Welcome to Ghana 2008

Quite unexpectedly, just as the plane touched down, tears came to my eyes. I'm in Africa. Hope. Fear. Riches. Poverty. New horizons. We spent the night at the University of Ghana in Accra and headed to Tefle, the town I'll live in for six weeks. On our first walk around town people came to their doors to see the new people. Children came into the street jumping up and down and yelling 'YOVU! YOVU!" We are the first group of 'yovus' or 'white people' (although only half of us are white) to live in not only this village, but the whole district.

I have lived there for a week and I'm getting used to the slower pace of Ghanaian country life. I've seen things that have given me so much joy, and I've seen things that have made me cry. I have made friends and already feel like I won't be the same when I return to the U.S.

The group and I made our way to Accra this weekend, a tropical, dirty city where most of the buildings and streets are in some state of disrepair or decay. Yet many people are metropolitan- well dressed, professional, ready to work hard and play hard and easy to smile.

I'm at one of the few internet cafes in the city, but I have to be on my way. Unfortunately I can't upload pictures today- it is off-limits here. I will do so as soon as I can, but a computer with an internet connection any faster than a page every three minutes is definitely hard to come by in this part of the world. All my love.