across a different pond...

Hello from Ghana!! I am in Ghana for ten weeks volunteering with Projects Abroad. I am living in Cape Coast, 100 miles west of Accra, and working in Central Regional Hospital. I am here with the wonderful Sara Duke, another Chi O at UVA, and after twenty-four full hours of traveling, we made it to Accra two nights. We were picked up by a Projects Abroad worker who brought us back to our country director’s house which triples as the Accra office and a guesthouse. We met some other volunteers there but we’ll probably never see them again since we’re in Accra. We met an interesting character as well: She decided to come to Ghana because she has plenty of money; and had the time since she was kicked out of her prestigious boarding school during her senior year. The first things she told us? That she hates Ghana and can not wait to go home and that Cape Coast is the worst town in the entire world. Awesome first feedback to receive...But we are determined to prove her wrong! And so far we have!!
Yesterday we came to Cape Coast and moved into our house. Sara and I share a room at Millicent’s. It’s a really big house with two rooms and a bathroom on the roof and Sara and I have one of the rooms. No one lives in the other room right now but that girl should be here next week. And then there are four volunteers next door but we haven’t met them yet. The roof part of the house is huge so we were out there for hours last night just looking at the stars. Yesterday we had an induction to Cape Coast which is a wonderful city! It’s less crowded than Accra and easier to just walk around. We’re like a 5 minute taxi ride from the city centre and a 10 minute taxi ride from the hospital I am working at in the other direction. Today was my first day of work. I am doing Physical Therapy for the first month because there are two other volunteers there now and they want me to learn from them. One is a PT student from Scotland and the other is an actual PT from Australia who wasn't there today. So I basically just shadowed the student all day today which was cool because she was really, really nice and a great teacher! By the end of the day they had me giving treatments and were asking my opinion. Haha. Plus they see a TON of kids so that's awesome!! And it doesn't hurt that the PT section of the hospital is air conditioned... :)
The heat isn’t as bad as I thought. You definitely get incredibly sweaty all the time but it’s not deadly at all. Our room is really bad because it has no air circulation but it’s nice outside where there’s a breeze. We have the whole roof to ourselves so we're just out there all afternoon and evening reading or napping. Our house mom is nice although they give us a lot of privacy so I don’t think we’ll really interact with them at all, even at meals. The hardest thing is not being able to drink water just from the tap because I don’t drink as much as I would like. We drink water from these plastic packets which is hilarious and I actually like it. What else? The transportation system is interesting because it's all by taxi but they're line, shared taxis so its more like a bus! They're really easy to flag down (especially because we are "obrunis" - foreigners - so we stand out just slightly...haha). But they only go in certain routes so for instance I have to take two different taxis to get to the hospital. And on the way home it waits until it is all full before leaving for town! It's not bad at all, I like the system! I think that’s all I have to report for now. We're going out with a bunch of volunteers tonight so hopefully we'll get to know more people! Much love from GHANA :)