After what seemed like the longest travel day of them all [from Hamburg to Brussels and Brussels to Accra] we finally made it to our final destination: Accra, Ghana! The airport here is new and pretty nice, which was certainly a nice welcome to the country. We eventually made it through immigration, collected our many bags [all intact this time] and walked out of the airport and into the city. And BAM! the humidity hit us like a brick wall! I had to take a few layers off the girls because we had been bundled up for Hamburg weather. There was a slight snafu with our airport pick-up, so we had to wait in our newfound humid environment for a little while, but we did make it to our temporary accommodations here. It’s a very nice, modern hotel and short-term apartments located in the richer part of town, good security, small gym facility [which I have started to get use out of], and Sara Gail’s favorite feature: a nice pool! Once we arrived, we just got settled in for the night since we had had such a long journey that day.
The next day we had to get the last-minute immigration stuff out of the way, a medical exam for Varun, national ID cards for Varun and I, and starting the process of our residency permits. We had lunch at another local hotel, very fancy, and we came to discover one thing we were not entirely expecting coming here: it is expensive here in Accra! We will really need to learn from the locals where we need to shop to get things for the best prices because a lot of things here are a lot more expensive than back in the US. Of course, one thing we will never be able to avoid, even if we do find better prices at local markets and shops, is the foreigner price hike [no matter how much I try to blend in or learn the language, I will always stick out as foreign!]. After lunch we looked at a potential long-term accommodation and then called it a day, all four of us were still trying to get acclimated to the heat here and needed to call it an early day.
On Saturday we had asked our driver [Varun will have this driver until he gets his license here, then he will be driving himself in his company car; I will probably always have a driver here] to pick us up for some food shopping so we could finally have homemade food again rather than continuing to eat out for all our meals. So, he took us to the biggest local supermarket where you can find pretty much anything you need, western and local, you’ve just got to be careful on the prices! Just as a ‘for instance,’ Sara Gail picked out a box of cereal that ended up being $15 [that’s US dollars, not local currency!]. But at least we felt better knowing that we could find the type of items that we get back home, should we desperately need them.
Our final day all together at home, since Varun’s first day of work was on Monday, was spent as all Sundays are: cooking and cleaning, both of which have had their own challenges. Cooking has been interesting since we have an electric stove range here in our temporary apartment, not that much of a challenge for western food, but nearly impossible, or at least, very, very difficult for Indian meals. But, we’re finding a way to manage for now. Still, in our long-term housing our absolutely necessity is a gas stove top. And laundry: as I had expected, there are no dryers here, so all our clothes need to be hung out to dry, and subsequently ironed. I had ironed some in previous years, not much though. The most I had ironed was when it was assigned to me as a chore living with the Bertrands in France. But now I get to iron everything! It may not be a necessity, but I’d like us all to have them ironed so that they’re nice and crisp, since we don’t get the fluffiness of the dryer.
The rest of our free time that weekend was spent getting used to our new living arrangement [at least for the time being] and spending some quality time together as a family before diving into our new routine here in Accra.
Well, this sums up our first encounter here in Accra, next week I will talk about our new daily routine and how our daily life is shaping up here overseas!