A little sick : (

Hi everyone!

So after I posted yesterday I had a great experience, I went and played soccer with some local Ghanaian kids on a tiny patch of grass in the middle of a market. At first my touch was pretty rough, which is to be expected since the ball was just the bladder with some pieces of cloth dangling off. I had always wondered how the ball didn't kill one's feet playing bare foot but when the ball is like that it is not bad at all actually It was amazing. Once I got my touch down they were all super impressed that I could juggle; both because I am an abruni and because I am a girl. There are a ton of pictures from the experience on another girls camera (the kids got super excited about the camera, both with taking picture and having pictures taken of them). She says she will e-mail them to me and I will post some. The kids want us to go watch their game on Saturday. They taught me some Twi (one of the native languages). The other guys who came with me to play with them are going there now and giving them a healthy ball. Unfortunately, I am feeling rather sick (most likely a sinus infection) so I think I am going to take a nap in the Aya Centre while I am in air conditioning. The only sad moment yesterday with the boys was when one asked us "Why do you like Ghana?" (in a tone that suggested he was asking 'how can you like Ghana?'). We tried to explain to him that we love the laid-backness and the friendliness of everyone, things that are hard to come by in the US, but his only response was "I want to go to the US to see how awesome it is". Our hosts are upper-middle class to upper-class, but the homes barely compare to impoverished homes in the US (last night the sockets in my room were not working, and nearly no one has electricity (even the repaired homes in the lower 9th ward in New Orleans that I visited had steady electricity-which is not to say that everyone in the US does but it certainly is not nearly as common and certainly not in upper-middle class).

Last night was pretty rough: my host has decided that we should not open our window since too much dust comes in through it, and our fan wasn't working. So we were basically sleeping in an oven, and we felt it. As of this morning the sockets still weren't working, but cross your fingers!

Today we went to the University of Ghana, a premier (public) university in Ghana. There are about 28,000 students and the prof to student ratio we were told is about 1:500 (though our prof said he heard it was 1:280 - which is still incredible considering my prof to student ratio is around 1:8). They are also having a housing problem. Rooms which are meant to house 4 have 12 students in them, but the University costs less than 2,000 cedis to attend so...it def has its pros and it offers a HUGE range of classes.

We then went to the Botanical Gardens in Abrui which were gorgeous! The variety of plants were beautiful. One of my favorite plants was the strangling ficus. It is a plant which wraps around already existing trees, strangling them until they eventually die. As the dead tree deteriorates it leaves a large hole where it used to be, which we could walk through!! Also a section of the garden is dedicated to spice plants. I found a plant which contains the active ingredient of Vicks! So I took a handful of it and used it as medicine for quite awhile...it worked pretty well! Unfortunately, I left my usb cord at my homestay, but I promise I have pictures and I will put them up soon!!

Lots and lots of love,

Hannah