One year ago

Today marks the one year anniversary that my PC group landed in Ghana and I thought that I would write about how many things have changed since I have been here and a brief summary of what I have seen and done.

When I first got off the plane and we went to the office and then to Valley View University I thought OMG Accra is huge I can never get used to this city. Now when I drive by Valley View to come to Accra to make deliveries for my NGO I think "Great I still have another 45 minutes to an hour before I get to Accra depending on traffic". I now walk around Accra, especially Osu like it is no big deal, I hail taxis and can negotiate a price like I have been living here for years. I was with a few other volunteers last night who rarely come to Accra and they were amazed by how well I negotiate for a taxi. My nice girl attitude goes away when it comes to the taxi drivers here.

I also had my first "I am in Africa moment" a few weeks ago. It was not what most people would think of as an African moment. There have been power outages in Accra for the past month so as I was walking from Osu to Labone to where I stay I thought that if there was power in Osu there must be power in Labone, wrong. My African moment was walking and hearing nothing but generators. You might think this would be a weird moment but here I was in a modern city and the only thing you could here was generators, in the village you are used to the power going out but not in the city. It was surreal.

As for some of the things that I have seen or done in the last year here is a quick list:
number of regions visited: 5 of 10 (I will get to the other 5 this year)
number of ditches fallen into: 1 (but it was dry)
number of children who have run screaming from my b/c of my skin color: 4
number of marriage proposals: too many to count (lost count my first month)
number of bats killed in my house: 4
bottles of sunscreen I have gone through: 4
number of Burt's bees lip balm I have used: too many to count
amount of rice I have eaten: several kilos
pounds I have lost in 1 year: 35
joined the "club": not yet
number of times I am hissed at a day: about 20

This is just a short glimpse of what my year has been like. Some may ask if I am looking forward to the next 15 months and all I can say is that I can not wait. The hard part is over, I now know what I to expect and it is just like living any where else.