Hi everyone!
I begin this entry with a slight headache from having the hot noon sun beating on my head from a mid-day walk.
It's very hot here. It's humid, hot and you sweat as if you're a human fountain. It's now day 2 and my first chance to sit at an internet cafe. The cafe is up the street, around the corner from our compound. It's about a 3-5 minute stroll (though one loses track of how long it takes to go anywhere with the heat and unpaved roads slowing your walk.) It's quite the opposite of New York, which I am SO glad for. Everyone here is very chilled out and relaxed. Africa is a very relational country not run by scheduled time. One learns to be patient here. One also learns to be friendly in rejecting vendors, and unwanted attention (i.e. from guys.)
Our staff has been super friendly and helpful. There are 2 local Ghanaian boys (in their early 20's) James and John who are very hands on with us. They've planned a nice variety of social things our team (25 of us) can do. Yesterday, we went to a beach hotel/resort. Yes, you read right. I felt like I was on vacation. It was a modern Western based resort with a pool (haven't swam in ages!) and by the beach. The beach itself was not one I wanted to swim in (though usually I wouldn't hestitate to ride the waves.) When I was knee-deep in water, I realized what looked like seaweed was actually black plastic bags. There was so much trash in the ocean, you could see bags floating through the waves in the distance as they crashed. Cloth, bags and other things were also washed ashore.
Side note* (I've been taking pictures, but forgot my connecting cable at home. EL to mail to me. Will try to use a teammate's special USB/memory card device and upload later.)
My 11 hour flight was a direct, and rather quick seeming plane ride. I sat by a nice Ghanaian gentleman who I conversed with just a little. I was super tired and slept for most of the ride. Ghana is 4 hours ahead of NYC. When I arrived at Accra, it was aobut 8am but I felt pretty good.
I met EG's cousin, Victor, a local Ghanaian who lives in Accra. He was so nice and thoughtful! EG- your family is great. He had brought me a cell phone with an already loaded SIM card (for international calls) so that I could call EG and my family to notify them of my arrival.
The first day seemed almost endless in time. I was the last to arrive at the compound (what we call our place of stay.) It has big gates in front, and is quite a nice structure. There were 24 other teammates- all from the UK. They seemed to have a shared comraderie already (later I found out most of them were on the same flight) and I kidded to myself that I could have stepped into some reality TV show. Haha.
My room is shared with 3 other girls- Phil(lippa), Tory (Victoria) and Chantelle. Thank the Lord...Chantelle is a physical therapist. She has helped me iron out some of the knots in my back. I hope when I come back to NY my back will be completely healed. The dull throbbing pain is a daily constant, but luckily doesn't prevent me from interacting with others. It's sore when I carry a heavy bag. Back to the room- I'm on the top bunk. I'm rather glad that my bed at home is a lofted one, I'm quite fine with the set up. Putting up the mosquito net was interesting, having never used one before. I just taped it up to the ceiling so it draped over my bed. The nights are SO hot and stuffy in our room. The screens are broken so we keep the windows and door closed to keep bugs out. Felt like sleeping in a hot, unbearably stuffy (for lack of better words) elevator. Or to be morbid, kind of a coffin. I laid there with the hard planks of wood pushed into my back, wishing I had a razor to shave my head bald. It's a bit like NY in the summer if you don't have AC. Which, EL and I have lived through haha. When I finally slept, I woke up 2x feeling like I was suffocating. Dreaming/half awake, lifted up the mosquito net thinking I'd have fresh air outside. Quite ridiculous really, when the net is all breatheable mesh anyway! Finally told myself I wouldn't die due to lack of oxygen, and went back to sleep.
We have 3 cooks (women)- Dura, Peace and...don't remember the other name. I'm having a hard time catching what everyone's saying around me- it's either a British or Scottish accent, or a Ghanaian one. I'm interested in meeting the local folks and hope to draw them or accumulate their stories. When I see the cooks I try to make it a point to greet them. I think as the only Asian on the team, I am quite easy to spot and remember. :) Everyone else is either Anglo-saxon or African. There is one other minority on the team, Chantelle, who is half white-English and half Ghanaian. She, along with some other girls are really cool to hang out with. And luckily, she is also just a year older than me. Everyone else is 18-20! Guess that is to be expected when the program is called "Gap Year"/"Gap Sports" - most of the kids are taking their gap year break between high school graduation and 1st year of college. I kind of feel like a camp counselor, haha.
I'm kind of tired from the heat and zoning out a bit. This entry is so long, what else to say...a few more main points:
- Adjustment to the environment/style of living- I'm doing just fine. In fact, it's a rather nice familiar setting. I've been to other developing countries before, so the general built environment- housing, shops, unfinished structures and roads are not new. Even in our compound, for toilets we can only flush if we REALLY have to. Water is scarce in Ghana, and we use buckets of water to flush into the toilet. All this stuff is fine. I kind of like it, the slowing down of life in all litle ways. People have been taking bucket showers, and wearing DEET as the trip perfume/cologne.
- On tanning: The sun seems to be strong all througout the day. I've turned a shade darker just from yesterday. Today I've definitely gotten darker. Who knows how tan I'll get by the time I'm home! Haha.
- Started practicing my drawing today. There's a store across the street, called Linda's store, run by...Linda. She's a wonderfully friendly and big-hearted woman with 2 young boys. People like to lounge at her shop bc she has a table and chairs. I did a line drawing of her little boy, Mikey, and then a pretty yucky colored drawing of her shop. I'm reminded that art collects curious onlookers everywhere- no matter which country you're in. I'm always a bit embarrassed when people want to look cuz I feel they'd be disappointed. Hoping to get over that imaginged expectation and just do my stuff.
- Ghana is a very religious country (Christian) and when I mean religious (I go to church...) I mean gospel jargon is everywhere and incorporated into the names of companies and shops. There are Christian bumper stickers everywhere. Even hair salons will have names like "God's Word Salon" or something to that degree.
- Been learning more UK jargon. Feel like the cultural differences between America and UK are slowing me down in bonding with folks. Or maybe the fact that I make them stop and explain terms will connect us more. Haha. Who knows. Not sure if I'll come back with an accent or not, but it's so funny. In the meantime I'm accutely aware of how CA valley-girl I sound!
Alright, that's enough for this entry. Hopeing to post pictures next time. Miss ya!
