Day 1, 2 & 3

Lush, green and HOT!  Our flight to Ghana was uneventful and we were greeted at the airport by Isaac and Daniel from the hotel.  Leaving the airport in Accra in a pick-up truck, we were driven to Tema where we unpacked and relaxed a bit before heading out for some lunch.  Our Liaison Officer, Francis or as we like to call him, Chief Fun Officer (CFO) showed Joanne, Akiba and I around Community 10 where we're staying.  As one would expect the climate is very much like some of the Caribbean Islands, a musty tropical smell that says "relaxation".

We dined on local cuisine for lunch (Fufu - a spicy soup with a corn dough ball and a fish head).  It seems odd to eat hot food in this heat but it's not common to have salads or cold foods (nor is it safe) so almost everything they serve here is hot.

After meeting up with some other team mates from Mexico and India for dinner we took a quick trip to the grocery store where I was pleasantly surprised to see frosted flakes, kraft dinner and most anything I could want from home. Home doesn't seem so far away now.

A tour of Tema on Sunday provided some eye opening experiences.  The market, although empty as it's closed on Sundays (everyone goes to church) was a maze of little shops with rough pathways.  So easy to get turned around...even for me.  Thank heavens for Francis and Daniel to tour us.  Our next stop was the harbor which houses the largest selection of ocean containers I've ever seen and the ocean vessels are lined up off the coast for off loading in what is Ghana's largest port.  For Bob and those on my ICO team, you'll be pleased to know the AEO security requirements seemed to be met from what I could "audit" from the van. :-)  In fact, police with semi-automatic machine guns are a good deterrent any time....as you will read below.

The fishing harbor was a cultural shock for me.  The boats are made by hand out of wood, about 25 ft. long and take about 12 people to row out to sea on a daily basis for fishing.  There are no motors so the process is heavy work.  Hundreds of boats lined the harbor as it was midday and fishing happens in early morning.  There were many people selling fruits and fish from the day's catch in the 90 degree temperature. The heat was unbearable in the sun for some of us and the smell of the salt air and day old fish lying around was quite prevalent.  We had some fun taking pictures of the children and showing them back to them.....perhaps many had never seen a photo of themselves??

There is alot of industry in Tema although infrastructure is crude in some locations and many roads had pot holes too deep to go through.  There are also very few stop signs to manage traffic...everyone just eases in where they can and every toots their horns, more as a sign of warning that they're coming.


Dinner at a local restaurant was fun.  There is music blaring at most night spots, which makes it difficult to carry on conversations but the music is so danceable!  Our CFO arranges for our transportation and on the way home from dinner we were pulled over by the police as part of a regular nightly spot check.  Not having any identification on me (any most of the rest of the team) I started to worry until a colleague pulled out the Police Commander's business card with his personal cell phone # on it and said "phone him if there is a problem".  The Commander had been in to visit our team earlier in the day to give a security briefing.  We were quickly moved on, thank heavens, but not much fun having that semi-automatic a foot from your face with a flash light in your eyes.  Next time, I'll carry my ID.

It was wonderful to meet our clients today and after introductions and presentations we settled in to discuss our projects.  What an experience it will be to bring some best practices from our own countries to share with these people.  The people here are so friendly and easy going...what a great day.  Tomorrow we head to Accra where we'll be working the rest of the week at the client site. We're also hoping to get to a shop at lunch tomorrow to buy fabric (like kenti cloth) to have an outfit made for traditional dress days which is on Fridays.  Some of the girls from work will help us out.

Sleeping is rough and I've had a challenging time adjusting (as usual for me) but I should be fine by the end of the week.  It didn't help either that I'd had cold showers for 2 days as I couldn't figure out how the hot water worked (everyone on our team had trouble until Ranga from India provided a lesson) but this morning all was good.  I was a little worried that I might have a month of cold showers! :-)

Time to sign out as our team is staying in tonight to work on Executive presentations for tomorrow.  After all, you only make a good impression once so we want to get this right.

Take care!