About to leave

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Right OK so I'm going off to Ghana for 4 months as of tomorrow and feel the best way to keep you all updated with my travels (if you care) is with a blog!

I am more or less completely packed with 2 suitcases laden to the gunnels. This wasn't the plan, but you never know what you may need when you are going to be away for quite such a long time, so I have all sorts of useless junk that I'm sure I will never use!

I'm all jabbed up (BCG, Yellow Fever, Meningitis ACWY, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, Rabies) and also 2 doses in to my anti-malarial medication now - I very jammily managed to get the stuff with least side effects on the NHS! The joys of work eh? I also asked one of the doctors at work to prescribe me a load of pills (Loperamide, Ciprofloxacin and Ibuprofen) and so I have a huge box filled with them along with my anti-malarials which makes me look like a complete druggy.

So for the next week I will be in Accra with the other 3 English people going out with BUNAC at the same time as me. I have spoken to Christa and Louise, who seem to be lovely, but Arthur is currently doing something else in Ghana, so I shall meet him tomorrow! We will all be staying in a place called 'The Pink Hostel' where we will experience local cuisine for the first time (well, apart from Arthur), African drumming and African dancing! After this we will all be sent off (in an as-of-yet undisclosed means of transport) to our placements.

Me and Louise are actually doing the same sort of thing (HIV Awareness) in a very similar location (I will be just southwest of Kumasi, just outside of Bekwai and she will be somewhere around Kumasi - however, the place seems to be too small to find on a map) which is quite cool, but Christa is going to be some 200 miles away in Kpando really near Lake Volta doing some orphanage work which is a shame but I'm sure we will still manage to meet up whilst she is still there.

Now, I can't forget the family I am staying with can I? I will be staying with a family of 7. The eldest, Albert Annadie, is 38 and also the head of the project I will be working on. From what I can gather, his wife is called Evelyn and is also 38, and then there are 4 others: Louis 30, Sebastian 27, Gifty 15, Adelaide 11, Alfreda 7. They all have different surnames though so I'm not sure of all of the relations!

This is all I can think of to say really, so this is me over and out. This is probably going to be the hardest part for me to right because I had to remember all sorts of things and think about what to write, whereas once I'm out there I will just tell you about my experiences.

But I will leave you with news that I managed to bag myself one of the seats by the emergency exits for extra legroom which is a first for me so I am rather excited about that!

Speak to you soon (well, African soon)

Sam x

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