When things don’t go to plan…

Flexibility. Undoubtedly this will be a key attribute that will serve us well as volunteers here in Ghana. Upon arriving at the airport in Accra – no – wait. Let me start earlier. The good news was that we ended up checking in about 95 kg of luggage in Perth. Thank you Emirates for being compassionate and not charging us excess allowance (over the 80 kg we had been granted). However, our 12 hour flight to Dubai had us sitting separately (*sigh*), as sardines, as we were both lodged firmly between “others” in the middle seat – across the airplane from one another; not a spare seat to be had…. Fortunately, we managed to negotiate (with a kindly man who swapped with us) seats together for the 7 hour flight to Accra from Dubai. A glimpse of things to come became apparent to us – as the only other large airplane at the airport had a rather large, imposing “United Nations” emblem on its side. Here we are – in the land of development aid! A speedy processing through customs and immigration was quite painless. So we headed into the arrivals hall and waited. And waited. And… waited. 2 hours in fact. 3 hours. No VSO happy, smiling person to greet us. We were three – Mark, myself and Aaron – a fellow VSO volunteer from Brisbane. Mar the negotiator eventually got a taxi organized (not easy to find one big enough for we three plus 10 large bags)… and life became quite a bit better once we got settled, had some sleep, etc… in a simple but clean guest house. We have now been united with the twenty or so other volunteers and accompanying partners who will work in Ghana for the next few years. I expect we will form friendships, share experiences and grow together. For now, we have registered with the Australian High Commission in Ghana, and the in country training has begun!