! This week I was supposed to have a midterm on Monday. On my way to class a girl in the class stopped me and told me that there were no classes because the lecturers were on strike. Two days later and I still haven't had a class this week and don't know when I will again next (no Mama that doesn't mean I can come home early). This Sunday we are going to Kumasi to watch the Ghana national soccer team play against Sudan, should be very exciting. Especially considering the only sports games I've seen here are intramural baseball, soccer, and people swimming in the pool. Now I understand why it's rare to find an African in the MLB or a pro swimmer, these sports aren't emphasized much here. Soccer is another story altogether, it's rare to walk by a field and not find a game happening. Until Sunday I'll continue to hang out and wait out the strike. In the meantime, we found a place that sells bootlegged America TV shows, so Friends has been keeping us busy.