This week Carlos, one of my Media in Ghana classmates who has an internship at Radio Univers, hosted the debut episode of his radio show called Abroad in Accra. The show is meant to give listeners a look at life in Accra from a variety of different perspectives. For his first episode, he had a few members of our SOJC trip on to reflect on our experiences in Ghana up to this point. He is planning on having other kinds of guests on as the show progresses to add some variety to the content of the show, but it was an honor to be in the first batch of people he interviewed. While I have some experience in broadcasting, it had certainly been a while since I’ve been on air. I definitely had to work through some nerves at first, but it was a lot of fun to get back behind the mic and talk about my time abroad so far.

Carlos was a gracious host and asked us to reflect upon what we expected from Ghana prior to our departure, and how those ideas may have changed after arriving here. To me, it was a difficult question to answer, mainly because I really had no idea what to expect prior to arriving. I talked about how crazy the traffic has been on my commute to and from work, but it was difficult for me to explain with just words because traffic seems to work entirely different over here than it does in the states. While there are traffic lights, they don’t seem to be used often if at all. Many tro-tro, taxi, and uber drivers seem to just yell at each other from their vehicles and miraculously it seems to work. While I’m fairly certain this would never happen in the states, it’s interesting to see how another country deals with congested roads in relation to ours. I’ve heard someone say “there’s a rhythm to the chaos” and I feel like that sums it up pretty well.

In the next round of questions, Carlos asked us about our favorite Ghanaian dishes so far, which was a much easier question for me to answer. While I’ve eaten a lot of grilled chicken and jollof rice since arriving here, my favorite dish by far has been Kelewele and Red-Red, which is basically spicy fried plantains and black-eyed peas cooked in red palm oil. One of my favorite parts of the trip so far has been experimenting with the local cuisine so I had a much easier time gushing about the meals I’ve had so far than I did comment on Ghanaian society in a broader sense. As the interview wore on it became clear that we were all getting more comfortable behind the mic, and Carlos was getting more comfortable hosting as well. The basic format for the radio show was a little different from my experience hosting in the states, but it was interesting to see how things were done at the University of Ghana station. The main difference I noticed was the lack of pre-recorded station ID’s and bumper segments, they do theirs live and mix the audio from the board as they do it. All in all, it was a very informative experience.

I’m very glad I got the opportunity to appear on the show. I guess I didn’t realize that the experience of American students studying abroad would be interesting to the people of Accra, but in the days following the broadcast, we heard from a few people who said they really enjoyed the interviews and the perspectives we shared on the air. It was great to get back into a radio studio and I was happy to share my opinion on my time in Ghana so far. I learn something new with every day I spend here and hearing the stories my colleagues and classmates shared while on the air was eye-opening. While we all spent our first week in Ghana together, we’ve gathered very different stories and had wildly different experiences since starting our internships. I was honored to be a part of the debut episode of Carlos’ radio show, and would love to hop on the mic again should the opportunity arise.

Here’s a link to the show if you feel like giving it a listen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lkpShPJbomhYsYEcBqEHv3jMpCObnWaW/view?usp=drive_web