Day 4

Pretty boring day as far as occurrences or events and stuff go. We had our first day as far as the official international programs orientation at the University of Ghana. It was good, but to be honest hard to stay awake through. Pretty much like most freshman orientations. There were good speakers and boring speakers. But it was really crazy to see how many international students are actually here. I was AMAZED. I had had the concept that I must be like the only person eccentric enough to want to go to Ghana to study abroad. But there are A LOT of Americans here. More than the Europeans actually, which I had been told originally that this is a big place from Europeans to go for study abroad. There is a group from University of California or something that is like 100 people. It’s nuts.

So mostly the orientation was about living in Ghana and how to register for classes and things. So it was useful to hear some of the stuff, mostly just to get a chance to ask a bunch of questions.  For far I have like 6 classes I want to take and about 5 I want to audit for no credit, just to sit in on the lecture series. Lol. Yes, I am a HUGE nerd. I just love learning and school and learning about different things. It’s hard for me not to want to take EVERYTHING.

But anyhow, we also took a campus tour on which I had some more exciting experiences. First, we hiked up to the registry buildings, which are like REALLY far away from the main center of campus. (As a matter of fact, if you are interested you should look up this school because it’s huge and the campus is like 5 of Fairmont State’s Campus.) But we went up there, and FINALLY Awooshi, one of our student guides, explained to us how to really tell if someone was a professional friend or not. I feel much better about it now, cause I feel like I can tell the difference. She said, right now without a lot of the Ghanaian students on campus yet its hard to come across a lot of people who aren’t potentially professional friends. But most of the male students are really great guys. They won’t be the ones who are really TRYING to get to know you at first, like stopping you to talk for forever and everything. But they are genuinely friendly and once you say hello and strike up a conversation then you find out how great they really are. I’m glad she was able to clarify that, cause I was just feeling really alienated like I couldn’t figure out how I was going to make any friends at all. We also saw the performing arts center and some outdoor amphitheatres there, which are really similar to like a classic Greek style. Soooo cool. I’m excited to really see what the classes are like though.

Next, I went to lunch and sat next to a really sweet Ghanaian guy named Sedasi, who was a 4^th year Zoology student there. He was really cool to talk to and really funny. I felt like I had my first real experience connecting with someone outside the small ISEP and international student circle. It was refreshing and kind of exhilarating, just to know that I CAN make friends.

Then finally, I had my first klutzy moment. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but I guess I only made it to the 4^th day. I fell in a hole. Laugh all you want, but it’s true. I was talking to our guide and walking along the sidewalk, which, by the way is really uneven in the first place because it’s made of brick, but it also has lots of gutters that run along it and random really deep holes.  Then as I was walking I had been looking down at the sidewalk but I saw the post office out of the corner of my eye and looked up and right as I started to as our guide about receiving mail there, I fell. Dropped a least a foot down into this hole and gasped with surprised, then just had to laugh at the stupidity of it all. Of course our guide was like, OMG does anyone have a first aid kit, she needs to keep that clean. And I was just saying it wasn’t a big deal. But it did break a little skin and bleed for like a second. But mostly it just looks like crazy road rash. So, here’s some photos. One up close, and one farther way.

Battle wound from the Ghanaian potholes

A closer look at my scrap