Hello from Donkorkrom

Good Evening from the depths of Ghana...my apologies for the long silence but this is the first time I've had internet access since I arrived. I have been keeping a journal so thought I'd just use that as my blog post with a few deletions. It will make for a long post but I'll arrange it in a couple sections for your ease of reading. Before I start, I'm writing this in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm, the rain is absolutely pouring down and I can hardly hear over anything over the sound of the rain on the corrugated tin roof. However, it makes it gloriously cool. I'll have to update you on my day today at a later point if I don't get time tonight as I'm going back to the hospital in about an hour.

Entry 1: 28 June
This finds me under the awning at the Oyortey's home in the suburb of Dansoman, Accra. Leah, Esther and myself have just finished laundry. I only had a bit to do but Leah had left hers and had 2.5 'loads' to do. Laundry here is a bit different...several 5 gallon tubs and ajar of washing poweder and of course some good old fashioned muscle power. I suspect I will be doing all my laundry like this for the next 6 weeks. It certainly will make me appreciate the amenities of home.

So back to the beginning. I left home about 5:3Oam on Saturday and picked up Glenda who dropped me off at the airport. I flew via Denver and Washington DC. the flights were uneventful. I had the window seat between Denver and Dulls which was not a good thing. The guy in the middle seat was my height and probably weighed more than 3oolbs...suffice to say, we were certainly cozy. After a 4 hour layover in DC I boarded the plane for Africa, Ghana to be precise. It was a 1o hour flight and I was glad I'd broken down and paid the extra for extra leg room. After my early start combined with a week of little sleep I was able to sleep some on the plane which was fortunate. However, as the map showed us getting close to Africa I found it difficult to sleep.

I'd like all of my readers out there to do two favours for me: firstly if you read my post just say hi in the comments section at the bottom to let me know how you are, secondly, I'd like everyone to make a comment with the first three things they think of when you hear the word Africa.

I hope reading this won't spoil the thought exercise for you but perhaps the first 3 for me were black, exotic, poor...and of course the place where I am for my elective! I found it a very interesting exercise when I consider the size of Africa and the number of people who live here, hundreds of tribes, peoples, cities and so forth. Yet, in my mind and I suspect the minds of others it is difficult not to just clump Africa into a bit 'away' place in our minds.

Kotoka International Airport is where we landed in Accra. It was very relaxed and quite small. I collected my bags, changed some money and wet out to meet Leah and Philip who were waiting for me. We flagged down a taxi (I believe the driver was a rally car driver in a past life] and we made our way to Dansoman where the Oyortey's live. Lunch of white rice and fish in a spicey red sauce was being served as we arrived. The cook had kindly made a little 'less spicy' port for us soft Canadians. After lunch it was time for a catch up with Leah and a much needed siesta. The workers Florence and Lorpu had a gospel meeting at the house at 7pm so it was nice to get in on that.

Entry 2: 3o June, 2o1o
I'm writing this post in Donkorkrom but I'll take you back to where I left off.

Monday morning Leah and I went on an adventure by ourselves. Leah has been around enough that they were comfortable with her being my tour guide. Philip had school so it was just the two 'obrunis' (white people] out on their own.*Sorry about the square brackets and lack of hyphens, neither of those keys work on this keyboard* We set off by taxi to the sister's bach where we had a drink and chat. Then Lorpu saw us on our way.

A word on motorized conveyance in the Greater Accra area. There is no word to describe the chaos of traffic and vehicles in the developing world. To begin with there is no visible enforcement of any law if the law even exists in the first place. The result is Mercedes minibuses circa 198o pouring out clouds of smoke overtaking a little Kia car that should have hit the junk yard long ago as its door is held on by twine and rust and its exhaust pipe is dragging. Close on the tail of the minibus is a new model something; Hilux, Ranger, Land Rover, Audi with the windows down because one wouldn't want to use the air conditioning. You might get cold. The trotros, essentially hop on, hop off vans are even more shocking. Doors are optional. Yesterday one of our trotros had no ignition, just two wires sticking out of the dash. Also considered optional in the jampacked pot hole filled streets is power steering...fun and games ~ no wonder motor vehicle collisions are the largest source of trauma in the developing world by a large margin.

After the workers we wandered down the street until we eventually came to the trotro stop. On our way we had a 'bo froot' a deep fried ball of dough quite like Indian fry bread without the honey butter or icing sugar. It is a good snack and seems to be available everywhere. We got off our trotro at Circle, a large market around a larege roundabout. After browsing through the stalls we walked along hundreds of stalls of cell phones until we met up with Philip and did a bit of shopping. All of the gutters/sewers here are open so it makes for a rather pungent walk down the street. We returned home after a stop to get some FunIce. FunIce is quite simply fabulous icecream in a bag. It is very refreshing and very cheap which is a great combination.

Hello again - last night when I was attempting to get this posted there was an electrical storm which killed the power and the internet. Thus, I was unable to get it posted so I'll carry on now. Being on the internet right now is near to heresy in this country as Ghana plays Uruguay in the World Cup tonight in 15 minutes. It is a crucial match and if Ghana wins it is going to be truly EPIC! Football or soccer is king in this country. I'm pretty sure that I'll go and watch some of the game, along with the 22 million Ghanians all over the world.

Thursday morning after brekfastwe headed into Accra proper via trotro. At this point in my Ghana career I've had three different kinds of porridge - roasted corn, western (oats + another seed, sort of like Sunny Boy) and sour corn (dry corn that has been soaked for 3 days in water. I've got to admit I've found the corn based porridge a bit rough going. The consistency is that of gruel, it is even runnier than cream of wheat and the flavour is nothing to write home about. I've been glad for the bread and processed cheese which definitely slides down a bit better.

Downtown Accra was buysand hot. We went through the second hand market, walked past a multitude of vendors selling most things and even w alked through past the various hardware stalls selling everything from screws to rebar to door knobs. The city was a bit of sensory overload - everyone was smacking their lips in a kissing noise to get our attention, grabbing at your arm - not to mention the smells and other sounds. At any rate it was hot, loud, smelly, colourful, vibrant and most definitely not Canadian. I've since heard that Accra isn't 'true' Africa - however when I got to Kumasi in a couple of weeks I'll be getting a better taste of the 'real thing'. On our way home we stopped for a western snack, Ghana style - we had pizza. It was similar to Canadian pizza and was a nice break in the afternoon.

Tuesday I met up with Sefa, the man who coordinated my elective and made plans to meet up with him on Wednesday morning so that I could head up to Donkorkrom which I'll tell you all about in the next post.