New Years

Chris and I have been staying at a really cheap hostel situated in a ritzy part of Accra, and the juxtaposition is highly amusing. I was getting bitten all over my body every time I lay in my bed, I think from bed bugs, so I took it upon myself to wash the sheets (which smelled...fermented). The water came out brown. So brown in fact that Chris looked at me and said, "But why is it so milky?" After that the bites decreased, but I was horrified at having slept in that for 2 nights. New years was interesting and ridiculous. Everyone here sets off really loud but not so bright fireworks which sound like gunshots if they are within a block radius, which made us all jump in fear every 20 minutes or so the whole night. Three of our friends met up with Chris and I and we went out to eat and bought some dusty champagne at the gas station to bring back to the hostel with us. We ended up getting locked out of the room and having to get a Ghanaian woman to hipcheck the door open for us with only ten minutes to spare before midnight, allowing us to pop our bubbly and eat our tiny Danish snacks and set of the dangerous firecrackers we bought of a guy on the street. We almost lit the hostel on fire with one stray firecracker, but luckily that was a false alarm. Yesterday the same group of us went to a beautiful beach called Kokrobite outside Accra for the day, which went quite well up until the way home when our tro tro couldn't get up a hill and we had to get out and walk a piece in our sundresses and flip flops until we found another going in our direction.

Chris and I have had some extreme luck this week. We are working at different NGOs that are relatively near each other in Accra so we were hoping to somehow find a place to live together. We met a girl from England who was staying in our hostel, and she used to live here and knew a guy who rented to foreign volunteers. So she called him for us and we met with him today and his house is amazing, with luxuries such as running water and our own rooms and a gated property!! We were so happy to have made that connection and we are hoping to move in by Tuesday. He is an incredibly nice man named Serge who is an artist and a model.

Will keep this blog updated with how my first week at the NGO goes and the new place. I hope everyone is well and staying warm (god knows I am...)

xox