Feeling hot hot hot

It's day 11 of my Ghana experience and I have just looked at the picture of sister's garden covered in snow wishing that I could romp around in it and cool off .. just for a little minute!  Don't get me wrong I love the heat and generally I prefer it to cold and most definitely I prefer it to Lancashire's cold and wet! But, give me a wee break I am sweating like I have never sweated.  Thankfully, as some of you will have heard from my e-mails, we had our first tropical rainstorm here the other evening and it was awesome, truly awesome and the humidity levels have dropped at least for now.  I am not used to warm rain in bucket loads. My friend Jacky had to be evacuated from her room as it flooded and soaked her clothes and even damaged some electrical equipment. I was only next door but managed to miss all the crazy shenanigans of the rescue as I was fast asleep :-)  We were watching several men trying to mend the roof in the middle of the heat of the day - using a blow torch, it was quite unbelievable.  I have taken my first journey on the tro tro (photos to come) which was a bit of a baptism of fire, literally. It took me an hour to pick up the courage to engage in the scramble to get on one of these vehicles - an Aussie scrum is lightweight in comparison. Once squeezed in you share your sweat with all those around you, it just pours down your face, legs arms .. it really isn't a pleasant feeling.  People tell me I will get used to it .. watch this space. I will try and upload a photo of my colleagues that started work here with me - a real mixed and lovely bunch of people from every continent.  I know its pretty mis back in the UK right now and I am not missing that but as a friend here says.. I wish I could just turn the sun down a little bit.  Keep in touch 

Akwaaba!

Well I arrived here in Ghana on Sunday 13th February after a very pleasant BA flight from London Heathrow to Accra. We landed at about 10pm and I was compleely unprepared for the sauna like heat that I was met with as I walked off the aeroplane. By the time we got through customs, collected our bags etc it was after 11pm and we then had a one hour bus journey to our hotel.  How delighted we were when we stepped into an air conditioned hotel lobby; how ecstatic we were to discover that our room had air conditioning too! Waking up to intense heat at 6am on Monday morning felt so good; 24 hours previously I had been shivering with the cold at Standstead Airport.  We had breakfast of the most juicy fresh fruits (mango, melon, paw paw and pineapple) followed by toast ( yes there is bread in Ghana) with a choice of jam, honey,  peanut butter and vegemite. I shouldn't forget the ubiquitous Cornflakes and a Ghaanian version of porridge that did not stand up to my friend Paula's (I think they may use maize rather than oats and add some wierd concoction of spices  ... for breakfast???  I don.t think so. Usually we have some kind of fried fish as an option at lunchtime but it has its head on so as many of you know that is a no go area for me. So I am eating lots of rice and vegetables at the moment. I have tried bakuu, which is a bit like a very spicy stodgy dumpling, fried plantain is one of my favourite discoveries and we had pancakes with fruit today which was divine. The VSO programme staff all seem really friendly and keen to make sure that we enjoy our stay in Ghana (most people seem to want to exend their time here ..) there is also more pressure from internatinal donors for VSO and other development agencies to demonstrate how their work impacts on development goals so I think I may be kept busy by engaging in some new OD projects with VSO as well as with my partner organisation.  I think my work rate may suffer with the heat somehow.  It's now after 11pm and way past my bedtime. DayO (Goodnight in Twi)