My Last Day at Ashesi, by Suzanne

I can’t believe today is my last day at Ashesi.  Although I know 5 1/2 weeks ought to feel like a long time, it has flown by, partly because I was working too hard!  I hit the ground running, I taught most M-F morning for 3 hours (we had off for African Unity Day, another day off for “mid-term break”, and the class field trip last Friday – blog post coming about that!) and then spent each afternoon prepping for the next day, and most evenings grading.  Last time I taught this course in the summer I spread it out over 8 weeks and taught ½ days MWF, a much more enjoyable schedule.  Ashesi’s campus is now much more remote (at least an hour into Accra), and I was able to go into Accra most weekends (thanks, Jacksons, for your amazing hospitality!), but during the week I only had two dinners out – one at a restaurant partway into town with Nina, and one at some friends’ house who don’t live too far from campus.  But in general, traveling by taxi in the rural areas at night is not considered wise, and I discovered coming back after 9pm from dinner at my friends’ house that while it took only 30 minutes to get there, it took a full hour to get back due to the police checkpoints.  One more reason why travel can be difficult in Ghana.

Most of the class, as we were assembling for the field trip

I’ve had a great time teaching (the course was better than ever!), had a wonderful batch of 16 students, the Ashesi campus is fantastic (although unfortunately power and internet problems have persisted at the new campus), and the Ashesi faculty and staff are, as always, an amazing group of people that I am honored to be able to work with – on again, off again for now, more permanently in a year or two. So, until next time… thanks for everything and I’ll miss you all!

By the way, Ashesi did a web article about my class: http://www.ashesi.edu.gh/news-and-events/1439-ashesi-offers-course-in-cryptography.html