Ghana 102: This is how it REALLY works

I am not a morning person. I don't think anyone that has ever met me before the hour of 9 AM would say that I am a morning person. So it's been tough adjusting to a culture where 7 AM is considered an appropriate time to call someone or play loud music... But I have been trying to adjust. Except... I am not a very happy person when I am woken up at SIX AM by a woman outside of my dorm preaching into a megaphone. I am all for freedom of religion. And religion is a big deal here... Before every lecture someone is at the podium in my lecture hall preaching. But 6 AM? In my window? What did I do to deserve this? Do you really think that I will be MORE willing to be saved in my angry half-asleep state? It wasn't pretty. She left just as my alarm was going off... so there goes my morning...

UGhana has also decided that now would be a great time to shut off all of the water in the University. Yes, that's right, starting today and for the next 10 days our dorm (which houses over 200 students/staff) will have one tank of water delivered every day. And, in true Ghana fashion, only half of the people knew what was going on. Thankfully, someone told me just as I was going to bed last night and I was able to fill up my bucket so I can take a bucket bath in the near future. And, not even knowing about the water shortage, I did all of my laundry yesterday! So it doesn't seem so bad right now, but we'll see how smelly I am by the middle of next week. I am only slightly upset about the water thing because I'm kind of excited to be roughing it. We arrived during the only blackout ISH has had all year... so I was kind of hoping I would get to hunker down and use my tap lights and crank flashlight and pretend I'm camping.

Elana (our coordinator/leader extrodinaire) left today, despite our attempts to get her to postpone grad school for a semester and live here with us. Now we're really on our own. Well... not really. We do have Dr. Bilson and Stephen and Leticia and Gertrude. But it's another step into the semester... It's also been over a month since we've arrived. It's weird because time has felt like molasses but looking back now it doesn't seem like long at all. I'm still slightly home/people-sick (111 days...) but it's a different feeling now. It's no longer weird traveling around Accra. I'm at home in my room (despite my roommate STILL not having moved in). I basically have 3.5 months left here. And right now I'm okay with that.