First day

---

After a 6 hour wait at Heathrow airport, I was finally on my way to Ghana, the flight was long and delayed, but arrived safely at Accra airport around 7pm to be met by one of the people from the camp. we walked around for an hour or so, trying to find the late night garage where the car was being fixed. the main road was amazing, there are no car lanes marked out so its just do as you please, they wind in and out of on coming traffic, and just keep the horn blaring constantly to warn pedestrians and other cars. on the side (and in the middle) there are people walking up and down with great bags of wheat, bowls of fruit etc balanced on their heads, trying to sell their product to the angry communters.
We found the garage and I was introduced to Emmanuel, the programme manager who talked with me a little about my work here and the different projects. There is so much to take in, so many things going on so will take a while to get used to it. I have my orientation tomorrow to explain the history of the camp, their goals and what they expect of me as a volunteer. AFter that I will choose a project, probably the peace cells, have an orientation for it, then get right into that. There's a lot of work involved, but with such friendly people working here, it's enjoyable at the same time.
SO, we got the car fixed finally and drove back to the camp, it was 9pm now, and dark as its "winter" here (still 28 degrees) but the roads were so alive, the whole 2 hour drive, we were offered chocolate,water and toilet paper by those selling from the side of the road, markets were still open, apparently they are 24/7 and people all milled around the makeshift huts, bars and restaurants.
We stopped off at the camp, to exchange some money. The teenagers here are very Americanised, the boys wear baggy pants and tops, they were all hanging out at a nightclub they've made on the camp. From what I saw, it's huge. It's divided into 12 zones and I can see I'm going to get completely lost. Best way to learn though!
We drove onto the guest house where we stay. It's really nice, a courtyard outside, a common room, rooms with matressed which you put your mosquito net over. The toilets are real toilets, they just don't flush so its a bucket pouring system. The showers are the same, we get water from a tank outside and just use scoops to shower, maximum of 1 bucket per day. Drinking water are little packets that come in huge supplies so thats not a problem, no need for the iodine.
I had a pretty restless sleep, my mosquito net kept collapsing and I got caught in it, then I was "gently" arisen by the roosters outside the door, around 5am. So having slept a total of 4 hours in 3 days, im a bit dazed, but the excitement and curiosity of it all will keep me going.
Im at the camp now, its about 9am tuesday morning. Today I am just walking around the camp, getting aclimatised and seeing what happens day to day. We have mobilisation this morning, not entirely sure what it means, but we have a list of people for the mothers centre where they teach women everything, from sewing, to literacy etc. So we have the names and the zones of some women and I think we have to round them up. This afternoon I will be doing mobilisation for peace cells, similar sort of thing, just different project. I might sit in on a class at the Mothers centre. Later I'll go to a peace cell meeting, current topic is human, and womens rights. And tonight, there's a film showing about Liberia we are going to.
I will write more tomorrow when hopefully I know what I'm doing!

---