A few days ago, I was asked: What is an average day like?
Anyone who has worked in communications knows that no two weeks are alike- one of the joys to communications! But generally this is what my day looks like:
Wake up around 7 a.m., watch the news (Aljazeera) and get ready, take allergy medicine
8 a.m. head down to the hotel restaurant for my (amazing) breakfast
8:15 a.m. walk from the hotel to the office. It takes about 15 minutes and gives me a chance to have that time between ‘home’ and work, I get to have a little exercise and see other Ghanaians. I liked the morning when a small girl with her mom shouted ‘Abruni! Abruni!’ (Abruni – white person) and she gave me a big smile and wave :) Too cute!
8:30 a.m. arrive to the office and settle in by checking my email, Facebook and lately, the score for the Cardinal’s game! Go Cards!!
9:00 a.m. get started working if I haven’t already! This can mean working on the website outline, continue gathering information and outlining my writing and photo training, editing audio/video/photos. Usually I finally break when I’m getting brain fried for concentrating so hard for so long lol
2 p.m. Go out to lunch, generally within the A&C Shopping area. There is a mini shopping center, the ACDI/VOCA office, other offices, a money exchange, bank, restaurants, gym, etc. The restaurant located under the office is Koffee- it’s a coffee shop and… Chinese restaurant! It doesn’t taste like Chinese (American Chinese or China Chinese) but is still pretty good. There is another restaurant in our sub area of the center called Temptation Café I think that serves a variety of food including Indian and is a little more pricier but good as well. The gym has a pool and a poolside restaurant, which serves a lot of Ghanaian food and is really good and well priced but sitting is tricky since it’s bar seating only BUT they played country music- talk about a shocker!
I usually take a notepad with me to lunch to jot down notes on work items that come to mind because I tend to forget my afternoon plan by the time I get done with lunch if I don’t :)
3 p.m. Return from lunch- it can take awhile to get your food and then to get the check. At the office I have a large Milka caramel chocolate bar (German) that I can break a piece from like a Hershey’s bar and then it has a built in re-sealer! What can I say? I like that chocolate :)
Once I’m back, I pick up where I left off on the guides; search the USAID or ACDI/VOCA websites on templates or outlines for writing, photography requirements (since those are our primary media audiences/distributors); or go around asking people in the office questions on my task that I came up with during the morning but would rather ask questions when I’m getting back into things for guidance when restarting after lunch.
4:50 p.m. I fill my water bottle in the kitchen from the Culligan-esque water coolers for water in the hotel. I generally drink two-three bottles of water while at work and my bottle holds 1 liter or 34+ ounces. I’m staying hydrated :) I start to unplug my laptop charger and get papers together, especially if I’m taking work home or it’s a weekend (or in the case of this past Friday, I’m leaving for two weeks!!). And check email and play around on Facebook for a while.
5:30 p.m. I leave work. I like to wait until this time because the sun has started going down and it’s cooler outside, making for a more enjoyable walk and by this time some of the 5 p.m. crowd has cleared out so it’s not as crowded which can be tricky when you’re walking on the side of the road and meet someone because the vehicles are only a few feet away and drive fast and a tad crazy when possible and there seems to be a sense of vehicles instead of pedestrians having the right of way. (I say that but I’ve had vehicles coming off side roads stop for me to cross the road on my to and from work so it really depends on the drivers).
5:45 p.m. Get back to the hotel, get my room key from the front desk and crash in my room. Relax for a bit and watch the news.
Depending of if I’m hungry, I’ll go to supper at the hotel restaurant anywhere from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. When I return, I take my malaria pill. It’s definitely something you have to take with food. I learned that lesson the first time I took the pill, but then I found out so did many others so instead of taking it at breakfast like normal, I followed the suggestion of another volunteers doctor to take it after dinner. I don’t go out too often for supper but partly because it’s dark by 6:30 p.m. and I don’t feel like walking around after dark by myself. I spend my evening watching news and playing on my laptop, doing any work if I brought it home, working out occasionally, listening to podcasts, etc.
9 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. I go to bed, this leaves a pretty large window but I’ll go to bed earlier if I have to wake up sooner and try to stay up if not to prevent from getting too much sleep.
This is what the average day looks like. If volunteers are around, I will eat supper with them around 6 or 7 p.m. and we will talk until 10 p.m. or later. Most Thursdays I go to Paluma, another hotel in Accra that has a “Quiz” night (British) otherwise known to Americans as trivia night! I love trivia nights, even if I’m not that good at it. I went the first time with some volunteers who were at the hotel and had been before but now can go by myself since you take a taxi and almost everyone there is a Westerner and pretty welcoming so I make new friends :)
That my friends, is what an average day looks like!
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