Trip to Ghana

I took a short R&R vacation to Ghana at the end of October.  It was amazing to see how much Ghana has changed in the 14 months since I left.

As I flew in to Accra at night it was nice change from Juba to see that the whole city had electricity, I was so excited to be spending 6 days there without the sound of a generator and with running water.

While I did not have a visa prior to leaving for Ghana, getting a visa on arrival took no time at all.  I filled out the application at the airport and 15 minutes later I had my visa and I was out of the airport.  I never got out of the airport that fast when I had a residency permit.

I went to the taxi area and negotiated a rate to go to Labone and just sat back to see what had changed since I had left.  Between the airport and the Holiday Inn there is a new high rise mall (which I did not go to) and a few new high rises.

It was great to get to Labone and see that the area looked pretty much the same.  It was also nice to have ridden on paved roads. I remember that when I lived in Ghana how we used to complain about how bad the roads were.  I can now say that their roads are like heaven compared to the roads in South Sudan.

The next morning at around 6:30am Ben and Sam came into my room to make sure that I was really that I had really arrived.  I wondered if they would remember who I was since Ben was only 3 and Sam was only a little over 1 when left but they did remember me and they were my little shadows for the whole time I was there.  On Friday the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes for school and I rode with them to drop them off.  They wanted to show me their classrooms and their teachers.  It was so nice to see how excited they were to go to school.

I spent Friday going around Accra and Osu seeing old friends.  I stopped by the Peace Corps office but everyone was in a meeting so I only got to talk to Perpetua.  In Osu I went to see Georgina at the silver store and it was like I had never left.  She said that she was glad that I came in to see her and she wanted to know everything that I had been doing since I left.  It was like sitting down your grandmother and just what I needed.

On Saturday Gladys came in from Krobo and we spent the day in the pool and then we went to an Octoberfest party at the old Ryan's Irish Pub.  On Sunday we again played in the pool and watched the partial solar eclipse and had a great barbecue.


I was scheduled to fly out on Tuesday but before I left I wanted to go to Krobo.  Before I left for Krobo I went with the kids to school to say goodbye and they asked if I would come back to visit.  I said I would and then gave me big hugs.  I said I would Skype them around Christmas time. I took a tro-tro and surprised my friends there.  It was nice to see all of them and they were so happy to see me again.  While I told them that I would be back I don't think that any of them expected me to come back so soon.  A lot of them asked what I was doing and how things in South Sudan compare to Ghana but I told them that it was hard to compare.

The trip was way too short and I did not get to see everyone that I wanted to it was a trip that I wanted to take to recharge myself after being in South Sudan for 6 months.  I left Ghana feeling relaxed and ready to face the 2 months before I leave for the holiday break.

New Pictures

Well I have finally gotten around to post the pictures from the agriculture show and from my trip to Ghana.

Now if I can just sit down and write about the experiences.. . . maybe this weekend?