1st day on the job and in a new country :)

As I mentioned to a few of my coworkers, the first day of a new job is always interesting but the first day at a new job AND your first day in a new country is something else!

This morning, another volunteer, Allen from Alaska, met me at breakfast and we left with our ride from the hotel to the office (about a 5 min ride). It looks like an interesting walk so after a few weeks of getting the route down, I will try it in the morning/after work. I asked Olaf, the regional director of West Africa who has been here for several years and he said that this was a safe area and I should have no problem so I am excited to give it a whirl.

So when I arrived to work at around 9 a.m. I first met with Cornelia, and she gave me the rundown. Then my direct boss and I met after one of her meetings and she gave me the run down of what she wanted me to do during my time. Likewise, Frank from the Northern Region will send me a similar document. So here is what I will do in a nutshell:

-Help create posters for six ag presenters they are sponsoring to a conference in Accra
-Critique their brand new newsletter
-Give presentations at the three Northern ACDI/VOCA offices on taking quality photos and videos
-Teach regional office leaders on speaking with the media and getting more media attention
-Help the offices feel more comfortable discussing how they fulfill the goals of Feed the Future, a USAID project
-Among other projects

Since January, the more I have learned about my assignment, the more excited I have been and can't wait to start these various tasks. Today I began creating guides for taking photos, videos, writing good success stories and offering advice on their newsletter.

Once I had finished my meeting with my boss, I was introduced to Belinda and she took me around the office to meet everyone. It was nice getting a brief introduction of everyone and a feel for the office. During this tour I was shown my desk!!! This was a very exciting moment- usually there are desks for volunteers as they do their paperwork at the end of their short term assignments but since I'll be here for so long, I get to call it my own :) It was very exciting to have my own desk because I haven't really had that yet and let's face it, while in college my desk was piled too high to use so I'm not sure if that even counts as having/using a desk :)

They helped me exchange some U.S. dollars into Ghanaian cedi's (apx $1 is 1.5c). Afterwards, I went to the restaurant under the office. Once there I saw Allen and we ate together. They had and AMAZING cafe latte and oddly served Chinese-type food so I ate the Ghanaian take on shrimp fried rice :) It was good but didn't take much to fill me up so I felt a little bad leaving about half my plate still full but knew when it was served that I wasn't going to be able to eat it all. It was nice getting to have lunch with Allen and he had some great advice. I liked his thoughts on having a diary of sorts so I thought I could keep my blog to keep everyone updated but also have a diary to remember some of the more detailed items about my projects and whatnot. After returning to the office, I took the diary advice in a sense and created a volunteer document where I can keep track of all the other volunteers I meet and what I learn from them. So far, both Scott and Allen have traveled and done international projects for years all over the world but come from different places and have different perspectives, which I find really interesting.

In addition, we did some trouble shooting to get the internet up and going on my laptop. I took a number and waited for 50 minutes at the bank near our office to get my travel advance- the money allotted to me for my first month here so I don't have to pay it all myself up front. It was interesting because signing my check also meant putting down my address, phone number and the date cashed.

My driver back to the hotel was David and seeing the action on the side of the streets really made me want to take a camera out on the weekend/on my way to and from work to capture daily life in Accra, Ghana. While I am by no means an expert, I think it would be really neat to capture the daily experiences of Ghanaians to share with others. I will ask Cornelia in the office tomorrow to see if this is a good idea or not and what things I might want to consider when asking the small hut businesses on the side of the street if I can photograph/take video of them.

I found out today that while I will be traveling, they have changed the reservation at the hotel and booked my room for the entire month of October so I will be in Accra for my first 30 days :) This works well for me because I like the idea of spending some time at head quarters (HQ) to get a feel for the type of work they want me to do and prepare my field presentations as well as learn more about the culture.

So far so good. It was a very lovely first full day- working and in Ghana. Like any other time abroad, I enjoy not having a million things to do but just getting to work on my assigned task. So I'm watching Aljazeera (an international news tv station in English, which is awesome to keep up with the news!!) and will probably go grab some dinner in the hotel shortly. Last night I had Okra Stew with goat meat with fufu (a cassava based food that has the texture of raw bread dough). It was good but tricky to eat, I understand why most Ghanians skip the silverware and just use their hand to eat.

After hearing all of the great stories about being in the field from Scott and Allen, I can't wait to go out myself to get this other aspect of Ghanian life. I'm really happy and relaxed after my first day and am interested to see how the rest of my week goes. While the other volunteers are amazed at the length of my assignment (almost 6 months) and didn't even know assignments could last this long, they think it's great. I can tell the office isn't used to long-term volunteers either but they are really excited to have me here for so long and as with any other communications department, I understand always wanting to do things a little better, wanting another set of eyes and wanting to take more on but need the additional support to make this happen. Okay, I'm getting hungry now so I'll go grab some supper and have a relaxing evening :) Even though it's a Costa Rican saying, I want to sign off with a term that literally translates as 'pure life' but means 'everything has a way of working itself out,' 'it's all good,' and 'no worries,' among other things and encapsulates how I'm feeling: pura vida!