I can't for the life of me think of a title for this post.

It's been so long since I last updated! Well... a week. So not that long. Most of the week we spent in orientation where we had two lectures a day for four days. The last and most interesting by far was a lecture about the upcoming election in Ghana. As you may or may not know, Ghana's current president has served two terms in office and is ineligible for reelection this coming December. Therefore, this election is a pretty hot topic for this semester. And, given the circumstances in Kenya and Zimbabwe, everyone is a little on edge as to what will happen here. Ghanaians themselves seem pretty optimistic. Ghana has a somewhat spotty political history (This is the fourth republic they've set up since their independence 60 years ago. There were a lot of military coups.) but everyone wants to move forward. Ghana harbors a lot of other West African refugees and really wouldn't have any place to go if something were to happen here. So, not to give you a history or poli sci lesson or anything, I just found this lecture really, really interesting. The professor who spoke basically said that there are signs that violence due to the election could occur but everyone is making sure that they won't.

So rest easy, I will be safe.

But, despite the kind of boring week I've had, this weekend was amazing. We left Friday morning to go to Kopeyia, which is right next to the Togo border. There is the Dagbe Cultural Center where we got to do fun African arts things allllll weekend. So basically I was in heaven. That is, until I realized that a large part of our time there was spent on DANCE. Now, I'm sure all of you have witnessed the tragedy that is my dancing ability. I have no body self-awareness and can barely make it through western dance. Then, put me into a situation where I have to use muscle groups I never knew existed and move my body in ways that it was never meant to move. Are you imagining this? Okay, now imagine all of this happening in a sauna where even the slightest aerobic activity causes you produces buckets of sweat. That was dancing at Dagbe. We learned an entire dance over the course of three days and performed it this morning, despite my body's protests. It's called Gahoom (I think that's how it's spelled) and is a very fast, very happy dance. It's also about 15- 20 minutes long when you do the whole thing. Thank god that's over.

Anyway, I survived the dancing so I was able to do the other fun things which include batiking fabric, drumming (the Gahoom, no less!), and (my personal favorite) BASKET WEAVING! I have been talking about how much I want to weave baskets in Ghana since I knew I was coming here. That's how seriously I take these baskets. So I made one and it's great. You will all be impressed by this basket, I'm telling you. It is that good. And we go back to Dagbe for two more weekends before I come home. Soon I will be a pro. I'll have to get my own machete and go out in the outback of Western Massachusetts and chop down palm trees and make my own baskets.

And last night they did this amazing cultural show for us with a full 20ish person drumming ensemble and three really cool Ghanaian dances. It was the most quintessentially African thing I have ever seen. Someone in my group probably has a recording, which, once we figure out how to upload things, will be put on the internet. Dagbe was such an amazing environment, just to hang out in. The children from the surrounding village (and the children of the people that work there) hang out in the compound all day so we got to play and interact with them. One girl who had to have been about 7 or 8 carried her baby sister around on her back all day. And let me tell you, this was probably the cutest baby I have ever seen. I couldn't even control myself, I wanted to hold it so badly. Next time we go we want to take little gifts and things to give to the kids there.

And in other, unrelated news... my love affair with Ghanaian food might be hitting a brick wall. For all of orientation (that is, my time here so far) we have eaten at the University Guest Center. And the guest center only serves so much variety. The fruit here is still amazing... pineapple, mango, coconut, papaya. Everything is fresh. And I do like some dishes: watchey (a rice and beans type concoction), fufu (a sticky steamed pounded casava/yam type deal that you put peanut soup over it), fried plantains, etc. But somehow things just aren't satisfying. I leave full but not happy. My "live to eat" motto has slowly become "eat to live". We'll see how this progresses but I might super skinny (and super buff from the ridiculous amount of walking and African dance I'm going to do here) when I get back in December. And on that note... I'm off!