bucket baths, sunshine and fespaco

I took my first bucket bath when I went to Togo the last weekend in January. The shower was outside (and apparently you pee in the shower too) so washing anytime during the day was preferable. I usually hate showers but bathing outdoors with the sun shining down on you with cold water fetched from the well is really how one is meant to wash. Ever since then showering indoors has seemed silly and unnatural and dirty.
Last weekend we had our first homestay (more bucket baths). I was paired with two other NYU students and we sepent the weekend with a family of five (mom, dad, 18 year old daughter, 10 year old daughter and 15 year old son who is at boarding school). The 18 year old, Ekua, just graduated from high school and will be going to germany for 6 months through AFS. We ate good food and watched a lot of TV, including some very dramatic Nigerian films. We were supposed to go to church and visit Tema on sunday, but I got sick an ended up going to the hospital. It ended up not being too severe athough they found traces of typhoid in my blood. So now I'm on antibiotics, even though I feel like I'm not sick at all.
Anyway, I'm going to Burkina Faso on Friday for Fespaco, this Pan-African film festival that happens in Ougadogou every two years. I'm going with my film class so NYU is paying for transportation, which is nice since they are making us take a private van (public transport is too "dangerous"). It's something like a 16 hour journey. Very few of the films are in English though, so it should be interesting.
I finally have some pictures, from Togo and Ghana so I will put those up soon.

hmmm

Well, my class schedule is finally finalized. After a bit of agonizing i made a decision:
African Dance (Legon)
Colonialism and African Response: Nationalism and Independence (Legon)
Documenting the African City (NYU)
Postcolonial African Literature (NYU)
African Popular Music (NYU)

The other day I saw a girl walking down the street with a pair of flip flops on her head.