Number Three or So

So, two way cool things this weekend.

1) Worked a Haiti Benefit concert. Within a week, this good-size event was organized and promoted around the greater Accra area, with major stars lined up to perform, t-shirts featuring a prominent artist, and the joint efforts of community leaders. One of these leaders happens to be the associate director of the NYU in Ghana program, and she had us volunteer at the show. I worked with merchandise table with two great ladies, and then helped collect more money from the crowd, and then counted and recorded the totals. We made at LEAST $3,000 Ghana Cedis – this is an unofficial number, but still – it was a lot of money. It all went straight to the Red Cross fund for Haiti. This is the first of many events that will be going on – for all of you IN Ghana right now (we’ve established that in our program, more than several of us are blogging) text HIATI to 1962 – this will donate 1GhanaCedi from your phone card to the Red Cross. Talk about accessibly donating! So that was cool thi
ng number one.                 

2) This is cool thing number two. So, my roommate Nisha and I were walking to the local spot where we usually watch football games (think soccer, folks)   and this car pulls up alongside us. You’re thinking this isn’t going to end well, right? Wrong. The guy on the passenger side (side note: they drive on the same sides of the road as Americans, which I find just a little bit weird, since it was a british colony, and most things are spelled with a British tint) asked us if we liked soccer. We said yes, and he said we should go to this bar, Rockstone’s Office – we then realized (actually, Nisha realized) that the guy was actually Reggie Rockstone, promoting is own place. Reggie Rockstone also happens to be way famous in Ghanaian Hip Life culture. Wikipedia that (I’ve done it for you…click the link! [the wiki link was also Nisha’s idea. I’m definitely hijacking it]), and then realize how cool it is. But it gets better. It really does. He drives about ten feet away from us, stops again, and says he “forgot his gentlemanness” and offers us a ride there.  We took it. So we rolled into Rockstone’s Office with Reggie Rockstone. Yeah. It was cool. And THEN we got interviewed for live radio covering the match from the Office – Nisha knew way more about the game than I did, but still. It was quite an eventful afternoon, to say the least.

3) This is also cool – I just forgot about it during the intro. We had family dinner tonight! We all contributed food, and helped to cook/eat/clean! We made rice (a lot of rice), French fries, guacamole, plantain chips, a fruit salad/soup, and then had beans that weren’t quite ready for dinner, but they’re in the fridge and should be included. It was remarkably unplanned and surprisingly good. I’m impressed with us, and I have high hopes for our future endeavors. We were able to cook so much food because we have 3 stoves, 3 sinks and a ton of counter space. Believe me, we used it all. 

So, those are the highlights.

In other news, we have figured out our a/c situation. It was working SO well that we kept waking up in the middle of the night absolutely frozen. We are in Ghana. There is no reason for that! We finally figured out how to set it so it keeps it at one temperature by itself. Like I said. That’s just other news.

 As always, feel free to comment or drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you. If anyone knows anyone (at NYU or otherwise) who is thinking of studying abroad, send them this way – I’d be more than happy to talk to anyone!