Once we left the airport, we drove to the ACDI/VOCA office. The paved road from the airport was SO smooth- I was in awe! We got to the office and I met David, the Engineers Without Borders Canada, and saw Tim again (Tim’s an ag editor from Ohio and is here to work with journalists to write about agricultural topics- my original job :) The volunteer coordinator wasn’t in so they took me to the hotel to drop my luggage off.
We get to the hotel and I’m excited to see that it’s the one the other two volunteers are staying at. But man was it tiny! Well, we get in and no reservations were ever made and all six of the hotel rooms were booked- yes, there were only six rooms total- I said it was small! I was irritated and the lady was very apologetic but I told her it wasn’t her fault so no worries. She said to send me to a sister hotel that started with an M and another Westerner came out of her room (aka we had been on the same place and she had that last room) and mentioned another really nice hotel that starts with an M. So where does the driver take me? The Silver Rose! Whatever.
I get there, it’s hot and I just want to get to it and start taping the workshop. I love seeing things from start to finish so already missing the first quarter of the workshop was bothering me. I agreed on the room, looked fine to me, grabbed my tripod out of my suitcase and since everything else was in my backpack- I headed back out front. The driver hadn’t left yet and was like- you’re ready already? I said ya, I’ve got things to do, I’m ready to get started. Lol I don’t think they’re used to someone being on such a mission when they hit the ground :)
He had to pick someone else up so called another driver and I waited in the main area. The hotel people were super nice. They weren’t in the main area because it was so hot with the sun coming through all the windows. They guy offered me the seat in front of the fan but I was fine and then a girl offered to move the fan but I didn’t mind so they let it go. They were really nice though. I was impressed at the young guys eagerness for customer happiness and the girls outgoing nature to introduce herself and chat for a bit. It was really nice. Part of me was initially wanting to bail on this place for something cheaper but I didn’t want to leave the nice people.
I saw the driver coming so I met him outside and jumped in the vehicle then he went inside the hotel and came back out- I have no idea why but I wasn’t a fan of not understanding, especially when it was obviously about me- guess who was feeling sleepy?
They take me back to the office and the main volunteer coordinator is back from being at the workshop so we head there. We get there, I set up my camera within 5 minutes (shocked the trainer a bit, he kenw I was coming but I don’t think he was quite ready for me to be that quick about things). I enjoyed the day of taping the training.
At 1 p.m. we went for a lunch break. I went with them and the meal was like a rice and white bean rice dish and they put a sauce on top, served with a piece of meat or fish and some salad. Sadly, the salad looked amazing but that’s not a safe food for Westerners. They piled the plate high and I wasn’t even hungry due to the heat and can’t eat that much when I’m super hungry anways! I put a dent in it and didn’t feel too bad when I noticed only one person ‘cleaned their plate,’ (interesting that I just realized that was an idiom). It was spicy and I was mainly shocked that while edible, I wasn’t a fan. This was the first dish I came across that I didn’t like, but this is being coupled with me eating spicy food while sweating, their beef cattle are also their milk cows and grassfed so the meat wasn’t the tastey, tender meat we raise in the U.S.
After lunch, we went back to the workshop and at 3 p.m. took a five minute break to have a soda (I grabbed another Sprite) and they served a package of cookies, which I really liked :) Once the session ended, I road back with Gary to the hotels. On the way, he had the driver stop so he could buy a papaya- a delicisou tropical fruit hard to get in the U.S. (and expensive). We bought medium sized papayas for 2 cedi ($1.50). I ended up eating half for supper and will eat the other half tomorrow- dinner for $0.75 isn’t bad! Granted, I can’t eat skin and didn’t have a knife or anything but I was able to use my fingers to halve it and then cleaned the seeds out (after taking a picture because they reminded me of fish eggs, eww). I wasn’t sure how to eat it because even though I rinsed it off, there’s still no eating the skin. So I ended up grabbing the cap off my water bottle and using that as a spoon. I figured I would quit eating more out of losing interest from gutting it with a water bottle cap but I actually at as much of it as was ripe!
By the time I got back, I had been told about eating at Laurie’s “There will be a bunch of white people sitting outside” according to the driver. I guess it’s Western. By that time, my neck was killing me, I had a headache, was hot and tired- never a good combination.
I got to the room and had the guy show me how to turn on the A/C and he explained that they were doing work on the pipes so for like three hours there would be no running water for a shower but he could get me a bucket of water. It was 5 p.m. so I could wait to shower (especially sine they have a water heater as well) but he was eager to please so he brought me a big bucket of water. I liked washing my hands at the end of the day, but could have waited nonetheless.
I bought a big bottle of water from the hotel and drank that in the A/C. I noticed that I have four TV stations- a local Ghanaian channel, GTV, CNN and Discovery Channel. I watched Discovery Channel all night!
Finally, after a long weekend I had internet access so I answered a few emails until the connection was lost. The electricity went out once and everything shut down but my laptop was still going, therefore so did I since I wasn’t online.
I charged the batteries that died during training (there is no spare batter for the video camera- I <3 spare batteries) so had to spend the last 30 minutes recording with my digital point and click.
When I realized I didn’t need to wake up until 7 a.m., I decided to type this blog (and the flight post) so as not to get too much sleep. I ended up showering around 9 p.m. There’s an installed showerhead, but it order to get warm water, you have to use the bath knobs and use a handheld shower head. I was happy to have warm water and since it’s so much larger than the water heater at the other hotel, I had more hot water than I knew what to do with. Although, it took awhile for me to realize that there were nighttime bugs around. The occasional one would attach to my laptop but it started to get worse. Then I realized the slated windows in the bathroom were open, letting in the bugs that were making their way to the bedroom. There were a lot more bugs there than in my room so I closed the slates and have kept the bathroom door shut to keep them away from me. That has helped. But a ton had stuck to the bright white tub so I used the handheld showerhead to spray then down the drain- kinda like spraying a trailer with animal poo in it! Only slightly though :)
Also, once I noticed I only had a sheet to sleep under I realized it was chilly (FYI my new room temperature is 80 degrees and that’s too “chilly” for bed! I really don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it when I arrive back to Missouri… in December!
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