At last, Ghana!

First post in Africa, YES!

After being the last group to leave Princeton, we arrived in Ghana for our on-field orientation week. Accompanied by Yaw and his constant smile, the 24 hour trip was easy to handle, and setting foot (finally!) in Africa made me shiver with excitement.

We still didn't know who our host family would be, where we were going to volunteer, how to speak Twi... Basically the last few days have been complete discoveries, one after the other. At our hostel, for example, we had to get used to sleeping under mosquito nets every night. This wouldn't be a problem, except mine is too short, and my feet stick out. Brilliant, I know.

At least the tiger's feet are covered...

We have learned a little bit (kitiwa) of Twi, with daily three hour classes, enough to impress the locals a few times a day! Oh yes, Ghanaians name themselves after the day of the week they we born on. So we all have names in Twi now! I was born on a Saturday, so my new name is Kwame.

Yaw and Clara, the two people from the program who are in constant touch with us, organized a drop-off exercise. We were left in pairs somewhere in downtown Accra, and were supposed to get back to our hostel. Pallavi and mine's place was the Arts Center, a popular place for tourists to get gifts, such as drums, shirts and crafts. It was a really beautiful place, as colorful as I could have imagined, and the shopkeepers were always very fun to talk to. In this networking activity, I met a shopkeeper (And1, and there are even better names, like Tupac and Colin Powell) who offered to make a personalized drum, with Asante symbol carvings - definitely on my list of souvenirs! The trotro ride back home was just as fun, inside a van with 15 people.

I was blown away at the friendliness of Ghanaians. I've stopped counting how many people we meet each day, many of them who come to talk to us because we are white, and are really interested in who we are.
My actual first encounter with a group of locals was on the first day, when I went out for a walk. When I saw a group of kids, I crossed over to their side of the road, and immediately got shouts of obruni (light skinned person). I replied what is culturally expected, obibini (dark skinned person), and ended up engaging in a really fun conversation with a group of about 8 kids!
We talked a lot about football (the real kind), the World Cup, and what they learned at school. The oldest of them, 11 year-old Emmanuel, surprised me with a very smart comment about politics: "If I were the president, I would not hire any ministers who could not speak French, because all of our neighboring countries speak it."
So there you go. Our talk wasn't only entertaining, these kids were also really smart! That made me smile for Ghana.

On Sunday, we made a quick group visit to an open-market. I keep being blown away at how beautiful this country, and especially these people, are. We wandered through the narrow alleys of stands, surrounded by plantain, snails, fruits, vegetables, and meats. Before that, we were offered different sorts of clothing, cell phones, and shoes. 

On Friday we will finally get to meet our homestay families, and on Monday we start our volunteer placements. As of now, I only know the name of my family, the Kumi, and we have been visiting institutions to choose where to work. We still have a lot of expectations, but personally I can affirm that motivation and excitement have grown exponentially.

By the way, today is 7 de Setembro, so happy Independence Day, Brasil!!

Yebehyia bio (see you again)!

Kwame