Of course the first thing I noticed is the weather. It reminds me of living in Texas during the summer. Warm and very humid. I arrived in Ghana at the beginning of the rainy season, which lasts from May until about Sept., so humidity is expected. There are many beautiful flowers here. I especially like the bougainvillea which we also had in Liberia where I grew up.
My first impression of the area called East Legon, where I am staying, was that it was less developed than I had expected. There are huge homes, mansions really, next to tiny shacks and all with red dirt roads filled with potholes in front of them. There are few road signs so directions are given by landmarks. The most interesting, funny and scary thing so far for me is the driving. I am amazed at the lack of traffic lights and stop signs even for major intersections. So to get across a street or make a turn, each car edges out slowly into the lane of traffic until he is so far out that the rest of traffic has to stop to let him turn or move across. And there is more than one car at a time trying to do this while the other cars are just trying to go straight on their road. This is the system even in downtown Accra where there is the kind of congestion you would expect in a large capital city. It is also a challenge to drive here because there are pedestrians, bikes and carts on the road - and I do mean ON the road, not just next to the road. Taxis and other vehicles stop to talk, pick-up or drop off people pretty much anywhere on the road at any time. Needless to say there is a lot going on and as with any country once you understand how these things work you can navigate them well - as do my teammates. I am sure, though, it will take me quite awhile to get comfortable driving. I am quite thankful that Ghanaians do drive on the right side of the road though and not the left.
Today we (Michelle and several school kids) drove about an hour out of town to a botanical garden. The ride was beautiful and only really scary at one point when we were driving up a small mountain and coming around a curve to find a car in the oncoming lane passing another car and a third car passing both of them! In NASCAR language we would say they were riding "three wide in turn one"!! After we came to a complete stop to avoid a wreck (and I recovered), we carried on with the drive. The botanical garden was a field trip for the missionary school kids and it was just lovely. We saw a variety of spice trees like nutmeg, bay leaf, cinnamon and curry as well as the oldest and first cocoa tree in Ghana. Our guide was extremely kind and knowledgeable and we had a great time there.
My office is just wonderful. The teams that worked on it did a great job and I am slowly going through things and starting to make it "my own". Some things that I will need to get used to working with are the metric system, military time and some British phrases. Ghana was originally a British colony so there are British phrases still used such as queue instead of line and WC (water closet) instead of bathroom.
Even though it is rainy season here, there hasn't been much rain so far or over the last few years. Consequently, there is a shortage of hydro power by which we get our electricity. We are without electricity for about 12 hours or so every third day. At those times we use a back-up generator at the house but not at the office. When you think of Ghana, please pray for a good rainy season this year as the low water levels affect the electricity and water tanks of people in the city and the country. So of course we try to conserve electricity and water when we have it. For instance, and this might gross some of you out, but what to do...we don't flush the toilet every time we use it. The common saying is "if it is yellow, let it mellow; if it is brown, flush it down". Isn't that nice?:) I am sure you understand without me elaborating further!
I am enjoying spending time with Lee and Michelle. Most of you know that I have known them since childhood as we were all missionary kids (MKs) in Liberia. I can tell already that Michelle and I will become good friends. I am so thankful to the Lord for sending me to work with them. Speaking of work you might be wondering when I am going to start doing that. Well, setting up the office is the first step and that is underway. The next step will be getting training from Lee and Michelle on the finance stuff and that will probably start sometime next week. We are giving me time to adjust to my new surroundings a little bit and we are also looking for housing possibilities. We will hit the "heavy" stuff soon enough!
Ok, I think that covers most of my first impressions. I will write more later.
