Water in a bag is an extremely practical invention. Instead of buying a bottle, you buy water in a small plastic bag (locally known as sachet-water). The water from the tap is not clean enough for drinking, so you have to rely on purified water for drinking unless you want to experiment with all kinds of waterborne diseases and stomach problems. A 1L water bottle cost 1 Cedi (80US Cent, 4 Kr) and a bag of 30 Sachets with 400ml in each cost 1.35 Cedi. A lot of money to save. Plus, they are super convenient. So cool. Maybe I should try to introduce those back home. Wonder if they would be a success?
Last weekend was a stay-at-home-weekend. I spent most of my time trying to catch up with some homework. The plan was to go to Benin this weekend and take advantage of our 30 day visa for Togo. (you have to cross Togo to enter Benin, unless you want to travel 2000 Km around Togo).
Unfortunately Kaisa wasn’t feeling too good this Tuesday. She had a lot of stomach pain so decided to go to the hospital to have a check up. It turned out she had gotten typhoid fever. It sounds a lot worse than it is. Yes, she was sick and spent 2 days in bed. But the disease is easily treatable with antibiotics and if it is treated it is not much worse than a small flue. Typhoid is transferred when you eat something that has been in touch with human feces from a person who had typhoid fever. Essentially it’s important that you avoid eating shit – or make sure that the people who cook you food wash their hands before cooking – and that you make sure to wash your own hands before eating (its here the golden invention of Hand Sanitizer comes into the picture).
Last night Kaisa was already feeling better, and came by my room and hung out for a while. Hopefully she’ll be fully fine by Monday – so she’s ready to leave for Benin next Thursday.
School have been relaxing so far. It is not always the most challenging classes, yet almost always very interesting. In two of my classes (out of 5), I’m the only white/foreign student. Sometimes feels a bit weird sitting in a classroom with 200 Ghanaians and being the only white person. Especially because you really can’t hide. Fortunately the teacher in that class is really nice, even though he keeps asking me questions in front of the entire class (which is really awkward!)
Oh – and I got homework this week. My homework consists of sending an e-mail. Jep, in one of my other classes the professor asked everyone to send him an e-mail, to show him that we knew how to send e-mails. Such a different world. Think I sent my first e-mail in 1999, when I was in the US on a CISV camp. More than 11 years ago – and now we are asked (in a 4th year university course) to send one has homework. Just so different.
I’ve also got a group project for another class. One of the group members had never heard of Wikipedia. When you think about it, it’s not that strange –but for me as a student it was still quite surprising. (Just for the record, the project is actually a “real project” we have to write a 4 page critique of the modernization theory).
Having mentioned that, I have to underline that even though there are several computer cafes on campus, and many students do have computers.. However I yet have to see one bring a laptop to class (which is not the norm in Canada). I have thought a bit of brining mine, but I think it would be strange since no one else does it. Even though I miss being able to look up words or facts on the spot – as the lecture goes on.
So yeah all is well. I even started swimming. Me swimming? I know – it’s hard to believe. Me swimming? But they’ve got this 50meters (Olympic size) pool 5 minutes walk from my residence. And for the majority of the time, the pool is completely empty – so I’ve got the entire pool to myself. Quite ideal for swimming. It’s especially nice when you are all soaked in sweat and the temperature reaches 30 degrees with insanely high humidity.
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