Ghana, Africa
My Study Abroad Trip
In the summer of 2019, I was blessed with the opportunity to be able to complete a course for my minor (Public Health) in Ghana, Africa for a month, along with multiple students attending my college as well (undergrad + grad students).
Let me just say, it was a HUGE culture shock and reality check for me. Prior to leaving for the trip, I told myself that I would make the most out of the trip the best way I could.
Trying new foods, interacting with the native people, learning their language and culture, and simply letting loose and living in the moment. We left for Africa on July 4th as we departed Atlanta, GA for New York. We then left New York and caught about a 9 hour plane ride to Accra, Ghana. Let me just say, I was about to cry the entire plane ride! Who the hell told me to pick the middle seat?
My advice to you, DON'T DO IT! Go ahead and claim the outside seat. But if you’re slim like me, your friends make you get in the middle!
But anyways… once we landed, WE FELL IN LOVE, INSTANTLY! Adjusting to the 4 hour time difference was a hassle but it was well worth it.
We started off in Accra (the capital and tourist spot) for about 2-3 nights, then spent the rest of our time in Kumasi.
ADVENTURE TIME:
CULTURAL EXPERIENCE
Throughout the trip, we went on multiple adventures:
Multicultural Center (both in Accra and Kumasi), Children's Home, Kente Place, Manhyia Palace, Kumasi Mall, Monkey Sanctuary, Safari at Mole National Park (Tamale, Ghana), Cape Cost Castle (Cape Coast, Ghana), Kakum National Park, Coconut Grove Beach Resort (Cape Coast, Ghana), Convention of Biomedical Research Ghana, Art Center (Accra), and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (Accra).
Fun fact: The “leaders” of their tribe must eat first before everyone else. That’s why the bigger monkey seemed so aggressive every time I tried to feed the younger monkeys.
*I wasn’t scared. I was just being cautious, lol.
MY BOODY BRAIDS:
I decided to get my hair braided while in Kumasi and I fell in love with them! Since the American dollar is worth more (1 American dollar equals 5.54 Cedis), my braids were very cheap. The braiding hair and style all together cost me $13 (72 Cedis)! They were neat and so long that they touched the back of my knee caps.
Fun Fact: they use a flame thrower when they're burning the stray hairs left after braiding, versus us (Americans) typically using a lighter.
FOOD:
The food was good and WELL seasoned. I was not use to eating such large portions of food in one sitting, but I did it every night.
Breakfast: toasts and an omelette w/ a side of fruit.
Lunch: you could either order from the hotel's restaurant, go to a local restaurant (typically Ike's - pictured below), get mall food (Peter Pan made some good pizza and fried chicken), or eat leftovers from dinner the night before.
Dinner: chicken or fish, jollof or white rice (sometimes both), steamed vegetables (we could only eat cooked/steamed greens, so no salads were allowed), plantains with shito sauce and fruit (mango) on the side.
Drink: Since we weren’t natives of Ghana, we could only drink Bottled water (pictured below).
Coconut Beach Resort
We stepped out of our normal dinner and had lobster with a side of white rice and wine (we felt fancy as hell!)
Like I said, I was not use to eating so much food in one sitting. I gained a lot of weight, mainly in my stomach. With this, I instantly REGRETTED having on waist beads because they started to fit tight as hell around my stomach, lol (I cut them off on the plane ride to Amsterdam).
But in all, it was worth it!
MEET & GREET:
I felt very welcomed from the moment I got there. They were just as excited to see us as we were to see them. Every time they saw us, they would yell "Hello American", "American, hello". Lol, it was probably the purest thing I've seen as you could see the excitement in their faces. We would talk with them and ask them questions and they would ask us some as well. Since I was there for school conducting research (my group was doing research on Food Safety), we had to opportunity to work with medical students in Kumasi. The medical students in my research group was Ama and Sigmund. They were extremely nice and taught us a lot about their language and culture. Twi is the language commonly spoken in Kumasi.
I learned a little of their language:
Medaase (Me-dah-say) = thank you.
They don’t talk as loudly as we do, in America, because being soft spoken is a sign of wisdom, so often when we spoke to them, we talked in a lower tone than we normally did.Side note: Kevin and I had a fake, proposal shoot, lol. It came out cute!
THE MOTHERLAND:
I am and will forever be grateful to have experienced the motherland.
Being in Kumasi was a very humbling experience for me. Sometimes, I just took in the surroundings and appreciated their rich cultural & the pure bond they shared amongst one another. To watch them, was to watch people living in the moment, for no one sat around using their phones. They were all interacting. This trip was an eye opener to just how much we take for granted in America. We complain about the little things that would mean the world to those without. Kumasi taught me to make the most out of whatever I had.
Side note: I still have to take pictures in the outfits we got made.
FUN FACT:
#RIPFAKEID
I got to celebrate my 21st birthday in Ghana!
I celebrated my birthday a couple days prior (July 6th) to my actual birthday (July 10th) because I wasn't sure if our research would have allowed me to. Me, two of my friends that I came with (Jas and Zaida), and my fellow student/mentor who came us (Nikkitta) went to a club in Accra called the Bloombar. We had a GREAT time!
We met and danced with different people and of course, I WAS DRUNK! The new friends we made out there were so nice and hospitable that they bought me drinks when they realized it was my birthday! Litty!!!
They taught us their native dances (I can't remember the names of them) and we danced the entire night! I celebrated my birthday, again, on my actual birthday when we got to Kumasi. The other research students that I came with made sure I had a good time.
They bought me two cakes and four bottles of liquor!!! Let's just say, I was dead by the end of the night, on both occasions!
Operation #RipFakeID was a success!
Special Shoutout to:
Jas, Zaida, Hailey, Nikkitta, Paige, Angela, Jamal, Jerome, and Jeff.
Oh yeah, how can I forget me getting drunk and performing on stage with the live band?!!
Long story short, don’t bet a drunk me to do anything, because 9/10, I would’ve done it sober!
I had such a great time! S/O to my performance partner, Jerome! They let us do a solo performance!