It starts...

Morning number 1, up bright and early, ironed a pair of pants and a shirt on the bed as there is no ironing board. The hotel have a laundry and pressing service, the best value for money I have ever seen, most items are 1 cedi. Yeehaa, no washing or ironing for this little duck!

I met nearly the whole team at breakfast, everyone is excited to be here and so far only 1 persons luggage is still on its way. Being in a foreign country, it was almost like meeting friends you hadn't seen in a while. Breakfast was a full English breakfast, but also included plaintiff, the local produce. Yes! I was hanging out to try this stuff, our breakfast serving looked like wedges and taste just like sweet potato. Yummy!

It's Sunday, and we've missed going to church, but I see lots of big billboards advertising "Spectacular Event", "Out of this world evangelism", and "Amazing Prayer" so plenty of almost rock-star like opportunities apparently. We hit the market instead, and it was great! Please sir, come this way a minute, step into my office (a market table or store room), and then whispers a secret special price in my ear - "$85 Cedi for you, I don't want the others to know". Thankfully our hosts hard warned us, so we divided everything by three as a starting point, and worked up to half as a real price. I went to town, I bought a picture, a 'real' Ashanti idol, 3 Ghana shirts, some dresses (for Natasha, not me!) and a full traditional Ghana suit, narrowly getting away from purchases of jewelry, cow horns, fertility symbols, and shoes - thinking about it, the sandals would have been good. My market skills are rubbish though, as pointed out to me by my colleagues who managed to escape more purchases than I.

Of course, it turns out the full Ghana suit doesn't fit me, oh well, hopefully the shirts will be a bit better.

While I got some photos, I'm still sorting out net access, so it's going to take a bit longer sorry.

Orientation this afternoon was excellent, we now know where it is safe to eat and drink, the chat from the police officer who came to advise us of some do's and do not's will probably stick in everyone's mind for a while, but only just short of our personal Doctor and his advice on the nasties mosquito bites could bring, and the flaws of self-diagnosis. If we need money exchanged, due to our size, the bank will come to us here in the hotel - wow, I'd like to see that service back home!

Dinner tonight was accompanied by the favorite Ghanian beer -Star, which is an acronym for Sit Together And Relax. Still need to try Club and Stone beers before leaving. Star is a light colored lager, with a very slight malt taste - or the malt was residue of the Guiness Malta at lunch ( a non-alcoholic malt flavored soft drink, like marmite).

- keep on Rockin', Dwight.

Location:Accra, Ghana