Getting Caught Up!

Robin, Caro, Heather, & Solomon enjoying a cold drink after a busy day!


Hello everyone!

I'm slowly but surely getting caught up on my travel diaries that I am going to post on here for you all to read!I'm posting 2 tonight and will try to post the rest by tomorrow although I'm living by the motto "Ghanaian time" which I've learned from my first week at work. Time here is basically a suggestion because many things such as traffic jams or frequent power outages throw people off schedule so it is common to say a certain time, for example 8am which then translates into 830 or 9, possibly even 930 Ghanaian time. In other words I hope to have my blogs up by tomorrow but that could mean Thursday or Friday "Ghanaian time" :)

Anyway I will stop rambling, here are my diaries from the first 3 days of my adventure!

June 8th, 2011

Today my parents drove me up to Toronto where I anxiously awaited to catch my plane. We made good timing and luckily got to Toronto before rush hour traffic. I sat with my parents for awhile in the airport when my best friend Julia and her boyfriend Trevor joined us. I was so excited to see them! We sat around and visited until it was time to say goodbye! I met my friend Robin at 630 and then we proceeded to check our bags and go wait for our plane. We had a bit of a scare as Davina who was flying in from Ottawa to meet us in Toronto had her flight delayed due to a storm. Also, Heather who was flying from Vancouver to Toronto ended up in Buffalo because her plane was re-routed to avoid the storm. Our plane to Frankfurt got delayed slightly so both of the girls met us just in the nick of time! Heather literally walked in right as they announced that they were boarding for the flight to Frankfurt.

My flight to Frankfurt was great! I loved the movie options- Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Haha maybe I shouldn’t admit to enjoying that movie on the internet but I did! My airplane friend next to me, who is a professor in engineering at U of Waterloo liked it too and we ended up talking for awhile to pass the time. It was roughly a seven and a half hour flight.

Since we were late leaving Toronto we arrived late in Frankfurt where we had our connecting flight to Accra. We got off of the plane, went through customs and got right on board the next plane. My flight to Accra, Ghana was about 6 and a half hours. I made 2 airplane friends who were both from Ghana and told me a lot about the country, traditions, etc. I was very anxious on this flight and did not sleep much so I ended up watching two and a half men, Gnomeo & Juliet, and Just go with it. I should have been reading my book about how to speak Twi (a common language in Ghana) but I was just too excited to concentrate!

After many hours of travel, we arrived in Accra on June 9th. Me, Davina, Robin, & Heather arrived shortly after 7 and Caroline joined us shortly after 8. She left a week prior to our trip and went out to Morocco on her own little adventure. She had an amazing time! Her flight to Accra was hectic though as she had to go from Morocco to Paris to Amsterdam to Accra. After a lot of flying we were tired out! Not to mention Caroline and Heather’s luggage was not there so we will have to go back tomorrow to pick it up.

A man named Joha picked us up at the airport and brought us to a hotel for the night. Once we arrived at the hotel we sat and chatted about what each of us had been up to for the month of May and how excited we are to be spending the summer together in Ghana! Once jet lag and lack of sleep caught up with us we all went to bed.

Madwo (good night)!


June 10th

Today was a busy day! Joha came and took us around Accra. I enjoyed seeing the people and all of the small shops selling clothing and various products along the bright red dirt roads. The colours and sounds were a lot to take in! I was not able to see much on the way home from the airport last night as it gets dark here at 6pm so I got my first real glimpse of the city this morning.

We went out for lunch and also went to a market. We didn’t buy anything at the market; just looked around but many people approached us and tried to make small talk to convince us to buy whatever it was they were selling. When we went for lunch Robin and I made the mistake of telling these people who make bracelets our names so when we came out of the restaurant they had made bracelets with our names on them and they tied them on our wrists so quick that way you have to buy them. I ended up being able to get mine off but poor Robin got stuck with his. It actually is a nice bracelet though! It will make a great souvenir!

Joha then took us to the mall where we bought our cellphones so that we will all be able to keep in contact with one another when we split up to go work with our different organizations, as well as to keep in contact with the QPID summer director back in Kingston and our families. We then had supper and since we were at the mall and had a bit of time to kill before we could go back to the airport to check and see if Heather and Caroline’s luggage had arrived we went to the cinema and watched hangover 2. This was definitely not an authentic Ghanian experience, but it was hilarious! From here on out though we will leave our Western/ North American culture behind. After the movie we went to the airport. Only Caroline’s suitcase was there so Joha said he’d go back again tomorrow and check for Heather’s as hers was still in Toronto!

This small list of things took us all day to do and we didn’t arrive back at the hotel until 10pm. It took us so long because there is so much traffic in Accra. I was shocked at the traffic and how long it took to drive everywhere. Also when people are driving and other roads pop up they just merge right away and just keep driving. I would never be able to drive here as you have to be so alert and looking around you constantly! Cars literally pop out everywhere and people walk out in front of you and beside your car trying to sell various things. There are also constant sounds of horns honking due to the way people merge and cut one another off. The horns go one after the other, it almost sounds like a song!

After a day off errands and still trying to recover from jet-lag we decided to go downstairs and have a nice cold drink. The man who was working at the bar at our hotel played acoustic guitar and loved to sing so after he got us our drinks he came and sat with us and played music & sang for all of us. He was very good and even wrote us personalized songs. My all time favourite was “Heather-feather”. He had a hard time pronouncing her name but if he said feather before or afterwards it made it easier for him. We all got a good laugh out of it! It also turned out to be a catchy song because it remained stuck in my head all night!

Well that is all from my first day in Ghana. Tomorrow I will be leaving Accra and going to Takoradi where I will be staying with a host family for the rest of the summer. I am very excited to meet my host family and see my new home!

Hope you enjoyed reading some of my diaries & will continue to follow my blog for the summer!
Chow for now! :)