Group Email from September 19, 2007

Hello Friends and Family... and Moe,

If you've never received an email from Ghana then I'm excited this is the first one... I'll try to make it extra awesome!

Ok so I'm in Ghana. In Accra to be exact - it's the capital city, about 2 million large and on the Atlantic coast of this northwest African country.

What am I doing here?
I don't really know. Half the time I trying to figure out what the heck is going on around me. No, but seriously, I was awarded a CIDA-funded internship that will have me working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) here in Ghana. I'm out here for 6 months and although the details of the project that I'm on are slowly making themselves known, what I know so far is that I'll be working on a project revolved around testing and counselling refugees with HIV. I'm really excited about this because it'll let me put my thesis work on HIV in India to good use. The people in the office are great and have been a great help. So that's what I'm officially doing. Unofficially, I'm checking things out. I plan on doing as much traveling humanly/financially possible. Fun too, having fun is high on the unofficial list. Last weekend a group of us went swimming in Ghana's tallest waterfall!


What's Ghana like?
In a word? Freakin'awesome... It's a new word. After spending 3 months in Bangalore, I had reservations about coming back to the developing world and living in a gigantic, chaotic city. But Accra is farther from India than I could have ever imagined. It's kinda like a more tanned version of Cape Breton because the people here, ALL of them (except for one, more on this later), are so cheerful and helpful and just simply great. There is a fair bit of chaos here, but it's hardly intimidating. I feel like I could only be lost for a few seconds because the first person I ask for help will 100% of the time be helpful. The other day I had an entire bus-load of people help me out by shouting that I had reached my destination! I don't know how they knew where I was going, but they did, and they let me know it! I feel like Ghana is filled with people who'd start dancing if only some music would play. And they're soooo laid back. This morning I was in a taxi with 3 other random passengers (the taxi system here is a little different) when the entire wheel of the taxi fell off. It actually FELL OFF! We were moving along at the Ghanaian speed limit of 10km.hr because of traffic so it wasn't threatening. I wasn't sure what to make of the situation but when the other passengers in the taxi just threw some money at the driver and continued walking, I thought, I guess this happens all the time. It doesn't happen all the time, but it seems like the people here just go with the flow. What? The wheel fell off? Oh well, let's start hiking.

It hasn't been all fun and games though. Turns out, in the evening of my first full day in Ghana, someone broke into my buddy's car and stole my laptop. He and I went into a grocery store in a well lit parking lot and 15 minutes later, the window was busted and my bag was gone. I wasn't impressed but within a few minutes, our busted car was surrounded with concerned people from the neighbourhood. Actually, everyone I've told has been completely sympathetic and concerned with what happened. Even strangers and the police were heartbroken - I couldn't believe it. They take these things very personally and I think it reflects well on what type of people occupy this country. Of course, it's difficult to generalize and there is that one person out there with a sleek iBook that contains the majority of my digital life (but can't get to because it's encrypted), but I get this feeling that I'm surrounded by wonderful people.

For those of you who have followed my bicycle excursion via my blog, I'm terribly sorry about it ending in Montreal... I kinda got busy and still have to finish it. BUT I have a new blog to neglect called

www.GhanaGetchGood.blogspot.com

If you recognize the title from Shania Twain lyrics, that's no accident! It's the world's first Shania Twain-inspired Ghanaian blogsite! YAY for me! So check it out infrequently to get my scoop of this crazy awesome country!

Hope this email finds all of you well.
Phil