I step off the plane in Accra and my first thought is “Why isn’t it hotter?” I know it’s the rainy season and all but Erie PA is often hotter than this in July. I’m sure I will not be saying that in a few months when the dry season comes!
We all move inside the airport and I was surprised by how developed everything was. The same conveyor belts used to return luggage are here, there was air conditioning, vehicles everywhere outside. Not exactly what most people think about Africa. Going through customs was interesting; the national language is English but for some reason nobody was speaking to us and they were rather impatient about everything. A few Peace Corps people from Safety and Security met us and led us through the process.
As we are leaving the airport, we hand all of our bags to another PC employee who loads them into a large truck, and we step onto a small bus to drive to our housing site.
My thoughts as we drive down the road:
1. I feel like we are off-roading
2. These drivers are crazy
3. These pedestrians are crazy
4. There is a ton of iron in the ground
5. The plants are amazing
6. Markets look scary
7. I’m not in America anymore
The most peculiar thing I witnessed on the drive to our site was one of our trainers purchasing phone credits from outside the car as we are driving down the road. Let me set this up: So I am sure you already know that almost everything is carried on people’s heads here. They also walk down the road carrying their loads and sell to drivers and passengers that are stopped in traffic. You just wave money out the window, say what you want and it’s yours. Quick and easy. You can buy anything this way; toothpaste, cloth, food, clothing, trinkets, whatever. I really don’t know why people have the need to go to the market when this system exists!
We arrive at out site, Valley View, which is just a little north of the capital. It’s a school campus and we are staying in a very nice facility that has “showers, ceiling fans and electricity.” I say “” because the electricity is faulty here and I had to turn a couple of showers into bucket baths. We stayed at Valley View for about a week, which was vey nice.
During that time, we traveled into Accra a few times for training sessions or to meet important people. They took us to the main PC Office to meet the staff, and we even visited the US Ambassador’s house and got to enjoy drinks and delicious finger foods.
But the most exciting Accra Experience was something called Accra Quest. Basically, they drop us off in the city with a list of things to find out from the locals, and tell us to find our way back to Valley View from there. This all seems a lot like The Amazing Race so I was pumped! My group had to go to a hospital, see the President of Ghana’s palace, and find out how to navigate form one station to another. We just started asking everybody we could find about our questions and I was extremely happy to find out how polite everybody is. So many people will completely stop what they are doing, turn around, and escort you to your destination with no problem! American’s could learn a thing or two from these people. After my group finished our tasks, we returned to the campus and discovered we were to first to arrive. So basically, I need to be on The Amazing Race now!
On our last day at Valley View we learned how to handwash our laundry and take a bucket bath. We left our comfortable rooms and traveled a couple hours north to an village that would become our home for the next 10 weeks. I won’t say I wasn’t nervous…
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