ghana

Well, the exciting news that I alluded to yesterday is that I have a job for the summer. My advisor is paying me to go to Ghana to collect some baseline survey data for a new microfinance field experiment that he's doing. I'm not yet sure of any of the details, but I'll probably leave mid-June and be gone for about two months (MJ--I will do everything possible to be home for your wedding, but I can't promise at this point). There are three IDEC 1st-years doing their summer field research in Ghana (one of whom is Ghanaian), so I will be primarily with them. They are using the same methodology that E, M, and I used for our theses, so I can also be a resource to them as they're implementing their survey. We'll be in rural areas somewhere outside of Accra, the capital, but I don't know any more details beyond that.

As you can see below, Ghana is in West Africa, between Cote D'Ivoire and Togo. (Also note Equatorial Guinea, which was "discovered" by the Portuguese, sandwiched between Cameroon and Gabon.)

It is also just an 8-hour drive, or so I've been told, from Ghana to Nigeria, which is where Muffin will be for a month or so at some point early this summer. It probably won't be feasible to go visit him, but wouldn't that be cool?

Random side note about this map: "Zaire" is now the "Democratic Republic of Congo". (Does anyone remember Mike Meyers doing "Coffee Talk" on SNL? "I'm getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves--I'll give you a topic. The Democratic Republic of Congo: neither democratic nor a republic--discuss.") It's been DR Congo for a while now, I think longer than Cote D'Ivoire started insisting that English speakers stop calling it "Ivory Coast". So who knows why it's Zaire on this map.

So, that's the story, kids. I'll provide details as they become available, and in another post I'll describe in some (but not too much) detail the nature of the surveying I'll be doing, because it is mildly interesting.