Accra! Accra!

Wow. It's still hard to believe that we're here. We arrived in Accra on April 4. The first thing you notice is the heat and humidity. It was about 9 o'clock at night, but the temperature was over 30C and the humidity was outrageous. I personally am still finding it difficult to adjust to the heat. You would think that it would cool down at night when the sun goes down--but it doesn't. You just have to get used to being covered by a lather of sweat constantly.

Accra itself is quite a large city. I think that there is 2.5 million people here, and it is quite congested. We are living in the Volunteer Abroad house in a 'middle class' neighbourhood. Unfortunately, I won't be able to add pictures from this computer, but maybe when we get to our placement (in Kasoa) I'll be able to do it at one of the internet cafes. Regardless, the pictures could never do it justice. We have the internet here, which is excellent. But our power goes out about once a day (usually not for too long) and we've been lucky enough to have fairly consistent running water. The one thing that was a little different was that toliet paper does not go in the toliet--it goes in a bin beside the toliet. And we strictly follow the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" policy.

Getting around the city, and apparently the country as a whole is very interesting. They have 'tro-tros' and these are extremely old vans that seat (by seat i mean with seatbealts) about 10. Henry Ford would recognize these vans. Many of the doors are held on by rope (we saw a door fall off one in mid-ride the other day). Anywho, they are PACKED full of people, but they are very cheap (despite the fact that Canadian gas prices are the same) and full to travel in. They also do not leave until they are full. The pace of life in general here is much slower. Things get done when they get done. Schedules mean very little.

I don't want to people to form generalizations from Ghana based on what I say, so keep in mind that this is just my perspective. The people here are generally very friendly--always saying hello when you pass (or yelling 'oburoni' - the Twi word for white people). And it is very safe here, no matter where you are in the city.

To be honest, there is so much I could write here, I could go all day. Mum is doing very well. I'm so proud of her. I don't know very many women her age who could do this. She has a Ghanaian nickname too. She is called "Momma Acouse" (Acouse is probably spelled wrong). Depending on your sex and the day of the week you were born, you get a nickname. Heather seems to be difficult for many to pronounce so this is much easier.

The official language in Ghana is english--however, this is very misleading. The first language of most in this region is Twi. Most do speak english though. We have learned some basic Twi so that we can get by.

The country coordinator is a Canadian and we some Ghanaians that live in the house to show us the ropes. They are fantastic. Poppo shows us around the city and Daniel is the security/groundskeeper; they are hilarious and so friendly and have really helped us adjust. We have a local women named Sophia who cooks our meals and they are always so so good. The food is spicy and a lot of it is eaten with one's hands.

I have to go, and I am sorry for the random nature of this post. I haven't even begun to tell half of what we've done (the Accra market for one, or the marriage proposals that the women get here frequently, and apparently I will get them when we arrive at our placement). We are leaving for Kasoa on Saturday morning and we begin work on Monday. We're still getting used to it though--it is really hard to describe our experience but we're loving it so far.