Last Post from Legon
Well, so much for this being the "rainy season"! It's day 9 and we've yet to get rained on. Not that I'm complaining, it's just kinda funny. Anyway, today's a quiet Sunday and everything is still on campus. We've spent most of the day inside, working and reading and taking naps. Tomorrow we'll go to Koforidua, where there are apparently two internet cafes in town, but where you might expect our blogging and emailing to decrease a bit. I'm looking forward to being with Jefferson's family, and not having to walk so far and so long just to find a good lunch! Oh, regarding food, one thing I forgot to mention is that the egg yolks here seem to be white. I wonder what you call the white of the egg, then? :-)
My dad called me yesterday, from the China/Myanmar border! He and my immediate family are there for a conference that he organized, in addition to having fun and, apparently, experimenting with the possibilities for international cell phone coverage. You can check out his blog at http://alanalew.blogspot.com.
Another note on taxis. We had a bizarre musical experience in a taxi going into Osu the other day: American Country-Western music! And then on the same radio station, after a few songs, it switched to some classic slow R&B tunes. Quite surprising! We've also tried our first trotro, which anyone who's been to Ghana will appreciate. I, for one, appreciated that it cost us 10 times less for the trotro ride than the taxi. And it wasn't too uncomfortable, really! The problem was that we weren't exactly sure where it was going to drop us off, but it turned out just fine.
It'll be good to leave Legon and Accra and get further away from so much English. I'm sure I could live here for the rest of my life and never have to speak anything but English. That's not a good situation for someone trying to learn Twi or Fante. You know the saying that the more you learn the less you know? That's perfect for learning Twi! I go back and forth from being really excited to really discouraged, which I suppose is normal. The truly daunting pressure is the idea of ever learning Twi or Fante well enough to actually conduct a sociolinguistic study, which has been, of course, my main objective all along. Already I'm beginning to doubt my ability to ever get that fluent, especially in time for the dissertation, but of course it's still early and only time will tell.
My dad called me yesterday, from the China/Myanmar border! He and my immediate family are there for a conference that he organized, in addition to having fun and, apparently, experimenting with the possibilities for international cell phone coverage. You can check out his blog at http://alanalew.blogspot.com.
Another note on taxis. We had a bizarre musical experience in a taxi going into Osu the other day: American Country-Western music! And then on the same radio station, after a few songs, it switched to some classic slow R&B tunes. Quite surprising! We've also tried our first trotro, which anyone who's been to Ghana will appreciate. I, for one, appreciated that it cost us 10 times less for the trotro ride than the taxi. And it wasn't too uncomfortable, really! The problem was that we weren't exactly sure where it was going to drop us off, but it turned out just fine.
It'll be good to leave Legon and Accra and get further away from so much English. I'm sure I could live here for the rest of my life and never have to speak anything but English. That's not a good situation for someone trying to learn Twi or Fante. You know the saying that the more you learn the less you know? That's perfect for learning Twi! I go back and forth from being really excited to really discouraged, which I suppose is normal. The truly daunting pressure is the idea of ever learning Twi or Fante well enough to actually conduct a sociolinguistic study, which has been, of course, my main objective all along. Already I'm beginning to doubt my ability to ever get that fluent, especially in time for the dissertation, but of course it's still early and only time will tell.
posted by Lauren | 3:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home