Well, after much scrambling around I am finally here! And it has been quite the interesting little trip so far.
I flew out of Toronto on the night of June 21st which was a Friday. The flight was 7 hours to London, England and I was tired so I slept pretty much the entire way. This meant that I missed both airplane meals, which I was quite sad about... but no worries as I woke up in England at just about what felt like breakfast time.
Unfortunately for me, breakfast in Toronto is lunchtime in England and so I was not able to order the tasty-sounding porridge from the menu at the Heathrow airport like I hoped. I had no interest in a sandwich at that unearthly hour of the "afternoon" so I went for my usual fare and bought some popcorn and a large yogurt beverage. It was actually quite nice. I then sat around for 3 hours waiting for my next flight.
My second flight was also about 6 or 7 hours and this time I made sure to be awake for both meals which were both pretty disappointing, but that was alright. Food is food and I ate it. The kid beside me had much to say about the unappealing visual quality of my airplane meals (he ordered the opposite meal from me both times). At one point the elderly gentleman sitting behind me expressed his distress at the fact that I'd deigned to recline my seat by promptly beating the back of my chair back into its original upright position. I figure, like the flight attendants, he must have had my safety in mind -- I suppose if the plane had crashed he may have inadvertently prevented me from sustaining a soft tissue injury or something.... hmmm... sigh.
My arrival in Accra was ok. It was around 8pm and not too hot at all. Everyone in the airport was quite pushy and it is difficult to get anything done if you are adverse to being violently assertive. But eventually I got my cash exchanged (word to the wise, bring $100 bills to exchange at the airport, you get an amazing rate!) and managed to avoid having to give the porter a bribe even though he insisted that I needed to pay a security "tip" to leave the airport...
Got in a cab and spent the next hour looking for my guesthouse, which no one seemed to know existed. Neither of the contact numbers for the guesthouse worked. What I found out later was that the road the guesthouse is located on is known by the following names "Joseph Tito Ave", "Fire Service Road", "Josef Broz Tito Ave" and "Switchback Road". Though, in the end it didn't matter because there are no road name signs in Accra and roads are not known by names, they are known by what important things happen to be located on that road. I have been told several times when trying to get to a house or store in Accra so far to "get the taxi to take you to Osu Children's Home and when you get there have him call me and I'll give you directions from there to my house". "Have your man drive you to circle and then ask anyone around there for directions to that store, they'll know". "If they pass you waving their hand in a circle outside of the window it means they're going to circle but if they're making an upsidedown V they're headed toward the mall. Catch the right one and ask the mate to let you off somewhere along 37." and so on! I am finding it difficult to get my bearings, but they say it will come with time.
My guesthouse does not serve food on the weekends which made me REALLY regret having missed the meal services on the plane to London on Friday...there don't appear to be any restaurants nearby to here unfortunately. But that was ok, I had brought some snacks with me and found a lady down the street who sold me some lovely milk biscuits that tided me over to Monday morning when the meals started being served again here at the guesthouse.
The Accra Baptist Guesthouse is where I am staying for my first 2 weeks here. It is a lovely place. God answered a lot of prayers with regard to this accommodation and I am quite thankful. All the rooms upstairs here are dorm like and share a washroom, but my room, on the first floor, is a single with a queen bed, its own full bathroom and a huge fan. It also has a water heater so I can have a hot shower in the morning (hypothetically -- it does work, but you don't want a hot shower here, its counterproductive). It is not too far from where I will be working, but it is not on a main route which means having to take a taxi down there and back every day which would cost about 5 GHC per way which is about $6.00 per day. That'll add up. Thankfully I am not staying here for much longer though.
I have been looking for a place to live and tomorrow I am going to visit the house of my sister's colleague's husband's mother's sister's friend, Mrs. Kyei (seriously!) who lives in Osu which is the same neighbourhood as my office. I could, hypothetically speaking, walk to work, which is what I am hoping for. Though I am worried about what the price will be and I am also worried about what sorts of people are living there. Osu is the expat party part of town and I have no interest in spending too much time there (though my office is there which makes that difficult!) Things seem to get quite rowdy in Osu at night and, unfortunately, there is apparently not much for expats to really do around here. My fellow volunteers are very friendly gals and so I asked some of them what they like to do with their offtime in Accra. They looked at me sorta apologetically and said "Well, we drink."
Expats in Accra go nuts with the alcohol because it is ridiculously cheap (cheaper than juice, etc.), plentiful, and because there is nothing else in Accra to really keep them amused. So they drink in different settings to keep things interesting. Sigh... My security briefing today included tips on how to avoid getting robbed while walking home from the bar, how to avoid getting robbed by my cab driver while being driven home from the bar (which apparently happens quite frequently here), how to avoid picking a cab being driven by a drunk taxi driver, as well as instructions to the best locations to obtain the Plan B pill or, if need be, a hygienic abortion. Needless to say it was a troubling introduction to the expat culture in Accra, though not shocking as I know the foreigner scene can get quite out of hand.
But on what seemed like a whole different planet altogether, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Christians coming and going at the guesthouse these last few days. All of the missionaries who I have met so far have been coming from or going to one of the rural parts of the country to engage in gospel or discipleship works and I've really learned a lot about what is going on in different rural parts of the country, the culture in Ghana, the interesting and little known things to see, do and enjoy in Accra that aren't centered around getting wasted, and most importantly to me, I've been really encouraged to hear about the amazing ways that the Spirit of God has been moving and working in this country. The fellowship has been fantastic and I'm going to miss the interesting people I've met here. But I have to keep moving toward whatever God has for me here, and I'm trusting Him to lead me through it, even if it does go directly into the heart of expat-country aka Osu... Its developing that steady faith in God that I'm working hard on... more thoughts on that another day.
Tomorrow I am back at the office to find out more about how I am to go about accomplishing the goals of my mandate here in Ghana.
Pictures and further updates to come!
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