Author Archives: Jessica

Last Week’s Schedule.

Posted on by under Africa, Ghana

Given that in the next 12 days our access to internet may not be reliable (or exist for that matter), I’m posting our schedule so that you at home have a general idea where we’re supposed to be.

Friday. We take a trotro north about three hours to Kumasi, another large city (capital of the Ashanti Region) and stay the night in Techiman so we can visit the monkey sanctuary there. I still harbor some resentment towards the species since the spic lunch-stealing-tree-monkey incident, we’ll see how it goes.

Continue reading →

Last Day/Take-Aways

Posted on by under Africa, Ghana

Accra

Well, technically I’ll come in briefly tomorrow morning to say goodbyes, but today is the last “official” day. Most likely I’ll spend it helping Princess with her lab work, then going home to pack up everything. It always feels like a miracle I can fit my life into a 55L backpack.

Continue reading →

Mall Date

Posted on by under Africa, Ghana

Feeling a bit like teenagers, Alex and I spent yesterday at the mall for a “lunch-and-movie” date. We saw Captain America, in the theaters that could have been anywhere in the world. It was a bit of a novelty, in part because we almost never go to movies in the US. At lunch, we watched the youth of the Accra elite wander around in their extremely western clothes, i-phones, and speaking exclusively in English. Most people alternate between Twi and English (often in the same sentence) and it seems that the ratio of Twi:English has a linear relationship to wealth. And like most developing countries there is a large income gap, though there is an emerging middle class. Apparently, luxuries like cars and many electronics cost about double what they would in the US (due to import regulations), so having a BMW is quite a statement regarding your wealth. For example, an i-pad here costs $1400 USD, a Honda CRV around $56K.

Continue reading →