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... :)