Off to Kumasi, Ghana

Friday, April 10, 2015

This morning we got up early, went down to breakfast, packed our bags and left for the airport.  On our last trip we drove to Kumasi, but this time they put us on a plane.  It is only a 30 minute flight and apparently they just began a new airlines called Starbow.  I could tell it was new because the plane was new.  It was about a 50 seat turbo prop plane.  We haven’t flown in a turbo prop for a very long time. 

Starbow, a new airline in Ghana—turbo prop plane.

Dever’s were a bit late picking us up, but a kind lady at the airport let us call to see if they were coming.  Apparently they had us booked on an older airline, and when this one began they changed our flight and Dever’s didn’t realize it.  They drove us to the Golden Bean as opposed to the one we stayed in last year, the Golden Tulip (where I got sick eating a salad).  The lobby was not nearly as grand, but we could see right away that it was a very fine hotel.  To sweeten the pot, when we arrived they said that they were overbooked and apologized for putting us in an upgraded room!  I think she tried not to smile when she said it!  We did not try to hide our excitement.  This room actually has a separate living room—the rooms are not large, but there are 2 TV’s, a soft mattress, and we have our own balcony.  The Internet is as fast as it is at home. We are more than a little giddy.  The Church also gets a discount here.  I am doing a happy dance.

The icing on the cake is that we’ll be here long enough to wash clothes and unpack!!!  I am so happy to unpack!  We will be even more grateful for this hotel because it is hotter here than it is in Ho.  It is really, really hot!  So when we come back after a long, hot day we will be even more pleased with our circumstances.  I realized they probably won’t like our wash hanging on the railing on our private balcony because people are walking around down below and might spot it.  Hope we don’t get into trouble…

Our private balcony, with our wash hanging on the railing (hope they don’t spot it from below).

Jim watching TV in our ‘living room’. 

Tomorrow we’ll be checking out our old project, then go to Church on Sunday, check out more of our old project, and then head to the new area Tuesday.  Here we will change hotels and it will be a long few days looking at every spot where they want a water project.  In Ho it seemed that everyone wanted more or a different system than the one we have already turned in.  After all the requests come in and we get costs from our contractor, we’ll decide if there is anything that we will do differently or not.  Here in Amansie West District, it seems that we will not have this problem. 

In the afternoon we took a swim in the pool with perfect temperature, although it probably could have used a couple more feet of water.  Who cares?  We’re enjoying every minute of our leisure time.

Dever's came back to the hotel to have dinner with us.  There are such great couples here!  We enjoy them so much and they are doing such a great work.  Humanitarian couples and others on the ground are essential to any success we might have.  We learned while here that our ‘boss’ has been changed yet again.  We’re getting used to it.  We look forward to seeing what our ‘interim’ boss will add to the program.  With each new change some news idea usually unfolds.

 

On a funny side note, we are always reminded that we are in Africa.  We went to dinner at about 6:00 but were not allowed into the dining room because that was ‘reserved for those having the buffet’, which we decided not to have.  We could order off the menu but there was no really great place to eat except for the dining room.  After wandering around and not finding anything Jim finally talked the wait staff into letting us eat in the dining room.  When we tried to order off the menu, we found out that almost everything on the menu was not available.  So then we asked what things were available so that we could finally order.  After a very long time we got our food, probably an hour.  Then we wanted to order dessert—again, none of the dessert items listed were available so they let us eat a piece of chocolate cake off of the buffet; they finally came up with charges for that but actually decided to give it to us for nothing because of all the trouble.  Next time we’ll just have the buffet—only in Africa, or as we all say, T.I.A.=This is Africa.  We get such a giggle sometimes.  Our shower head is removable, but the holder is about half way up our bodies instead of above our heads (tee, hee).  I love it here!

Back to work tomorrow.

 

Love, from Kumasi, Ghana