end of an amazing year

Im finally on my way to Ghana!!  I have been looking forward to this summer for the past 6 months and I can hardly believe that it is starting.  Today I finished up my Junior year at DePaul with a ridiculously painful African History final.  Who likes to take a history test on a part of the world that you are going to fly to in a couple of hours?  Painful.

This year has been amazing.  Awesome friends and good music... what else can anybody ask for?  It certainly was hard saying goodbye to people, but 2 0r 3 months isn't that long I guess.  

Over the next two months I am going to do my best to update my blog regularly.  I am hoping for some reasonable internet cafes or random wireless signals along the way.  Just a basic schedule for the trip:  From June 12th until July 1oth I will be taking 3 classes at the University of Ghana.  I will be studying the many musical traditions of Ghana with a focus on the Ewe people.  My classes will include a West African Musical Ensemble (meets under the trees behind the department of music... i like the sound of that), The Ethnomusicology of Ghanaian Music and Dance and West African Culture Language and Society.  Myself and the other 15 or so students will also be learning the Ewe language.  A variety of professors, performers and ethnomusicologists from Africa and North America will be teaching the courses.  During our study at the university we will also be taking weekend trips to various places of musical and historical interest throughout Ghana including a tree-top walk through a rain forest i think!

From July 11- July 27th we will be immersed in a village called Dagbamete doing field work and research.  I think that we will each have our own research project.   The program ends on the 27th but I will be staying through August 14 to do a little traveling on my own. 

I honestly have no idea what the next two months are going to be like.  I fully expect it to be one of the most overwhelming and intense experiences of my life, but I have a feeling that something good will come out of it.

Until then... off to London... then Ghana.  Keep reading.

Patrick