Greetings from Accra, Ghana! It’s been a busy month settling into my new place and new job (yeah, I know. A MONTH!) but I am pleased to report that I am happy and healthy so far. Before I delve in, though, here’s a little refresher (in case you didn’t read the little intro at the top): I am a 2010-2011 Princeton in Africa fellow and I will be in Accra for 12 months working as a Programme Officer for the UN World Food Programme (yep, I’m already putting “e”s after everything). I am one of 26 Princeton in Africa fellows that are serving in various positions throughout the continent. While there are four other PiAf fellows working for WFP, I am the only fellow in Ghana. You will find a list of their blogs to left- I highly recommend checking them out as they are pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. I would also like to take this opportunity to give a big shout-out to everyone at Princeton in Africa and express my sincere gratitude- this is an amazing opportunity and I am so excited to see what the year holds.
I’m not going to lie, I’ve started this blog several times throughout the month, but I’ve had a hard time following through. Maybe I’ve been overwhelmed, maybe I’ve been lazy, maybe I’ve even been uninspired, maybe it’s a bit of everything. It’s hard to not constantly compare everything to my last experience in Liberia- Liberia was so raw. And Ghana is, well, pretty tame. Yes, I can hear the collective sigh of relief all the way over here (I, too, am relieved) but it is still an adjustment. This is my seventh trip to the continent, and the first one where I’ve lived in a city. Weird. I can walk to the grocery store. I have internet. My bedroom even has air conditioning. I work in a legit office with running vehicles, generators, and ID badges. There are stoplights and overpasses and traffic laws that [gasp] the drivers obey. There are airplanes CONSTANTLY flying in and out of the city. There are even some Ferraris (I’m not even kidding you) driving around. There’s a mall with an Apple store. There’s also that sewage smell that constantly lingers in the air. And the “white-man’s price” that I’m always trying to bargain under. There are cars that I am constantly trying to dodge (I never said that the pedestrian right-of-way was one of their traffic laws) and bribes that I am forced to pay (but hey, that Ghanaian driver’s license will totally come in handy someday, right?). Everything is starchy, fried, and drenched with palm oil (Lord have mercy on my cholesterol). Men are constantly approaching me wanting my name, phone number, and “friendship” and market women are constantly hissing at me and shouting “Bruni, Bruni!” (I’ve gone from Mzungu in Uganda, to “bright” in Liberia, to Bruni here in Ghana) just to get my attention so that I will buy something from them. And then there is that @!#$%$ rooster. Always a rooster.
Ghana is going to be a completely different experience from all my others, but it is still Africa. And it is so good to be back.
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