#nyucas

isa-in-accra:

Orientation Day 3

The third day of orientation opened with one of my favorite activities so far: a Twi class. Although English is the official language of Ghana, Twi is one of the most common languages the country. It uses the same alphabet as English with a few additional letters, but many of the sounds and pronunciations are quite different. The class was taught by University of Ghana and NYU adjunct professor Kofi Saah, who will also be my professor for the semester-long Twi class I am taking at the University of Ghana. We were also given a presentation on IT at NYU Accra and technology in general in Ghana, during which I was informed that if I continued to plug my phone directly into the wall to charge it may one day explode. I have since started using a converter.

The last morning session of Day 3 was a “Cultural Do’s and Don’ts” presentation, where we learned that using your left hand for certain gestures such as pointing and waving is extremely rude, and that casual marriage proposals to women are often simply a means of starting conversation. I have not received any yet, but I will be sure to write a post about it if I do. We were also taught about Adinkra symbols, which are visual representations of mantras and ideas originally created by the Ashanti people. They are beautiful and profound, and I plan to dedicate a separate post to go into more detail about them.

yanqiudengatbuenosaires:

“¡Ni una menos!” “¡Nosotras paramos!”

On Wednesday March 8th, International Women’s Day, an estimated crowd of 250,000 strikers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Coming from all age groups and professions, they protest femicide and the criminalization of abortion, and demand, among other rights, equal pay, a secular state, and longer parental leave. This strike, rooted in the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina, ended up taking place across more than 50 countries, and evolved to represent a movement of all the underprivileged and oppressed people in a world plagued by racism, machismo, xenophobia, capitalism, neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism and neo-liberalism. Even though I could not participate in the strike, by reading news reports, watching videos and discussing it in class, I felt a strong sense of responsibility as a privileged student to contribute to this revolution.

Living and studying in Buenos Aires this semester has ingrained in me a global awareness that I’ve always needed. Every day, whatever I learn in class about Latin America, I end up seeing corresponding phenomena in my daily live and my travels. I come to see how the struggles of Latin America can represent the struggles of Third World countries in general, and how those issues relate to the U.S and the rest of the world. In my volunteer work with the Argentine Catholic Commission of Migration, I research on Chinese immigrant communities in Buenos Aires and figure out ways for the foundation to help the immigrants integrate better into the society. At first, the task seemed at once exciting and daunting to me. As timid as I am, I must stay out of my comfort zone, reaching out and conducting interviews all the time. Nevertheless, the passion for contributing to a good cause drives me on, and the further I go, the more rewarding my work becomes.

isa-in-accra:

Halfway Done and Birthday Fun

cannot believe how quickly time has passed, but with midterms over and spring break on the horizon, we are officially at the halfway point in our semester! Most of the weekend was spent studying and preparing for our exams and spring break trips, but we did make time to be together as well.

A few of us take Traditional Drumming over at the University of Ghana, and one of our professors announced that there would be a dance performance on Saturday. We are friendly with a couple of the UG dance majors, having met them at the NYU dance workshop and then seeing them every week before our drumming class, so we decided to attend the show. It was beautifully done and afterwards we got to say hi to some of the dancers we knew. Somehow I got roped into going to one of their evening dance classes at some point during the semester, so hopefully a few of my friends would be willing to tag along with me so I don’t make a fool of myself alone!