I have the wonderful opportunity to partake in two internships while I am in Ghana for the summer. One of which is at the University of Ghana’s radio station called Radio Univers. Side note: I noticed all Ghanaian radio DJs repeat songs over and over again. By cutting out the song at the end, saying Read More …
For the past three weeks, have been interning at an advertising agency called Orakle Multimedia Ltd. I hoped to learn a lot and acquire new skills in the advertising and design world. Rather, I was taught more valuable lessons than learning to design my own font and mastering the Adobe programs. There was one coworker that I Read More …
One of the funniest things I’ve noticed since coming to Ghana is the way that barber shops sell themselves to the public. Though the ads aren’t large scale, they all have something in common: various African-American rap artists. The most common of those displayed is definitely Ludacris. Though he’s seemingly out-of-date in America, he doesn’t Read More …
One of our visits this past weekend was to Kumasi, the capital city of Ghana’s Ashanti Region. One of the villages there specializes in Kente cloth weaving. I was so excited to see how they made Kente cloth, because I can’t believe how beautiful some of them are. They are so detailed too. After we got Read More …
Since I have been in Ghana, my diet has mainly consisted of chicken and chips (French fries) or chicken and rice, which seem to be the most common dishes. However, I have managed to try some new types of food as well as some Ghanaian dishes. Since arriving in Ghana, almost everyone I have talked Read More …
I showed up to my internship today and I thought my day was going to be filled designing and finishing my e-mail templates and creating invitations and flyers for an event that Penplusbytes (my internship company) is hosting in August. However, shortly after I arrived and showed my progress to my boss, he quickly sent Read More …
As my first month in west Africa comes to a close, I’m finding things are beginning to settle. Flying into Accra with Morgan, we arrived in the night to an airport crowded with people and humidity. Eventually we made it through a long customs line and received a very minor taste of the well-orchestrated chaos Read More …
Since I’ve been here, I have repeatedly made the major mistake of holding out for one adventure to stand out from all of my other experiences to write a blog post about. Now, sitting among my fellow students in our mansion in the outskirts of Accra and looking back on the last couple of weeks, Read More …
Happy (very belated) 4th of July! For our big celebration, the group went to Frankie’s—the most American restaurant in Osu—and got a fairly alright burger. Afterwards a few of us explored the Accra Mall and went to see Jurassic World (side note: mediocre movie, crazy theater). In America, this would be a pretty relaxing Saturday. Read More …
When Ghanaian DJ and entrepreneur Sonny Louis — who has performed with many of Ghana’s top artists, including Sarkodie, Shatta Wale and Jay Soul — had to DJ a child’s christening, he was nervous. The child’s grandmother had told him that if he didn’t play good music, she wouldn’t pay him, and he knew the Read More …
Saturday marked the halfway point of my trip. It is bittersweet. On one hand, I miss Starbucks, clean clothes, my bed, my cat, and clean air. But on the other hand, I have no desire to leave at all. Things that used to shock me are becoming normal and each day seems like a new Read More …
Alongside exploring Ghana, we are here to intern and work with a reproductive advocacy group, ARHR. Today, I took a break from my internship at Emerge to go interview the head maternity surgeon at a local hospital. A group last week went and interviewed a hospital in the Volta Region. The hospital is overpopulated and Read More …
This weekend we were fortunate enough to enjoy some time away from Accra and visit Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, which is about a four hour drive north from Accra. At its peak, the Kingdom of Ashanti was bigger than Ghana and stretched all the way to present-day Ivory Coast. Today, the Ashanti Read More …
Last week, a few of us went to the Volta region in central Ghana to document conditions at two local hospitals, the Ho Municipal Hospital and the Mater Ecclesiae Clinic. This is a story I wrote for the Public Agenda about the experience: Although scorecards from hospitals such as the Ho Municipal Hospital and the Read More …
I can honestly say that this is the first time that I’ve really had a hard time blending in. Having had the opportunity to travel a ton has been an incredibly eye-opening experience, but it has also been a realization that I look like I can be from anywhere. While my family is of European Read More …