First Week in Ghana

We have officially been here a week, as of yesterday. It has been good, and yet pretty rough in some respects.

We have gotten acclimated to the logistics of being here - catching taxis, bartering for a reasonable rate (and knowing what that rate should be!), finding our way around Accra, eating lots of Kelewele (fried plantains. YUM!), and brushing our teeth with bottled water.

The challenges have mostly revolved around the logistics of traveling with a very small person who usually sleeps a lot and whose circadian sleep cycle is still on Michigan time. Lily and I were fighting off a cold when we left, and after the low sleep of our 30 hour travel time, so she and I got the full-fledged colds, and having her sleep cycle completely whacked out has made for some continued sleepless nights and some hotel-bound days. Lily also decided that her 7th tooth needed to surface this week. With Archer gone to his conference at first from 7am until 8:30pm, and me being mostly stuck in the very small (but clean) hotel room with a usually-very-easy-going-but-exhausted-and-uncomfortable-and-fussy one year old made for a rough first few days.

Praises:
- Archers conference presentation went well last week, and he had some good meetings with the contacts he had at Ashesi University and the University of Ghana this week.
- Despite the challenges I am noticing how quickly I have gotten used to things here - I started a list of things that initially surprised me but now are no big deal, perhaps Ill include that later.
- God is sovereign and all-powerful over all the earth. We have had no fevers, we found a pharmacy close by with cold medicines (the only drugs I neglected to bring from home), and have been able to enjoy some of the sites we had anticipated, and we are safe!

Current Events:
Today we took a long bus ride from Accra to Kumasi, which was a fascinating ride, just watching life in Africa from my seat-a great taste of the city of Accra, then the gradual shift to country-life, beautiful countryside and a gorgeous sunset! We will be here for 2 days, Arch will meet with some people at a Technical University, then we will then take the bus to Cape Coast. We are now in a lovely Bed & Breakfast that is a much better room situation than our single hotel room in Accra, and we are thankful that we did not make reservations before we got here and could play it by ear- so last night we went through our Ghana tour guide and assessed which setup would work best for our needs with Lily. Now we have a huge, immaculate room in a nice big house outside of Kumasi, with a big breakfast in the morning!

PS-Turns out I forgot to bring the cord for the camera, so pictures will have to wait until we get home. But theyll be worth it!