Akwaaba[Welcome] to Ghana

(Friday 13^th August)

Blog is back up and running! Hurray! I’ll try to update as much as I can, but Internet down here is a joke. It makes the good old dial up 56k feel like a Ferrari. Non the less, I made it to Ghana and the first 6 days has passed without major problems.

Registering for Classes. . . .

Getting registered for classes is a task in itself. And I’ve spent most of the last week attempting to do exactly that. I was somewhat prepared for the heavy bureaucracy, but I must admit that it still surprised me a little bit. Paying for residence works like this: Find the one bank (out of 5) that has the right account. This in itself is a task, since no one really seems to know what bank it is. After trying 4 different banks I finally found the right bank. (Which I had gone to once before, where they told me I was at the wrong bank !?!?!). There I deposited my 819 USD in cash and got a nice receipt. This receipt I then had to bring to the University’s “Cash Office” on the other side of campus, who would issue a new receipt/”proof of payment”. This new receipt I then had to bring to the international office, take two copies, and get them to sign it. Finally I could take my signed 2^nd receipt and hand it in at the front desk of my residence, thereby completing my residence payment. Seems pretty straightforward . . . Except for the fact that everyone tells you different things. But yeah, you learn to live with that.

I haven’t yet registered for classes either. But I managed to complete my “academic registration”. I think this means I’m now officially enrolled in the school. (?). I’ve also signed up for some courses with the departments (Jep, you have to go in person to the departments and sign up, plus register online on a special registration website).

Unfortunately, all the time tables are not up yet(even though classes officially start on Monday). So I can’t really sign up finally before I know what classes might clash. Quite inconvenient. But hey. No rush.

Ghana:

Except for that Ghana is great so far. People are really friendly and in general I feel that the part of Ghana I’ve seen so far has a really good vibe to it.

And in comparison to Sierra Leone, Ghana can almost be considered a developed country. They even have an Apple store at the local Mall. (Plus, they have traffic lights and they actually work!).

But its cheap no?...

I thought so, and many things indeed are. But many things, especially at the mall, are nowhere near cheap. In fact a lot of things are a lot cheaper in Denmark. I tried to find a cheap pot to do some cooking in. And that turned out to be impossible. In the end I settled with this cheap aluminum piece of crap, which ended up costing me 17 Cedi (12 USD/67kr). And trust me, its really a piece of Sh*t.

What next?

Once I’ve had a chance to see a bit more of the country and settle in a bit more, I’ll try to write some more interesting posts on the culture, and local economic conditions and general observations I make. Without revealing too much I can already now inform that a post about cell phones and mobile banking will soon come up. But I need to investigate a bit more on that.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned, and I’ll share some of the more spicy moments.