Welcome to Ghana

I know I have not been in touch for a few days- had to Internet sorry.

We moved out of our hotel on Saturday and were all shipped of to various regions of Ghana ready for our placements. Some of the new recruits had 15- 18 hour journeys.

The 7 of us staying in Accra still had no idea where our accommodation would be or who we would be sharing with and no-one could tell us. Whenever we would ask we would be told tomorrow you will be told and tomorrow never came. Apparently this is the Ghanaian way if they don't know they will never admit it they just say I'll tell you tomorrow - taxi drivers do it too no-one will admit they don't know - Welcome to Ghana as one of the existing volunteers here said when she was explaining this to us, but not everyone gets the British sarcasm as someone got up at this point and said thank you and genuinely meant it.

Any way got to my apartment finally. The water was off (no running water), the gas cylinders were empty and apparently you have to go and get them filled up, no more AC and to top it all the electricity went out- Welcome to Ghana for real.

So to make up, some of us spent a girlie day on Sunday at a really nice hotel lounging by the pool. Ahh this is the life.

Today first day at work, I traveled in on a Tro Tro, the only way to explain a Tro Tro is that it is a bit like a minibus that drives past and the 'mate' shouts out the window the direction or uses hand signals which I am just about learning. You then get on this Tro Tro and at every stop depending on where you are sat you could end up having to get off to let passengers on and off. It is the cheapest form of traffic and great fun as long as you have sense of humour and don't mind hitting your head- which is what I seem to do every time I get off.

I thought I would have a nice easy day the Ghanaian way, it was all going well I arrived at 8.30, was told to wait in the lobby and met my Line Manager (at 9am), who had just flown back from the Philippines the day before and he said he would see me around 10 -11am. Yes a nice easy day I thought and then I would go for some lunch.

Oh no he met me at 10 on the dot, and has now sent me 8 large documents to read and he wants to meet tomorrow at 1pm for my initial thoughts and ideas. I really have been thrown in at the deep end - I suppose this is Welcome to Ghana.

But not to worry I am still having a great time managing to laugh and hopefully will be making you all laugh. I will try and update more regularly as I now have access to the Internet again, and get some photos on, which is proving difficult for security reasons we have been advised not to publicly display goods such as cameras.