Library in Alexandria- Sunset over Meditteranean

Sunrise on Mt. Sinai-Camel-Mountain-Castle-Castle View of Mediterranean in Alexandria

A potty :( Alicia and I after our 20hr bus ride-The Red Sea in Dahab- Me playing the clearest water on Earth!- Meeeee!

Felucca (floating mattress will explain later)-Sunrise on Nile-Temple-Hieroglyphics

Little Syphinx-Cairo at Night (notice smog dots)-Smoking While Baking-Temples

View from Hotel Roof- MickeyD's-Walk like an Egyptian-Sphyinx+Geeza-Sakarra

Saturday and Sunday (First day in EGYPT!!!)

I packed all day and got ready for Egypt. When we got to the airport we found out that the Ghana soccer team was flying home from Cairo on the same plane that was going to take us to Cairo. There was a huge crowd at the airport and a ton of media and a red carpet and everything for them. When they landed there was a huge celebration which we had the priviledge of watching from the airport terminal- it was so awesome to witness. Of course our flight was late because of all of the commotion, but we didnt mind it was so awesome to experience. We finally boarded the plane. The flight was nice- it was only 6 hours and we got dinner and breakfast and mostly slept. We landed in Cairo at like 7am and got our visas to enter the country. By the way- people were smoking in the airport... like everywhere- it was so weird because smoking is not allowed in any of the other airports that I have been in (not that ive been in alot but still). Come to find out every male person in Egypt smokes... they smoke in restaruants, on trains, on boats, on busses, in hospitals, on the street, while they bake things in the bakery... I actually cant think of a situation where they dont smoke... ITS INSANE!!! A cab driver found us and told us that he could take us to the hostel that we were planning on staying in. Its called Dahab Hostel and we looked it up online before we left and decided that it would be a good place to start. Of course when we got there we found out it was full, so the cabbie said that he could take us to a nice place that he knew called the Bostan Hotel... since we really didnt have any other options we went with that one. Traffic was INSANE!! I have never seen anything like it at all!!!! They are the craziest drivers too (even crazier than in Ghana) no cars stay in the lanes- it was like the white lines on the road meant nothing. I saw my life flash before my eyes about 8 times on the way to the hotel. People in Egypt speak Arabic which was also a big change from Ghana. The cab driver didn't know much English and it was a challenge to explain to him where we wanted to go and negotiate a price. I also noticed that Cairo has a constant smog of polluted air... it was also like at least 100 degrees when we landed. (Taking a break to explain Egyptian currency- they have Egyptian Pounds (L.E.) and the exchange rate with American dollars is about 5.6... so like if you have 20 LE its equal to about $4 rough exchange- It was really hard to get used to because everything seemed so expensive- I pulled 200 LE out of the ATM at the airport... and it was gone so quickly... we split the cab ride which was about 40 LE each... the hotel room for one night was 65 LE which is $13 and then after lunch I didnt have very much money left- i felt like OMG this is going to be so expensive it was just really hard to get used to spending such a large amount and number of bills especially compared to ghana and the US... in the end the trip was actually a lot less than I thought it would be which is nice!) Okay so back to the hotel. It looked scary from the outside-all of the buildings look old and run down in Cairo so we didnt know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised when we stepped inside. We were greeted by Aladin who spke great english (thank goodness) and said that his boss who owned the hotel also owned a travelling agency that makes plans for people and that after we freshened up we could meet back downstairs to talk about it. We were shown upstairs to our rooms. We had a three person room and a two person room for all 5 of us. The rooms were nice- comfy beds air conditioning hot water (yay). So we all showered and met back downstairs to talk about what we wanted to do while in Egypt. We were going to try and plan everything ourselves which I now know would have never ever worked out lol so we are so lucky that we ended up where we did. We told Aladin a rough idea of what we wanted to do and within 45 minutes he had our whole 10 days planned... it was AMAZING! We got started right away. In an hour there was a car waiting for us outside to take us to the Egyptian Museum which holds all of the artifacts that are discovered in the pyramids temples and tombs. We had an english speaking tour guide that the hotel arranged and everything it was so nice! There is no way that we could have even managed to get to the museum or get an english speaking tour guide let alone plan everything else so I think that going with a travel agency is necessary when talking about Egypt- just my opinion. Anyway... cameras were not allowed in the museum :( so I can only talk about the things that I saw. There were amazing things from Tutankhamen's tomb, everything plated in gold. We got to see all of the mummification tools, and a ton of mummys and a ton of statues- it was beautiful and SO interesting. I love Egyptian history :) I also noticed a few things at the museum... most women cover their entire bodies (i dont know how they do it in the heat) and always wear head scarves... with some women they cover everything but their eyes- it was really intersting to see. The whole country is muslim so a lot of stuff is catered to that like prayer centers along the streets and a bunch of other stuff that I will mention later. The one boy that was with us (Tom) kept on getting asked if we were his 4 wives because men are allowed to have 4 wives... he also got offers to trade us for horses and camels lol. A lot of the times people only talked to Tom and assumed that he spoke for all of us like we didnt have an opinion or a mind which was really really hard to get used to! After the museum we went to a perfume oil shop and a guy did a presentation on the different kinds of perfume oils that are made in Egypt... apparently its a pretty booming business. At the start we were all served Hibiscus tea. its sooooo good omg! They serve it cold and it tastes sort of like sour tea and flowers...??? i dunno how to describe it but it was really good. We got to smell the different oils and then learn how they make them- it was really nice. After that it was getting pretty late so the driver and tour guide took us back to the hotel.We went to McDonalds for dinner lol! I havent eaten McDonalds in like forever, even before I left the states but thats where everyone wanted to eat- so I had the best fries and milshake of my life lol. There was also a hardees, KFC, and pizza hut- Cairo is a VERY touristy town. After that we were all pretty tired so we decided to walk home and go to bed. I am still trying to catch up on my blog Im doing the best that I can. Today I have class all day, Ive only slept for about 3 hours, and tonight I have to pack for Mole Safari park because we leave at 6am tomorrow morning. I will be back on the 1st so I will try to update my blog all the way when I come back. Im going to put on a few of my fav pics from Egypt :)

Friday GO GHANA!!

Although I really want to word vomit all over this blog about Egypt... I have some things to update about Ghana that happened before I left. Friday, Ghana played against Brazil for the football (soccer) World Cup. It was taking place in Cairo- too bad we couldnt have gone a day earlier to watch the game in person. It was the first time that a sub-saharan country even made it to the finals so it was a really big deal. On the way to the mall on the tro-tro that day everyone was talking about their plans for the game that night and guessing what the final scores would be- I'm pretty sure everyone in the country watched the game. In the first 15 minutes Ghana got a red card so they were down a player for the rest of the game... somehow in overtime when they went goal for goal in penalties Ghana managed to score and won the game. As soon as they won everyone in Ghana ran into the streets (including us lol) and there was a crazy celebration and party in the street. We joined a parade that went to the gas station where they were playing music and everyone danced and celebrated the victory. It was completley crazy and intense and amazing!!!

Update

This past week has been kind of a blur... so I am going to try and combine everything that happened in one blog and spare the boring details lol. Friday after school I went to a dinner for my internship. We got to meet with the head of Streetwise and he asked us how all of our internships were going... we told him about the challenges and he offered suggestions, they might even try to find another working computer for my school or at least someone who fixes computers so that is really exciting. The dinner was on campus at the guest house... the food was ok- i had french fries :) on campus that night there was an outdoor church service... its really hard to even describe the magnitude of the church service... the entire main lawn was covered in chairs and there were 6-7 tour busses all for this one preacher that apparently travels around Ghana and is some sort of a celebrity... he had body guards on stage with him... which is weird because someone of the cloth should let god protect him and shouldnt be afraid to die in my opinion...?? anyway there was a massive amount of students there and it was an all night healing thing- when we walked by to go to the dinner there was groups of students all screaming in tounges- really weird but interesting to see. Friday night a couple of us watched a movie and then went to sleep. Saturday morning I woke up early to go to the second hand clothing market- I was in dire need of some retail therapy after my break up :( So I went to go find some nice shoes and look for jerseys. basically when people in the US donate their old clothing it gets shipped here and people buy it for really cheap and then sell it in the market. I didnt end up buying anything because it was all way more expensive then I had imagined. I talked a lady down on a pair of shoes to 30 cedi... but they totally not worth it and probably cheaper at the mall in Accra so I didnt get them. I didnt find any jerseys that I loved either so I am going to go to Osu for those. After the market I had lunch- I tried Kenke (ground up corn?) for the first time with some spicy salsa and totally loved it- I crave it all the time now. I also tried some cocoa porridge and fried bean paste in the morning for breakfast but it was too spicy- im used to sweet things in the morning. Sunday we watched the football game- ghana lost but they are still qualified for the world cup so its no biggie ;) The weekdays flew by- Monday and tuesday were normal... nothing new... except in the evenings I was studying for the midterm that we had on wednesday... I studies pretty much all wednesday morning too. Im pretty sure that I got 100% on it so thats good :) I cant wait to get my grade back! Now I just have Egypt to look forward to! I got the okay from my internship that I could have all the days off- so now Im just chilling until Saturday at 11 PM when my flight leaves. I think that today I am going to go to the pool for a while and then bake something... but we will see lol. I wont be able to update while I'm in Egypt... but I will as soon as I come back on the 27th. Miss everyone a ton!

Other random observations:
*I don't know if I have mentioned this one before but there is a Muslim call to prayer that plays all throughout the city of Accra when it is time for the muslims to pray. It sounds like a man singing in Arabic over a loud speaker that the whole city can hear... I think it happens three times a day. I love hearing it theres something really soothing about it. I will try to get it on tape and upload it so that everyone can hear it.
*Ive started to love drinking tea... weird I know.
*I saw a resume for someone applying to a job and part of the resume had what church the person belonged to and the name of the pastor along with an attendance record of how many times the person had missed church. This is apparently very common- and I think really interesting. Something else that is interesting is that all of the business names are like God's Grace Sewing or Blessed Jesus Hair Salon- its also really interesting.

Wednesday and Thursday

There's really not much to report- classes were boring as usual... I'm getting really excited about my Egypt trip (9 days!!!!!!)... I miss everyone a ton!!

Sunday Monday Tuesday

Saturday night we went to a night club called Killa Vie. Its the first night club that I have been to in Ghana, and it was really nice! We were having so much fun dancing that before we knew it, it was 4:30 in the morning- Sonny (our trip chaperone) Z, Bethany and I are the only ones that went out. We had to be up at 6 in the morning to eat breakfast and get ready for the day so it was really really hard to wake up- I don't really remember breakfast lol. I slept on the bus til we reached the lake (Lake Antelope God). There are very very few fresh water lakes in Ghana so these sources of water are seen as being really rare and really sacred. We canoed out around the lake and looked at the villages that survive on the fish that come out of the lake- very interesting. After the lake we went back to the hotel and got some food to go and hit the road. We left Kumasi at like 1 and didnt get back home until about 7 such a looooong ride... but I slept most of the way so it wasnt too bad. When we got home I unpacked and then fell asleep from the night still totally exhausted.
Monday- Woke up and went to school to teach... nothing really new happened. I just sat in class and watched the ICT teachers teach… apparently I’m really starting on next Monday. After that I went out to eat at a Lebanese place... I had a salad with pomegranate lemon vineggrette OMG to di for... then we went back home and watched 27 dresses- even the boys liked it lol awwwww. Then we all went to sleep- not much to report.
Tuesday- class was pretty much the same, just assisted the ICT teachers. Tuesday night didnt really do much either. Did some laundry and chilled with the roomies. I'm usually so tired from waking up super early and travelling to St Johns and teaching and travelling home that Monday and Tuesdays are pretty much shot...

Canoeing, Fun Times, The kids leading us through the bead village :)

Bead making oven, Bead making, Stamping Adenkra, Pounding Bark, Making the Dye

The Biggest Market in West Africa (Shipshewana on Steroids)

The Asante Chiefs Palace -We couldnt take pics inside :(, The Hotel

The Mall, My ICT classroom with 1 working comp, my new room :)

Kente Cloth Making :)

More updates

I'm using the internet at the hotel that I am staying at in Kumasi!! YAY! So I thought I'd take this opportunity to update my blog :) Thursday we didnt do much at all... The internet was down at the Aya Center like all day so we were trying really hard to find some way to use the internet since its pretty much one of the only days that we have time... while we were sitting there waiting for the internet to get fixed a few of us started talking about what we were going to do over our midterm break (October 20th week). Alicia mentioned that she'd love to go to Egypt and I was like we should totally do it- she checked with a travel agent and did some research when the internet was fixed and before I knew it the plans were all together to go. The plane tickets are reserved- we are paying for them on Monday and we are going to fly out the 20th of October and stay for a week... We're staying in a hostel in Cairo the first couple of nights, then taking a train to Alexandria and then I dont know we havent gotten all of the planning done lol... all I know is that I'm soooooooo excited that I can barely contain myself!!! We mostly talked about that the entire night with everyone who is going- I think its 4 girls and 1 guy. :) :) :) :) We had class but it all seemed like such a blur because I was day dreaming about pyramids :) After class we all ate dinner and then packed because we had to leave really early in the am to go to Kumasi the next morning. The most powerful tribe in Ghana are the Asante Akans. Their empire used to be bigger than Ghana itself until the collapse of it due to British colonialism. Anyway, Kumasi is the cultural capital of the area and its people. The first king to rule was said to have friended a priest named okomfu anoichi. The priest commanded a golden stool down from the sky and he gave it to the person who was to be the ruler of the people. The golden stool is said to hold the souls of the Asante people. and if it is ever to be taken away- it would be the end of the empire. Who ever is enstooled has the power to rule over the land and the wisdom to lead. When the British came here they demanded that they wanted the stool so that they could be the most powerful, the people gave them a fake stool, and when they found out that it was a fake they captured the chief and the queen mother and took them to cells in Elmina castle for a long time. At this time a very powerful woman organized an army of thousands of troops to fight the British and get the chief back. (I forgot her name) but because of this women are the most highly regarded in the society. The royal family is traced through the women - so if a king dies it is usually his nephew or brother or uncle or cousin that is enstooled (never his son). This is so it is for sure that the blood of the royal family stays in power since one can trace the bloodline through the mother and only the woman knows who is the true father of her child (I hope that this is making sense!) If you dont get it lemme know. Okay so the priest that commanded the golden stool from the sky planted two trees in sister cities in Ghana ... they are called Kuma trees- he said that one will live and one will die and the town where the one lives will be very prosperous and the other will never progress. The town that we are in is called Kumasi (Kuma the tree and si meaning live) and the town next to us is Kumawo (Kuma the tree and wo meaning die). Kumasi is a booming town with a huge population that brings in a ton of money and the other one is still a very small traditional town with not a whole lot to offer. So thats pretty much what I remember about the history of the town. Kumasi is full of muslims that live in zoongos (muslim settlements) They came here from the north to try and make money- in the north there are very few cars at all and everyone rides motorbikes so there are a ton of muslim people dressed in like head to toe traditional muslim attire driving around on motorbikes its quite a site! What else what else... hmm I dont remember everything that I learned but itll prolly come to me while im typing. After the 5 hour bus ride on bumpy unfinished roadsm we finally arrived at our hotel. It has a really nice pool and the rooms are awesome- we had a great lunch and then headed off to see the cheifs palace and the museum that was connected to it. The museum held a bunch of artifacts that were used by previous chiefs, it was really neat to see. My favorite thing was a war drum that was used to scare off people. Its wrapped in cheetah skin and when you run the piece of wood across the top it sounds like a big cat (tiger leopard or something) roaring... so the people would hide in the trees and play the drum to scare off the soldiers and then they would attack while the troops were trying to run away from the "animals"- I want to buy a war drum- no doubt about that lol. After the museum we went to the biggest market in West Africa- omg it was sooooo overwhelming- it was like Shipshewana on steroids no joke. I have a ton of pictures- I can't even describe it in words... it was super intense. We didnt really buy anything because it was crazy and it was mostly food stuff but it was a great experience. After the market we went back to the hotel for a nice dinner and then went to a place to watch a football match on tv and dance to a live band :)

Saturday- woke up super early and took a nice hot shower- omg so amazing. ate breakfast and then left for the villages that we visited today. We went to a kente cloth village, a stamping kente cloth village and a bead village. I have a ton of pictures so it will be easier to see what Im talking about when I put those up. Kente cloth is the original type of cloth that people have been using here forever... its made by weaving threads together on looms- I got to try it!! :) Each strip of cloth takes about 3 days for one person to make and to make a kente cloth it takes 20 strips to get sewn together- so the big ones were SUPER expensive like 150 cedis but thats like a months worth of work so I can understand. I bought a couple of strips of the cloth so that I could bring them home for everyone to see. It was fun bargaining with the people and I got a pretty good price. After that we went to a village to learn how they make stamping on kente cloth. We learned how they make the dye from pounding the bark of a certain tree and boiling it down- then we got to stamp the actual kente cloth (so fun) there are 150 symbols that are used by the Asantes so we got to learn about their meanings and stuff. I also bought a stamped cloth so that everyone can see :) After that we went to the bead village and watched how they make glass beads. The whole village greeted us and the kids held our hands as we walked to the bead making place. The men make the beads and the women sell them- we got to watch the men make some of the beads. They grind up broken glass bottles that they get from the brewery and then add chemicals to them to make patterns and turn them colors- then they put them in a clay mold and bake them for two hours... when the beads are done they grind them and then give them to the women to sell at the market... I got some beads too so that everyone can see :) After that we came back to the hotel and swam while we waited for dinner which was really good... and then I typed this blog while waiting to go out dancing so thats as far as Ive gotten in my life. Peace for now- I'll update as soon as I can

updates :)

Sunday night was pretty fun. When I went home from the olympics all of my roomates were still in their pajamas... they hadnt done anything al day! Im so lucky to have cool people that I work with to take me out to do fun stuff... otherwise I would def be going stir crazy lol! I got invited to go to a house party for someone who was going off to study abroad. Even though I was totally exhausted and had to work early the next morning I decided to go and I am so glad that I did. I had a blast! The music was blaring and everyone was having such a good time partying and dancing, I met a ton of really cool people- totally worth it!
Monday- I didnt exactly know what i was going to be doing at school and the headmisstress wasnt around so I just chilled until she got there. Then she told me that I was going to be helping out the ICT teacher and also helping in the library. ICT is information and communication technology (computer). I was really impressed when I walked into the computer lab. There were about 30 older looking mismatched computers in the lab- which is more than I expected. Little did I know that only one of them actually works so all of the kids share one computer. I basically just shadowed the teacher and watched him break the class down into groups so that everyone could have a turn on the computer. It basically takes a whole week to teach the class something like Microsoft Paint- its really frustrating but I'm doing the best that I can. Monday after class there was a meeting with all the teachers. I'm pretty sure that half of the people at the school think that I am a real, paid, full time teacher because they give me all of the responsibilities of a teacher. They have student supervisors each week that are in charge of the students in the morning (to make sure that they sweep out all of the classrooms and get to the morning prayer assembly on time) and then afternoon ones that make sure that stuff is cleaned and locked up and that the students are back in their rooms. Now I'm on the list for teachers who do that so my duties start next week... i'm on the morning shift so I have to get there an hour earlier than I already do... that means waking up at 4am- im not looking forward to that lol. At the meeting they also talked about teacher salaries. One of the teachers told me that he makes about 250 cedis ($180) a month... he spends 40 a month on transportation alone... I have no idea how they are surviving on these salaries! No idea at all! After the meeting I got home pretty late because of traffic and the dinner group was already making tacos (homeade tortillas and salsa omg so tasty) and then after dinner I went straight to bed because I was totally exhausted!
Tuesday at school was basically the same thing- not really much to report. I watched the teacher and helped with the class... then went home and hung out with the roomates before heading to bed- pretty boring all together
Wednesday- Woke up and had class in the morning which was not as boring as usual but still pretty bad lol. Then used the internet for a while before heading out to buy everything for my dinner group to make dinner. We decided to have sweet and sour stir fry. So we bought all the veggies and the sauce and everything between classes. Then we had our next class which we talked about the economy of Ghana and the problems with the various leaders that its had over the years... I though it was really interesting so I didnt mind that class at all. After class my dinner group started cooking. I cut up all the veggies and stuff while the other girls dealt with the chicken, and I also made a chocolate cake from scratch with frosting which was definetly the best part of the meal :) After dinner everyone kind of did their own things... a few of us went on a walk and just went exploring for a while which was nice because the weather had actually cooled off. Then when everyone got home we just talked and listened to music before bed :)