Check Out Some Ghana Pictures (click here)

** please excuse any spelling or grammar errors, you can get the idea ;)

Games coming Soon:  Streetz of Accra , a game like frogger that shows what it's like to navigate the streets of Accra in Ghana.
Hip-Life Music Streaming Coming Soon: Yay! Java+ JSP+MySQL :)
Special Thanks To: The founders of MIT-AITI for implementing a brilliant idea of having MIT students teach in Africa. I would also like to thank Samidh C. and Solomon A. for encouraging me to apply to the program. I would also like to thank my sister fe love and reggie b for encouraging me to finish my application on time.

ok so now I am in Takoradi. It's absolutely beautiful here. I am staying at the Planter's lodgen in like a small one bedroom apartment all to myself. I expect to be working from 7am to 9pm everyday at TTI (Takoradi Technical Institute.  Just a thought. What do I do when I see a lizard in my room. I have no boys to run over to and tell them to get rid of it. Plus lizards are a pretty good size and cannot be destroyed like any simple insect. they are like mice. Anyway, I'm feeling so much emotion over the students in our MIT-AITI class and my team members G-Unit. I am most likely having all these feelings because I'm finally somewhat alone and away from all of them. I am staying next door to Amy Sun who is one of Neil Gershenfeld's students at MIT. Also, Prof. Gershenfeld is here visiting for a few days. I will be at TTI for about 2 weeks. I am looking forward to meeting everyone, but I am also looking forward to going back to Accra and hoopefully catching up with a few  students before I leave to the US. I need to finish writing my Saturday blog entry below. Awe.... I'm so in love. Love thy neighbor. I truly love this whole experience. I am so happy and sad at the same time. When will I ever get an experience like this again. Awe. I keep thinking about all the students so that I won't ever forget them. I hope that many of them will come to the US for school or to visit :) Wow. I am so happy. I have yet to open the gift that the students gave to me. I know I will just melt to tears. I love them so dearly.

Ok ok ok. So back to my Takoradi experience....  Wait a second...I am playing some hip life and now am becoming sad... I really miss my teammates and all the laughs we had. Crazy Git-Cock-Eee!  Awe.... sweet and funny Tammy, I am Ato, and Wild Lauri. Aweeee... now I changed the music to Kanye West and now I have memories of 5:30am at the gym :( I am so happy sad. Awe Alex and Eugene we tried to visit you on Saturday night at Legon, but you guys were not there :) Big shout to Konadu! I feel so sad about not being able to have enough time to get to really know each student. Especially the shy and quiet ones. Actually I'm really NOT feeling that quote "It' better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Let me  tell you why...the pain that comes with loosing love hurts so bad. Like when my cat died....I almost wish I never got a cat so I would not have to fell so bad....  Awe I'm going through all the amazing pictures and I just want to hug everyone so bad. I am listening to VIP too. I even love the mindstorms kids and I did not get a chance to see them much.

I think maybe I should start a seperate blog for my takoradi days.
Wow this hotel has great TV. CNN and more:)

Sleep is overrated in Ghana
We are working so hard and having such a great time. As you probably know by reading this blog, I have been getting up at 5:30am on the weekdays to go the the Aviation Social Center, which is the gym and workout. Pretty much everyday  I am preparing for something AITI related like a lecture, lab, report etc until 1 or 2am. So I have been getting very little sleep. But the good news is... I love my job so much that I am so excited to get up in the mornings. I really love Ghana and the Ghanaian people.

Graduate School Information Session
Don't be shocked if you notice 1,000 or more Ghanain applications to universities in the US for graduate school I held an "Applying to Graduate School in the US" information session and nearly 50+ students attended. I really tried to inspire them so that they could feel deep in their heart that they can go to graduate school and be a success. The presentation was interactive and I think it went very well. I would love to see these students over at MIT in the next few years :)

It's Party Time, Oh it's party time...havin' a par-tay!
Man, we are soooo hooked on the Ghanain music, hi-life and especially hip life! So of course we had to go clubbing Friday and Saturday night in Kumasi. One thing I have to get use to is how friendly people are towards each other. For example, guys hold hands sometimes just as friends, and guys will sometimes dance with guys and girls with  girls. But it's purely innocent which is usually not the case in the US. But it's all good.
Holla at a playa! It's interesting when a Ghanain is trying to holla/get to know/ you. They are so kind about it and are very insistent on exchanging phone numbers. Since I never know my contact info, I can usually get out of talking toa guy. Aaarrgh! but that reminds me. I was given a phone number of one of the members of the PHAT hip-life group called VIP. They had the #1 song last year in Ghana. Anyway, when we met them I was not really sure who they were, so when one of the guys tried to holla at me... let's just say I did not bother to keep his phone number. Now we are all trying to buy CDs with the music and it's really hard because I guess making CDs is quite expensive since artists over here don't have big rich record companies. Anyway, now I wish I could call up VIP and get a CD :(. I'm tping on the bus right now on our way back from Kumasi to Accra.

Attacked By a Gorilla! Kumasi Zoo
Ok, so the Kumasi zoo was real ghetto. It was almost like some psychotic petting zoo. The peacocks were out just walking around. The path was all dirt from cage to cage and there was a bunch of puddles of some types of liquid could be rain could be wanker sauce. The cages were small for the animals including the lions. It was nuts. So about the gorilla attack. We first started feeding a monkey with a banana that was sold to us by a little girl. Can you believe they encourage feeding the animals at the zoo! With the first monkey/chimp creature, feeding it banananas went well. Ato teased it a little which probably was not too smart but otherwise the monkey was nice about taking the bananas from us. Then we went over to the gorillas. Mind you while we, G-Unit and Ato's family, were walking, we were being followed by a bunch of little kids. Some selling things, others just following us I guess. So we went over to a cage with two gorillas. This one little boy somehow put his hand in the gorilla cage and the gorilla grabbed his hand! We were all in shock. The gorilla was firece and would not let go of the little boy. We were thinking that our zoo guide would step in and help the boy, but our guide did nothing. We remained in shock. Then I guess the gorilla bit the boys hand, taking out a few chunks of skin. So the boy bit the gorilla back. This all happened in a matter of 10-15 seconds. When the boy bit the gorilla back, the gorilla eventually let go and went over to its mate (the other gorilla). Gorilla1 was wimpering to Gorilla2 and Gorilla2 was trying to console Gorilla1. Meanwhile, kid1 was being consoled by us. The whole experience was so shocking and sad. That left us feeling real uneasy about the zoo and a bit scared to visit the lions.

Got My Hair Braided Again
I forgot to tell you that I got my hair corn-rowed about 1.5 weeks ago at a little "salon" (hut) up the street from our hotel.When I wen in there, a woman's breast was just hanging out. Apparently she was about to breast feed her child. She ended up being the one who braided my hair. It took about 30 minutes, ya know I just got the top done. Guess how much it cost? I had to insist on paying 60,000 cedis which is about $6.00. THey wanted me to pay much less, but I felt soo...wrong. Don't worry though... because this past weekend I got my harid corn-rowed again, but in Kumasi and I only paid 20,000 cedis, which is about $2.00 and that included tax, tags, and title. So I'm starting to get the hang of this less money thang. I felt so wrong taking long 30 minut cab rides and paying like $2.50.

Saturday July 3, 2004 8:01am Cape Coast    I am the PAST (Product of Atlantic Slave Trade)
Have you seen the moon under the African sky,  the Ghanaian sky to be precise? It's  a beautiful thing. The slave castles: Cape Coast castle and Elmina Castle. Walking into the first castle was like getting onto to an airplane that you knew had engine failure. There was no way to know what to expect, how you would feel, how I would feel knowing this is my history...the history of an African American. My ancestry relies on slavery, that's it. Plain and simple. The worst and longest atrocity to human beings, African human beings, of all time. 3-4 centuries of stealing Africans from West Africa mainly, the gold coast, Ghana for example. When I reached Cape Coast I expected it to be a dead ghost town. It's actually very lively with an absolutely gorgeoues coast line. The beach is immaculant the greenery and the peoiple. NO wonder why the Europeans came and wanted to stay. So when I reached here, I fell silient...just sensing the weight of my ancestors, my family, my life.
    We went to visit two slave castles from about 1pm-5pm. I was the only African American on the trip of theG-Unit group. So I felt a little disconnencted and was not sure what to expect from my collegues. I definitely will go bakc to the castles if I can because spending 4-5hours where human toruture occured for 3-4 centuries is just injust. So when we entered the castle we chose to go on a guided tour, so we could here the story. I was able to film some of it, so don't worry you can check that out. But let me warn you, no film can give any true idea of what it felt like going into the slave dungeons. I mean the odors, the walls, the little light, the little ventilation.

    The cell was for those who were condemned. If you fought for your life, you were sent there to basically suffocate and starve to death with the others who acted out. Even women who defied being raped were sent to "the cell". <>
    The slaves onlly had the chance to see the moon when the joined the sky as stars, that is, when they died, or when they were up for auction.

-visiting the slave castles was like bringing my life of trips to the museums, art galleries, MLK stuff, the south. full circle....being back to where it all originated. The Atlantic slave trade

    Elmina castle. the oldest, and perhaps the largest castle. <you can see th cape coast castle from there
    In the evening we  went to the University of Cape Coast and hung out
    Party at the Cape Coast hotel for the Obour Tour. Which had a bunch of high life artists, some of which we met and saw perform at Labadi beach. high-life is the mainstream Ghanain music. It's real hot! I love it. Especially the hip-hop  version  called hip-life! It's so hot! Like a mixture of hip-hop, dance hall reggae, and calypso.  The party was such a beautiful thing. At first I was a little apprehensive to the idea of partying in the same town where the Atlantic Slave trade took place, but after a while I warmed up. The club was both indoor and outdoor with a big balcony. It was off the hook. Crazy people everywhere! Like that dream party that you want to throw in NYC. Where there is no insanity and everyone gets their groove on. Such a beautiful thang:) I was really feeling my people to the point where I was thinking the party was my welcome home party.

Spyware, Spiders- These are worse than pop-ups. These are people that just plain harass you for money. They are relentless. We met a few in Cape Coast.

Da Phattest Music!
Obour- "Abowa Con Con Tiba" (tadpole), "Minwhu Byo", "Baby you fine-o"; Mad Fish- "Wune me baby", "Suga daddy"; Tic Tac- "Fefe n'efe", "Kwanee (I like you, but I love somebody else)", "Wope", "Martha";  VIP- "Ahomka Womu", "Sese N'adiewom", "Sere kakra",  Batman- "Linda (fine, fine, fine-fine-fine)", "Akpeteshie"; Bandana- "Bandana (bandana from ghana- Oh ho-bandana from ghana- Oh ho-blah-blah-blah); http://www.ghanamusic.com

Jeepers I never get enough time or energy to write in this thing.

My first Holiday in 4 years was July 1st. No research. No thesis. No intern work. Just good ol' java and Africa! What a beautiful thing!

It's test day
This is great so far. Silence. calm Ghana air. Fans blowing. Me listening to music, going through pics, and writing this bloggy.

Rainy season? What rainy Season? Oh you mean partly clouded and a little humid.
Hey so, it has not rained much, and when it does it's nothing major. Although, I did hear one real good African storm one night. The rainy season is supposed to last until November. So far it seems that rainy season means humid and partly cloudy at times. The temperature had been aroung 80-90, I'm just guessing. Ok so it did a few down-pours during the day. Otherwise, it has not rained much

Aye Chale! by the way Chale means bro' or friend.
So I did manage to get up early today and go to the gym  with our driver who is 22 years old. Anyway, he came around 5:30am...I was expecting him around 5:50am, but hey I was up! So when I went to the gym, it was reasonably crowded around 6:15am. There were a few women in there too. I was able to meet with a trainer for 5 minutes to do some abs and strectching.

Cockroaches and Lizards in the car, Oh My!
Ok so today we had a lizard running in the car and . Tammy was so freaked out that we had to stop the car and get out. Though, I must say, I wanted to get out the car too when I knew that the lizard was running around. So we ended up pulling over and shaking out the seats hoping the lizard would run out. But we never saw it. So some of us walked the rest of the way to one of our cool lunch spots Asanka Local Chop Bar!

"Laundry. I ain't gonna be cleanin yo' underwear."
Ok. So a few days or maybe a week ago, we each got a hand written note from the hotel laundry service stating that they will not clean our underwear. The way the note was written made it appear that it was just plain offensive to even suggest that they clean out panties and stuff. I am assuming that they wash our clothes by hand, and do not want to wash our undies by hand. So we got some local laundry powder called Omo, recommended by Sam G (Gikandi). We have been using it to wash our panties and things and have been just hanging up our clothes to dry in our room.

It's Exam Time for MIT-AITI Ghana 2004 Java/Entrepreneurship Course first Exam!
Yabba-dabba-doo we were up pretty late preparing for our first exam. Fortunately we have been giving weekly quizzes

The .hut web extension
For all the businesses in Africa that are run from a hand made hut/chalet. Also to connect all africans that do not have internet access.

 Saturday June 26, 2004 7:26pm

 FridayJune 25, 2004 9:11am

 Thursday June 24, 2004 8:53pm

Thursday June 24, 2004 12:24pm

Okay.  So we started this thing called the Lab Questions Queue. It requires the student to get up from their seat, walk to the front of the room, and place their computer ID on the board if the student has a question. So far, this has dramatically reduced the amount of simple questions students have been asking us. We think this might be a good system because it forces each student to really think "is my question so hard that I can't think it through alone
or with my neighbors, and I must receive help from the MIT-AITI team? " . We are really trying to encourage the students to think before they type. So hopefully this Lba Questions Queue will have that effect somewhat.

I have good news. I suppose that in Africa or at least in Ghana, people don't really work out that often, because finding a gym or place to exercise is difficult. I suppose it's becasue in the US most of our jobs require us to sit at a desk, whereas in Ghana people are walking a lot and don't have as many luxeries like elevators and moving sidewalks. I guess.  Anyway, I think it will cotst about $30-$40 for a month membership to the gym, which is cool to me. Now I need to convince our driver to get up at 5:30am and I need to convince our dirver's boss that our driver should get up at 5:30am.  So my thoughts are to sponsor our dirver's membership allowing him to join the gym with us. I'll let you know how that goes.

"Ewe... Watch out for the wanker sauce!"
Ok, so let me tell you about "Wankers". Ok so the term wanker came from me one day. Basically I was wondering why I kept seeing Ghanain men urinating on the side of the road. So one day I asked Ato. And I told him I saw my first African Wanker just after I landed in Ghana. Basically, I noticed someone peeing in the side of the road, but he also had his parts, or wanker, exposed. So now to the word Wanker Sauce. Ok wanker sauce is simply pee-pee. And Wanker Sauce holes are the open gutters that we see all along the roads in Ghana. We see soo many people using them as toilets. We even saw a woman squatting in the street adding her bit of wanker sauce to the city of Accra.

Ok so just an FYI the money here is called and spelled cedis. Oh that reminds me of something funny. On our way back from lake volta our driver was going as fast as possible within some reason. And, well, the "road-rage" convention here is to lightly toot your horn. So as we were speeding down the higway a police pulls out in front of us. Since the police was going too slow our driver tooted his horn with Ghanain Road Rage at the police officer. Of course he could get away with it because the police cars here seem to be like old pintos.

Wednesday June 23, 2004 10:05am

This past weekend was great. We had a picnic, prepared by Ato's aunt, at the beautiful Botanical Gardens. We saw some crazy ginney ( not sure of spelling) fowl running around. Of course, Tammy started chasing them :) As we'd say "Crack is a hell of a drug" (for you Dave Chappelle fans). Anyway, the ride up to the gardens was nice and relaxing. We took two cars, and of course we left about 2 hours later than planned :) But it all worked out. At the gardens, we took tons of pictures with visiting Ghanain school children who were so excited to see themselves on the digital camera. For example, we 'd snap a picture then the kids would run over to the camera, wait for their picture to load, then scream "Yay, yay, yay!" Snap-Run-Yay! Snap-Run-Yay! So that was  real fun and exciting and it gave us our  play with kids time :).  After we picniced in the Botanical gardens, we drove to one of Ato's aunt's house  for her birthday. The house was immaculate. The furniture and artwork around the house was incredibly captivating. I really enjoyed our short visit with Ato's aunts. They also sent us home with some food too!
That night, Ato and Samuel or better known as Gikandi, went out to the club called Jokers. The rest of us chilled at home in preparation for our Sunday adventure!
Sunday we left around 7:30am to go to the beautiful Lake Volta! We took a day cruise from 10:30am-4:30pm. It was perfect. The food was good and cheap. The music was live, and the poeple were great. It was nice to finally relax  because we have been working so hard and long trying to be the ultimate MIT-AITI teaching team! Which I know we are! Anyway, the cruise tooks us on a river/lake through beautiful lush green, untouched hills of Ghana. It was like the beginning of Jurassic park, when the helicopter flies over the land with the dinosaurs. Except I did not see any dinosaurs nor many animals. It was just pure beautiful land. The cruise ship stopped briefly on an island called Doto ( I think). Where the locals were drumming and dancing for us. Ato managed to get in on the dancing too! All the little children were holding our hands. It turns out that all they wanted was money. They basically hold your hand and walk with you for a while. You think it's so cute and sweet, then the children hold out their hand for money. Hmmm.... But anyway... So that's what we did on Sunday. On Monday we went to visit someone from Geekcorps who stays in Osu which is the cool part of Accra! Geekcorps.com I think is the address, is an organization that enables IT and related professionals to do projects in Africa (maybe other continents too) for about 6 or  so months. Many times retired CEOs and CEOs will take part, but also people that are having life transitions. Anyway, we went to the geekcorrps house in Osu ate dinner, and watched a movie. By the way the house has WiFi! Yeeee-haw to wireless! There were 2 geekcorps members there 1 from North Carolina and the other from NY. They are both leaving in one week, They told us so much about places to go too! And of course our efficient Tammy typed up all the information! Lot's of clubs bars, fast wireless internet cafe's, and so forth! We met a cool Ghanain guy who is a part of the geekcorps staff. I think we can connect with him to hang out and learn more about Accra and Ghana in general.

Paying Bills- "I wanna go pee pee Mommy"
Ok for those of you who don't know Paying the Water Bill means having to urinate, or need to go pee-pee. Paying the Elcetricity Bill is ... well... #2, takinga load off, dropping logs. So we have been paying bill a lot of bills more recently. Often the bill are combined and sometimes the bill collector knocks on your door in the middle of the night. Ughh.... We've been having this problem more recently since we have been venturing outside of the hotel to eat food. Also, some of our team member are trying to live of $1 a day, so they forced us to eat at the local canteen one day that serves meals like, well, of course chicken and rice for $0.60! Sure it's cheap, but soon your stomach starts to turn and you start getting calls from the bill collectors. So far it seems that Lauri is the only one who has not had problems paying bills. Or he is keeping his problems from us. Maybe it's because he's the one who wants to spend the least amount of money anywhere :) Hmmmm.... Anyway, we have cracked open the pepto bismol and it's been working somewhat. We are also realizing that Accra might be a little dirty in general because many of the locals have stomach problems and pay bills a lot too. So the first thing I would do here in Ghana, if I had the power, is start with Health codes and regulations. Apparently in other African cities there are not as many problems. But I must say we have eaten at some really good places that gave us no bill problems.

Its ironic how the chemistry department has the best computer lab and has internet, but the CS dept does not have internet. Apparently the lab was donated by the ministry of China! Big shout to the Chinese from Ghana!

I'm very excited for my trip to Cape Coast. Especiaaly to bask in the history, my history. The whole reason why I live in America...yup that's right...Slavery! The most brutal form of treatment of human beings, Africans, ever. We are looking into many different travel agencies and trips for a good deal.

June 18, 2004 10:03pm

Sorry , fell asleep lastnight. I just want to mention a few things
-we have been using the USB cards to transfer information from machine to machine. I really wish I brought a USB card.
-There is a giant termite castle on campus!

June 17, 20049:43pm

Ayyyy! Chale! What's up? It's been a while, Man teaching is sucking the life out of us, but it's crazy rewarding. I finally found some time to myself to write this. So currently the boys are trying to buy the cheapest food anywhere. They managed to locate a place near where we teach that sells like rice for 6000 cds which is about $0.60! It's nuts. So the ladies, Tammy and I are having to compromise with our food and spending, but fortunately it's been all.  good so far! So we introduced MIT-OCW (Open CourseWare) yesterday and we have about 25 students. It's really good breaking up the students with more experience from the students with minimal computer experience. So of course I had more plantain and more rice today....yeee haw! Food is not hard to find it's just the variety. Also, many of these little street huts sell some regular Western type snacks and amenities, so it provides us with some comfort. Dern it... I need laptop power. We keep blowing the fuse and smoking out the hotel here...and we are loosing our converters. So I'll be back.
-we had an african pop-up come by the computer lab...how ironic!

June 14, 20048:19pm

Today was our first day of Lecture. Ato gave Lecture 0 and Lauri gave Lecture 1. It was quite overwhelming, but I must say that the Ghana 2004 team handled things quite well.

June 14, 2004 9:42am

Ahhhhh…the school bathroom. So I needed to  use the restroom and if course it took like 15 minutes to get a key and unlock it. Then I finally got in! I had to share the toilet seat with a small lizard and the sink with a spider, bet hey it’s Ghana Chale!

Sunday June 13, 2004 12:24am

Off to the beach today!

Sunday June 13, 2004 9:18pm

Back from the beach and now just starting a meeting for our first lecture. We are starting a little late because G and Ato were getting really hype and into the England vs. France game! They went over to a sports bar right up the street from where we are staying. I have not been there yet, but it seems pretty cool. Apparently regular US movies are shown there too-more. By the way getting food has not been a problem at all, especially since we can always have meals at our hotel. So back to the beach….tons of beach pop-ups, but there were some spam blockers around who did not want the pop-ups to sell. The beach was pretty crowded with a bout a ½ mile or so stretch of beach where most people hung out. The beach had two 5 star hotels next to it with a casino.  We never got in the water more than our legs though; we just hung out in our wooden seats on the beach, and did some walking around. Then we went over to this beach restaurant thingy, that had a cute little black cat and white cat walking around. There was nice music, hip-hop, calypso, etc playing and some excellent African dancers, doing some hip hops. We filmed some of the boys doing their great dance moves and...

June 12, 2004 12:24am

Today was a good Ghanaian day. We went into town around 12noon and took the tro-tro, which is the bus. It cost all 5 of us about $0.10, that’s right 10 cents to ride the bus! So we packed in and headed into town. We went to the Art center near where Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum, like a museum. We were nearly attacked by African pop-ups. So many of them were all over the place trying to selling us the same dern bracelet. We bought some CDs and postcards there. When we were buying CDs a Ghanaian man started dancing and then eventually started freaking Lauri. It was hilarious! So eventually we egged Lauri on to dance too and he did! You have to see the great footage. Then Tammy went to take a seat in a “cool” wooden chair and it broke! After we went through the African pop-up market we walked over to Kwame Nkrumah’s memorial. Ok so, I’m tired I think I’m going to start writing in the morning.

Trip to the international store – had 5 cent gum, that’s right just 5 cents for a pack of orbit gum!

 -went into town around 9:30pm
-evening, went to Boomerang and couldn’t get in because Lauri was wearing shorts
-walked along this yucky dark road to find a place to eat
-caught a cab to another club Celebration, that again would not allow Lauri to come in
-we saw a lil street eating place, and went to eat
-while we were eating a group of Ghanaian men rolled up on the place and we knew something was wrong
-all of a sudden the guy who sold us the food was getting roughed up.
-it turns out, allegedly, the manager of the club did not want him selling/cooking his food there
-it was scary so we rushed over to a building. The ladies, Tammy and I, were pretty nervous.
So the story is that, the people who were doing the rushing are the "Ghanaian authorities"

Saturday June 12, 2004

Sorry I didn’t finish, I was tired and fell asleep. So let me finish up yesterday and then I’ll come back to some general thoughts and observations. Yesterday, the hotel staff collected our clothes for washing. The clothes have not arrived back yet, but we shall see. Last night, we went out for dinner at a famous Chinese restaurant called Dynasty. The food was quite good, but expensive according to Ghana. We tore it up though ;)  After dinner, which was about 11:15pm, we walked around and checked out a casino. One of the slot machines was 0.02cents, that’s right, not 2 cents but 0.02 cents. By the way, the boys all had tap water for dinner, and we, the girls had soda but with ice. So far we are doing ok, but not much time has passed. After we went in to check out the casino, we walked back along the streets and ran into one of Ato’s friends, who had just been admitted into Columbia University! Then we went over to a club called Indigo’s which was about $3, so financially we spent money like we were back in America.. There were hardly any people at the club, but of those who were there they were most non-Ghanaian. So we went back outside and talked for a while and then headed home around 12:15am. Once we got home we discussed our weekend plans, although I was in and out of that conversation, and came up with a pretty cool schedule. Then I went to my room to write and watch TV and the others watched Chris Rock.

I’ve been using the tap water for brushing my teeth. I figure I would take it one Ghanaian thing at a time.

 Thoughts and observations

-Ato has really stepped up to be a mother/father/leader type. I’m very impressed

-my power bars are gross, but fortunately I did not buy too many

- my body does not feel so great physically; I know it’s because of the insanity of finishing my thesis at the end of the semester…no consistent healthy food and no exercise. So I’m hoping to maybe jog up and down our hotel street for 30mins. Maybe I’ll try that on Monday

-had another bad dream last night lot’s of bloody killing but I think it was from watching this movie…Cruel Intentions or whatever

June 12, 2004 1:09am

This is more of a review of today. We just came back from being in town to eat dinner walk around and check out a club. Anyway, so back to today. When we first went to the University we met with the Dean over 12 departments. He had some amazing words of welcome and wisdom. He said something like “Welcome to Ghana. We are very happy to have you here. What you are doing is very important. Africa can not be left to the sidelines because you may keep going ahead many centuries and leaving Africa behind then one day you will need Africa and have to spend all the time to get Africa caught up.”

We went over to the main computer lab to install software. For a while we had some problems because what we thought was the server had all the menus in Chinese and we were never able to change the language to English. It turns out that the lab was donated by China. We went around to all the computers in the lab to try to install from the Cd but most of the Cd drives were not working. Eventually the Chinese professor Ding came in. He actually knows 3 languages Japanese, Chinese, and English. He’s only been in Ghana for 2 years, so he has not picked up shwi yet. I’m sleepy. Ok. So we eventually were able to load the software on all the machines and use the internet. Yee-haw! After installing the software we got ready to go out for lunch. Prior to leaving we spent quite some time trying to find an open and available bathroom. Once we found one it was uh….like a park bathroom moist and stinky, but hey, it’s all good. So we headed off to On the Run for lunch, a one stop shop with pizza, burgers, and small amenities. On our way there we were bombarded with the local windshield cleaners at a stop light and on the way back we encountered an insane amount of African pop ups. People were selling everything under the sun…walking straight up to the car window. A few people did not appreciate being filmed though. After lunch we headed off to another part of town to get some cedi, that’s Ghanaian dough. Then we came back to our hotel around 4pm. I went to take a nap, as did others, and was awakened by a sudden power outage. I was a little scared so I scooted on over to the boys room. Apparently black outs are quite common. This means I should hit save a lot. We went out for dinner around 8pm. It was a beautiful dark and somewhat cool night, but still humid.

The Ghana 2004 team consists of 3 boys and 2 girls. 2 of the boys are from Africa and the other is from Finland. The girl is from NY and has EXTRA EXTRA worried parents that have her extra worried and nervous. Anyway, I’m the only African American on the team, so it’s a nice perspective. Members in the group use color like Black and White a lot, which is not something I’m not used to yet, but it’s all good.

We landed in Accra on June 9 at around 8pm. It was amazing to be under the African sky. It gets dark, real dark, here around 6pm. Anyway, we were greeted by about 11 people at the airport including Ato’s mom and aunt. From the airport we stopped by a shell station and got a box of bottled water and then were off to the hotel. We arrived at Hotel Chez Moi in East Legon about 20 minutes later, through some interesting traffic. It was pitch dark outside, but tons of people were out. Either just hanging out, or selling stuff like toilet paper, bananas, apples, etc. Ghana really reminds me of the Caribbean. The people look Caribbean and the weather is hot and humid like the Carib. Anyway, the hotel is very nice and we have 3 rooms: 2 double and one single. Tammy and I are sharing a room and Gikandi and Lauri are sharing the other double, leaving Ato by himself. I got bit by a mosquito at the airport and immediately thought malaria, and realized I will not be able to avoid bug bites. We had dinner at the hotel which consisted of French fries, chicken, and salad. I only at the French fries though.  Then we met until 2am to prepare for our first meeting with the Professor the next morning (June 10)

So far things do look similar to what you see on PBS and National Geographic except I haven’t seen any starving people. All the stores are pretty much in tiny huts and you can get things like Corn Flakes and toiletries there. I have yet to see anything that looks like a CVS or a Shaw’s market….I can only dream of that day ;)

Today we went to the University of Ghana campus. The campus is pretty spread out, but has a decent landscape with palm tree, colorful lizards, and such. We met with the professor, a tall dark skinned man about 6’1 and a little stocky. We went through our general schedule and what the MIT-AITI Ghana 2003 team did last year. Then we saw some of the computer labs and installed some software. We took a cab to from our hotel to campus. The taxi cab costs about $0.40 a person. Whew! What a deal! …Cheaper than public transportation in the US. The car ride was interesting. All 5 of us piled in to the old compact car and road along ½ paved ½ dirt roads. Many of the locals were staring and saying “O-boo-nee” which means white person. They were of course referring to Lauri and Tammy. But it was all good cause in Ghana if they call you white person you don’t really have to worry about being lynched or anything crazy. But if I was in the US and in a town where everyone pointed at me and called me Black person, I would definitely be fearful of my safety. Anyway, we ate lunch, Chinese food, at the University. While we were eating we had what we call an African Pop-Up. That is, an African man came by, introduced himself to all of us and then started telling us about what things he makes and sells. This reminds me of something else to. Because we were eating outside we had to swat a lot of flies over our food. So someone said here’s how an African eats Swat flies and scoop food. swat-scoop. Swat-scoop. Gikandi does a hilarious visual of this. After we ate lunch, we found an internet café then headed back home. On the drive home, we got a little lost and hit some real bumpy roads, so bumpy that the bottom of the car got hit and we had to pull over and fix it. By the way, the professor has a driver who will pick us up and take us home each day. When we got back to the hotel I went to sleep and the other went in to town for some more adventure.

So far, most of the trip has been full of laughs and references to Dave Chappell. So far everyone on the trip has been up for a ton of laughs which is great! Actually we are watching Dave Chapelle right now, projected on the wall in Gikandi and Lauri’s room. Both Tammy and I brought a lot of Nutri-Grain and Power bars which are great! I’ve been just eating the French fries and rice..I suppose I’ll venture off to more food in time. But I am also using this opportunity to get back into physical condition. The Ghana diet. Real simple just listen to everyone else who advises you not to eat fruit, veggies, or meat and go to Africa.

 Ok it’s about 10pm, and I’ going to kick back and watch more Chapelle. Catch ya tomorrow.

Us with the top Ghanain hip-life artists!

Me with the local authorities at labadi beach

Us with a pop-up who charged us 5000 cedis to take the picture. Is Sam the pop-up?

Tammy and I with some cute kids