So I finally have a blog up and running. I will be posting a variety of different things on this site, but I thought for my first blog I would just report on my life here. First of all let me say that I am settled in and really enjoying things over here! I must admit in the week before I headed over I started to get nervous, but my nerves settled almost immediately once I arrived. I am living in a town called Helekpe which is a small rural town and is half an hour outside of Ho, which is a nice city. I come into Ho twice a week and get to use internet on a real computer.
My living situation is pretty great. I have my own room which has a fan, which is greatly appreciated, and is really rather comfortable. There is one room attached to mine and that is where my counterpart, Dela, lives. Dela probably deserves his own blog at some point, but for now I will just say that he has been a great host and an all around great guy. Slowly but surely I am getting to know him and his story is pretty interesting. His family owns the house we live in as well as another room across a small yard from my house. That room is split into two, half is a kitchen and the other half is a spare bedroom. In the kitchen my caretaker makes three meals a day for me, let me say that is something that I can certainly get used to! The food is really good and I am just starting my first forays into traditional Ghanaian food, the jury is still out, but it is definitely cool to try.
Finally let me say the things you hear about the people here are very true. The first people who will introduce themselves to you are the kids. They are incredibly friendly and calls of Yavo (white person) seem to follow me wherever I go. There is no bad associations with the word it is simply just there way of identifying me and I have even come to enjoy the calls. The adults here are not as immediately friendly but they all tell you how welcome you are in there community and are willing to take if you engage them. I am doing a good job of that and will happily report back about some people in future blogs.
There is a lot more to come from these blogs as I have a lot of time to think here. Most importantly I will soon be posting about the project I am working on here, which I am very excited about but have to spend a little more time researching before I figure out exactly what I will be working on. So for now that is all. Please shoot me an email and I will happily reply. Hope all is well wherever you may be!
