Happy you made it! wow, how long did the flight take you? I can't believe you made it that fast! It took me 24 hours!
I know it is a huge cultural shock at first. This is typical of the way Ghana is. give yourself a little time to get used to everything like the open sewers, etc. It is a different world than it is here. I really wish I would have been able to talk to you before you left because I could have told you about all of this! It was not so bad for me because I have friends from Ghana, including Makafui from CCS to told me all this stuff before I left and prepared me for life there. I also had a friend meet me at the airport so it was nice to see a familiar face when I arrived, I am sure it was quite scary for you to have problems in the airport and all. Even when I had been forwarned I got taken in.
You may have problems with police trying to get money from you by means of stoping the taxi at check points and saying there is something wrong with the taxi and if you don't pay it will have to stay there. I would just politely refuse to pay. WHAT EVER YOU DO DON'T ARGUE WITH POLICE, JUST BE FIRM AND FRIENDLY.
Please tell young Kofi at CCS that I miss him a lot! He is the greatest kid! I really grew to like him when I was there and enjoy getting e-mails from him now and then.
How long are you there for? I hope that once you get used to the conditions you will get comfortable and enjoy the experience. I KNOW you will love the little kids at the day care/orphanage! They were actually the highlight of my trip!
As for the heat, they keep lots of water at CCS always have some with you and drink more than you think you can hold - I didn't at first and got heat sickness and it was not a pretty sight.
Also time is not a factor there, I don't know if anyone told you that. There is what is called Africa time, which basically means when ever they get there! I hated it at first but grew to love the relaxed atmosphere there!
As or the rooms and shower at CCS, I know what you mean and I freaked sleeping under a misquito net for some reason. The last thing Besa told me before I went to bed the first night was besure to shut the door tight so a snake doesn't get in the room. I hate snakes so didn't sleep all night!
You will not find a hot shower in Ghana, I never did, and I hated the cold ones until oneday I complained that the water was too warm in my shower, I knew I was acclimated then!
I hope and pray that you have a wonderful experience there! It is really traumatic going to a country that you don't know, and I can't imagine not knowing anyone when you arrived, but you will be ok!
If you meet Grace Amenuvor, please give her my regards, if you tell her Linda from NDSU she will know who you are talking about. She is a wonderful woman.
I'm looking forward to reading more of your blogs.
Oh, and when you go back to the airport, the same will happen, someone will grab your luggage if you don't watch out! Use your good set of lungs and yell as loud as you can at them to put your bag down! I scared the heck out of the guy when I did that and no one bothered me after that!
Take care, don't stress, and you will have a great time. Don't forget that you are probably experiencing jet lag which takes a day or two to get over! Coming home will be much worse than going for jet lag!
Cross Cultural Solutions Hi Ricki! I just noticed your blog entry of Jan 4 yesterday and at that time send you a n e-mail asking if you were volunteering at Cross Cultural Solutions in Ho. I have read an earlier entry from two months ago saying that you are in deed volunteering at CCS.
This is going to be a wonderful experience for you! The people who run CCS are friends of mine! I knew their son Makafui from the school I work at, and Besa the father had graduated from the University I work at and Grace, Besa's elegant and charming wife, went to school in Moorhead, MN.
I was able to spend two days with them in Ho and it was the experience of a life time! Ellen, a woman who works with Besa took us to a village to meet the people there, a preschool and I think that may be the one you will be volunteering at (you will be so in love with the kids!), and we were taken to the other CCS camp a few hours from HO to meet Besa's mom!
Please give my regards to Besa, Grace, my good friend BKB, the young and so cute Kofi (my e-mail pal), Ellen, and most of all my friend Makafui! If you have a digital camera please take some pictures of them for me, especiall BKB and his wife and baby! I would appreciate it so much. I have sent you an e-mail so you can find my e-mail address there.
You are going to experience the absolute best cooking at CCS! It was the best food I ate in all of Ghana! Good luck, I hope you have a great flight (long though) and I will be following your blog entries. I can hardly wait until June when I go back to Ghana for the graduation of a young man I have been sponsoring at KNUST in Kumasi!
Additional Comments If you are interested I can give you some tips on cultural things in Ghana such as don't ever extend your left hand or pass anything to anyone with your left hand because that is considered your unclean hand and is an insult to people. (Bathroom issues).
Be prepared for people to yell "Akwaaba Obruni!" which means welcome white skin! Little kids will be fascinated by you. When I visited the Pre school in Ho the little kids were inspecting my fingers, turning my hands over and over and one even checked out my toes! The kids are super polite and so precious.
Is someone picking you up at the airport?
OH and beware of the airport, I don't want to scare you, but don't let go of your luggage when in the airport. I had been forwarned that there are people who sneak (or are let in by guards) that will have airport security badges on, but they aren't employees. One helped me get my two large suitcases off the luggage carrosell and said he would help me get them out to the front entry. He did, only to find out that the guards pulled him aside and then it ended up that the guards wanted some money from me for having saved me from him. Then when I exited the airport and my friend when to go and get a taxi, four of his friends surrounded me and demanded $20 for the help the man had given me.
Ghana is so corrupt that it will just irritate the daylights out of you! The police are the worst. Always carry your passport with you, actually I kept it in my room but carried a laminated copy of it.
Be careful of taking people's pictures without their permission because it is kind of offensive to them, but generally if you ask they are more than happy to pose for you!
Be sure to travel while you are there, especially to Cape Coast and tour the slave castle in Elmina--awesome but terrible sobbering. Also if at all possible make a trip to the north to Mole Park! It is a wild life reserve where you stay at a hotel on top of a big bluff and can sit and watch elephants, baboons, wort hogs, many types of deer and other wildlife. Or you can be adventurous and take a walking tour with an armed guard which we did and it was so cool! You will never believe how huge an elephant looks in the wild!
If you have any way possible to pick up a Brands Travel Guide of Ghana do so and get the third addition. It will tell you all you need to know.
Be very cautious of people who are thieves because there are some there so if you carry money, carry it in a secure place on your body, dont set a camera down, etc.
The food, well, lets say the food is different and extreemely spicy. People eat with their hands, mostly stews, and they put a dough called fufu in the bottom of the bowl and cover it with stew and then reach in and pick up some dough and kind of scoope the food out of the bowl with the dough! If you like fruit you are going to go insane there. The pineapple is freshly picked, you buy huge coconuts and they wack the top off so you can drink the milk, papaya is incredible, as a matter of fact at the camp of Cross Cultural Solutions there are huge Papaya trees just inside the gate. The mangos, mmmmmmmmm, and the funny thing is the oranges are delicious but they are green!
The very best advice I can give you is take salt pills because you will get dehydrated because of the heat and don't drink anything but bottled water, don't even rinse your toothbrush with anything but bottled water. Lots of contamination and parasites in the water.
You are going to see men peeing all over the place. They just stop and go anywhere which was a bit humerous to me! In Accra the sewage system is really bad, it runs in gutters alongside streets and the stench is really bad, it will take you a bit to get used to it.
Coming from Kotoka airport in Accra you will come down about 10 lanes of traffice that moves at a snails pace. During the day you will see what is called the worlds longest supermarket because kids sell anything from windshield wiper blades to chicklets, bread, fruit, clothes and what not by walking between cars!
There are no stores per se in Ghana, but if you get the chance to to the big Makola market in Accra and better yet if you visit Kumasi to to the Kaneshe market, the biggest in Africa. It is really something to see. I have good friends who live about three blocks from te Kaneshe market in Kumasi.
Wow, there is so much I could tell you! If you have any questions or need any information please e-mail me at lschindler79@yahoo.com - I would be more than happy to answer them for you!
I guarantee you that you are in for the experience of a life time and you will never view life the same after you have been there. They have so little there, but are so gratefull for anything they have. I had heard from someone that the schools are so poor that the kids sometimes have to share pencils so I brought probably 50 dozen pencils, individual sharpeners, and erasers for the family of the people I visited. A young school teacher came and asked if I had any more and I had enough for his entire school. He came back the next day and he said some of the kids got so excited to get their own pencils that they cried! Wow!
If you are traveling through Amsterday, that airport is fantastic! It is huge and ultra modern! I love it! If you are a chocolate freak like I am there is a Belgium chocolate store that you could get calories off the smell!
You are going to find Ghanaians the most polite people in the world, they are unbelievable and they will stop you on the street an engage you in conversation and are very friendly.
I hope you get this before you go because I think some of the information will be very helpfull for you and like I said e-mail me any questions you may have because I would be more than happy to answer them for you!
Aberdeen??? South Dakota? Hi Ricki,
Are you by any chance volunteering through Cross Cultural Solutions in Ho? I'd be very interested to know. I know the people who run Cross Cultural Solutions and it is an excellent program. When I went to Ghana in 2004 I went up to Ho and spent a couple of days with them. Actually Besa, the head guy, and his son Makafui graduated from MSU and Besa's wife, Grace is an MSU graduate!
I got to tour one of the preschools wich was so cool! Ghana is a beautiful place and you will find the nicest people you have ever met in your lives.
I'm very interested to hear from you! If you have any questions about Ghana I have been there and have wonderful friends there and also am planning to return in June of 2007!
Here is my Ghana travel blog. I first travelled to Ghana in January 2007 with a charity called Cross-Cultural Solutions and lived there for 2 months. I also returned in May 2008 for 2 weeks. I met some of the most amazing people and I definitely plan to return.....look out for my next instalment!
... full info
Linda
non-member comment
Happy you made it!
wow, how long did the flight take you? I can't believe you made it that fast! It took me 24 hours! I know it is a huge cultural shock at first. This is typical of the way Ghana is. give yourself a little time to get used to everything like the open sewers, etc. It is a different world than it is here. I really wish I would have been able to talk to you before you left because I could have told you about all of this! It was not so bad for me because I have friends from Ghana, including Makafui from CCS to told me all this stuff before I left and prepared me for life there. I also had a friend meet me at the airport so it was nice to see a familiar face when I arrived, I am sure it was quite scary for you to have problems in the airport and all. Even when I had been forwarned I got taken in. You may have problems with police trying to get money from you by means of stoping the taxi at check points and saying there is something wrong with the taxi and if you don't pay it will have to stay there. I would just politely refuse to pay. WHAT EVER YOU DO DON'T ARGUE WITH POLICE, JUST BE FIRM AND FRIENDLY. Please tell young Kofi at CCS that I miss him a lot! He is the greatest kid! I really grew to like him when I was there and enjoy getting e-mails from him now and then. How long are you there for? I hope that once you get used to the conditions you will get comfortable and enjoy the experience. I KNOW you will love the little kids at the day care/orphanage! They were actually the highlight of my trip! As for the heat, they keep lots of water at CCS always have some with you and drink more than you think you can hold - I didn't at first and got heat sickness and it was not a pretty sight. Also time is not a factor there, I don't know if anyone told you that. There is what is called Africa time, which basically means when ever they get there! I hated it at first but grew to love the relaxed atmosphere there! As or the rooms and shower at CCS, I know what you mean and I freaked sleeping under a misquito net for some reason. The last thing Besa told me before I went to bed the first night was besure to shut the door tight so a snake doesn't get in the room. I hate snakes so didn't sleep all night! You will not find a hot shower in Ghana, I never did, and I hated the cold ones until oneday I complained that the water was too warm in my shower, I knew I was acclimated then! I hope and pray that you have a wonderful experience there! It is really traumatic going to a country that you don't know, and I can't imagine not knowing anyone when you arrived, but you will be ok! If you meet Grace Amenuvor, please give her my regards, if you tell her Linda from NDSU she will know who you are talking about. She is a wonderful woman. I'm looking forward to reading more of your blogs. Oh, and when you go back to the airport, the same will happen, someone will grab your luggage if you don't watch out! Use your good set of lungs and yell as loud as you can at them to put your bag down! I scared the heck out of the guy when I did that and no one bothered me after that! Take care, don't stress, and you will have a great time. Don't forget that you are probably experiencing jet lag which takes a day or two to get over! Coming home will be much worse than going for jet lag!