Thursday, July 21, 2016
As I wrote down this date I
realized that my brother Ron Haslam, brother-in-law Andy Lamprey, and husband
of my niece, Charlie Pinneo, all had their birthdays today—Ron and Andy even
share the same year. So, Happy
Birthday!!
We departed for the airport at 11
AM on Wednesday in heavy traffic (for no apparent reason), and experienced even
worse congestion at the airport, with Nancy Haslam delivering us. During our online check-in we had happily
obtained bulkhead seats in Premium Economy for both flights, so we were very
excited. That was the good part. The bad part was that right behind Jim sat a
boy, who was probably still in late elementary school, who had a hacking cough,
which he could not control throughout the 10+ hour flight! I felt so sorry for him, worried about the
germs constantly coming our way, and couldn’t sleep because of it—oh, well, I
watched some good movies and Jim managed to sleep a little bit. The best part of the flight was the dinner—a
juicy, tender steak meal—man, they have the best food on these international
flights—we actually feel as though they want us to enjoy ourselves—can you
imagine? Not only that, but they also
feed us breakfast, a good one, with food all night long if we want to go to the
galley and get it. When I had to use the
bathroom, knowing that the one in our section on our side was broken, I went up
front to use the one in an upper class area.
Normally they have a little fit if you leave your section, but this time
that one was busy also, so the stewardess directed me to the largest airplane bathrooms
I’ve ever seen! Gee, we miss a lot when
not in first class! Pretty cool; and
each time she saw me she pointed me in that direction! Go figure!
The second and shorter trip from
Heathrow to Accra, about a 6 hour flight, turned out even better! We were so surprised to be bumped up to
business class, which on a large plane means we get a bed! They do this when they are overbooked, and
our many miles help them choose us to be bumped up!! This was so wonderful! We slept right through our meal but got it
later. Coming into Accra an hour late
was not a problem, but waiting for our luggage was—it must have taken 45
minutes to one hour for it to finally arrive from the time that they began
loading it onto the carousel. The
airport remodeling is nearly complete with clean, tiled floors and beautiful
bathrooms! This is a huge
improvement. Once we thankfully got our
luggage (I was praying) we met up with the airport shuttle and quickly got to
our hotel. Whew! Blessings!
One of the things that tickles us the most is that in certain cultures,
and especially among the African people, when we land we hear relieved
clapping—I always forget that this is going to happen when we come to Africa.
The Novotel that we stay at, owned
by the French, was purchased by the Germans and is now called The Accra City
Hotel; the changes were outside of the rooms where they had upgraded the look
of it in some areas, giving customers the Internet on all devices and without a
password, and a free mini-bar in our room; we hope the price hasn’t jumped. It is always amazing how expensive hotels are
in Africa, at least the ‘tourist’ ones.
The staff said it was a good change for them as they all kept their jobs
and they have Ghanaian’s on the board of directors. They have already done extra work on
bar/eating areas and plan another wing of rooms.
We are happily off to
the showers, hopefully for a good night’s sleep, and then to the office
tomorrow to visit with the office couple, the Baker’s, and the Area Welfare
Manager, John Buah—a lovely man. He is
over all the humanitarian projects in the West Africa area.
Love, Mom & Dad, Jim &
Karen, Elder & Sister Greding
After a fine breakfast,
at the Accra City Hotel
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