Wednesday 23 April 2008

Jetlag & Sweat in Ghana (2008 Year Out Volunteer)

Written by Lucy Hughes-Jones

Experienced my first jet lag, we slept for about 14 hours, we were so tired we didn't put our mosquito nets up properly so I basically slept in a fishing net the whole time, it looked like I was a baby in an embryonic sack (p.s. our coordinator said 70% of volunteers get malaria... oh dear!) don't worry we're all being careful, applying way too much insect repellent and my net is up and working soundly :)

Let me first say I have never sweated so much in my life...all day, every day we have showers just to cool off. went to a beach yesterday & swam in the Atlantic ocean, even the water was warm but beautiful & it tastes different. we had to pay entry as I think it was one of the only patrolled & supervised beaches on the coast.

on the way home I bought Milo out of a can from this guy carrying a box full on his head. its ridiculous the amount these people can balance on their heads, they come up to you at traffic lights everywhere (Charles our guide reckons he can do at least 50kg... so basically me!)

People can sell you just about anything here, and coke sponsors every corner shop in Ghana, but they name their stores things like 'in god we trust convenience store', 'Jesus cares super mart' or my favourite, a shop simply called: 'Lucy fear god'. I'm not joking! I took a picture..

so today we went to the main market in Accra and it was mind blowing, I couldn't even get my camera out I was too busy looking at every single stall, its actually hard to move around. we walked through it for 30 mins and didn't come close to covering the whole thing (it goes for miles) with almost everything you can think of (from to shirts and cosmetics to live crabs/snails and pigs feet). almost everyone we walked past smiled at said 'oburoni!' (white person) or shouted 'welcome to Ghana' as we obviously stood out just a little. in was just intense.

the people are amazing too, incredibly warm & friendly & they love dancing (I've fallen in love with African music) on the first day a boy called Richard took us on some epic tour of the neighborhood for no reason but that he was a legend. he rapped for us too and told us to look up his music on you tube!

we're staying in the pink hostel, and there has already been a black out since we got here! So we're all making foufou (cooking), dancing & drumming tomorrow, go to our
host families on sat and then start work at the orphanage on Monday.

well this heat is killing me so I'm going to go take a shower :)

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