Forever young: AIESEC at Yale: May 2008

I've been out of the US for almost a week now. Ghana has been great. The people here are wonderful and nice. The food is absolutely amazing. And yes, I'm still alive--at least, I'm trying my very best to stay that way. The traffic here is crazy. Even in the little village I'm staying, huge trucks carrying tons of goods blast through the main road. It's quite an experience. I have been cooking for myself lately. I'm trying to learn how to cook fufu and other African dishes. I also have been fighting a losing battle with mice in the kitchen. I am the only foreigner, or obruny (word for white person--they consider anyone not Ghanaian white), in the village. So it's been very interesting. I finally know what it means to be a walking a zoo.

And about machetes, I've seen many now. Little kids about 5-6 carry them around after coming back from the cocoa fields. (Oh, I had some cocoa beans--they have a very sweet coating before you process them--the other day. I also get to have almost fresh hot chocolate everyone morning for breakfast.) Yesterday, I saw a man walking with a shotgun and a machete. It was about then that it finally hit me that I'm in the middle of Africa.

Mosquitos have not killed me yet. Although I've seen just about every kind of exotic insects you could possibly imagine. There are literally hundreds of lizards running around the village. You see them everywhere.

I have to go. I am in Kumasi right now. It's Ghana's second largest city. By city, it's more like one massive village. I still have a 2 hour car ride back to the village in a tro-tro--the most terrifyingly crammed and dilapidated van imagined by mankind.

Labels: Ghana, life, travels

before leaving

Four more days until I leave the US. It's finally starting to hit me that I will be in the middle of West Africa for ten weeks. I'm excited but definitely a little worried. I still have so much to pack and so much buy/get.

Good-byes

Just said good-bye to Jake -- he leaves for a game reserve in northern South Africa tomorrow, future internet and phone access uncertain. So I've gone from 5-hours-a-day boyfriend to 1-hour-max-a-week. WITHDRAWAL WILL ENSUE.

That said, it was even sadder to say good-bye to Shannon and Juli and Jing. Though Jing insisted that it was not good-bye, but good luck. I'm still deciding whether to go to IC in Brazil (whether I can, whether it's smart... such an amazing experience, but it's also a huge expense and hassle), so for now I know that the good-byes may be like Art's and Naouf's 4 years ago: who knew when they were going to see each other again?

And I know -- yes, there is Skype. The internet is a wonderful thing. But it's so easy to lose the essence of a friendship if your communication is digital, to take people for granted as digital presences but forget that you only get the right to take people for granted if you hug them a lot and keep them updated on your life!

So that's the price of international life. In exchange for the stories and love, the hugs all go to different continents.

Internet hugs to all the grads and all our departed trainees and CEEDs!!!