Wednesday 13 July 2011

First day in Ghana

     So after about 14 hours total of air time, more than 24 sleepless hours, and airports refusing to attend to my vegetarian needs, we finally make it to Acrra, Ghana. The weather here is completely ideal. It's beautiful and sunny and just sitting in the jeep made me feel like I was getting my tan on. Customs took a nice chunk out of our time as well before we finally get to meet our hostess for the next two weeks. Our hostess, Vivian, was easy to spot out as she walked towards us with a beautiful bright orange and blue dress and neon orange stilettos. She is the nice lady who is letting my family and I stay at her house for two weeks. Well, my sister and dad are leaving monday, but my mom and I don't leave for another couple weeks. 
    The traffic on our way to our temporary African home was pretty much some of the worst I've seen. There are no lines on the road which made the driving look very confusing even though Vivian knew exactly what she was doing. Since half the ride home was us being stopped in traffic it gave the dozens of venders a great chance to come up to our open windows and shove bags of peanuts and statues of elephants into our faces. The venders wasn't what surprised me though, it was the fact that they were so quiet and not forceful. My trips to Mexico and New York City gave me lots of experiences with venders but they were all very loud and persistent. All you had to say to the venders in Ghana is "no thank you" and then they leave you alone. 
     The house I'm staying at is very nice. Almost all the houses around have large walls to hide their houses and at the top of the walls there is either barbed wire or broken glass for protection. Most families all have dogs too, but they're not like our dogs. They're not pets to the families, they're more like guard dogs. They aren't for fun or anything like that. They're actually kind of scary, and I'm a big fan of dogs too. 
     The family is super hospitable and friendly and I've already made friends with Vivian's son and daughter. Tomorrow I get to visit the orphanage I'll be working at. I'll be posting more tomorrow!

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