One week down...

eleven more to go? But who's counting... I'm definitely not. This past week has been one of the longest of my life, but the days themselves go by really quickly. Weird. This past week, we've been going through our "orientation" with our assistant manager, Alex, our other assistant manager Fred, and one of the volunteers at the Employment Resource Center, Rebecca. I'll give a summary of the past few days:

Monday: Met Alex, had a Ghana culture/history lesson, met a lot of people in the area office. Took a taxi up to the Accra Mall to go to the grocery store.

Tuesday: In the morning, we went into the ERC to observe the Career Workshop that was being taught this past week. We learned a lot about Ghanaian classroom culture and got a better idea of how we want to do things. In the afternoon, we finally got out to see Accra a little bit! Rebecca took us to Osu, a neighborhood in Accra that has a lot of shops and such. A lot of abrunis (white people) are around here, so the street vendors are very persistent. I had my first coconut from a road-side cart. They are green here and the vendor chopped off the top so we could drink the juice. A lot of people don't like it because they say it tastes fermented, but I loved it. I've got the actual coconut flesh in the fridge. Actually... I should probably check on that. We had our first real Ghanaian meal: red-red. It consists of fried ripe plantains and beans with a red sauce and a piece of fried chicken (fried chicken is EVERYWHERE!). Ghanaian food is pretty spicy, much to my surprise and delight!

Red-red!

Lizzy, Rebecca, and me. And no, I'm not a sister missionary.

Wednesday: Went back to the Accra Mall with Rebecca, but this time in a tro-tro! Tro-tros are the main method of public transportation here. Think old van with 15-20 people in it and you'll get the picture. There are no tro-tro routes posted, but there is a guy who will just yell out the window where the tro-tro is going. Apparently there's also some sort of hand-signal system that goes with it. But it's a lot cheaper than a taxi, so we'll probably end up taking it a lot.

Thursday: Our day "off" but we still went into the office to help with some mock interviews of people taking the Career Workshop. In the afternoon we found the Osu Children's Library. It's maybe a 15 minute walk from the temple. A Canadian, Kathy Knowles, set up these free libraries all around Africa, but the library in Osu was her first one. She converted an old freight car into a place where Ghanaian children can come and read (and have people read to them), get help with their homework, and today there's even a small computer lab (hoping to get the internet soon). They also teach adult literacy classes. We talked the lady in charge Joanna and she said we could come back and volunteer whenever we wanted, so we definitely will. The children... I love them.

Friday: Went into Accra Central. Saw a LOT of monuments and got a feel of the city. Accra is not particularly beautiful (I'm just being honest here). It's mostly just a lot of people trying to sell things. Being white, you are a big target and I don't really like that but it's really the nature of the beast. There are people. Everywhere.

Today: Got brave a decided to go running around the neighborhood. Luckily, Elder and Sister Maughn were walking so I walked with them for a while and they gave me the lay of the land. There are a lot of really nice houses around our apartment because there are a lot of embassies around, and they say it's pretty safe to run. A lot of abrunis do, so I feel better about that. We then hit up Ruth's fruit and vegetable stand and will DEFINITELY be going back. We got a TON of produce for about $13. Mangoes, papaya, tomatoes, avacado, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, onions... We had Elder Maughn cut up the mango for us (after it went through its bleach bath of course) and.... wow. I know I will be a mango snob when I get back home because it was so. damn. delicious.

So there you have it! My whirlwind week. I'm doing well and have yet to get sick (pray for me) but I'm finding Ghanaians to be quite pleasant people and pretty much always welcoming. It's time to get teaching!

P.S. One cool thing: in Ghana, everyone is given a nickname depending on what day of the week they are born. My name is Afia cause I was born on a Friday. Cool!