Day 3 (monday)

Cute little thing greeted me at the airport in Accra.

I didn't sleep long, my body's clock is still adjusting of course.  I had to shower and figure things out. I went to the lobby and tried to get change (DON'T BRING BIG BILLS, unless you are near a bank or institution that can exchange currencies) and find out where an atm was but I couldn't find where I was instructed to go and didn't feel like walking around much more. The humidity is crazy and the overall smell is certainly an adjustment. Now it's a matter of figuring out how to get to the airport and wait for a flight to Kumasi.  I asked the hotel and they arranged to take me to the airport (maybe even less than a mile away).  I offered to pay the driver a tip but had to find a place to exchange money because I only had big bills. It took quite some time to find someone to tell me where I could go to exchange money and then I had to walk out of the building and to a lower level and then exchanged my money.  I bought a bottle of water and I thought surely the driver would have been gone by then, NOPE, he was parked right outside the lower level. If you offer money, be prepared to pay and they will wait.  As I walked toward the local departing terminal I ran into one of the same guys from the prior night that "helped" me when I first arrived.  He directed me to the window of the airline that had the flight leaving the soonest so I bought a plane ticket and sat for an hour or so. The ticket was approximately 68 US dollars and the flight was just over 45 minutes.  I met some people from Alaska who were here for some humanitarian work and had a friend in the area.  They suggested that if I needed to get a hold of local people from the airport that I should ask to borrow someone's phone as they had done with pleasant success.  I borrowed a phone from a gentleman to call Kwadwo and then just waited in the airport for him to pick me up.  He arrived with a couple of his students and they took my bags for me and we got in his truck and left the airport.  Driving through the town was intense (like LA drivers mixed with Utah drivers times 10).  I got to the hostel (which is different from the guest house that I was originally supposed to stay in) and was shown around by Maureen, she was so very sweet to make a plate of food for me and even remade the beans as she realized there was fish in it (I told her that I didn't eat meat and was allergic to dairy).  The cooked plantanes were a nice little treat too. I finally got to speak to my mom and see how little work she does ;) then I layed down for a while and I awoke to find that it was 8:45 p.m.  So now it's adjusting to the hour difference and shaking the travel bug (or jet lag).  Maureen made another plate of food for me, this time a nice clean salad with some beans, lettuce, onions and some dressing.  She wanted to go for a walk and I asked if she'd like me to accompany her so we went down the road a ways and decided to come back.  Now I will try to go to bed because it starts all over again tomorrow.  I keep waking up and am having a hard time with the sleep schedule for sure.