That pear is not really a pear....

it is an avocado!!! so many things are not quite what they seem to this foreigner in ghana, the least of which is that they call their avocados pears!!! jajaja.

so today officially marks two full weeks in this friendly humid country. i think i am somewhat adjusted to not only the extreme heat, but the culture and life in general. i am getting into a routine (sort of), making lots of contacts for my research, and learning to solve each mini crisis as it comes ;p the haphazard system of public transportation no longer frightens, but just frustrates me...

at this point, i can honestly say, i like it here. the people are really friendly, the food is spicy and delicious, and my lifestyle is much much slower than it was in buenos aires. i really quite like it this way. i do have to say that my choosing to be here has a definite impact on my opinion of the place...i think if i were living here permanently, the open sewers, public shitting grounds, lack of drinkable water, and ridiculous traffic would drive me mad...but in the end, i have chosen to be here and my collection of small grievances are all things i can deal with for a period of a few months before i exchange them for my usual comforts.

last wednesday (the day my computer passed on from the world), was a holiday known as Republic Day. I asked one of the little girls living at the compound what it meant. she said, "it is a celebration of the day africa became free forever." it was sweet, but i could not help myself from questioning how truly free the people around me actually are.

on a very basic level, there is a very real lack of infrastructure that puts some limits, in my opinion, on freedom. for example, the roads wash out every time it rains causing unfathomable traffic pileups. during rainy season, it can downpour nearly every day. other examples are that the electricity and running water come and go in even the nicest of neighborhoods. and yet i read about the ridiculous compensation package to the ex-president that was quickly and quietly pushed through congress. the package includes six brand new SUVs, each with a lifetime fuel supply, not to mention several houses, and monthly allowances, amongst other things. it seems ludicrous really in a country with so many people living in such obviously deplorable conditions that a certain few should live so well at the expense of so many...such blatant inequality is troubling really and it warrants at least some thought about how inequality compromises freedom not just in ghana, but in general.

this extreme inequality is politics here or so i am told. and sadly, maybe this is politics in most places today. in ghana, i have seen and read that politics are a game in which the winner takes all (quite literally). politics is also viewed as something people with lots of money and no need to work, do in order to pass the time (and make themselves richer) -- at least this was one of the university professor's takes on it. i was quite surprised when i asked if he saw himself dabbling in politics in the future that he even considered it after such the way he, himself, described politics in ghana.

this all makes my being here to study politics, to applaud a seemingly democratic election and contribute to a body of work on how democracy is possible in a place like africa, um, well less than ideal. i don't feel overly zealous about this project at all -- actually i find it quite frustrating. i am grateful for the opportunity to be here, but it is hard to watch and ask questions, while people struggle around me. this experience is already reinforcing that i am much more of a doer than a thinker in the end, and research rather than gritty development work is somewhat counter to my natural being.

but enough of my complaints about my research - on to other more exciting news, i moved houses today! i am staying at the beachcomber resort with my friend elizabeth until sunday night when i move into my new home. apparently, the woman i will be living with is the wife of a former head of state who was executed in public during the infamous military coup on June 4, 1979. i am just beginning to piece together the bits and bobs of this very interesting story and will definitely fill you in as it starts to make sense.

tomorrow, we are headed to visit some waterfalls, go dirt-biking and do a little hiking, which should be a nice little break from accra. if the weather is bad, i think we will forgo the excursion and check out a music festival in a park by the university to celebrate our united states independence day!