So. Over the past few weeks, classes have finally
gotten under way and a lot’s happened.
Last post, I was really excited about going salsa dancing, but that hasn’t
happened yet, which is a real bummer.
However, I’ve now had all 7 of my classes, become a frequent swimmer of
laps, said goodbye to some friends who’ve gone home, welcomed another back!,
gone to my first professional football game, travelled to Kumasi, bargained for
some things, and have gotten some clothes made! So, here goes catching up on 2, almost 3,
weeks worth of stories. :)
I don’t know how explicitly I mentioned this in earlier posts,
but just so everyone knows: classes were supposed to begin 12 August. However,
the professors were on strike for book allowances and salary things. Classes didn’t begin until the first week of
September. Naturally, many of us were nervous about being sent home, whether
credits would still transfer to our home institution, whether the decreased
number of class hours this semester would affect how much we covered and thus leave
us unprepared for final exams, what would happen regarding drop/add deadlines
both here and at home, and the like. On
the other hand, it left a lot of time for travelling and adjusting to a new
environment without the pressures of a classroom setting. Two girls in our program
went home more or less because they didn’t want to wait for the strike to
finish anymore (we’d been told for 3 weeks straight that “it’s almost done. It
never goes more than a week; two max.”).
The exciting news was that Sarah, who’d gone home for medical reasons
after the first week came back the same week the others left and, well,
it’s all just very exciting. :)
At home textbooks are ~$300 if I do a good job looking for the
best combination of deals through Amazon and the bookstore. Here, you don’t buy books. Instead everyone buys copies. It seems there are copiers in almost every
department or building with workers manning them all day. The class captain, or class rep, are given the
book, excerpt, or handout that the students need copies of. They then take these to a copier and you go
at your convenience to purchase your copy.
This very well may (will) be my cheapest semester, textbook wise. [7 Ghana cedis for a copy of Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
So about $3.50. woot.]
There aren’t a lot of oburonis, so it makes sense that in the
classes we’re in, frequently there are very few of us. The first day of my Pidgin and Creole
Languages class all the oburnis sat on one side, the Ghanaians on the other.
This wasn’t intentional…it just kind of happened. What threw most of the foreigners was the
fact that the professor lost no time in mentioning it while smiling and
laughing. He thought it was sooo funny. And all I could think was, “How can
you possibly think that this separation by skin color is something that is okay
to laugh at?” On my way back to ISH, I ran into Amber who’d had a similar experience
in a class earlier in the week. She was
one of two oburonis in the class. Both were asked to stand and introduce
themselves to the class. No one else was asked to do so. She found this incredibly
rude and offensive. Who enjoys being
singled out? We talked a bit and came
more or less to this conclusion/theory: “Racism is basically taboo in our
culture. We don’t talk about it because
it makes people nervous and uneasy. We like to think we’re above and better
than it. But maybe it’s the way
Ghanaians deal with it so they can continue with their day, alike to what my
friend Kelly experienced when the students in her class laughed when poverty
was being discussed. [Those who attend the university are more or less from the
top %10 of Ghana’s population and come from pretty affluent backgrounds.] It’s
just how they deal with one of the many ugly truths in their everyday routine.”
More to come soonish. As today is Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday, Monday is a public holiday. Happy
Birthday, Mr. President!
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