I live in the International Student Hostel, which is not located near many of the other halls on campus. My living environment is secluded from much of campus life which has taken away a lot from my experience on campus. Most of the international students are sheltered from the local students rather than integrated. I live in one of the two international student hostels. These hostels are nicknamed ISH 1 and ISH 2 and are made up mainly of students from the U.S., Europe, and Nigeria. There are some Ghanaian students who live in ISH 1 and ISH 2, and these students had to apply to live with the international students.
If I had to make a comparison, I would say that my current living accommodations are below those of Valley View and Mountain View Towers at USU, which definitely isn’t anything to brag about. Most of the rooms in my hostel are shared, but there are some singles (which I decided to live in). We have community bathrooms which have no hot water in the sinks or showers and don’t have toilet paper, soap or paper towels. Luckily there is a cleaning service that cleans the bathrooms Monday through Saturday. There are also no washers or dryers in the hostel, so the majority of students hand washes their clothes and hangs them on line to dry. There are two kitchens on each floor and reading and study rooms. There is also a small store to buy snacks and toiletries and a dining service that provides breakfast, lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday. There are power outages weekly as well as water outages and sometimes for several days at a time. So I've had to use a flashlight from time to time to maneuver around my room and learn how to take a bucket bath.
Our rooms are not air-conditioned, but luckily we have ceiling fans.
There is a lot of moisture in the air and not much time for things to dry, so it is very common to feel sticky all the time and for mold to grow on your clothes, shoes, bags, etc. in your room.
Because of the large amount of mosquitoes, I sleep under a mosquito net every night to avoid getting nibbled on in my sleep.
The student hostel has an internet café that also provides Wi-Fi within the hostel, but the internet connection is terrible. It also costs quite a bit of money to use and isn’t reliable, so one would be better off buying a modem from one of the local phone companies (which also don’t work very well because of the hostel’s location) or going to an internet cafe on campus or at the local mall.
There are several other student hostels on campus. Many of the local students room four to a room. Some rooms even have five in a room. Most of their rooms are the same size as a room in Valley View or Mountain View Towers, which is quite small for four or more people. The rooms have two bunk beds and some with an additional room within the main room to fit a fifth person.
There is a hostel on campus called Pentagon that best resembles the accommodations in Aggie Village at USU. It’s the most expensive hostel to live in on campus and where I would chose to live if I was a local student and could afford to do so. You can live two or four to a room and can pay extra for air conditioning instead of a ceiling fan. Each room has a bathroom, kitchen area and patio. It would make living here a lot more comfortable than where I'm living right now!
I'm looking forward to taking hot showers again, lying on a comfortable bed with soft pillows, having air conditioning and not having to sleep under a mosquito net!
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