Maaha! Wo ho ten sen? Me ho eye!

Good afternoon! How are you? I'm fine! (In Twi)

On April 22nd at 20:05 I arrived in Accra, Ghana. I'd had a very interesting flight, sitting next to a woman who was almost blind and only spoke Spanish and a bit of French and on my other side a man who owns not one, but three masters and a PhD. The man told me a lot about his life. He is a law lecturer at the best university of Ghana, where he moved back to after studying in the UK for years. Besides telling me about his work, he also told me about all the places I should visit. This list included going to a Ghanaian church, which I did the next morning.

The moment the doors of the plane opened I felt the extreme heat Ghana is known for. 'Luckily', I had to go inside after that again. I had to wait over an hour to get through all the boarder controls. After that I found my bag very quickly and someone from the organisation picked me up at the airport. It took another hour and a half before I arrived at Tina's house (with whom I stayed for the past couple of days).

On Sunday morning I had to wake up early, because I was going to church with Tina. The service was very interesting as people dance and sing a lot. In the Netherlands people are mostly very quiet during service, while everyone was praying and chanting out loud. The service did take very long, about 3.5 hours during which it was 37 degrees Celsius. I struggled a bit with the extreme heat, but I am getting used to it. Sunday afternoon I was able to rest a bit.

On Monday my introduction day started. We started off with a lesson about the Ghanaian culture and health issues. After that, I went to the beach where I had lunch and some time to walk around. The beach was very beautiful.

On Tuesday, today, I started the day with some language lessons. I am trying to learn the basics of Twi, one of the local languages. It is very difficult, but luckily the children are helping me. After this we went to a huge market, it was very busy and chaotic. At the same time it was really awesome! There was music everywhere, in Ghana it is never quiet!

The food is also something that's very different. I mostly eat spicy rice, chicken, more spicy rice and guess what, more chicken! Although it sounds very boring, it actually tastes pretty good. My host family also gives me a piece of fruit every day, which is extremely nice!

I will tell some more about my journey when I return home, but for now I hope you enjoyed my stories! Tomorrow I'll go to the children's home in Kpando. I hope I can tell you more about it later this week.

Lots of love from Ghana!