The First Day in Ghana

Thankfully Ghanians run on my time lol. The bus was like 45 minutes late to pick us all up. The teachers and staff took us to a resturaunt called Fresherz and we all broke bread together and ate. Then they took us to the Aya Center where we will be having our classes and we had our first orientation. Its a pretty small building with a few rooms and its air conditioned which is nice. The weather has been like high 70's low 80's and not too humid :) Dr. WIlliams the program leader talked to us until about noon about the culture, gender, transportation, communication, and money in Accra. After we learned the basics we got to take a tour of Accra which was unreal! In some parts there arte huge houses where rich families and politcal officers live and in the surrounding areas are shacks and market places where people sell their goods next to open gutters... very contrasting... but while on the ride we learned that there are no social welfare programs in Ghana... but there really is no need because there is such a strong sense of family duty that it is expected that people who are more well off can and will provide for the less fortunate members of their family at any time. Their homes are even built with many extra guest rooms and any o their family members can stop by unexpected and they will put them up and get them back on their feet. We got out of the bus at the black star memorial where the president of ghana light the torch on every march 6th to celebrate their independence. Its right on the water and it was a berautiful sight! Back on the bus the traff was crazy as usual... there are no traffic lights or lanes or anything and there are roundabout everywhere! I can't believe taht we have not had an accident yet! I swear weve come mighty close to hitting the people that sell stuff in the roads more than once! We stopped to eat at a resturaunt for lunch, most of the resturaunts in the part of town that we were in are owned by foreign investors and it was packastani... I ordered a papa salad which tasted like lemon onions so i didnt really eat... but thankfully I brought some granola bars for just the occasion. After lunch we went to a very poverty stricken portion of Ghana. Nobody was begging or looked homeless or anything whichreally surprised me but I guess everyone helps everyone and its seen as shameful to beg. The children played and looked really happy and danced to the market music and they all yell OBRUNI!!! when we pass by which means foreigner but not in a derrogatory sense. I wanted to take a million pictures but it is very offensive here to take pic without asking for permission and it was hard from the bus so i will have to go back and take them. THere are wild dogs goats and chickens running all around the markplaces even the one by our house. We stopped at a place that looked like a jail cell and exchanged our money for cedis. Its about 1$ for 1.5 cedis. In 2007 they changed the currency and took all of the zeros off of the bills... it used to be 1$ for 1,5000 cedis lol! We finished our tour by going to see the American Embassy and all of the other parliment and government buildings in Accra. By this time the tour was over and the bus dropped us off by the market place near our house where we bought rice and curry for dinner. I tried some pappaya and mango... lol not a fan! Tomorrow we are going to the University in the morning for a tour and then we have our first language lesson Im so excited!!