Shirts for School

The first time I looked into the tiny room where “Mommy” Regina and the 10 children she cares for sleep, I heard a voice that was so loud and so clear that it sounded like there was somebody literally speaking to me out loud. Except, the voice was my own and it was definitely inside my head. It said, and this is an exact quote, “Your life will never be the same.” (more…)

The Music Video

Long story short, I have a friend who works at a radio station where she met a Ghanaian guy who has connections to the relatively famous Ghanaian hiplife group called 4×4. I had heard of these connections through the grapevine but didn’t think too much about it until my friend asked me, “Hey, so do you want to be in a music video?”

To which I responded soundly, “Hell yes, I want to be in a music video!” (more…)

Turning Down Busta for Buduburam

On Friday, I was invited to attend a Busta Rhymes concert in Accra the next night by the hiplife group whose music video I was in (which is a long story for another blog post). They would purchase my tickets for me, I would sit in the V.I.P. section, and I was invited to attend the exclusive after-party.

It sounded like a good time… but I declined. I had plans to spend the weekend at the Liberian Buduburam Refugee Camp. (more…)

Cape Coast — Parties and Poverty

This past weekend, I ventured to Cape Coast to see their annual festival. Needless to say, the festival–complete with a sacrifice of a bull, colorful costumes, a procession of chiefs, and streets filled with Ghanaians and tourists–was rather wild.

I woke up early on Saturday morning to see the main procession. The streets were completely crammed with onlookers, festival participants, and vendors. The beginning of the procession was wonderful. I managed to acquire a perch on a concrete ledge that gave me a perfect viewpoint of the street. As I chomped down on plantain chips, I watched people dressed up as gorillas dancing wildly, masked individuals shaking their coin boxes at tourists for spare change, and quite a few men walking around cross-dressed in female attire. The whole event seemed to me to be like a Ghanaian twist on American Halloween.

(more…)

The Taxi Chronicles: Episode 2

GHANA - One Friday evening, my friends and I decided to go out to Oxford Street, one of the main streets in Ghana, to go to an Irish pub and, later, a street festival. A few acquaintances planned on taking tro-tros.

Tro-tros, which are the main form of transportation in Ghana, are medium-sized vans that have bench-style seating. Even though they’re not especially large, they are crammed full of people. I’ve been in one that had 27 people total inside. Tro-tros are generally pretty run down, but they’re a ridiculously inexpensive form of transportation. However, they’re also known for being somewhat dangerous, especially at night. In my time in Ghana, I’ve seen three nasty accidents where tro-tros were completely smashed in or flipped on their roof. On a different trip, one UC-EAP student actually died in a nighttime tro-tro accident. (more…)

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