First day in the office

The Ghana handshake is a national phenonemon. No matter how old or young a person is, they all do it! It starts as a regular handshake, but finishes with holding thumb and indexes together with your counterpart to make a snap sound at the finish. It's hard to describe, and takes some practice to get right, I'm still getting the hang of it. But the Ghanaians love us trying to use their language and their handshake. Yesterday, one of the officials heard me say thank you in Twi, (Medasee) and almost with disbelief, asked her counterpart "did he just say Medasee?" Followed by a surprised but approving look of acknowledgement. Makes you feel good for trying, and wipes away any self-conscious apprehension I started with.

This was an intense day of interviews and briefing. We had our early start, arrived 30 minutes early for our meeting before a torrential downpour hit. While this is considered a blessing and good omen for our project, it also wiped out our efforts to ensure we would be ontime when we discovered we needed to cross the road to get to the right office, but the road had been replaced with a small river. We had to call in our driver, who was battling his own flood and traffic issues, which resulted in starting the meeting 30 minutes late. Our host was very gracious with their time.

Today also happens to be one of our team members birthdays, Deiva from India! Happy Birthday Deiva! Even the ex CEO and current CEO of IBM signed his birthday card, wow! We celebrated in the evening by going out for a Chinese dinner, and then coming back for a cake the team secured without Deiva knowing. It was very cool to hear Happy Birthday sung in 5 or 6 languages. Deiva then handed out shoals for each team member to remember his birthday by - I think he got the raw end of the deal!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Eight Rd,Accra,Ghana