Hello to all from Ghana!!!
Well - I made it! I've just spent the day doing some touring of Accra, registering at the Embassy, going to the bank, etc. It's been great! And as I was told many times - Accra is a busy city! WOW. It's amazing though - and I don't think I've ever had this much attention in my life, hahaha. The flight went pretty smoothly - although both in Toronto and London we were late leaving due to people not making the flight, therefore have to remove the bags, etc - but it was good. Silly me, though, transfered directly to my terminal in London, not even thinking (until after) that once I went through security, I was in. Thus, I did no touring of London (boo hoo) but instead tried to find ways to ignore my tiredness and keep busy. It worked for about 2 hours... I was able to take a very short nap on the bench for awhile later in the day - but 8 hours sure is a long time to kill at an airport, especially when it's 'in the middle of the night' where you're used to, and you've had no sleep. But I survived and was able to sleep for a little while on the way to Ghana which was good. I'm all confused about time though - I was wrong about the time zone stuff...I think I'm only 3 hours ahead of Ontario here - although the sun goes down VERY early.
The family I'm living with seems wonderful - "Auntie Christie", who's in her 70's, her niece, grandson (3), and adopted girl (6ish, I think). My room is HUGE but basic and is about what I was expecting. So far the transition has been okay - the airport was wonderful - I was met by one of the airport staff and taken directly (past the whole line) to register into the country. My bags made it (yay!) and I was off to meet some of the representatives from the organization. There were 5 of them! haha We all piled into a little truck where to sat in the back and I was brought to my new home. Not wearing seatbelts is definitely something I'm not used to though. I've also ridden in a taxi a number of times (which is SO cheap compared to Canada!!), the 'tro tro' (aka bus - which is UNBELIEVABLY cheap) and some people's vehicles. The roads are in pretty good shape (better than some of the Kingson roads!!! hahaha) but traffic is everywhere. You pretty much don't stop hearing honking. People are selling things everywhere - it's pretty neat to see (there's lots to tell there - but don't have the time!). And Carmen, you'd love the wraps, haha. But I haven't seen any for sale anywhere yet... There is definitely a lot to get used to but hopefully that'll come quickly. The local dialect (Ga) is spoken fairly frequently so often it's hard to keep up with what's going on. Thank goodness I went to a country where English is spoken! I can't even imagine understanding nothing... Power outages are frequent due to the dry rainy season, so it's quite a sight where stoplights are, but people seem to not be fazed by it at all.
This weekend I'll be having my orientation and will meet some of the other volunteers (16 of us in total - all but me are from the UK). I'll be learning some of the local language so that'll be nice.
Okay, well, my time is running out so I'd better run. But thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers - I'll write again when I can.
Cheers to all,
Teresa
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