I made it!

Hello from Ghana!

I am finally getting settled here in Kokrobitey after arriving yesterday evening.... what a trip! My flight out of CT was two hours late, and I came very close to missing my flight out of Washington DC to Accra. However, I ran as fast as I could to my gate and made my flight on time... I think I was the last one aboard. The flight was about 10 hours, and I arrived in Accra at around 2pm, where I was met by Yaw (pronounced "yao") from the insitute. The traffic was awful as we left Accra, but luckily we had air conditioning in the car! I'm not sure what time I actually made it to the Institute- my internal clock is completely off.

Last night I got settled in my room, and went out for pizza with some of the other people at the institute... ironic isn't it? Pizza in Africa. It was pretty good though :) On the way to the restaurant we passed by a few people in the village who remembered me and I received some warm welcomes.

I spent this morning in the Design Center meeting the trainees for the Ghana School Bag (GSB) project. Right now they are working on small bags to hold and protect Kindles, which are being donated to several Ghanaian schools by WorldReader. Along with sewing and bag construction skills, the trainees are learning many other life lessons including how to accept critique, how to converse in the workplace, brainstorming, and more advanced English grammar. The production of the GSB is a great real life application for the trainees.

The girls are very sweet, and they were incredibly welcoming. I'm looking foward to getting to know them better during the next three months.

For lunch I went out to eat with Auntie Renee (the Institutes founder/director) and some of the other young people working here to talk about the vision of the GSB project as well as some programs for upcoming visitors in the next few months. Looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us!

Well, thats all for now. I've been a little too tired and busy to take photos, but there should be some coming soon :)