Baseball

Right now I love my research project. To be honest it has been pretty love-hate recently. Dealing with the sports office on campus has been the most frustrating. On one hand I’m glad I don’t have to do library research because there is more of a social oral society here. I decided to find the one baseball pitch in Ghana by myself, so I just got on a tro tro to Tema (3rd largest city about 1 hr east) and asked around. People here don’t just help you, they take you there or find someone who will, so I made it to the field and there were actually little leaguers playing. It was so amazing. Anyway I have spent the past few days going to the national team’s practices and everyone is very helpful and nice to be around. Sometimes it is hard because I think the sports office is suspicious of me (I have no idea why?) and the national team thinks I can help them (I have no idea how?) but it is a lot of fun to get away from Accra and hang out with them. It is so interesting to learn about all of them and their hopes and love for baseball in such a soccer dominated society. It is really familiar too. The sound of the ball hitting the glove and the clinking of warm-up hitting against the fence definitely brings back the smell of the sports park back home.
Speaking of back home, I went to the U.S. Embassy and it was total culture shock that I can only explain as sterile and confusing. It was like a little island of America with marble lobbies with magazines and numerous bathrooms and even cubicles. Weird.