April updates

I can't believe I have only 8 weeks left in Ghana, the year has gone by so fast. School is going well. I just finished my three month program at theAlliance Francaise. I didn't make substantial progress with my French skills but rather was able to maintain whatever I had learned back home at Portland State. I should be making another trip to Togo and Benin in the coming weeks so that should be good for some practice.

At the universityI have been working on 4 classes: "US Foreign Policy Toward Africa","Colonial History of Africa", "Ethnicity and Regionalism in Ghana", and a traditional drumming class. As I've indicated in previous emails the teaching style here leaves a bit to be desired but I of course have found plenty of others things to supplement the more formal education I'm receiving in the classroom.

Last weekend I traveled to Cape Coast and stayed at the volunteer housing for an organization called "Women in Progress". They sell products in theWest under the label "Global Mamas". I have a friend who is volunteering there and it was very interesting to learn about their operation. I also took the time to visit an old slave castle built by the Portuguese in 1482 called St. George's Castle. The coast of Ghana is chockfull with these old slave castles and forts and they stand as stark testimony to the sad history that was forced upon this continent. In addition to touring the castle I also traveled a short distance to a rainforest by the coast where Canadian volunteers and Ghanaians had built a canopy walk that allows you to literally walk through massive tropical trees and witness the forest from impressive heights. It was a great experience for sure.

Two weekends ago my Rotary host counselor (Naana) had me over to her house for lunch with her and her husband. I had a lovely visit with them and we enjoyed a traditional meal of fufu, groundnut soup, and red-red. I have not been able to spend a lot of time at Rotary functions as Naana has an extremely busy schedule as the country director for the NGO "The HungerProject". She understands that my time is shortly coming to an end and has been making an effort to get me out to some Rotary events. She called me this past Monday afternoon to see if I could accompany her to a club meeting that evening. Unfortunately, I was still in Cape Coast and could not make it back until later. I have learned that living by African time means that plans are usually not put together until the day of and obviously this makes for some difficult coordination. Another "Ambassadorial activity" that I have kind of adopted is to take a young man named Philip Achineke "under my wing". You may recall that Philip accompanied me to Togo on the second trip that I made to that country. Well Philip is 20 years old and making efforts to step out and make it in the world. He comes from a difficult background; he grew up working the stone quarries with his parents whenever he was not in primary school or studying. His mom now sells yams in a local market and his dad is usually unemployed because of frail health. He is the oldest of several brothers and sisters and he will be the first to attend university in his family. Today I took Philip to a local college called the Institute for Professional Studies to help register him for a BSc inMarketing.

My time here in Ghana has led me to the conclusion that one of the best things I can do for the further development of African countries is to help support higher education for African youth. I don't know exactly what that will look like now but I feel pretty adamant that this is an important issue for African countries.

Next weekend I have plans to travel to Kumasi. Kumasi is the capital ofthe Ashanti region which was the last standout against British colonialism. The Asanti are very proud of their history of being one ofthe more powerful ethnic groups in the region and there are many monuments and museums around Kumasi that attest to this. In addition to visiting some of these sites I plan to attend a world cup qualifying match over the weekend in Kumasi. Should be an interesting trip.

I have my departure date confirmed for May 18th when I will be flying toLondon. I plan to spend some time in the UK and in Germany where I will visit some friends from last semester. My current roommate is from Stuttgart, Germany so I plan on staying with him and his family for a time while I am in Germany. I also have a confirmed spot at the International RYLA so I'll be back to the UK for that and then the International Conference of course. I had to cancel my extended European travel planswith my sister so I should be returning home from Europe directly afterthe conference. I should be home by June 27th I believe.