Ghana!

Well, I definitely have been slacking on the blog updates! I blame it on the lack of internet access!
But yes, we have arrived in Ghana and so far I love it.

We arrived on Friday, October 2nd and have had our "orientation" for this past week. Tomorrow we will start our placement.

Just an update on my placement for everyone, I am now placed at a jr. high school in a district of Accra called "Labodi". I am placed with my friend, Kelli and another girl that is part of the program. (Her name is also Danielle!). We have no idea what subjects we will be teaching or any details as of yet. We were told that it would be great if we could set up an after school sports program so we are really excited to possibly start that!

But yes! We definitely love it here. The people are SO friendly. They are so amazed to see white people! The little kids will run after us when we are outside in our yard and scream "Obruni!" (which means white person!). There is definitely a lot of poverty here but despite that, the local people are still so friendly and so eager to help us, especially when we need directions if we are lots. The locals here speak Twi but most of them also do speak English (English IS the offical language of the Country but there are over 25 tribal languages spoken by people across Ghana).

We were taught a little bit of Twi this past week, such as saying hello and asking how a person is. The locals think it is hilarious when us white people speak in Twi. For example, there are A LOT of people selling things on the streets and a girl came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy some water and I said "Dabbi Medaase" which means "No Thank You"... she started laughing SO hard and had to tell all her friends that were around her that "the Obruni spoke Twi". I think they really appriciate it when we attempt to speak their local language and of course, it adds some humour in their days!

We are staying in a part of Accra called Kaneshi. The house we are staying in has a lot of rooms (Id estimate at least 10). Right now, I am staying with Kelli and her sister Tessa but I think I will get my own room soon (which I would be so excited about if it did happen!). We have a cook that meals us our 3 meals a day Monday-Saturday. On Sundays, like today, we are provided with the materials to make our own meals but we have to prepare them as the cook needs a day off. The two people who live with us who work for Volunteer Abroad are amazing. One of them is named Poppo and is from the Ashanti tribe (northern ghana). He's worked for Volunteer Abroad for about 2 years and is extremely helpful to us newcomers. The other Volunteer Abroad person is a Canadian (from Saskatoon) and is also extremely helpful! His name is Kyle and he was a volunteer here in early 2008 and apparently loved it so much that he came back to work here!

The little area we live in seems like its own little village. There are miniture goats running around the streets and lots of little boys playing soccer. There is an elementry school to one side of us and across the street there is a church. The church does not have any walls (it looks like an unfinished builiding) and they are SOOOOOOOO loud!!! I get woken up everymorning at 6am because thats when they start their "worship" service. The church is pretty much active from 6 am to 10 or 11pm EVERYDAY. Its slightly annoying at times but I think I will definitely miss it when I leave!

Last night we got invited to our cook's boyfriend's boss' house. He lives in a MANSION!!!! I could not believe how big the houses were in the area that we were in last night. Definitely bigger than any house if I have seen in Edmonton, Kelli and I could not believe how huge these houses were. So I guess not everyone in Africa is poor... hmm!

I feel a little overwhelmed right now trying to fit this last week all into my blog. There are just so many amazng things we have seen and experienced so far!

I will definitely try to come back to the internet cafe tomorrow and write about my first day at Jr High! (Its a half hour "trotro" ride to get to the internet cafe here!).

Bye for now!!!
Danielle