Concerning firsts

First of, these are the first stories that are getting out of Ghana into the world. My simcard only started working yesterday, so I was able to talk to my mom for a total of 10 minutes, my dad for 1 and Mirella and Kim for 5 or something. Which is way too little to tell all that I have to say.

While my goodbye from Holland was very teary, my stay in Ghana so far hasn't been at all. I arrived in Accra at 9:30 in the evening, and was greeted by warm air. We had a small dinner at Vic's, the woman who came to pick us up, and went to sleep. First night under a mosquito net! In the heat!

The next day we spent walking around Accra, which seems like an incredibly crowded place, but so African. We went to two markets, saw lots and lots and lots of beautiful fabric (mom, I'll buy a LOT the day before I leave!), and even more chickens and goats and dead, dried fish and pork feet and living crabs and toothpaste. Vic walked us through in a hurry, though, so I wasn't really able to see a lot of it, but the smell was pretty memorable. In the afternoon we went to the beach, where we had lunch (burgers! And fresh pine apple juice!) and walked around in the sea. The sea was too wild for real swimming, and also a little too dirty - there were horses on the beach, and their poo was everywhere in the water. At some point it started to rain, and I managed to get goose bumps, I was that cold! How I long for that right now!

After another hot, but better managable night (probably because I was so, so tired), we had to get up really early to go to the bus station. We were supposed to take the 8 o'clock bus, but there wasn't room for our luggage, so we had to wait for the 9 o'clock bus. And after that... 13 hours of driving driving driving. Ghana is incredibly beautiful, though, so I was able to really enjoy the scenery. And the bus was airconditioned, also a major plus point. I knew the south of Ghana was really green and rainforesty, but I hadn't expected the north to be this green. It's the rainy season, that's why. The green, which is incredibly green, only gets greener because of the contrast with the red earth.

Also an interesting part I noticed during the bus journey: Ghanaians like to praise God, a lot. Imagine this: half of an advertisement used to say "In God we trust", with the other half saying "Stop here for your refreshments, Coca Cola". Or a shop called "God is Good Cosmetics" - interpretable in two ways.

When we got to Tamale, there was some confusion.The person supposed to pick us up wasn't there, but there were a lot of boys wanting to be our taxi-driver. We told everyone, stupid as we are, that we were with Meet Africa, and 5 minutes later a guy showed up saying he was from Meet Africa. But he couldn't identify himself, and he was already off with our luggage. We followed him, and fortunately he was indeed from Meet Africa, but it was quite odd. After 13 hours of traveling, though, we couldn't be bothered to make a fuss, and just went to sleep.

The next day, we spent some time in Tamale, going to the local volunteer restaurant, and trying to get our simcards to work. No luck, but it was getting dark (it gets dark really early here) so we went back to the house. We went to the herbal garden of the matriarch of the family, and later on had dinner with her - apparently we had pleased her in some way or another. The Ghanaian food however - we had TZ with a soup called "Indian Spinach" - was not that amazing, I guess I just have to get used to it.

And after that, the more primitive way of living started setting in. Up until then, I had been able to shower under a REAL shower, sleep in relatively cold rooms, travel in airconditioned buses. But boy, the tro-tro is a whole other story. We were cramped together in the back of a sweltering hot little bus, with our bags on our laps and in between our legs. When we were driving, it was still pretty doable, but as soon as the bus stopped moving, the tro-tro got really hot, and really full and pretty unbearable. Fortunately, we could get out after 3 hours (halfway we had dropped off Anne, whose host family lives on the way to Bolga), only to be greeted by a hotter climate than Tamale's and Accra's combined. We went to the Meet Africa office, had a meeting there (everyone got to vent their frustrations, so it was quite a shock for Berte and me - was it really that bad in the host family and in the work place?) and then went to an employee's house. I enjoyed my first bucket shower there, and believe me, when you're sweaty all over and have dust clinging to you in the weirdest places, it's the most refreshing thing you've ever had. We had a meal of Western spaghetti, and loads of water - I don't think I ever drank this much in my life!

Last night was probably the hottest night of my life, I actually woke up while I was wiping the sweat off my face and arms and legs and blaaaah! I'm not a really good sweater, so for me to sweat this much... well, you can imagine the heat. The night was made even more restless because just before we went to sleep, we saw the biggest, most scary spider I've ever seen. It looked like a flattened crab or something, spikes included. So I kept waking up thinking I felt something sit on me or something. Just something I have to get used to, I guess, cause there are plenty of spiders around Bolga, apparently.

Today we explored Bolga a bit, were shown the most important things in town, such as the bank, the restaurant everyone goes to (Swap) and of course the internet cafe. We also cycled by my host family - my host father speaks English, I have electricity, and it's 5 minutes away from the hospital. My host grandma started teaching me Frafra (the local language) immediately, and I hope to pick up some more in the 5 weeks I'll stay there. I have no clue whether I have a real toilet or a corn field, though, but I'll survive both.

On Friday I'm going on my first sightseeing event: Mole National Park. Elephants! Swimming pool!Monkeys! Shower! Real toilet! Birds! Butterflies! I'm excited. Because I leave for Mole on Friday, Berte and I decided to go to our host families on Monday instead of tomorrow. I'll start working in the hospital on Tuesday. We're going this weekend because the other volunteers already here are going together, and we wanted to join them - otherwise we'd be alone during the weekend, and why not go to Mole when we have the chance to go?

Anyway, my computer time is almost up. I'll try to give a more detailed description of happenings around here the next time, but for now, I hope to have updated you enough!

Love from Ghana, Jonneke