June 7, 2012
Today started early.
I had the alarm set for 5:30am. I
slept off and on all night. At one
point, I was convinced it was past 5:30 and Sam and I were late for
breakfast. I looked at my clock. It was 12:45am. My panic soon turned to absolute joy because
I realized I would get almost 5 more hours of sleep! I fell asleep, and woke up to the fan
shutting off. There is no way Sam would
have shut it off, so it only meant one thing.
The power on the compound had gone off.
Which is entirely common. We just
have to get used to it. It was hard going
back to sleep feeling so hot, but I finally did, and woke up in plenty of time
for breakfast.
We all ate then rode to Accra where we would get medical
interviews, vaccines, complete banking and admin forms, and learn a little
Twi. We were split into 4 groups. My group got to learn Twi first. It’s definitely a lot easier to learn a
language when someone is teaching you rather than on your own. However, it was still very difficult to get
the proper pronunciations. I understand it for the most part, but am having a
hard time verbalizing it. Oh well. It was only our first lesson. After our language lesson, my group went to
go work on setting up a bank account and filling out residency forms. After more than an hour filling out
paperwork, but we finally got everything set up! We broke for lunch, where I drank coconut
water out of an actual coconut. Which
proves to be a lot harder than you would think!
I then proceeded to the most dreaded part of the day. Medical.
We all waited patiently in the lobby, where the 2 doctors would call us
in one at a time. I saw everybody walk
into the room, and after about 20 minutes, walk right back out. Didn’t seem too difficult. I was the last one to get called. After looking at my charts, the doctor
determined I need about a million vaccines.
Awesome. I would get 2 today,
more tomorrow, and even more in the weeks to come. I was worried that I was the only one who had
to get so many shots because nobody had said anything about needing so many
more. But the doctor reassured me and
said everyone was pretty much in the same boat.
She stabbed me with 2 needles to protect against rabies and Hep B. My arm is still sore. We got medical kits that had our malaria
pills and other first aid items like ibuprofen and bug spray. It wasn’t your typical bug spray. It looked like a glue stick that you sort of
just rubbed onto your body. We figured
we would call it bug spread instead of spray.
Just seemed more fitting.
After our long day in Accra, we had to change into nicer
clothes because we had been invited to a party at the US Ambassador’s
house. Drinks were being served and
appetizers were being brought out on trays.
This was amazing! I have never
been to a party like this before! How
cool! The Ambassador came and chatted
with everybody. He came to a group of us
and we talked for about 20 minutes or so.
He seems like such a great guy with a heart for foreign service. I had such a fun time at this party mingling
with my fellow trainees and also people who worked at the Embassy. It was great, but tiring. The party came to an end, and I fell asleep
on the bus ride home. We all met again
for dinner (I was nowhere near hungry since I had 3 glasses of wine and a ton
of appetizers), but ate anyway. Mostly
watermelon. Soooo delicious. And now I am debating on whether I should
wait until morning to take a cold shower or just do it now. The alarm is set for 6:30am. Woohoo!
One more hour of sleep than last night!
I think I’ll cool off with a shower and collapse. I know it’s only day 2 on the job, but so
far, this has been more than amazing. I
love it!
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