Out of Africa

I didn't want to leave you hanging so I decided I needed to finish up my travel log of sorts and tell you about Ghana!! On Friday night, we left Italy and flew 6 hours to Accra, Ghana. It was my first time in "real" Africa. I've been to Egypt a couple of times but that doesn't really count. Come to think of it, I wasn't in Ghana for a full 24 hours so maybe this time doesn't count either.

We arrived in Ghana around 1:30a local time (3:30a Rome time) so we couldn't even really see the scenes from the bus. But when we arrived at the hotel, a scene greeted us. A full African band and group of dancers, complete with bongos and tambourines, were singing very loudly when we stepped off the bus. Think African dancers and that's what we saw. I stopped to take pictures and when I was zooming in on them, I realized that several of them were African MEN IN DRAG!! Seriously, my brain couldn't process exactly what I was seeing at that hour of the night!!

But I went ahead and checked in and was told my room was in Hut #19. I had never been told that before! I kept seeing signs for Huts 1-15 but nothing for #19. Turns out that my hut was right on the water (the not-so-famous Gulf of Ghana) and it felt like I was walking to another country by the time I got to Hut #19. When I got to my room, I was amazed! It was like an apartment- a kitchen, living room, etc. Too bad I was only going to be in my room for a matter of hours and 95% of that was to sleep!

So I finished giving myself a tour of the apartment and then got ready for bed. I had to keep reminding myself not to brush my teeth with the tap water. (Remember, I was exceptionally sleepy!) After being so proud of myself for remembering that, I went to bed. About an hour or so later, I heard a knock on my door which happened to be about three feet from my bed. I got up to look through the peep hole and before I could do that, the door popped opened! There wasn't a deadbolt on the door and apparently my door hadn't really latched when I closed it and thought I had somewhat locked it. An African man was at my door wondering if I wanted a second key to my hut. I declined the kind offer but was so freaked out that my door didn't really close, much less lock, that I really didn't sleep the rest of the night! Thankfully it was only a matter of a couple of hours we were talking about!!

So for the day, I was in charge of liveshots and basically I produced liveshot after liveshot after liveshot, all day long. I think it was for something like 15 hours. So I never left the hotel and spent the whole time I was in the country in a hotel ball room. Truth be told, that's more the norm than actually getting time to go to see things like I did in Moscow and Rome!! So I was there long enough to get bitten by a bug on my arm (Come on Malaria drugs!! Please kick in!!) and to see a few random animals (lizards and weird birds and such... no lions, tigers and bears, oh my!) outside Hut #19.

So now I am home and right away got back to life as normal. I even made it to church on Sunday on time. Actually early. We landed around 7a and I still made it home in time to shower and change and got there on time. On a normal Sunday, I run approximately 5 minutes late and that's coming from 4 miles away. Maybe I should commute to church from Africa more often!

Now my parents are in town. They got here on Sunday night and immediately we started working on my new townhouse. By "working", I mean painting and my dad and I have been busy bees. I have to say that I am soooo grateful for my parents to come and help me! We're about half-way done and we still have two more days!!! I have never really painted before and while I can't see a future career in this, I have learned a lot and had quality time with Mom and Dad and how can you beat that?

I'm also grateful that once again, I can say that I didn't get jet-lag from my trip. I have mastered the art of sleeping on the plane and then being able to immediately adjust back to a normal time zone!! Either that or I've just stayed so busy that it hasn't had time to hit me!!!