WEEK ONE

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay-its been a bit of a drama so far and I do not have much time today so bare with me!

My flight from London was delayed which resulted in me arriving in Ghana after 11pm last Saturday night. Let me recap my week so far.

Sunday

I arrived in Ghana late thanks to a delayed flight to discover our luggage had not been loaded when we all changed planes in Lisbon. I finally arrived at my host family just before 1 am and was shown into a big room with a huge iron bed swathed in mosquito netting and was then redirected to the mattress on the floor next to it where I was to sleep. I was too hungry, tired and dirty to care so lay on the mattress and slept...for about 20 minutes. It soon became clear the rooster outside my window couldn't tell the time. At 5am I was woken by Boney M blaring out of a building somewhere shortly followed by the noise of a child wailing loudly. Welcome to Ghana.

I came out of my room looking for my host family who were nowhere to be seen, and waited several hours until they appeared and asked if I was hungry. I said yes and tried to look too disappointed when I was given 2 dry pieces of bread.

George who had collected me the night before arrived and announced I owed him $60 dollars for the airport collection (I paid $90 to the organisation before I left). I said as soon as I'd changed the travellers cheques I'd been advised to bring, I would pay him.

Later that afternoon my two room mates swept in-they had flown from Melbourne and were exhausted. I was glad they were two girls and unsure how it would be spending three weeks with 18 year olds, one of whom had never left her state before she told me. Luckily, they are delightful and within days I felt I had somehow acquired 2 teenage daughters. They unpacked and we were invited to go with George to attend a community meeting which sounded great and exactly what I'd hoped to be doing here. Fifteen minutes later, we were seated on benches outside the Boney M playing church eagerly awaiting our first experience of Amsaman. Twenty minutes later we discovered that was to entail various men taking turns to point at us three and shout very loudly.

More tomorrow people...