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.