Africa Update: HOLY BUCKETS!!

My oh my, has it been a little crazy since my last post! Pretty exciting, but I really needed to blog an update from what information I received yesterday.

I'll just start from the beginning of how yesterday played out. To start off my glorious day, my alarm on my phone failed to go off, which lead me to be 45 minutes late to work. (This never happens) I had never reset my alarm on my phone from my D.C. trip (which I will speak more of in my next post). So, from the time I woke up until about 2:30 p.m., I was in frantic mode. I had quite a lot of work to catch up on and was assigned new tasks, but I was ready to start marking things off my list. 

In the midst of doing other work related tasks, my co-workers and I begin a conversation about Africa, 6 weeks and 4 days away. (note to self: when in a frantic mind-set already, best not to talk about big life changing events!) So, as I started to discuss more and more about all the things that I'm still unaware of, like what we are doing on the trip or what I will need to pack. I start my Google research and email the study abroad adviser, Kye, to ask to schedule a meeting so I can receive answers to the list of questions. Shortly after, I receive a response back from that informs me he doesn't have any more information than I already have! 

From then on, I somehow had a bit of a breakdown. I was scared because of so many unknowns and a little over six weeks was coming up quicker than I thought. Thanks to Matt, I managed to tear up and laugh at the same time :)

A few hours later, before my evening class, I received a lengthy email from my study abroad professor which covered pretty much all of my questions I had and more!!! This was a big relief! I now know what type of items to pack and not pack. As I was reading the email, I came to a shocking halt when I read "you may have to take a bucket bath or two this summer."... A BUCKET BATH??? Like...One of these...     

Photo Received from Google Images

 I have been on several mission/church trips where we haven't had the best accommodations, but this is definitely an experience I can say I have never had.

The email also mentions bringing pictures of friends, family, OU and other interests we have along with us. (I'm guessing so we can share our host families a little of our home lives.) My professor mentions that there might not be a need for us to bring our laptops along for the ride since the electricity spikes and is hard on all equipment. But what is cool, we will be receiving cell phones to use while in both countries and at a much, much cheaper rate. (5 cents a minute in Ghana & around 40 cents a minute in Togo)

I had called AT&T last week to see what the rates were in both countries and it was about $2.80 and; $3.80...WHOA!

We also received an updated schedule of what we will be doing and classes we're taking. One evening, we might be visiting a monkey sanctuary!!! I'm so fascinated by monkeys since they are so much like humans. If everything works out, this will be a really awesome experience. Here are a few other random things we have scheduled: visiting the WEB Dubois Museum, NGO, several villages, Kumasi, KNUST (the university OU is partnered with), Manyhia Palace, waterfalls, Lome, castles and Ada Island. 

I am very excited and feel a lot more comfortable than I was to start preparing for future packing and the whole mind-set of it all. This was a pretty lengthy post, so if you made it through, thank you :)  

Next post, D.C. trip!

Love.