Classes and Tro-Tros

We have now gone several days without water, but luckily I learned last night how to wash my body, shampoo and condition my hair with half a bucket of water. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

Now classes are getting into full swing. As of now, I'm taking memory (psychology) and Africa and the Global World (poli sci). My Twi is developing very quickly and as a matter of fact, I have my first test in a matter of hours. The truth is, it's not such a hard language. There is no gender in the language and the grammar is fairly straight forward. Additionally, I met with my internship adviser and I am excited for that. I am teaching English at a school to lower primary (which is like 6-7 year olds). I officially start on Tuesday, which should be exciting. Generally, Ghanaians do not speak English at home, so there could be a major language barrier between the kids and me. But since, I'm practically fluent in Twi and my pronunciation is superb, I should be ready to go. Also, I need to do 135 hours of my internship, but the school for some reason goes on a month long break, I'll be missing a lot of time. But my supervisor said not to worry about it.

To get to my internship, I must take a tro-tro, which is Ghana's public transportation system. Tro-tros are vans which are COMPLETELY run down. Basically just imagine a jalopy and then a downgrade and that's a tro-tro. The tro-tros are privately owned but there are specific routes that they follow. There is a driver and a "mate" collecting the money. They are extremely stuffy and they always begin to drive with the door opened. Depending on where you are sitting, when you want to get off, five people may have to get off to let you off and then get back on. Often times, the seats are broken. And of course the driver's skills are impeccable. They can somehow manage to squeeze through the tiniest spaces going way too fast. But the most amazing part of it all is that the pedestrians are not killed in the process. To sum it up, if you are a nervous driver, the tro-tro industry is not for you.