Yes, another Monday here in West Africa! It looks like I'm about to get booted out of the internet cafe in a few minutes so the staff can take their lunch break, so this little update will just be a tantalizing little foretaste of the update to come later in the day. You can expect a few pictures (including one of our tro-tro broken down on the side of the road at the Ho-Hohoe junction), and my renditions of three traditional African fables shared with us by the blind village storyteller of Tafi Atome!

In the meantime, you can satiate your travelogue hunger by paying a visit to two of my best friends' study abroad blogs....simpletwistoffinland.blogspot.com is Brendon's account of his time in Joensuu, Finland. Great stuff! In the rising star category, today's 'blog recommendation is czech-mix.blogspot.com; Rebecca Hackler has already been adding some excellent updates to it, and she hasn't even left for the Czech Republic yet!

OK, second round of pictures, all from Cape Coast and Kakum National Park.
1. The beach just outside the Door of No Return; notice the colorful fishing boat!
2. The seaward wall of Cape Coast Castle.
3. As the Beastie Boys would put it..."Lookin' down the barrel of a gun, son of a gun..." One of the cannons along the seaward wall of Cape Coast Castle.
4. The seaward wall.
5. A local man sitting one one of the rocks just beyond the castle; the shot was taken through an open-air window in the castle.
6. Inside the male dungeon; the Roman numeral marks the level to which human excrement collected in the dungeon.
7. The rainforest and the canopy walk; this is about the closest to being Indiana Jones I'll likely ever manage.
8. Visual proof that I did, in fact, brave the canopy walks despite acrophobia.

So yes, here's the first set of pictures - I'll make another photo-laden entry after this one with shots from Cape Coast and Kakum. But these ones, in order....

1. The Basilica in Brussels
2. Manneken Pis, which is, well, a statue of a little boy peeing in Brussels. The story behind it is that during the Spanish occupation of the Low Countries in the 16th century, the Spanish were plotting to burn down Brussels, but a little boy saw them light the fire (a small one, merely to get the first building to catch) and peed on it to put it out, thus saving the city from destruction. You can take that with a grain of salt, but it's still a dang good story!
3. The Airbus that flew me from Schiphol Airport to Ghana. Another random bit of trivia - Schiphol's name, which means "ship hole" in English, also comes from the same time period as Manneken Pis. The Dutch, much like the Flemish and Walloons, resented the Spanish governance of their lands, and rebelled. A naval battle was fought on the exact same spot where Schiphol airport now stands - it was converted into solid land in the 19th century, and the remains of sunken ships still rest beneath the airport!
4. One of the food stalls near the international student hostel - By God's Grace Frozen Food. Many of the businesses here have religious names - my favorite thus far has been the Jesus Christ Divine Healing Ministry and Engine Shop. That puts a whole new spin on the idea of appliance healing...
5. The view from the hill; the Great Hall sits on top of a fairly substantial hill, and you can look out toward Accra and see red-and-white house after red-and-white house.
6. Downtown Accra; the hustle and bustle of the city.
7. Some of my fellow ISEPers in Osu (a neighborhood in Accra); we were desperate for real coffee instead of Nescafe, and we found it. And it was good.

Well, it's Monday...and we all know what that means! It's update time here at MM, and I've got plenty to share!

The past week here in Ghana has been quite an adventure. The week itself was occupied by orientation activities, the most grueling of which was our campus tour. The University of Ghana's Legon campus is rather large, especially for someone used to the small TLU campus. It was also grossly hot and humid, and it was the one day on which I decided to wear long pants...poor choice on my part. I roasted, and the walking churned up enough red dust to coat my light khaki pants in rust-colored powder, so it was an all-around unpleasant time. I also realized mid-way through the day that my attire made me look like a retiree in south Florida, which was the official strike three against the long pants that day. I've seen enough Ghanaians wearing shorts to alleviate my fears about being completely out of place in them here, so I'll be keeping my legs ventilated where socially permissible.

This weekend, our group went to Cape Coast, which is about three hours' drive from Accra toward the Ivory Coast. It was an incredible experience; the sobering realities of the old slaving castle, the gorgeous tropical beaches, the rainforest at Kakum and the magnificent views from the canopy walkways...it was a great weekend. I'm currently in the middle of registering for class today, so this will stay a brief update - pictures will be put up, and a lot of them, in the next 24-48 hours!

Well, I have arrived. I wish some of that nice, cold European weather had accompanied me, but alas...I am now in the tropics, and it's going to be quite hot for the next several months. Woo-hoo. Ghana is, thus far, not disappointing me. My expecations for accomodations, standard-of-living, etc. that I've been exposed to thus far have been fairly accurate. To tickle Dr. Hoffmann's geography fancy...it's very level and flat here in Legon, on the outskirts of the capital, Accra. There is a lot of plant growth - a variety of trees, lots of flowering bushes, and so on, and it's fairly green. Of course, there's also a lot of red dust around, too - it reminds me of the dust in Lee County, where my grandmother's side of the family hails from. It's also hot and muggy, which is not surprising given Accra's close proximity to the equator and coastal location. It feels a lot like the Texas Gulf Coast during the late spring and summer right now; hot, but not ridiculously so, and very humid. More geography to come as I'm exposed to more of Ghana.

Now, time for Ghana 101, with a little help from the CIA World Factbook....Ghana, in West Africa, was the first former African colony to gain its independence. It did so in 1957 when the British officially turned power over to the government of Kwame Nkrumah. In pre-independence times, Ghana was known principally in the Western European world for two commodities - gold and slaves. The former legacy is reflected in the nation's pre-independence name of Gold Coast, and the latter in the series of slave forts that line its coast. While the official language is English, most of the population speaks Twi, particularly in the southern part of the nation, which is where I'm at. While prosperous by West African standards, Ghana is still a very poor nation with high unemployment rates. The local currency is the cedi, of which there are approximately 9400 to the U.S. dollar, though the rate fluctuates greatly. In addition to the weak currency, prices tend to be very low on top of that; my two meals thus far have both cost around 28,000 cedis, or about $3 US. Politically speaking, Ghana is a Western-style democracy with a president, legislature, etc. It's also been extremely stable for the past two decades or so, which is a bit of a rarity in West Africa; of its 3 neighbors, one is involved in a civil war (Ivory Coast) and another fell into a brief state of unrest at its last election, though it seems to have quieted down there now (Togo). Some of the things Ghana is known for - Lake Volta, really nice beaches, the old slave forts at Cape Coast, gold, the Ashanti people, kente cloth, and really good nature reserves in the northern region of the country.

So yeah, that's the basic lowdown on where I'm at. I'll hopefully have some pictures of the area around the university for the next update. I'll work on the photo layout a bit more; hopefully I can cook up something a little less chaotic than the previous entry.

Alrighty folks, here are some shots from Amsterdam and Bruges...hopefully this will work. I'd ordinarily include more text, but...I'm tired, you all probably get my emails as it is, and I'm still using a Belgian keyboard; Text update tomorrow from Amsterdam; tonight, photos!

Picture 1 - Amsterdam; this is one of the main streets in the old central part of the city, right on one of the larger canals.

Picture 2 - Amsterdam; Centraal station.

Picture 3 - Bruges; a canal lined with old buildings

Picture 4 - Bruges; the Belgian flag and spire of Oud Sint-Jan Kerk.

Picture 5 - Bruges; a colorful street near Sint-Salvatore Kerk.

Welcome to my Ghana-blog - my "Glob" for short. I figured I should probably make an initial, pre-departure entry to introduce myself and my blog.

Chances are that, if you're reading this, you already know me. I'm Kevin, I'm a student at Texas Lutheran, I'm a History and Theology double major, and I'm one of those crazy individuals who has the urge to get up and go see the world. I will be in Ghana (West Africa for the non-geographically inclined; find Nigeria on the map and go west a little bit) for this coming semester, and I am predictably excited about it. I'll have a mini-excursion in the Low Countries on my way to Ghana, and after my semester in Ghana, I've got a grand little adventure from Africa to Europe planned, but more on that later.

I leave for Ghana on Monday, Jan. 9th. I'll be winging my way from Bush Intercontinental in Houston up to Detroit, changing planes, and flying to Amsterdam. I'll have 3 days in Europe to kill, so I'm going to see Amsterdam, go down to Belgium and see Bruges and Brussels, and then go to Cologne before heading back to A-dam. Then, on the 13th....AFRICA.

I'm thrilled at the opportunity to go and do this. I think most of my family and friends think I'm nuts for going to Africa, but for me, it was the best choice. I'll be out of my comfort zone (as much as I hate to use pat little phrases like that...) in a completely foreign culture. It won't be easy, that's for sure, but...I predict a great semester, filled with exciting discoveries about God, life, the world, and myself.

Now, the blog. I plan to update regularly, hopefully at least once a week on Mondays...hence the name of the blog. If I keep my big responsibilities (malaria pill, blog update, etc.) on the same day, I've got a better chance of remembering them all...sometimes, I have to give my memory a little extra help with these things. There will be pictures, accounts of what I've done and learned over the past week, and plenty of fun and exciting stories. No promises made on the "fun" and "exciting," though. For all I know, Ghana could be as exciting as a commuter flight to Buffalo, NY - but I suspect that won't be the case. Feel free to email entries to people if you so desire, and feel free to pass around the link to the blog to anyone interested.

To close out, the picture: this is me with Laura, one of my super-fantastic friends. Until next time!