My Arrival in Accra

Maa dwo! Good evening!

After a day and a half of plane travel, I arrived in Accra Sunday evening. I met about 15 other students in my group on my various flights over. There are almost 40 kids in all, and everyone is incredible. We all mesh really well together and I'm really excited to be spending the next four months getting to know them all.

Ghana is beautiful. The weather is perfect - warm with a cool breeze that makes the humidity much more bearable. The people here are SO NICE. It's really unbelieveable how warm and friendly and welcoming everyone is.

The NYU staff is going out of their way to make us feel at home. Our Orientation lasts all week long, all day, every day, which is exhausting, but we're receiving lots of important and helpful information. The days are broken up into different sessions covering everything from classes to health to computers to safety. We've also had guest speakers come to lecture. Yesterday, the lecture was on Ghana culture and society, by the professor who will be teaching the anthropology class on Society, Culture, and Modernization in Ghana, which I really want to take. However, that class conflicts with the journalism class I want to take, so I may be switching my schedule all around, which is fine. Everything is so flexible here - you can't help but just go with the flow.

NYU has two residences in Ghana now, which are about a ten minute walk away from one another. I'm living in the older dorm, which occupies 29 students in four different buildings. There are seven girls in my building. I have two other roommates, Katie and Delmeshia. Katie's a senior from Jersey and Del's a junior from Boston. Our room is very simple, but very nice. We each have our own bed, desk and closet. My closet is twice the size of my closet at home! And our bathroom is all decked out with marble floors, full length mirrors, and a hot tub! We also have a balcony that looks out over our neighbor's lawn, and you can see the Accra city lights in the distance.

Yesterday was our first day of Orientation and NYU treated us to a buffet lunch at this lovely restaurant. The fried plantains are SO GOOD! Then we jumped in the vans for a quick city tour. Unfortunately, I was still really tired from the night before, so I ended up dozing off in the van! Oops! Oh well, I'm living here for the next four months - hopefully I'll get a good grasp of the city by then! We ate dinner last night at this restaurant called Tante Marie. NYU has set up a meal plan for us there, so we can eat dinner there Monday through Friday, which is really exciting because the food is AMAZING! Last night we ate vegetable soup, jollof rice and grilled chicken, and it was delicious! And the couple that owns the restaurant, and their employees, are so sweet. They even had us write down all of our birthdays so they can put together something special for each. Emily's birthday is today - so we're excited to see what's in store for dinner tonight!

Today we had a little bit of time to venture out into the city alone. They dropped us off in Osu, which people are comparing to the East Village in NYC. It's reminding me so much of Egypt. I can't really put my finger on what exactly makes it feel so familiar, but it's exciting and weird all at the same time. Street vendors line the streets and persistent boys and girls make conversation with you as you pass by. Whether you're traveling on foot or by van, nothing phases them. They're determined to make the sale. I haven't bought anything yet because I'm still getting a handle on the money situation. You get $9100 cedis to the dollar here, so you end up with a big wad of bills that surprisingly goes really fast, despite how cheap everything is here. Plus, there are a lot of logistics that I have to take care of before I can splurge - like getting voltage converters to plug in my phone charger and laptop, and opening a bank account to transfer money from New York, all that fun stuff. It's so weird because in New York, even if I didn't know where to get it, I could just google the who, what, when, where, why, how and step out in the city and take care of it right away. Here I have to ask for help with everything, which is something I have to get used to. Plus while we're all in the same boat, we all need different things, and I feel weird asking the NYU staff to make a special trip for me. Which I know is something I need to get over, because, well, I need my bank account.

If you can't tell already, it's been a busy couple of days, and as always, I'm late to rest and early to rise. I'm having so much fun, but everything is a little overwhelming right now. I'm looking forward to getting through this week of Orientation, and getting all these logistics taken care of, so I can relax and really start living here.