akwaba ghana.

Hello everyone

Akwaba is welcome in twi, the local language.  Although many can speak English as well. 

I have arrived safely in Ghana and here is my first chance to update my blog for you all! 

It was a long plane ride here but we made it safely and got settled in.  It has been quite an overwhelming couple of days for everyone as we settle in and everyone is experiencing serious homesickness and culture shock.  As the days go on we are adjusting and finding our way around and also connecting as a group.  Thank you so much for all the prayers and support through these days.

Our first day we had an orientation on the campus, health, and safety.  Pretty basic stuff, except the doctor started off with his health lecture saying in 4 months you can die pretty easily.  Not the most comforting words there doc.  We then received a tour of campus and the city of Accra.  Both the campus and the city are incredibly large and taking it all on was a lot so we are going to get another tour of the city because I think most of us missed quite a bit of it. Campus is huge.  I am living in the International Hostel (dorm room) which is on one end of the campus and our church and classroom building are on the other and it takes a good 30 minutes to walk to each.  Our feet are all sore from the walking but we will get used to it. There are little markets on campus where we can get food, which was a big struggle for a lot of us as our stomachs adjusted to figuring out what we can and cannot handle. Ghanians like their food spicy. My room is just me for now but we will all be getting a Ghanaian roommate sometime this week so hopefully that goes well and we can learn a lot from them.  After all that orientation and tours we were able to finally use internet to quick reach home which helped immensely in the homesickness department.  Then many from the group watched Kung Fu Panda together which was a good fun movie to lift spirits and get a taste of home.

Sunday we went to church which was wonderful and not what I expected at all.  They sang many hymns that I knew and was more reserved than I thought it would be so it reminded me a lot of home church which I miss greatly so it was great to know I can find a substitute while being here.  One sign it is an African church- it lasted 2 ½ hours.  Yeah imagine that next time you think church goes a little over an hour.  After church we found some lunch at the market or the little store we have (we have named it Johnny’s in honor of Calvin).  Then we trekked back to our classroom which was by the entrance where we can get on the tro-tros.  Tro-tros are the main form of public transportation around here so we needed to learn how to use them.  They are terrifying.  It is basically a van that yells out where it is going and if its where you want to be then you cram in, literally cram.  It’s a van packed with about 15 people in it.  So we split up in groups each with a guide and took a tro-tro to the Medina market.  The market was crazy busy even though it was the slowest market day.  People were everyone selling everything you can imagine, including dried or salted fish.  Imagine that smell.  Lots of people staring at the groups of white people and calling out obruni (the twi word for white person, no idea if I spelled that right). It was quite the adjustment to get used to.  They also like to proclaim their love to us and we are told that we should anticipate getting many marriage proposals before we leave.  After the market we were all quite exhausted so we napped and skyped and relaxed. Skype is a life saver. I will forever be grateful to the person who invented that.

Monday is a free day for us so we are going to venture off to the mall and see what adventure we run in to.  Getting there is going to be an adventure in itself but we have to learn sometime. 

Once again, thank you for all the support and prayers.  It means the world to me and the others here as we struggle there first couple of days in a new country. 

I miss you all greatly!