In Cape Coast, Ghana

My second day in Ghana is now coming to a close, and I am still feeling the exhaustion from traveling. I have hit the ground running with my new job at ProWorld here in Cape Coast. Sarah, the previous site director here who I am replacing, picked me up from the airport when I arrived Sunday evening. It was already quite late and my plane had been delayed so we went straight to the hostel and talked a bit about work before getting to bed. The first night here I woke up at 2 am thinking that it was morning, I spent the next few hours trying to fall asleep unsuccessfully. Monday morning we picked up a few necessities in Accra and then made our way to Cape Coast in a shared Ford van. The trip lasted for about three hours, and although I was quite tired, my initial impressions of Ghana is that it is quite humid, but not as hot as I thought it would be. After that, I would say that Ghana is much cleaner than I expected and I also have not yet seen the kind of poverty that I was exposed to in India. This kind of made me wonder about the preconceptions and prejudices I had of Africa before coming. I thought of Africa as an “undeveloped country”, full of disease and famine. Of course, in a continent this size, there are many hardships to witness, however, Ghana itself is a stable country and I heard is even moving into the middle income range. I also have not seen any animals to be spoken of other than pygmy goats and some chickens. There aren’t really stray dogs or cats, I haven’t seen a lot of bugs (including no cockroaches yet, knock on wood).

I am a bit overwhelmed which is to be expected when I decided to move to Ghana for a year with very little notice, and almost no knowledge of the country. I also was not able to sleep again last night, once again I woke up at 2 am and thought it was time to get up for the day. This is definitely not going to be a pleasant pattern if it lasts.

My office is set just outside of the city center. My room, kitchen, and bathroom are in the same area apartment as the office. This is obviously quite convenient because I do not need to even leave the house to go to work, however, it might be a bit strange to have my work and personal life so closely intertwined. It is basic, but well stocked for the most part, I haven’t gotten a chance to look around too much because Sarah will continue living there until she returns to the states, and for the next week and a half, I will be staying with a host family.

My host family consists of Alice, or “Auntie Araba”, her employee/maid and the maid’s baby, and her very elderly mother who I have yet to see. She has christened me “Aba” which apparently is derived from the day of the week you are born. When they first asked me what day of the week I was born on, I had to admit I had no idea and look it up online. As it was a Thursday, apparently all women born on this day are known as “Aba”. Auntie Araba seems to have a hard time with “Briana” so I guess it’s ok if she calls me “Aba”. This is a similarity with India, addressing women as “Auntie”. However, in India, you do not usually refer to younger women as “Aunties” and here I think all women are “Auntie”. She made a delicious ‘red red’ for me this evening which is a bean dish with fried plantains on the side. I don’t think I am going to be as crazy about the food here as I was in India, but at least fish is available. I have to be up early again tomorrow, so here’s hoping for a night that lasts longer than 2 am. I haven't even taken any pictures yet, I'll take some soon.