Busy, Busy, Busy

Today was very productive, among other things. At breakfast I talked to a waiter I had met the other day and we practiced some Twi. He speaks Twi, Dagboni, Hausa (all Ghanaian languages), a Nigerian language I forgot the name of, English and he dabbles in Portuguese or French, I can't remember which. We talked about the different fruits and vegetables in the U.S. and Ghana. They have a lot of tropical fruits I enjoyed in Costa Rica and Thailand but they don't grow peaches or apples, which I thought was interesting. He told a story how it was odd eating a new fruit in Europe (peaches) and it reminded me of eating mangoes in Thailand because trying a new fruit is a really odd food experience.

Sidenote, as I was writing my blog my computer made a ding. So I looked for the chat in Skype, then Facebook and finally found it in gmail! I'm feeling pretty connected right now!

After breakfast, an ACDI/VOCA driver, David, picked me up for work. I got to work and realized I forgot my charger so within an hour my laptop died. I went through my assignment expectations and started to make notes and went through the Business and Financial Times to make sure my thoughts on creating press releases were the same in Ghana as in the U.S. I went back to the hotel and grabbed the chargers then helped my boss download Dropbox to send me files and she really likes it. I do to because it's fast and everything she sends me is in one spot, which is really nice.

After getting files from here, I created one of the five posters needed for Friday. That was a lot of PhotoShop and InDesign but I was done at 2 p.m. and at that point wasn't hungry so decided to forgo lunch (granted breakfast was huge because the two servers kept bringing me food from the buffet- toast and watermelon). I met the lead for the ADVANCE program and received my job duties from the Northern Outreach Coordinator. My boss, Adwoa, explained that she is internal communications and the Northern Coordinator, Collins, is external communications- I'm getting a wide variety of activities- which I love!

Then Tom, the lead for ADVANCE, realized I was around for six months so he's brainstorming on things to give me as well (not that Adwoa and Collins don't already have more than four pages of assignment combined!) We were asked to gather and send information to a high up in the U.S. to include in a speech so we had meetings about that. We discussed what to provide and while the others were getting the information together, I read up on previous speeches to make it what we're going to send sound similar. We were given the deadline 'tomorrow by the end of the business day' and it seemed really tight. Then I realized, we're five hours ahead so when we end our business day, they're going out to lunch so we have most of the day to finalize it, which is nice to have the opportunity to look more carefully at what we will be submitting.

Also, I learned four new phrases today, even though my goal was one!!! MaChi is good morning, MaHa is good afternoon, MaJo is good evening and thank you is Ma Dsay. I should know good night but that didn't start with Ma and I didn't want to take in too much in one day :) I entertained so many people today by saying MaChi and MaDsay! I pronounced it right, probably just made them happy someone was attempting to speak Twi, one of 44 languages in Ghana! Granted it's the most widely spoken, English is their official language (granted not the first language for most) so most English speakers can get my without having to try really.

So my goal is to write shorter blogs but it was a long day! I came back from work, slept for 30 minutes, woke up, ate supper and came back to relax. Although, the channel that was Aljazeera has changed to BBC, I hope it's a rotating thing though because I preferred Aljazeera and they have an evening line up of shows- granted they're very newsy, they're series nontheless. Which reminds me, I should google some TV shows... I wonder if I'll be able to keep up with Gray's Anatomy...

Also, on the way to work I noticed a Christian church on the side of the road and think I might stop by Sunday. I'm not sure if it will be in English, Twi or something else but it's gotta be interesting!