Summer tiiiiime

I wrote this during summer back but never got to post it...the rest of the story i'll tell with pictures posted on facebook.
----

Finally another update! It’s been forever, I know, but I’ve been busy and I don’t have regular internet access so forgive me a little.

I’ve been home for a month and a half now so I definitely have a lot to talk about. It’s been really really great being in Ghana and working here. It opens my eyes to the possibilities as well as the challenges. All in all, my time home thus far has been insightful.

FIRST WEEK
So for the first week I was home I just rested. Sha I was tired mann. Once I landed it felt like all the fatigue of the past two years came crushing upon me. I just could not help but sleep, and it didn’t even matter if I was not in bed. On the day right after I arrived for instance, my mom’s church group was organizing a retiring ceremony for a group of women and my mom was part of it so I went with her. O dear!!! Here I was, in a hot pink fitting dress when everyone else was dressed very traditionally and conservatively in white. Not only that, when most people had covered their hair or tied up decently, mine was twisted up, all natural and I looked pretty wild by GH standards. And to make matters worse, I could not stay awake. My head bobbed endlessly and shamelessly during the sermon. Even the gentle pokes of the kindly old lady by my side did nothing for me, I just kept on bobbing! And when my neck could take it no more I put my head on my lap and passed out. Soooooo shameful eii, I even slept through the mega loud praise sessions and who knows, perhaps I let out some snores, o dear!


Stint with UNESCO
In the second week, a little rejuvenated, I got it into my head that an internship at UNESCO was my calling for the summer (in addition to the BP). So I whipped up a super application letter, polished my resume and set off to wow the people at the office. How could they resist me? Hmm, apparently, all my ‘qualifications’ were inadequate to combat the impenetrable bureaucracy that is the UN! Heck, I show up at the UNESCO office in Accra and they tell me that for a job in the (very small) Accra office I had to apply “au siege a Paris”- to their freaking headquarters in Paris!!!! What do those people there know about the happenings on the ground in Accra, huh? Anyway, I swallowed my indignation and sent in the application to the HQ in Paris. That was more than 2 months ago. In case you are wondering, I haven’t heard back.


Kathy Knowles, Bi-co International and Strasbourg J'arrive
So, that tucked aside, I moved on to other things. I lucked out in meeting a childhood inspiration of mine, Kathy Knowles. OMG this woman is fantastic, she’s like a modern day Mother Theresa for childhood literacy. She is white Canadian and has built more than 5 community libraries in Ghana, some in very impoverished and neglected areas. She is changing lives I tell you. I used to be a member of one of her libraries when I was younger and so I know first hand what an impact the libraries make. Anyway, when I found out she was in Ghana I sent her an email and set an appointment to see her. Our meeting went so well that she invited me to an opening of one of her libraries and also asked me to oversee a huge book clearing project for her at the harbor. At the library opening, surprises surprises: I meet a Bryn Mawr alum. What are the chances, right!!!! (O and mind you, the weekend before I had met Harverford alum Andrew Garza at a mall in Accra!) Take about the Bi-Co getting international. Anyway, the library opening was in a small coastal village on the outskirts of Accra. It was organized by the community and was awfully long and elaborate though beautiful. So in the long hours spent under the canopy at the event, I bonded with the BMC alum. She’s Amanda Young and a Watson fellow who is in Ghana as part of her fellowship. She’s researching the transformative power of libraries on developing communities and we had so much to talk about, it was great. She’s gonna be back in Accra this week and we’ll try and meet up and go shopping or something. Yay for BMC bonds : )

After that week, I worked on my french visa application and good news… watch out Strasbourg, Debbie’s coming!!!! It was a fairly painless process. I’m really excited for this. My host family is a French-Algerian and muslim. Bothe parents are psyholosgists!! How cool is that, and what a novel experience it will be.

And Akua Peprah was in Ghana last week and we hung out a bit. Phoebe Arde-Acquah (BMC) and Naa Kwarley (HC) are also in Accra but we haven’t met yet.

French, France, freaking fired up!!
And then in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been taking classes at the Alliance Francaise in Accra to brush up my French a little before I leave. I got to class for 2 hours every day except Sundays. It’s been interesting so far. I’m meeting new people, and also reconnecting with some old friends who are also taking classes at l’ecole.

The Baobab Prize
So alongside all of these activities, I have been working on my summer project, the Baobab Prize. It’s been really grueling since it is a virtual project and I do not have internet access at home. I spend most of my mornings doing work at an internet café close to my home. It’s been really crazy trying to figure everything out for the competition, mainly because the scope of the project is so wide. However I’m pretty set now, website’s created and I’m starting now on advertising and fund raising for the project. Please check out the website, spread word about the competition and lemme know whatever comments you have, especially about the website and its format. It’s still very new and may need some tweaking.

And that’s the update so far. I’ll try and be more regular :)