Travel Writing in Ghana

English Writing

Location
Greater Accra Region, Ghana

Description
Most modern travelers rely on cameras to record what they see on their journeys. This course will have us responding to our experiences in a journal - and with finished pieces of travel writing. Overall, each of us should produce not just a record of what is seen, but an account of how it was experienced. You will have a good deal of freedom in deciding what to write about, but there will be certain limits - and the instructor will be making reading and writing assignments.

Your writing - both in the journal and in the finished pieces - should improve over the course. But you should rest assured that you have one great advantage over students who take writing courses on campus: it is much easier to write good and interesting stuff when you are writing about exotic places, unusual experiences, and people like none you are likely to meet in a classroom at home.

Ghana
Friendly people and equatorial warmth fill Ghana, a country with a fascinating history and culture. From dense rainforest to beaches and lagoons to dry savannah and open woodland, Ghana has much beauty and diversity in it's natural habitat. The population is comprised of a variety of people including Akan (44%), Mole-Dagbane (16%), Ewe (13%), Ga (8%), Guan, Gurma, Gonja, Dagomba and languages include English, Ewe, Ga, Twi. Throughout the course we will partake in cultural immersion activities including community discussions, Ghanaian dances, games, and African singing. Excursions may be possible to various local attractions, including Kakum National Park (a rainforest with Africa's only canopy walkway), Kumasi (the capital of the Ashanti kingdom), and various beaches.

Service will be coordinated through the Voluntary Workcamps Association of Ghana (VOLU), whose goals are:
1.) To organize and run voluntary workcamps in Ghana, either independently or in collaboration with other voluntary organizations or government ministries.
2.) To gather together all those interested in voluntary workcamps either as active campers or as sympathizers.
3.) To help poor communities to do work which they would otherwise be unable to do themselves.
4.) To further intercultural and interracial understanding by inviting people from abroad to workcamps in Ghana and by sponsoring Ghanaians to go to workcamps abroad.

VOLU organizes a variety of projects, including the construction of primary or secondary schools, roads, and hospitals, as well as reforestation, cocoa plantation, literacy projects, community development, oil palm production, and AIDS awareness campaigns. The function of the camps, however, is not to do the work for the various communities, but rather to assist them in "helping themselves" by working with them on the projects. The common denominator is that the community development work of VOLU, in addition to being self-help, is sustainable and grassroots -- local communities decide which projects are needed and feasible. For more information, visit the VOLU website .

Details

Instructor: David Brumble

Credits: 6

Service-Learning Abroad: May 16 - June 6, 2004

Credits Awarded: Credits are awarded for this course through the University of Pittsburgh. This course fulfills Writer's Journal (ENGWRT 1092) for 3 credits and English Writing Independent Study (ENGWRT 1901) for 3 credits.