KA-POW! You have been humbled!

So today I had my orientation to Accra. Wow. That’s really all I can say. It was quite overwhelming to say the least, and we only went a few places. I hope they don’t expect me to remember how to get everywhere we went today, because I definitely don’t. It was fun though. I rode a tro-tro today, which is like a taxi, but it’s a van that they cram people into and is way cheaper than a taxi. We went through a market where they have tons of little stands selling clothes, shoes, cell phones, sunglasses, little toys, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Trish asked me about the smell, and there definitely is one. The sewer (or at least that’s what it looks like. Maybe it’s a rain ditch or something) pretty much runs along the dirt sidewalk, and I’m sure you can imagine what that smells like. After walking around a bit, we went to the supermarket. I’ve never felt so lost inside a store in my life. I wandered around the store for a while before picking anything up. I kind of wanted to cry, that is, if I was the type of person who cries, I might have. There were some familiar things, but they were all pretty expensive. For example, a box of cereal cost $11-13 GHC ($1 USD ~ $1.40 GHC). And I thought $4 was bad. Yeah, not going to be buying that here. I don’t know much about Ghanaian food yet, so I didn’t know what to buy. So, I stuck with easy stuff like pasta, ramen (which is also kind of expensive, at least compared to the States), and come fajita meat because that is one of the only things that actually sounded good to me. I haven’t been to the local market, where they have fresh fruits, vegetables, and other similarly magical things, but I hope that will make me more excited about going shopping here.

This may sound rather silly, but I have really come to appreciate WATER! You can always find someone selling little bags of water on the street and it’s a real blessing. I really hope I don’t die of dehydration. I mean, of all the things to die from, that would probably be the lamest. I would rather something much more exciting.

Tomorrow I start work at DIF. John (the Ikando volunteer coordinator and the man who so graciously replied to my incessant emails) said previous volunteers have really enjoyed working there, so I’m really excited. I’m trying not to have too many expectations of what I’m going to be doing, because in all likelihood, they would probably not be met. I do hope, though, that I’ll be useful in some way. I saw this quote on facebook and decided to make it my motto: Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value (Albert Einstein).

Oh, and in other news, I’m really glad I didn’t bring my straightener. My hair would have lasted about 2 seconds and then gone crazy, so I’m just going to stick with the crazy all the time.

That’s all I got right now. Sorry if I have bored you, but I was talked into this blogging business so this is what you get.