-People dress so FLY in this country. Especially on campus. I'm talking pressed shirts, nice pants and skirts, steezy sunglasses, shined shoes...you won't see a single person walking to class with the typical American "just rolled out of bed" college student look. I'm grateful Marissa gave me tips about this before I left!
-Five people asked me if I was Latino last week.
-Last night I was basically rocked to sleep by the rumbling of this thunderstorm. I really have absolutely no problem with it raining here. The anticipation isn't drawn out with a day of clouds like at home, either. A sudden cool breeze will chill your skin as the clouds roll in front of the sun and then the little drops come until the sky finally opens up, washing away the hot air and red dust hovering above the ground. The only bad thing about rain is that it makes the internet go down for a few hours and it could potentially re-drench your clothes on the clothes line if you don't take them down.
-I haven't slept under any covers in two months.
-I really love the hostel/dorm I live in. There are four floors with four flats per floor. Each flat has a center room area, two bathrooms, a kitchen , a porch, and 3 bedrooms (2 people per bedroom). Its all very open and airy so the only thing separating suites is a little hallway or a flight of stairs so its like we all live in one big house. There are only 14 Americans (all from my program of 50) in all of Pentagon so we have good opportunities to meet Ghanaians and Nigerians (its still an international hostel) while having the support of a few Americans as well. And we lucked out with the Americans here...I couldn't ask for better people to be living with.
-I went to Makola market in Accra on Friday to search for some Ghana gear...Saturday was independence day so we wanted to get some red, yellow, and green. I found plenty of course, but I also stumbled upon this stand where this woman just had a gigantic pile of scarves to sell. It was funny because they were only 50 pesewas each and I was so tempted to buy a bunch for people back home but they were just like anything you could find at a vintage shop in Boulder,
just a great deal cheaper.
-There's this Chinese restaurant by our hostel (on campus) that has the most fantastic fried noodles I have ever tasted. There's also a pool table and a wall that the owner is always projecting random fashion shows on. I've had some very interesting conversations with this Nigerian guy who I keep bumping into there about how different American and Nigerian (Ghanaian, too) conceptions of beauty are. They really go for the curves here so its funny to hear his comments on runway models in New York City.
