A few mistakes

Supplies for my bucket showers

On Thursday, I had my first day of internship at AFAWI along my first day of waking up at 5 am to see an African sunrise. The morning walk to the first tro-tro station was dark, peaceful, and cool. As much as its a struggle to roll out of bed when its still dark out, it was very enjoyable to see and feel Ghana in a more relaxed setting. Anyways, I wasn't really told exactly what I would be doing at my internship, other than to show up at 8 and then we would be going to the field. I was at the office by 7 (a big surprise for me to be that early) because there was no traffic and the tro-tro switches went more smoothly than expected. Luckily there were kids running around the village excited to see obrunis and roosters chasing each other for good morning entertainment. An hour later, another volunteer showed up and we headed to a near by town hall and met with an NGO, Human Compassion, who are a group of women infected with HIV/AIDS and introduced them to the opportunities of small loans. There were about 50 women there who were all met with individually to talk about their current businesses. It was a bit chaotic because not many of the women spoke English.

Saturday morning a couple friends and I went to Madina Market. It was basically a giant maze of people selling anything and everything, we literally couldn't find our way out. People move very fast in the markets, I was afraid I was going to knock the giant buckets off of everyone's heads. I only bought bananas..and plantains. I bought 2 cedis worth of plantains thinking they were bananas and as I struggled to peel the plantain some guy came up to me and asked what I was doing. He got a good laugh at it and showed me where to get the bananas I wanted and also helped us get on the right tro tro.

Another mistake I made recently was leaving my wallet in a taxi. I was getting out of a taxi to jump on a tro tro and left my wallet behind. About 5 minutes into the trotro drive, I hear a car going crazy with their horn and look to see the taxi driver next to us waving my wallet in the air. So lucky!!

Its week 2 of classes and I've been to one lecture at the Univ of Ghana, Cities in Economic Development & Problems with Urban Management. It was a smaller class, about 30 students ( 5 of us were from the states), so I don't think its the average class setting here. I was told that typical classes get to be about 300+ students. So far it seems like a good class and the professors a bit more humorous than I'm used to.

More fun facts -

13. Its hard to get direct answers

14. People sleep everywhere

15. Ghanians love to honk their horns