about to take my midterm - eeekk!

Hi!

So I am about to take my midterm, and figured I would take a little break from cramming for it to update you all a little bit on my life.

We have had a lot of guest lecturers this week instead of excursions, but everyday here is such an adventure. Last night I went to another one of the homestays for a group study session. Streets in Ghana rarely have names so when you take a cab you tell them the neighborhood you want to go to and then direct them from there. The neighborhoods are (unofficially) named after local landmarks. There is a Christian Centre about two minutes from my house which my neighborhood is named after. The other homestay was in a neighborhood called "American House" (there used to be a really nice mansion there, which people called the American House because people associate really nice extravagant things with America. The house is no longer there so I cannot comment on how American it was.) Cabs are relatively cheap here (it cost 5 cedis for a 35-40 minute ride to the beach on Saturday), but they are more expensive at night and once again are something one has to barter on for a good price. The cheaper option for traveling is taking a tro-tro. Tro-tros are vans that drive around from one central location to another. They are quite an experience. The driver has an apprentice who leans out of the window continuously yelling the end point destination the tro-tro is going to (so you will hear "ACCRA ACCRA ACCRA" or "CIRCLE CIRCLE CIRCLE," etc., depending on where it is going and there is usually a hand signal associated with each location). Tro-tros are far cheaper, only a couple of pesoues (equivalent of American cents) but are harder for a newby to figure out which route they need to get on, and are harder to find at night.

One thing that is also prevalent at night are police checkpoints. Police carry around huge guns here which are definitely intimidating. I am not quite sure what happens at these check points(other than them blinding me with flash lights) since the police have yet to talk to me, and usually just talks to the driver in a traditional language. One of the homestays finished repairing their Mercedes a couple days ago and took the three guys from our group staying there on a drive around town. Apparently when the cops stopped their nice car they asked for bribes. This has yet to happen to me, but isn't particularly surprising for a sub-Saharan country.

About twenty minutes into our study session last night the electricity went out. It was a whole new experience to have to try and study for a midterm (that counts for over 40% of my final grade) in the dark. Fortunately the local cell phone companies apparently anticipate the frequent black outs and build a strong flashlight into their cell phones. Still we are pushing for post-poning our exam. Wish us luck. We will need it since we need to know 16 different economic models of development, amongst other things. EEEEK, I need to start cramming again. BYE. Enjoy knowing that you will have lights when you are studying for finals late at night!