Akwaaba!

I just had my first Twi (pronounced chwee) class at the university, and all I can remember is akwaaba, which means "welcome." Twi is the main language of the Akan region of Ghana. I'm still a bit rough on the multiple cultural and ethnic groups here, but from what I understand, the Akan group make up 40% of the population of Ghana, mostly in the south. Their main language is Twi.

Anyways, HOLY COW I'm in Ghana. After a 36 hour journey from that began Friday at 4pm GMT-8, I finally arrived in Accra Sunday at 12:40pm GMT time. The flights from LAX to Dubai was pretty turbulent but aside from that, Emirates airline was very very impressive. When we arrived in Dubai, 10 other UC students and I were transported to a hotel where we had an overnight stay at the Millennium Hotel. The place was not bad. Since we arrived in the evening, we didn't do much in Dubai aside from walking around the hotel and sleeping. The 9 hour flight from Dubai to Accra felt much shorter than the 16 hour flight from LA to Dubai. I spent most my time on the plane reading guidebooks and Ghana guides EAP had provided for us.

When we arrived in Accra, the weather was warm and a bit humid, but it was not as bad as I was expecting. I passed immigration smoothly, got my bags within a few minutes and before I knew it, I was exiting the airport. I can't really explain how I felt. All I remember was thinking "what the hell did I just get myself into." I was in Ghana.

As I exited the airport, a bunch of Ghanaian men were trying to get my attention so they could help me with my bags. It was a relief to see students holding UC-EAP signs to greet us. As I approached them, a bunch of guys (who I now realize were complete strangers) insisted to take my luggage for me. When they approached the bus that was there to pick us up, some other students loaded my luggage onto the bus, and the man who had been helping me stuck out his hand to ask for money. Oh no, I has just fallen victim to something that all the UC guides were warning us about. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just got on the bus and my Nigerian friend from UCLA handled it. Whew.

So since my arrival here two days ago, we've been going through orientation. Orientation consists of eating our meals with each other at 7 am, noon and 5:30pm everyday. In between meals, we go on tours of the campus, of the city Accra, we visit museums, and we take classes about Ghana. Today, we had five lectures in a row. They were all very interesting to me- there were discussions about the history, pre and post independence, the culture, politics, about the current democratic situation in Ghana. Today is also the day the fifth president of Ghana will be inaugurated. There has been a lot of struggles with the democratic process in Ghana, and this past term was, I think, the first term where a civilian government was not overthrown by a military coup, so there is much excitement about today's event. We actually visited the location where the inauguration is supposed to happen yesterday. I want to read more about it and comment about it later.

Oo, something else I wanted to write about was what happened yesterday. Yesterday, we took a tour of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Much like Los Angeles, Accra is made up of a bunch of towns. And also much like the 405, there is plenty of bumper to bumper traffic on the roads that pass through it. During our tour of Accra, we stopped at two museums. One was a castle, a castle that was built by either the UK, Holland or the Dutch, and used during the trans-Atlantic slave trade to keep slaves before they were transported in boats to America. The other was a cultural museum that held many artifacts from Ghana.

I want to write a little more about the castle. Basically its this white concrete castle overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It's actually kinda pretty, until you realize what kind of castle it is. As you walk around, you see painting and murals of Africans chained together marching. Seeing it kind of makes you feel uneasy inside. I was lucky and got put in a group that got a tour of the place. As we entered the castle, there's a giant perspective painting of a bunch of black men dressed in loin cloths, chained together. White men are lined along them holding whips. It's a pretty morbid picture. As the tour guide was telling us about this picture, there were other Ghanaian students from a different program there that got put with the UC students. These students basically got in front of the picture and starting posing as if they were the slaves. They were all laughing at each other and calling each other slaves. It was a very interesting and slightly disturbing sight to see. I guess its just how they deal with these serious situations. Anyways, we were then led to a room where 20 of us got closed in a room with a small window for it. It was a replica of the rooms that the slaves were enclosed in before they were transported on a boat to their destination. It got so stuffy after five minutes with just 20 people. I can't imagine how it could have been with 45-50 people for days at a time...

Anyways, my time is almost up. SO much has been going on here. SO many thoughts race through my head everyday and I feel like I have no time to write them all down. Our orientation schedule is pretty packed. Hopefully I will find time to get online again soon.

Well wishes from Ghana!