6/16

I was pretty tired this morning—for a great reason. The Bruins won the Stanley Cup! I was in Ghana, and I watched it live! Cesar and I had a great time at the expense of the Vancouver students who were with us. My friends from home went into Boston at the end of the game—I’m a bit jealous. Oh well. We didn’t get back to the hostel until 3:30 in the morning. Accra gets really dark late at night when no one is around. The major streets were hardly lit. After watching the game in “Champs Sports Bar” surrounded by ice hockey fans, it was quite a change to step outside and hail down a taxi on a dark, deserted major road. That’s what happens when you watch the Stanley Cup in Ghana.

Class was light today. Professor Akyeampong was away, so Professor Ben gave us his introduction to archaeology and we watched a documentary. A good, light day was welcome after waking up this morning a bit groggy from a late night of Timmy Thomas and crew.

The sports continued today. Will and I bought a soccer ball from the nearby Night Market and started a big game with a lot of kids who live near the university. They didn’t want to pass to us for a while—I think they were more interested in the novelty of playing with us than actually thinking we could contribute to a good game. I like to think we surprised them with our play because we weren’t half bad. Basketball afterward presented better competition than last time. We lost a few games, but we held our own and even beat some guys way bigger than us.

A new possibility opened up today. A Rastafarian I met yesterday, Salomon, works at an elementary school in a neighboring town and has asked if we want to help out there in our free time. I met him and two of his friends this evening, and some of us are going to go check out the school on Monday. We do have a fair amount of free time, so this could be a good structured way to get out and do something different. His two friends are aspiring musicians, and they sang an a capella reggae song for us. I was surprised—they were pretty good.

Tomorrow is our first day off. The pool should be open, and Accra or the beach are hopefully in my future.