Yesterday, I got picked up at the airport by Quashi, from Ikando, and after settling in my bunk at the volunteer house, he showed me all around the city. Today, I started my first day at the Autism Center!
The Flight
The flight was delayed three times, changing gates and planes for each delay! I met a group of college students from Grand Valley College in Michigan, and hung out with them through all the delays. They are traveling all around Ghana for a few weeks, so I will probably see them again when they come to Accra in 3 weeks. On the plane, I sat next to a guy who works for USAID, a government program that provides AIDS programs throughout Africa. He is a finance director, and was coming here to help close some offices in Ghana. He knew all about the area, and it was great to have him through customs and finding baggage and all of the first moments arriving in the country.
My first day, orientation
Quashi is the volunteer coordinator, and walked me around the city to show me where the internet is, markets, air-conditioned grocery store, the bus station, everything. He is very cool, and completely self-educated! He learned all his English from working at an international school outside of Ghana. While English is the "official" language, everyone's first language is mostly not English, but they mostly all speak it.
The buses are similar to my experience in Nepal, but more frequent and less crowded! The main small ones are Tro-Tros, basically vans, like Vandy Vans, without any fancy fabric inside, and cost about 15 peswa. One Cedi equals $1.50, and so a peswa is a little less than a cent. There are seats for everyone!
Last night, we went out to dinner, with a lot of the volunteers staying in the house. The Ikando house is great.. most people do different things during the day, and it is not officially coordinated but we have dinners together and some people do things together at night and on the weekends. I am on the top bunk of a room with three other girls from Norway! There are two girls from Sweden, two guys from the U.S, another from Irran, Austraia, France, UK, etc etc! Lots of volunteers housed by Ikando all over doing volunteer projects all over the area.
After dinner, we got cabs to go back to the Ikando house, and piled 4 people in the back, one in front. As they apparently "enforce" the traffic laws here, one of the guys had to get out and WALK past the police check, so that our car only had the maximum capacity of 5 total to show the police, and then go back in a few feet after the police check! It was so funny! It is really very safe here, and the people are very friendly.
First day at the Autism Center!
I went to the Autism Centre this morning! It is SO GREAT! The people and teachers are amazing, and past volunteers have really set up great systems that the staff actually USE! They take data sheets during EVERY lesson, ten trials each time, and have picture symbols for each activity. They show "yellow" sign when it is 2 minutes until the next activity and "red" when it is time to stop. The professional Applied Behavior Analysis therapists from the Global Autism Project just got here, and it is so cool to be here with such experienced professionals! The centre has computers for the kids, and a great schedule. The children were awesome, and really not much different than at home. These teachers and aids were better than some I have seen back in the U.S.! It was raining today, but I will bring my guitar tomorrow because they do school 8:30-12:30, then from 1-whenever, the students are just playing until their parents get there. Another girl just got here to do music therapy, and there is a professional Ghanain drummer taht wants to help out, so hopefully we can get an afternoon project started!
I miss Rachna a lot!! But it is a cool experience to be here and meet the other people.
Sounds awesome! I can't wait to see your pictures!
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