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Tomorrow we arrive in Ghana!  We have been preparing for this next port of call in our global studies class as well as in cultural and logistical pre-port information sessions. Yesterday we had a cultural pre-port regarding music in Ghana and West Africa. It was very cool. The world music professor teamed up with our interport professor (a professor from our next port of call who sails with us just for the duration of the voyage directly before the port, so this professor has sailed with us since Morocco) to present both typical music and instruments in Ghana as well as traditional drumming and dancing. It was pretty cool.  Before the professor had finished there were probably 30 students who had jumped up on the stage to dance along with the professors. It was very fun.

During our stay in Ghana, I have a few trips planned during the day. I am actually quite booked full for the duration of our time in Ghana, but will be spending most nights here on the ship. Tomorrow I will be visiting a school near Accra. This trip is organized as a field trip from my psychology of learning and memory class. We will be traveling with the professor of the class and visiting this school. Although the professor would have preferred to get us a taste of a more rural school, our visit tomorrow will be to one of the more affluent schools in Ghana.  The teachers of the school are going to meet with us and discuss how education varies throughout different districts of Ghana. We have heard that there are some schools who cannot even afford pens for all the students, so instead pens are shared (and highly valued) amongst the classroom. After our visit tomorrow to the school, I will have a better judgment of the education system and the access to education by students in Ghana.  I believe the school is a K-12 school.

In the evening tomorrow I am going to a 'welcome reception' hosted by university students here in Ghana. This will give us an opportunity to meet students in Ghana and compare their experiences with ours.  I think this will be a very good opportunity. I hear there is also traditional food, so that should be fun too. 

The following day I depart for an overnight trip to the Volta region.  Although I do not know much about this trip right now, I know that we will be hiking and climbing quite a bit. It will be a very nature filled adventure. We will even make our way to the base of huge waterfalls, and I hear that we even get to swim there!  DUring the evening we will be staying in a hotel and the following day  (our 3rd day in Ghana) I will be visiting a village which has practiced conservation as a culture by keeping the monkeys sacred. We will have an opportunity to see the monkeys as they are in the wild!  This evening I will return to the ship.

The last day in Ghana I am doing a village experience. I will have the opportunity to take place in an African naming ceremony, to observe traditional drumming and dance, and to learn (and maybe even try!) traditional pottery making or kente-cloth weaving.  I will also visit a game reserve and hopefully see some of West Africa's wild game including: antelope, bushbucks, kobs, birds, baboons, and monkeys!  En route back to the ship we will also visit the Obonu Tem and Se Yo caves to observe the traditions of some of the traditional African Krobo people.

So, my time in Ghana is packed full! I am really hoping to get to do a little shopping while I am in Ghana too, but its pretty busy!!  I will have access to my semester at sea email on and off while I am in Ghana as I will be returning to the ship for most nights.