Landed in Accra approaching midnight on Sunday,feast of all souls, to a shocking heat(28 degrees at night!) , a freiendly VSO driver, Nicholas and a few over-enthusiastic porters. Me, Laura (another irish volunteer) & a Portugese called Patricia happily bailed into the waiting 4 x 4 & cruised into town. Was pleasantly surprised how quiet the city was and was glad to check into Hotel Byblos & stock up on water & put the head down for the night.
Our weeks training started early next morning, where we met up with the other volunteers, Richard, a great tall cow herder from Uganda & Krista, a Dutch girl who will be braving Accra for the next two years. Training comprised mostly of talking about our placements, warning us off dodgy food, swimming, leaving the house after dark etc..., some history, politics, culture & some language lessons from a very sweet young student called Patrick. Was all at a very relaxed pace & was sometimes a struggle to stay awake (particularly when the a/c packed in) but was grand & mostly useful.
The evenings were ours to venture round the drinking “spots” (pubs) , “chop bars” (restaurants) & markets, squished into little taxis, though we mostly hung round the Byblos, run by a Lebonese family who made the most amazing tabuleh, humous & kebabs. We had a swim in the sea, though not extremely clean, was beautiful & discovered Malt (non alcoholic guinness) in a quiet spot overlooking the waves & scuttling crabs on the shore.
Was also a pleasure to meet Cathy, a scouser who was flown down from the North with Malaria. She was pretty sick but was healing up nicely & she was a great source of information, advice & encouragement along the way!
So, after a nice relaxing weekend, we said our goodbyes for now to Krista & Cathy & we four boarded another 4x4 due North - 850 km to Bolgatanga – home sweet home for the next year!!!!pics of me & fellow volunteers & vso staff, the sea & richard......
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