My First Few Days

Hello everyone!

It is true that I made it to Ghana! I can hardly believe I made it. My group is staying at a guest house called the Telecentre. Here, we share rooms that have fans and some air conditioning. The room is a safe haven from the very very hot outside. The rest of the Telecentre is even hotter than outside. Most places are like that here, so pretty much all Ghanaians hang out outside even thought the heat and humidity is always at 90 degrees and 90%. So far I only have 2 bug bites, and I just finished my first day. Not too bad I guess!

So, we arrived yesterday in the late afternoon, I slept a lot from Belgium to Ghana because that is night time back home :) It was sooooo cool to see the sunset from an air plane. While we were going up into the clouds I saw the sun setting and everything in the sky turned bright red. It was absolutely beautiful and made me thank God for his beauty. When we landed, it was extremely apparent that we had entered West Africa. We walked down some stairs right out of the airplane door and got on a bus to get to the airport. We had to show our passports like a million times. Every official asked to see it. And I think we were checked for Ebola. They had us stand in a line and take off our glasses to look into our eyes with infra-red lights. I got out of the airport with not problem where we met our driver for Unite For Sight. His name is Jon. But the rest of our group was stuck inside because the customs people were asking for them to pay taxes on their donated eyeglasses for UFS. We were each required to bring 600 pair, and for whatever reason the officials were demanding money to bring them in. Jon went in to help, and in they permitted my group to leave, only after we had allowed them to take a few glasses for themselves.

Today, we went to church which was amazing! The people are so thankful there. The opening prayer was beautiful because she thanked God for everything, including her life. All the women carry their babies on their backs :) it is so cute. They also wrap their hair with fabric that matches their dresses. It is pretty. If anyone is has to carry something, they carry it on their heads. They balance tons of things up there! It is crazy!

After church, we had orientation from Jon and Jarome. They work for the Crystal Eye Clinic that I will be spending most of my time with. We learned different things to expect in our future work with the clinic. They also explained that Ghanaians are very relaxed about timing and their dress. They acknowledged that they are usually late but that we should not worry because it is just a part of Ghana. They seemed very nice. 

After orientation finished, we got to the good stuff. We wanted to try fufu, a classic Ghanaian dish, But had a very hard time following the directions given to us so we had to ask multiple people where to go. After we walked through a few alleys and random houses, we found a back yard..., Alden was able to ask them in Twi (or Fante) (I'm not sure which), if they were making fufu there. Turns out their house is a restaurant! We went inside and sat down. When Alden told them I wanted to see the fufu being made a young woman took my arm and lead me to the fufu! It is made from a vegetable that I always forget the name......sorry! and they pound it into a bread-dough texture. I saw them with a huge stick, as big the trunk of a small tree, and pound it in a huge bowl. one person kneads it between smashes. They serve it in a fish soup full of spice. That part is actually pretty tasty, (though watery) but the fufu......is a very odd texture and smells like cow pies. Then I learned that all Fante people have a name based on what day of the week they were born on. Because I was born on a Wednesday, my name is pronounced Ah-koo-ee-ah. Then I found a woman with the same Fante name! Though we do not speak the same language, we are friends because we share a fante name. Also, she wants me to marry her son. As you can imagine, white people really stick out here. We are called "Obruni!" or white people, alllll the time. Now you know, a little about my experience so far :) can't wait for more!