Accra

I imagine our desire to blog constantly about every detail of our time here will wane after a few weeks, but for now we want to share EVERYTHING. 

It's the strangest feeling to be in a place so different from anywhere we've ever been, yet be able to communicate in English.  Sometimes I unconsciously realize I've started planning out what I'm going to say to a waitress in Spanish, before I realize that's not right.  It just seems too easy.

We've spent the past two days driving all over the city of Accra.  Yesterday we visited the Osu Children's Library, the 'mother' of all libraries that was started by a Canadian woman in 1992.  It's fairly small, but is run by a passionate woman who's been with it since 1992, and it's immensely popular with the local children.  Talking with the librarian, and seeing a young boy's face light up while we did a puzzle with him, made me feel really excited about what we're going to be doing in our library.  We tried to visit another library a little farther out of town, but it had closed early, so we had to settle for peeking through the windows. 

Today we went to a couple of bookstores and searched through shelves of books for ones that would be appropriate for the FAVL libraries, keeping an eye out for African themes.  We also stopped by the University of Ghana at Legon to peruse their bookstore, which I was surprised to find boasted an extensive selection of children's books.  Of course Lauren and I were super excited by the zoology and sociology sections of the bookstore, respectively.  If my suitcase weren't already so full I probably would have walked out with a few of those. Sigh.  The campus itself was beautiful - it was a boulevard with beautiful white buildings with the red tiled rooves that I love so much.  It was kind of cool to see all the students and think that they were most likely the future of Ghana, the ones who will hopefully pull it out of poverty. 

Over the past few days, I've been trying to think of how to describe Accra, and it's difficult.  The traffic is horrible, with people constantly cutting others off, etc.  And every intersection has people milling among the cars selling various things, in addition to the countless stalls by the side of the road.  We've also concluded that the laws of physics don't apply in Ghana, based on our observation of the women with massive loads balanced on their heads that appear completely secure.  The tro-tros (see Lauren's previous post) are everywhere, and the passengers usually have a head or arm hanging out of each of the windows.  They present another example of defying physics; according to my estimation, taking into account distance, speed, and time, there is no possible way the tro-tros can squeeze through the gaps that they do.  Around 3:00 the schools let out, and small clusters of students with brightly-colored uniforms cover the streets.  As for clothing, there's a mix of Western style, with pants or skirts and shirts, sometimes quite fashionable, with traditional African styles: bright fabrics wrapped and draped in various styles, or sometimes tailored into a dress.  I love seeing the babies wrapped securely to their mothers' backs, never fussing, just chilling.  It also makes me laugh when I think I see a stray dog out of the corner of my eye, only to discover it's a goat, just running around.

Ok, more later.  Much love to everyone, we miss you!