"You are welcome!"

I must have heard that phrase said to me over 20 times between yesterday and today. And, honestly, it took me a while…ok it’s still taking me a while…to recognize the meaning as, “Welcome to our country!” not “You should have thanked me for something.” But, I’m learning and I do feel very welcome. And although I’ve generally been saying, “Thank you!” or “Thank you; I feel welcome!” back to people – no response feels quite right for the generous hospitality I’ve encountered thus far.

To back track…my plane touched down in Accra at 7:50 yesterday morning and, after realizing my one checked bag did not arrive with me, I stood in line with literally half the people on the plane to claim lost baggage. I wrote down the Pathfinder office as the location where they could send the bag (I did actually believe, in my sleep-deprived state, that my bag would be sent to me…haha) and left for my hotel at around 10:00am congratulating myself on packing the largest possible carry-on.

I was so tired that when I got to the hotel that I fell fast asleep and didn’t wake up to eat any meals yet still slept through the night…I think I was catching up on sleep for the last two panicked weeks gearing up for this trip. I felt exceptionally lazy, but figured I needed the rest.

Today proved to be a much more exciting day. Adams, Pathfinder/Ghana’s driver, was scheduled to pick me up at my hotel at 9:00am and, of course, I slept through my alarm set for 7:00 (old habits die hard…even in Africa), woke up at 8:40 and had 20 minutes to get ready. I made it down to the lobby without breakfast looking as put-together as I could by 8:59 when Adams was there to greet me with my first, “You are welcome!” for the day. At that point we drove to the office where I met the Pathfinder staff and situated myself at a desk they had set up for me.

About mid-day Adams drove me to the Ghana Institute for Language Literacy and Bible Translation Guest House. You didn’t know that translating the Bible into one’s mother tongue was a passion of mine? Hmph. In reality, the guest house is a nice and affordable place for me to rest my head for the next two months. Originally I thought I would be sharing an apartment with the Guest House’s manager, Naana, but she informed me that she “switched things around” so now I have my own tiny apartment complete with kitchen, sitting area, shower, and bedroom with two twin beds. I mention the two twin beds as a subtle hint that you are welcome to visit…but beware…no smoking or alcohol are allowed on the premises and the use of the internet comes with this warning, “As this is a Christian guest house, all users are expected to use the Internet for purposes that are not expressly prohibited in the Bible.” I honestly have no idea what that means, but whenever I read the warning I find myself picturing Jesus hunched over a laptop surfing the Internet…maybe that’s the point.

After getting back to the office I had lunch by myself at ChurCheese-Restaurant and Playhouse (yes, playhouse…similar to Chucky Cheese in the US) where the same Michael Jackson song (The girl is mine) was on repeat during the entire time I ate my chicken and rice. This is the one place I was directed to eat lunch…hopefully the fact that they sent me to a playhouse is not indicative of what the office staff thinks of me.

At around 4pm, Getrude the Program Officer, handed me a travel request slip and told me to fill it out. I gave her a blank look and said, “Am I going somewhere?” Her answer was, “Come here!” so I went to her desk and then she looked at the paper with as much confusion as I’m sure I was showing on my face and then left the room to talk to Moses, the Program Director for Ghana. Turns out, after talking to both Getrude and Moses, that they had planned to travel to the Volta Region to attend a monthly mini-assessment meeting for two of the Youth-Friendly-Services (YFS) program sites. Moses said that they are not sure they will attend another meeting such as this while I am here, so they thought it good if I came with them for the two-day journey out of Accra to Akatsi and Ho. I am so excited to go and see a Pathfinder project so soon into my trip! We are leaving tomorrow morning at 7:00am and I should return to Accra sometime on the 19th. I don’t have any idea how long the drive will be or much of anything besides the true basics of this project, but I’m ready to learn and gather some good photos, notes and possibly interviews.

After this, I had to make a rush trip to the bank with Adams to get the office’s cash for the journey (I don’t know why they sent me along for this ride…) and on the way back I sat in the car for almost 45 minutes while I believe Adams was paying some sort of electrical bill – office-related or otherwise. By the time we got back it was well past 5 and everyone was packing up. I decided I would catch a taxi to the airport to pick up my lost bag (had called earlier and they said it had arrived). The new Pathfinder finance office (have already forgotten his name…) came with me in the taxi as he lives right by the airport. Then once we got there he insisted on helping me get my luggage, which turned out to be a bigger job than he probably anticipated as I had left the keys to my backpack at the guest house and the security man insisted on searching my bag. I asked him to just break the lock – that he had my full permission – to which he replied, “I do not break locks.” Ok…so I left my bag there and caught a taxi (with the PI finance officer) back to the guest house, picked up my keys to the backpack, caught a taxi back to the airport, had my bag thoroughly pawed through and then said goodbye to my new favorite Ghanaian (the to-be-named finance officer) and caught another taxi back to the guest house where I promptly fell asleep for two hours only to wake up at 9:00pm to start writing this blog. Now I’m off to pack for my two-day journey and spend my first night of many dreaming about the wonders of Bible translation.

Please continue to check back and leave comments! This is an obsessively long post, so thanks for reading the whole thing...if anybody actually did (besides my mom). I can’t say how often I’ll post, but I’ll try to keep it interesting. You are welcome!