So this week was mid-terms. First, I cannot believe that the semester is half-way over, it has been a whirl-wind. I have never had as hard a time studying and writing papers as I do here in Ghana. I feel like there is always something better I could be doing, like enjoying the beautiful weather or going to the markets. Procrastination took on a whole new meaning last week, for all of us. It was especially hard to study knowing that we had to plan our fall breaks, which involves finding out how to travel in West Africa. We quickly discovered that traveling here is not like anywhere else. There are no trains, flights are incredibly expensive, and it takes a very long time to get anywhere by bus because of the poor road conditions and the terrible traffic. Another complication is the fact that Ghana is surrounded by several countries that have deemed unsafe to travel in. Cote d"ivoire, Mali, Niger, Nigeria all have warnings on them from the US government because of political unrest and terrorists. Granted, there are some safe places to travel and ways to go to these places without being abducted, but getting travel visas is no easy (or cheap) feat either. However, all of us needed to either lave the country or pay to extend our Ghana visas, because they are only valid for 60 days. Because of these complications, a few friends and I decided to travel to Togo, which is Ghana's friendly, francophone neighbor to the West. A Togo visa only cost $30 and only took 1 day to get! So, we had big plans to leave Saturday morning, but we were all so tired that we decided to change to Sunday. After an unnecessarily long journey to the bus station (which had no website and doesnt pick up the phone) we learned that we actually cannot leave until Monday. This is good news though because 3 of the 5 of us were sick...
We are now enjoying a relaxing day at home , watching movies and baking, which is incredibly comforting. Above is a picture of our walled in house! So, tomorrow we go to Togo (I have my fingers crossed) and hopefully we'll be back by Friday. -Kalin
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