Also the week of Oct 17
The other thing I found out about Monday morning is that the other reason classes are canceled is because the university is now on strike. Meaning, there should be no teaching happening this week. I’m just astounded by this. I talked to John-Doe about it and I was just in amazement that where they really going to just cancel classes during the last week? Was this planned? My only immediate thought is that what about final things that need to happen during the last week of classes? There are final presentations and things like that going on. Again, things just run differently here and I don’t understand it. But somehow things all work out.
The big thing that I did get to do this week was I got to give a presentation during departmental seminar on Wednesday. I presented on my study about DrumGhana and asked for people’s feedback. I learned a lot from what they had to say that I need to incorporate into what I’m doing. They were all really nice and supportive but they did give me things to think about as I move forward in writing up my paper.
Thursday afternoon I had a two-hour gyil lesson with Zie which was very productive. This is the first time I’ve had a two-hour session with him and it was quite good. I worried that my brain wouldn’t be able to handle it but it did. After that I immediately rushed to the final class session of the African studies course that I’m taking. Three groups gave presentations. Although we weren’t supposed to be having class, the instructor, Mr. Samuel Otoo, went ahead and had it because what else was he supposed to do? There would be no way to reconvene all of those students in one place to give the final presentation. That’s the kind of thing that I didn’t understand what was supposed to happen given that teachers were basically only given notice this week, and from what I could tell, there was no way to plan to tell people how to reschedule courses. So…it is what it is, I guess.
Then immediately after class, Eric invited me and John to go have drinks at this hotel called Coconut Grove with a group of Irish visitors/musicians that were visiting this week. I was so tired but we had to go. So we got over there around eight and had a couple of drinks with them and left about 10. It actually was a really great time. They were super nice and we had some lovely and interesting conversations. Friday, they came to campus and the Ghanaian music professors and students performed for them, and they performed for us some Irish traditional music. It was a lovely treat for me to hear this cultural exchange!
Also, if you want to see me dance some Ghanaian dance, it's in one of these videos!
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