Cass GHANA to Africa!

July 14th & 15th 2011

Yesterday afternoon, Renae and I went through all of the assignments I will have during my time with Global Mamas. I have a few exciting projects, all will be online publications to be downloaded by our retailers for large scale print, including the women’s biographies and a step to step intructions on bead-making and batiking. Also, one of my assignments is to learn to batik, create new patterns and develop new products based off of my designs. After the work wrapped up for the day, two interns and I went out to get the only Thai food in all of Ghana. The restaurant was located right next door to brothel. Luckily, the only spicy thing I experinced was the food. When Ghanaians and Thais mix spices, they mean business. My lips felt sunburnt for hours but i twas very good. The rest of the night was spent fighting jetleg, as I find it is very common to go to sleep extremely early in Ghana.

The next morning when I hopped into the office, Tim, one of the Prampram managers, was there and ready for farbic quality control with me. The next two hours were spent inspecting 800+ yards of cotton for pulls on a couple hours of sleep. Not the most idéal way to spend the morning, but we made it fun. Before I knew it, it was time to say Goodbye to Accra and Hello to Prampram, the tiny costal town where I would be living for the next month. I will miss the office where the dogs pass through our swinging door with the same demendor as business men holding briefcases. But I very excited to get settled into my new place. After we stopped at Tim’s favorite chicken restaurant in Accra, I had my first African highway adventure. Tim told me many interesting things about Ghanaian culture on the trip. I experienced that the stereotype of people balancing many items on their heads is definitely true. With my our two eyes, I witnessed a woman balancing over a hundred bottles of toothpaste over three feet tall on her head.

After a 45 minute drive we had arrived. The location is to die for. When I imagined moving to Africa, I never pictured something so beautiful and tropical. Our office and houses are 200 feet from the Atlantic Ocean on a gorgeous beach. When I arrived, I met Lydia, Tim’s wife and the other manager. They are a newlywed couple from London. I toured the office and met all the local ‘’Global Mamas’’. Being a Friday, things were starting to wind down and the atmosphère was very easy-going. Then I got the first real look at the hut house we lived in. Stone arches, grass roofs, indoor balcony, original wallart, and a huge outdoor patio with an amazing view. The intern house comes with Donia from Holland, Emma from Australia and Ubo and Sinky, the puppies. Tim and Lydia’s hut is nearly the same and about 30 feet from ours. I spent the remainder of the time before dinner drinking a béer and getting to know my new roommates while listening to the waves roll.

Dinner was a night out on the town in the village of Prampram, about 5 minute car ride from our place. In Prampram, the local street food includes fish balls, jollah, fufu and baku. I went the safe route on the first night with an egg sandwich. It is interesting walking along the dirt roads of Prampram where the 5 of us are the foreign population. It’s sweet how the children have the spécial name for us, follow us and wave. We have a bar on the street where we normally eat our dinners. With a few drinks and traditional food, we watched the world go by from our spot. 9pm hit and Prampram quickily died down. Thankfully, the jetleg is no longer in effect. I slept easy that night. Early to bed, Early to rise.

Last night, to my shock, was not a couscous dinner. Renea, the internship coordinator in Accra, and a few fellow volunteers brought me to a very Americanized restaurant a block down from our house called Chase. The other volunteers insisted that this would be the most expensive meal I would have in Ghana. Renae has an adorable adapted Ghanaian son named Ben. He was abandoned infant, close to the point of starvation when he was rescued. Now he is one of the happiest healthiest 2 year olds I have ever seen who always runs to help me fill up my water bottle and cheerfully plays with the zippers on my purse. Renae shared some of his story with us at dinner last night. She is a very inspirational adaption mother and hope I get the same opportunity in the future. After we walked back to the house, I made home in a squeaky upper bunk in the intern room. I made the mistake of falling asleep to a book shortly after dinner. I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up only an hour later meanwhile; the other interns had gone to sleep. So there I laid in the dark, attempting to count sheep. By an estimate I have in my head, I believe I sat there for about 4 hours wide awake. From the window in the room, I could see this strange animal in the yard. When it was turned to the side, it looked like a chicken walking by but when it was facing me it had radioactive bright eyes and ears like a cat. I don’t know if it was the jetlag or the hours I had only to my own thoughts but: It’s A Jungle Out There. This morning I woke up as the other interns were leaving for Cape Coast, shocked that I unknowingly fell back asleep. Once I got up, I asked Renae to draw me a map so that I could go to a grocery store and register my SIM card. I got turned around a few times on my way to Osu but with the dirt road kicking up behind me, I was on my way. Besides the trash and malnourished dogs lurking on the roofs, the walk was beautiful and almost spiritual. It finally hit me that I was actually in Africa! After walking in a few wrong phone stores, I finally made my way to the right one. I registered a SIM card and was intact with Jay’s old international phone. Its bizarre to think I would ever have a working African number. Now to figure out the cheapest way to call is whole other story. As I was walking past our Global Mamas store, I meet my first local friends, “Lil Rasta” and “Oxygen”. They used phrases like “It’s nice to be nice” and “Me… You… black and white like piano... Come together and make wonderful music”. “Lil Rasta” made me a bracelet with my name and the Ghana flag on it, obviously for a fee but it doesn’t hurt to support the funny ones. They claimed they should they should have charged me double because they made Obama and his family bracelets when they came last year. The story even went as far to say that Obama himself looked “Lil Rasta” up because his family wanted to hire the best bracelet maker in all of Ghana. The departure was timely when I realized the multitude of street salesman surrounding me and I first noticed Lil Rasta’s raindrop tattoo. Next was the grocery store where I bought a pineapple, noodles and sauce for around 6 dollars. After my hot walk home, I settled back into my seat in the office near the fan. Renae and I are going over all of the publications and design this afternoon before I leave for Prampram tomorrow. As I sit here writing, all of us in the office are joking about how unconventional our workspace is. Between our barking guard dogs, singing parrot and Ben’s play date it does get rather noisy. However, it is definitely making the internship more free-spirited. Can’t wait to see where else Ghana and the culture take me. Also, just did my first bucket flush… Like I said It’s A Jungle Out There.

First of all, I have arrived safely and just know this opportunity is just perfect for me. So far everything has been wonderful and beautiful at the same time. My flight from Atlanta ended up being 3 hours delayed for unknown reasons. At the departure gate, there was a Chinese couple that was having a difficult time translating what they wanted to the gate agents. I was debating calling Jay for an intervention but didn’t know even how I would translate that to them anyways. I saw them get more confused and decided to hop in line for my flight. When they were right in front of me, I looked at their tickets and saw that they were for Savannah, GA. I led them to the right gate, next to ours. I couldn’t image their shock had they been seeing the same savannah as me right now. The only thing I remember from the flight is couscous. Every time I woke up there was couscous on my tray staring up at me. I must say that the couscous burrito for breakfast was my favorite. My favorite part about the flight was the bright spectrum of the rooftops flying over Accra. They do not lie about the Ghanaians being very friendly. Everyone at the airport just wanted to chat and help out however they could. One of the volunteers from Spain came to pick me up. As we drove through the streets of Accra she joked that we would be like the UN because of the volunteers and interns across the globe (US, Spain, Australia, Poland, & UK). The neighborhood I’m living in until Friday is called Labone and feels very safe especially with our house guard Omar. I got a tour of the house and its close to an African oasis. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves when I get them up. We have a pool, ducks, 3 scooby doo dogs and a pet parrot that know all the tunes ☺ After I took a must needed shower, I helped organize some things for my internship. I unpacked the materials and apparel from the US that I brought with me. Then looked through the Global Mamas catalogs for inspiration for the publications I will be designing. Well that is all for now. In a few minutes I’m leaving for dinner of most likely couscous. Good night!

Hello Family and Friends-

In less than 48 hours I will land in Accra. As I write this, I find myself completely unprepared, underpacked, yet unstoppable. I decided to start this blog because I wanted to share my journeys and experiences with my loved ones and hope you may find my stories slightly amusing. And also because limited chances I'll have to communicate with you back at home. I could fib by saying that I know exactly what I am getting myself into with this this internship, but I really anticipate the adventure and opportunity I have in front of me. What I do know is that I will be working with a group of women led businesses to develop new fair-trade products, design new batiking patterns for fabrics and create publications for trade shows and other events. I will be living and working in Prampram, Ghana, 30 minutes outside of Accra. My office and residence will be beachside which could offer a few welcomed distractions. That's about as much of an update as I have for right now. Look forward to posting more stories for your enjoyment, or atleast so you know I made it there alive

Check out my internship's organization (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Women-in-Progress/114219388620814) and the product line, Global Mamas, I will be working with (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Mamas/116924648327719). They post updates with pictures almost daily. Also, if you are in the market for some wonderful fair trade products, they would greatly appreciate your support.