Everyday it never ceases to amaze me how quickly we are now nearing the end.
2 weekends ago I spent an awesome weekend relaxing at the beach with my friend Maggie. This past weekend I stayed in Accra (relaxed by the pool) and attempted to be productive on school work. I got 1 of 3 papers for the next 2 weeks finished and am halfway threw a second one and making great progress on getting research for the third. Now we are all patiently waiting for the new exam schedule to be published for international students since the academic calendar was thrown off by 3 weeks of lecturer strikes, but we still have to fit the rest of our courses and exams in before our return flights so they are trying to accommodate us as best as possible -- but we are getting anxious not knowing our exams schedule, we want to fit in as much travel as possible now that it's getting easier and easier to count down the days until we fly back to our respective home countries, etc.
Despite not knowing when my exams will take place (and therefore when I'll be able to travel during the next 5 weeks) I am getting SO EXCITED for Charlie to get here (10 days!!! until he and Jen land) on my birthday! :)
I register for classes back at the University of Wyoming on Friday night (10pm GMT [my time] - 3pm MST [Laramie time]) -- so close to being back in reality ... not sure if I'm ready ;)
I have no idea what this weekend will hold in terms of traveling, but I'll try to put up another post before Charlie arrives!
See you all SO soon.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
a little over 2 months in!!!!
Since the last post I have done a lot!
I spent a weekend in Togo with 3 other people (none of whom speak any French) so we squeezed by a whole weekend with hardly any English speakers around on my small working knowledge of French - turns out no matter how many years of a language you take, it doesn't really stick until you actually get a chance to practice it in real life. The weekend was awesome though, and I appreciated having the opportunity to practice some French. The food was fantastic - having real cheese and coffee and chocolate with baguettes and croissants for the first time since being in Africa was like heaven :) . We didn't take the chance to visit the fetish market outside of Lome or do any hiking around Kpalime but I will have to return to Togo again before leaving Ghana (sometime in November) so there's still time for those stops. We did shop at the Grand Marche, which really is a labyrinth and we visited an Artisan Centre where we actually got to see the people making the ceramics, wood carvings, cloths, and jewelry that you so often see for sale all over West Africa.
The weekend after that (the first weekend of October) we went to Volta Region to the East for the Palm Festival in a little town Dzodze (pronounced jojay). Palms produce SO many products for the people here so a full weekend dedicated to celebrating them is fitting. We spent 4 hours sitting at a Durbar where only about 10 words were spoken in English (so we didn't understand much), but the music and dancing interludes were a lot of fun and we were able to spend a good portion of the weekend dancing and (for the drummers) drumming ourselves.
The last week and a half has been pretty interesting because the lecturers are on strike! Last week only 1 of my 6 classes actually took place, but this week so far 1 of 2 have taken place, and supposedly the next 4 will also take place despite the strike because the international students have to continue lecture in order to take exams on time and receive credit for the semester. However with only one class early Tuesday morning last week we were able to get in some travel time :) Tuesday night and Wednesday we spent at Winneba (a really nice beach between Accra & Cape Coast) and this weekend - Saturday through Monday, we went to Koforidua where we were able to see 2 major water falls and take an awesome and exhausting hike up to 'umbrella stone'.
Unsure of what this weekend will hold, we were considering Aburi Botanical Gardens this Wednesday or Thursday but there's a better possibility of heading back to another beach so possibly either Kokrobite (which is pretty close by) or Busua/Dixcove which is a few hours West but very nice and relaxing. Who knows what the future holds... :)
I spent a weekend in Togo with 3 other people (none of whom speak any French) so we squeezed by a whole weekend with hardly any English speakers around on my small working knowledge of French - turns out no matter how many years of a language you take, it doesn't really stick until you actually get a chance to practice it in real life. The weekend was awesome though, and I appreciated having the opportunity to practice some French. The food was fantastic - having real cheese and coffee and chocolate with baguettes and croissants for the first time since being in Africa was like heaven :) . We didn't take the chance to visit the fetish market outside of Lome or do any hiking around Kpalime but I will have to return to Togo again before leaving Ghana (sometime in November) so there's still time for those stops. We did shop at the Grand Marche, which really is a labyrinth and we visited an Artisan Centre where we actually got to see the people making the ceramics, wood carvings, cloths, and jewelry that you so often see for sale all over West Africa.
The weekend after that (the first weekend of October) we went to Volta Region to the East for the Palm Festival in a little town Dzodze (pronounced jojay). Palms produce SO many products for the people here so a full weekend dedicated to celebrating them is fitting. We spent 4 hours sitting at a Durbar where only about 10 words were spoken in English (so we didn't understand much), but the music and dancing interludes were a lot of fun and we were able to spend a good portion of the weekend dancing and (for the drummers) drumming ourselves.
The last week and a half has been pretty interesting because the lecturers are on strike! Last week only 1 of my 6 classes actually took place, but this week so far 1 of 2 have taken place, and supposedly the next 4 will also take place despite the strike because the international students have to continue lecture in order to take exams on time and receive credit for the semester. However with only one class early Tuesday morning last week we were able to get in some travel time :) Tuesday night and Wednesday we spent at Winneba (a really nice beach between Accra & Cape Coast) and this weekend - Saturday through Monday, we went to Koforidua where we were able to see 2 major water falls and take an awesome and exhausting hike up to 'umbrella stone'.
Unsure of what this weekend will hold, we were considering Aburi Botanical Gardens this Wednesday or Thursday but there's a better possibility of heading back to another beach so possibly either Kokrobite (which is pretty close by) or Busua/Dixcove which is a few hours West but very nice and relaxing. Who knows what the future holds... :)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
2 more weeks here and gone!
I still can't get over how it seems my time here in Ghana is slipping right through our fingers and standing still just the same.
Another two weeks have come and gone but we have continued to fill our time here with adventure and excitement (and school). In Kumasi, ISEP stayed at the Engineering Guest House at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) which was very nice -- it had water heaters in every room! We visited several craft villages to buy Kente cloth, Adinkra symbol stamps, and wood carvings. A portion of the group visited the largest natural lake in Ghana, while the rest of us wandered through the market, which happens to be the largest market in all of West Africa!
Of course I was one of the people that had to get sick while we were travelling, but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I did not have malaria. Unfortunately, not having malaria meant that it was more difficult to assess what I did have in order to treat it, and assuming it was just a cold, I did not seek treatment until I was completely miserable about the middle of last week. The cough I had was giving me raging headaches, I was congested, and just overall felt terrible. Thursday I went to a private hospital where they did a general blood test to determine whether my issues were being caused by bacteria or a virus. It seems I have a bacterial infection so they prescribed antibiotics (and several other basic medications for my various symptoms) and now, even though I still have a cough and a slight runny nose, I am feeling 100 times better :) -- ready for another week of classes.
Next weekend I'm planning on going to Togo (the country bordering Ghana to the East) for a few days, with the full purpose to be that upon re-entering Ghana I will receive a new 60-day stamp validifying my student visa. This will give me a chance (or rather, force me) to brush up on my French speaking (and probably reading) skills and will just be an over all great opportunity to see another country in West Africa!!!
More to come after that :)
Another two weeks have come and gone but we have continued to fill our time here with adventure and excitement (and school). In Kumasi, ISEP stayed at the Engineering Guest House at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) which was very nice -- it had water heaters in every room! We visited several craft villages to buy Kente cloth, Adinkra symbol stamps, and wood carvings. A portion of the group visited the largest natural lake in Ghana, while the rest of us wandered through the market, which happens to be the largest market in all of West Africa!
Of course I was one of the people that had to get sick while we were travelling, but fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I did not have malaria. Unfortunately, not having malaria meant that it was more difficult to assess what I did have in order to treat it, and assuming it was just a cold, I did not seek treatment until I was completely miserable about the middle of last week. The cough I had was giving me raging headaches, I was congested, and just overall felt terrible. Thursday I went to a private hospital where they did a general blood test to determine whether my issues were being caused by bacteria or a virus. It seems I have a bacterial infection so they prescribed antibiotics (and several other basic medications for my various symptoms) and now, even though I still have a cough and a slight runny nose, I am feeling 100 times better :) -- ready for another week of classes.
Next weekend I'm planning on going to Togo (the country bordering Ghana to the East) for a few days, with the full purpose to be that upon re-entering Ghana I will receive a new 60-day stamp validifying my student visa. This will give me a chance (or rather, force me) to brush up on my French speaking (and probably reading) skills and will just be an over all great opportunity to see another country in West Africa!!!
More to come after that :)
Thursday, September 2, 2010
(almost) 4 weeks in!
I still cannot believe how quickly time is flying by. As of Saturday this week I will have been here, in Ghana, 4 weeks! Since my last post I have made another trip to Cape Coast (this time with my program) 7 of us left Friday morning and stayed in Fort Patience in a little coastal town called Apam Friday night on our own and had the group pick us up on their way Saturday morning. I did the canopy walk at Kakum National Park again -- and it is just as much fun, if not more, the second time around. We wandered through the town of El Mina but did not do the tour of the castle, and we stayed at Hans Cottage. Sunday, we did the tour of Cape Coast Castle and drove back to Accra. Another week of classes has gone by, and many people are leaving in the morning for Togo (a neighboring country) to renew their visa stamps if they only got a 30-day stamp upon arrival in Accra. I plan to take it "easy" this weekend; I'm hoping to volunteer in Adenta tomorrow at a school set up by a few Rastas, Saturday I don't really have any plans so I thought maybe I would check out the Botanical Gardens on campus, and Sunday we have been invited to the church of one of our Ghanaian student guides (where he is in the music group and his father is the Pastor). We'll sit through another week of lectures and ISEP leaves for Kumasi next weekend! Very excited about that because I have no idea what that trip holds in store for us.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
2 weeks down!
Day by day this trip just keeps on getting better :)
This was technically the first week of classes but due to our time zone Ghanaian Maybe Time (GMT) few if any courses actually held lectures this week -- taking this into account, many international students decided to take advantage of the extra week off before classes actually begin to travel a bit and get out of the hostel for a few days. Originally there were plans to leave Tuesday night and head up to the norther region of Ghana to Tamale and Mole National Park (with the intention of seeing elephants, etc.) but that idea was discarded when we realized that the chances of seeing wildlife during the rainy season is slim-and-none. That trip will be much more worthwhile in November or December when the natural watering holes begin to dry out. A few students from my program chose instead, to go to the Volta region to our east and spend a few days there. I, however, chose to spend a few days in Cape Coast with a group of German students and a frenchman.
The seven of us headed out on Wednesday morning - and due to the madness that is public transportation in this country - arrived in Cape Coast (which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Accra) by bus about 7 hours after we left campus. We stopped at a nearby hotel on the beach for dinner and drinks before heading 10 kilometers out of town to the hostel we had chosen to stay at. Turns out, it really is a small world after all! While enjoying our drinks, resting from a nearly full day of travel, and waiting an extremely long time for our food we met 3 Americans sitting at the table next to us -- they all met at the Colorado School of Mines! Crazy enough, Ben had been working in the gold mines further west of Cape Coast (and knew of the mines where Dave Moragues' company works) and as it turns out - his girlfriend Sarah had been on the same flight to Accra from D.C. with me 2 weeks ago! We both felt as though the other looked familiar but didn't realize until later in the evening that we had been sitting one row in front of the other across the isle from each other. Their friend Duncan has been in various countries around Africa for the last 2 years and is planning to continue the same for at least another year. We exchanged numbers, paid our tab, and said goodnight.
The group from Legon caught 2 cabs to our destination for the next couple nights "Hans Cottage Botel". It's a 'botel' because almost the entire area is on stilts above a crocodile pond! At dinner a local Ghanaian student from University of Ghana, Legon joined up with us so when we got to the hostel there were 8 of us assigned to one room (sounded a little tight to me) - there were 12 beds, 8 of which were made up with sheets and pillowcases on the pillows. We had a private "washroom" and were located right next to the pool!
Thursday we decided to tour one of the local slave castles El Mina, afterwhich we stopped at a nearby village on the beach were we smelled the locals smoking the fish they had caught that morning and we were soon swarmed by local children. We took some pictures with the kids and headed back to Cape Coast for some lunch. We began wandering along the road closest to the beach where we ran into Ben & Sarah from the night before who invited us back to their beach hotel for some ultimate frisbee on the beach later. We wandered some more and eventually made it to their hotel, bought some drinks and hung out on the beach until they returned. While waiting we were able to watch several different rugby training groups and a family of pigs munching on the garbage not too far from where we were sitting. Before long Duncan had joined us with his frisbee which soon attracted many local children (and foreign "obruni" children) to toss the disc around with us. Unfortunately this didn't last as long as it could have because our group had hired a couple taxis for the day and our time was running out so we headed back to the hostel and hit the pool to lose the sand we literally had all over us. A few of the guys had invited the Coloradans to join us for the evening and by the time we got out of the pool and dried off a bit, they were at Hans Cottage ready to order dinner and have some drinks.
The next morning our group (fondly referred to now as the "C.C. Crew" aka Cape Coast Crew) paid for our room from the previous 2 nights and headed off to Kakum National Park where we did the canopy walk which ranges anywhere between 20-40 meters off the forest floor below. It is said to give you a "monkey's-eye view" of the area, however the chances of actually seeing wildlife are severely decreased by the fact that there are constantly large groups of tourists (including small children) wandering through making entirely too much noise. We were able to hang back far enough from our tour group so that it was much more quiet as we crossed the 7 rope bridges from platform to platform and took in the wonderful scenery around us. We wandered back out to the main road and caught a tro-tro back to Hans Cottage to pick up our luggage from reception on our way back into Cape Coast to hop on yet another tro-tro to make the 2.5 hour trip back to Accra (which turned out to be a poor choice on a Friday night). We grabbed some food from street vendors to help get us through until we were back in Legon for the night and squeezed into a tro-tro with all our luggage on our laps. Traffic in Accra was terrible! When we finally made it to Circle station it took at least an hour to get a cab for 4 of us to start heading to Legon and it took at least 2 hours once we were in the cab! This cab ride was definitely not for the weak - it was a sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting, adrenaline rush kind of ride and I doubt we will ever attempt major travel on Fridays ever again. Never-the-less we survived and made it safely back to campus last night in time to decide whether to go out on the town or not but eventually everyone admitted defeat from another long day of travelling and we had a lazy rest of a rainy day.
Lots more rain this morning, but hopefully it will stay away for the rest of our evening. Today is the international student Welcome Durbar beginning at 4pm which is in about 2.5 hours and a major after party downtown. I think tomorrow will be more of a lazy day - more likely than not filled by the task of handwashing more laundry before classes actually begin on Monday (or so I'm told).
I think that's all for now, quite a big update this time and uploading the pictures isn't working quite right now so that will be soon to come as well :)
This was technically the first week of classes but due to our time zone Ghanaian Maybe Time (GMT) few if any courses actually held lectures this week -- taking this into account, many international students decided to take advantage of the extra week off before classes actually begin to travel a bit and get out of the hostel for a few days. Originally there were plans to leave Tuesday night and head up to the norther region of Ghana to Tamale and Mole National Park (with the intention of seeing elephants, etc.) but that idea was discarded when we realized that the chances of seeing wildlife during the rainy season is slim-and-none. That trip will be much more worthwhile in November or December when the natural watering holes begin to dry out. A few students from my program chose instead, to go to the Volta region to our east and spend a few days there. I, however, chose to spend a few days in Cape Coast with a group of German students and a frenchman.
The seven of us headed out on Wednesday morning - and due to the madness that is public transportation in this country - arrived in Cape Coast (which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Accra) by bus about 7 hours after we left campus. We stopped at a nearby hotel on the beach for dinner and drinks before heading 10 kilometers out of town to the hostel we had chosen to stay at. Turns out, it really is a small world after all! While enjoying our drinks, resting from a nearly full day of travel, and waiting an extremely long time for our food we met 3 Americans sitting at the table next to us -- they all met at the Colorado School of Mines! Crazy enough, Ben had been working in the gold mines further west of Cape Coast (and knew of the mines where Dave Moragues' company works) and as it turns out - his girlfriend Sarah had been on the same flight to Accra from D.C. with me 2 weeks ago! We both felt as though the other looked familiar but didn't realize until later in the evening that we had been sitting one row in front of the other across the isle from each other. Their friend Duncan has been in various countries around Africa for the last 2 years and is planning to continue the same for at least another year. We exchanged numbers, paid our tab, and said goodnight.
The group from Legon caught 2 cabs to our destination for the next couple nights "Hans Cottage Botel". It's a 'botel' because almost the entire area is on stilts above a crocodile pond! At dinner a local Ghanaian student from University of Ghana, Legon joined up with us so when we got to the hostel there were 8 of us assigned to one room (sounded a little tight to me) - there were 12 beds, 8 of which were made up with sheets and pillowcases on the pillows. We had a private "washroom" and were located right next to the pool!
Thursday we decided to tour one of the local slave castles El Mina, afterwhich we stopped at a nearby village on the beach were we smelled the locals smoking the fish they had caught that morning and we were soon swarmed by local children. We took some pictures with the kids and headed back to Cape Coast for some lunch. We began wandering along the road closest to the beach where we ran into Ben & Sarah from the night before who invited us back to their beach hotel for some ultimate frisbee on the beach later. We wandered some more and eventually made it to their hotel, bought some drinks and hung out on the beach until they returned. While waiting we were able to watch several different rugby training groups and a family of pigs munching on the garbage not too far from where we were sitting. Before long Duncan had joined us with his frisbee which soon attracted many local children (and foreign "obruni" children) to toss the disc around with us. Unfortunately this didn't last as long as it could have because our group had hired a couple taxis for the day and our time was running out so we headed back to the hostel and hit the pool to lose the sand we literally had all over us. A few of the guys had invited the Coloradans to join us for the evening and by the time we got out of the pool and dried off a bit, they were at Hans Cottage ready to order dinner and have some drinks.
The next morning our group (fondly referred to now as the "C.C. Crew" aka Cape Coast Crew) paid for our room from the previous 2 nights and headed off to Kakum National Park where we did the canopy walk which ranges anywhere between 20-40 meters off the forest floor below. It is said to give you a "monkey's-eye view" of the area, however the chances of actually seeing wildlife are severely decreased by the fact that there are constantly large groups of tourists (including small children) wandering through making entirely too much noise. We were able to hang back far enough from our tour group so that it was much more quiet as we crossed the 7 rope bridges from platform to platform and took in the wonderful scenery around us. We wandered back out to the main road and caught a tro-tro back to Hans Cottage to pick up our luggage from reception on our way back into Cape Coast to hop on yet another tro-tro to make the 2.5 hour trip back to Accra (which turned out to be a poor choice on a Friday night). We grabbed some food from street vendors to help get us through until we were back in Legon for the night and squeezed into a tro-tro with all our luggage on our laps. Traffic in Accra was terrible! When we finally made it to Circle station it took at least an hour to get a cab for 4 of us to start heading to Legon and it took at least 2 hours once we were in the cab! This cab ride was definitely not for the weak - it was a sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting, adrenaline rush kind of ride and I doubt we will ever attempt major travel on Fridays ever again. Never-the-less we survived and made it safely back to campus last night in time to decide whether to go out on the town or not but eventually everyone admitted defeat from another long day of travelling and we had a lazy rest of a rainy day.
Lots more rain this morning, but hopefully it will stay away for the rest of our evening. Today is the international student Welcome Durbar beginning at 4pm which is in about 2.5 hours and a major after party downtown. I think tomorrow will be more of a lazy day - more likely than not filled by the task of handwashing more laundry before classes actually begin on Monday (or so I'm told).
I think that's all for now, quite a big update this time and uploading the pictures isn't working quite right now so that will be soon to come as well :)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
GHANA!!!
Hello everyone,
Akwaaba to my blog. ha. I don't know if that would be a proper use of the word welcome in Twi but I thought I would give it a shot. It's a little before 4:30 in the afternoon right now and I'm still getting used to the time change between here and Colorado/Wyoming -- I've adjusted to timing/life here but it's still strange to think that when it's 4:30pm here it's only 10:30am there. I can't believe I've been here for almost a whole week! I arrived early in the afternoon last Saturday and now Thursday is most of the way over. I'm loving it here :) life is very laid back and slow paced (but of course school hasn't started yet). They have a saying on campus here in Legon that "the Americans' bring their watch but we (Ghanaians) have the time." The exchange students have designated GMT (our time zone) as Ghanaian Man Time so far this week we have come to expect almost everything to happen at least a half hour to an hour later than originally planned.
The weather has been great. Not too hot yet because it's still the "rainy" season, although it hasn't rained much - cloudy almost every day. We had some significant sun on Tuesday when we did the first part of our campus tour [by the way - this campus is gigantic!! everything is very spread out] which was nice but otherwise we haven't really seen the sun. The temperature has been in the 70s and 80s though.
Some other international students were already here in the hostel before I arrived, but the rest of my group arrived on Monday (mostly - a couple on Sunday and a couple Tuesday and Wednesday). Everyone is very nice. Our program consists of 21 or so students from the States and 1 girl from Mexico but we are living with groups from Germany, Canada, South Korea, and several groups from specific schools in the States.
Food this week has mostly consisted of oatmeal/porridge, bread and butter, tea, pineapple juice, and sometimes egg for breakfast; rice, chicken, sometimes noodles, sometimes beans, and sometimes plantains for lunch and dinner.
I'm in an internet cafe in my hostel right now but I'm planning on paying for wireless internet tonight to be able to use Skype on my little netbook (laptop). I do have a cell phone now and my number is 0273989941. Otherwise my main forms of communication will be this blog, facebook, and occassionally Skype. Skype will be the most difficult to use on a regular basis due to the time change but we can work something out if it's something that would be better for some of you.
That's all I have time for now but I may post again soon :)
Akwaaba to my blog. ha. I don't know if that would be a proper use of the word welcome in Twi but I thought I would give it a shot. It's a little before 4:30 in the afternoon right now and I'm still getting used to the time change between here and Colorado/Wyoming -- I've adjusted to timing/life here but it's still strange to think that when it's 4:30pm here it's only 10:30am there. I can't believe I've been here for almost a whole week! I arrived early in the afternoon last Saturday and now Thursday is most of the way over. I'm loving it here :) life is very laid back and slow paced (but of course school hasn't started yet). They have a saying on campus here in Legon that "the Americans' bring their watch but we (Ghanaians) have the time." The exchange students have designated GMT (our time zone) as Ghanaian Man Time so far this week we have come to expect almost everything to happen at least a half hour to an hour later than originally planned.
The weather has been great. Not too hot yet because it's still the "rainy" season, although it hasn't rained much - cloudy almost every day. We had some significant sun on Tuesday when we did the first part of our campus tour [by the way - this campus is gigantic!! everything is very spread out] which was nice but otherwise we haven't really seen the sun. The temperature has been in the 70s and 80s though.
Some other international students were already here in the hostel before I arrived, but the rest of my group arrived on Monday (mostly - a couple on Sunday and a couple Tuesday and Wednesday). Everyone is very nice. Our program consists of 21 or so students from the States and 1 girl from Mexico but we are living with groups from Germany, Canada, South Korea, and several groups from specific schools in the States.
Food this week has mostly consisted of oatmeal/porridge, bread and butter, tea, pineapple juice, and sometimes egg for breakfast; rice, chicken, sometimes noodles, sometimes beans, and sometimes plantains for lunch and dinner.
I'm in an internet cafe in my hostel right now but I'm planning on paying for wireless internet tonight to be able to use Skype on my little netbook (laptop). I do have a cell phone now and my number is 0273989941. Otherwise my main forms of communication will be this blog, facebook, and occassionally Skype. Skype will be the most difficult to use on a regular basis due to the time change but we can work something out if it's something that would be better for some of you.
That's all I have time for now but I may post again soon :)
Monday, July 26, 2010
The Final Countdown!
I leave for Ghana next Friday! It is still rather surreal, but very exciting and nerve-wracking just the same. I can't wait to see what is in store for me in a semester exchange program in western Africa. We're in the final stages of piecing together everything I'll need, and we finally committed to having a party the night before I leave.
All of my winter clothes and big fuzzy blankets are at my parents' house so I stand a better chance of not freezing to death when I return to Denver in December.
I've gotten the financial support of friends and family -- for which I look forward to gratefully acknowledging upon my return. (I hope to be able to include exciting stories and pictures with exceptional thanks) .
I have my mosquito bed netting, my vaccinations, my visa, my airline tickets, my water sterilizing system, and skirts and dresses (with pockets of course :) .
Now I just need to assess how to actually pack everything and jump through hoops to get the insurance company to cover the remainder of my malaria pills.
I think that's the most I have to say for now!
Look forward to more posts either shortly before departure or after arrival in Accra, Ghana!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Up-to-date
Many of you may have also seen my blog on WordPress. I thought I would give this site a chance as well and then we'll narrow it down to one or the other. Whichever seems to be easiest for myself and others to access.
So I jumped through all the application hoops for the International Student Exchange Program (or ISEP) back in January and February. Then I received information that I had been successfully placed at the University of Ghana but it had not yet been confirmed by the university. At this point, I have been confirmed at the University of Ghana and I am in possession of a round-trip United Airlines ticket for this upcoming Fall semester!
Once the plane ticket had been covered there were still plenty of expenses to come up with the funds for between now and August 6th when I fly out of Denver International Airport (or DIA) on my way to Accra, the capitol city in Ghana - which is a country in West Africa where I will be attending school for a semester.
Between covering additional meal and housing expenses, a cell phone for general and family communication, last minute vaccinations/pills (i.e. Malaria pills), and a visa. Due to the nature of an Exchange Program, I will maintain my status at the University of Wyoming as an Undergraduate in my Junior year and will be enrolled as a full-time student so I will be able to keep my scholarships and will not have to start making payments on student loans.
Fundraising is still a necessity. Donations are going to be a huge help at this point, but I would still love to have a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at some point or similar before I leave.
I think that basically brings everything up-to-date at this point.
I'll keep you updated.
Thanks for your support!
-Katie
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