Akwaaba!!! Welcome to Ghana

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Ah akwaaba, a word that I have heard many times already. Welcome, welcome to our country. Sweet abruni, will you marry me? Ah, oo, no...no thank you! I say as I continue on my way to be greeted and thanked and asked to buy by another. Ghana hits you as you as a wave of heat and smell. The sharp almost bittersweet sent of fresh cut sap, gasoline and sweat. From the moment we got on to the plane from Amsterdam to Accra I could tell things were different. The plane became a village, a global village with babies crawling down the aisles being scooped up and played with by strangers. Little girls and boys sharing toys and cultures. Conversations held over seats and clustered in the front or back in Twi, German, Da, English, Duch, all mingle into a pleasant hum. I joggled a baby named Soloman on my lap as I chatted to a woman from Ghana about the missionary group she had started. It was wonderful and exhilarating feeling like I was already a part of things, this giant body of life.

Getting to the hotel was an experience by its self, fending off taxi service and people trying to help with your bags...for a tip of course, to be whisked off by CIEE to an air-conditioned hotel full of Obrunis. It was surreal to be in Africa but fell very much like I was just in a very hot and humid America. Orientation was a wash of information all important of course but incredibly inaccessible. We moved into our housing yesterday afternoon, and I lucked out. I get to live in the CIEE house, it is a house rented by the program with room for just 10 people. I will be sharing a room with two other girls, we have a living room with couches, a dining room, and a kitchen to share. It is beautiful and right out our front door is a community that is already welcoming us in. Today we began registration, an insane process of running all over campus to look up which classes are being offered and when they are. Thing are...flexible to say the least. The upside is that as I was wandering around like a little lost chicken friendly students would scoop me up and take me under their wing until I found what I was looking for and got lost all over again. Lunch was FuFu in soup ate by neatly cutting the fufu with your fingers and scooping the scalding liquid into your mouth. After a breakfast of just plain bread and leftover pineapple(which is practically ambrosia) it was ecstasy. Now I am off to take a nap and see what tomorrow brings!

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Photos

Me and Soloman
I met this little guy on the plane

Soloman
Cutie aint he?

Off the plane!
Hot, and tired.

Streets of Accra
All throughout Accra you will see more of the same

The Beach
Fishing boat on the beach

The mouth of the river
Best picture ever taken across the bouncing bus

Beach
It's almost desolate

The Consulate
A little bit of home...eww