Our group stayed in a hostel neighboring the University of Ghana, where we had our lectures, in an area called Legon. Also close by is the mall, where I spent a lot of time, to my own surprise. I ate a sundae and pizza in the food court and walked through air conditioned department stores for the first time since I arrived here, activities that were oddly comforting. Even though I grew up hating the mall and spending time there, I felt quite at home at the one in Accra.
The lectures at the University of Ghana were part of our African Diaspora Seminar, and included topics such as Slavery and Migration in Ghana, Ewe Culture and Migration, and Archaeology in Ghana. After a string of disappointingly uncritical tours at the slave castles in Cape Coast and Elmina and lectures that frequently seem to lack complexity, it was refreshing to finally hear one of our lecturers in Accra telling what seemed like a more complete account of Ghanaian-European contact.
During the lecture on the Ewe people, who live in an area that spans from the Volta Region of Ghana across Togo, Ghana's eastern neighbor, to Benin, we learned about traditional Ewe time measurements. I was excited to find out that the smallest unit of measurement is the time between two blinks. Now I am wondering about the origin of the expression "in the blink of an eye". I also learned a new expression from one of the lecturers - "cool running" and "cool runners". Apparently, on a boring winter day in Indiana, our lecturer was captivated by Cool Runnings, a 1993 comedy about a bobsled team from Jamaica. Consequently, she latched on and began fitting these phrases to every possible person and situation.
The University campus is beautiful. One of our lecturers explained that it was modeled after Oxford and that, when he attended in the 1960s, each student has his own room and balcony, to be cleaned daily by housekeeping attendants. He went on to describe the current state of affairs at the University - "You're lucky if you can find a piece of balcony to sleep on." Although our classroom, a common room for zoology seniors, was air conditioned and furnished with comfortable leather furniture, small but noticeable signs of deterioration throughout the campus left me wondering. I am curious to know how current University of Ghana students view the situation. Would they agree that the much of their campus has fallen into disrepair? Is the situation as bad as the lecturer made it seem?
The day before we came back to Cape Coast, we went on an excursion to Shai Hills Resource Reserve, which is located only 10 miles outside of Accra (but over an hour-long drive!), to visit an area where the Shai people lived before the British colonial government relocated them to the plains in order to keep a close watch on and thus deter their alleged practice of human sacrifice. Before we arrived, I knew that we would be ascending one of the eight hills to see an archeological site excavated by one of our lecturers, but was pleasantly surprised that the trip also included seeing some neat animals.
There were fat millipedes and fuzzy little red bugs all over the path up the hill. But best of all, I saw baboons! We saw them up close to our bus, but I don't have those pictures right now. 
These are their footprints. Below, you can see them hanging out way off in a distant tree. 
After a short, steep hike, we had a great view of the Accra Plains
and a rock quarry.
