Not Connected

Date Written: 23 January 2011

Today, we did not do too much as it is Sunday. Since many Ghanaians (at least in the south) are very passionately religious, almost everyone goes to church. I however slept in and took a nice walk exploring the campus. It is rather large as it takes some 20 minutes to walk from one side to another. However, it has so many trees, several large gardens (although they less grand than they should be because of budgets and the time of year), and the buildings are interesting as most have the roof style be described as “faux-Mexico.” They are styled after Japanese building technique as different parts are interconnected with porches and covered walkways.

While it has yet to rain and it is very dusty, the campus does receive a lot of rain during two rainy seasons. Those storms are typically brief downpours instead of the drawn out all day (or sometimes several day) long soak that the Northeast gets. Thus, there are miles and miles (or rather kilometers and kilometers) worth of drainage ditches. Instead of looking like the ones that line the side of most American rural roads, they are concrete and usually a foot across and several feet deep as one is expected to simply waltz across them with ease. Some of them are covered, I would estimate 10-15% as they are in places were a ditch would not be welcomed such as a patio or over a particularly well-traveled route. Several student opinions that I read about before coming here mentioned this and I will try to get some pictures as I have yet to photograph the campus extensively.

Since the campus is on a hill, there is a higher part of the hill where the Vice Chancellor and Chancellor of the University live. There is also what appears to be a bell tower, located on the highest point of the hill and I have determined to find a way to the top, maybe even to watch the sun rise when this dust clears up in a few weeks. I asked the program director about going up there the next day and was surprised to learn that is was possible to go up there at certain times. It was a refreshing walk as I discovered an abandoned three legged chair upon which to observe the valley below and reflect upon why I was here of all places, and contemplated my next move.

Lack of connectivity

One item that has slowly been eating away at me has been the lack of internet access. In Ghana, the cell phone is more pervasive than computers and the idea of free, campus wide wireless internet has yet to take hold. I suppose that is the biggest culture shock I am experiencing thus far as I am very used to being able to log in with ease. It is not even the speed that bothers me as I knew that internet in most of Africa is rather slow. However, Saturday I befriended a student who was able to help (see “Accra Proper”).

The issue with using the “internet cafe” up the hall from me is that there is only one slot to plug in your own laptop, literally an ancient Ethernet cable coming out of a tangle of wires. While one can use the café computers, they are rather slow (vintage eight years) and one is discouraged from interconnecting your own gadgets with them. The computer box is hidden below the desk behind a wood screening of sorts. However, half of them are falling off or missing entirely so it was easy for me to reach down and turn on my cell phone’s built in flashlight to see to plug in a USB device such as a microphone. I tried to do this with my flash drive to update this blog but while the computer recognized it as existing, I suspect an evil piece of software running in the background prevented me from accessing it.

It took about 30 minutes to connect my microphone, get it to recognize it as the primary sound device, and download and install Google Talk, all so I could actually talk instead of instant messaging with my girlfriend. She made a funny point in that I had chosen Ghana of all places and that pretty much any other study abroad destination would likely have easily accessible wireless internet. I suppose this is off the beaten path, at least off the beaten path of free, fast, almost always working wireless internet blanketing most of campus.