Operation Ghana

Robi left for Africa today. Curry and Heidi leave tomorrow. They are all going in advance to have meetings and take care of some of the business aspects and formalities so that we can hit the ground running when we arrive.

I asked Curry, how we are going to get from the airport to Mampong, a one and a half hour drive. He said he will be picking us up in the Deaf School’s bus, if it is running. Why am I having flashbacks of “The God’s Must Be Crazy?” I can’t imagine it will be hard to spot us at the airport. Just look for a group of 5 sun-deprived Utahns… very pale:) It helps that Aaron is 6′ 5″ and sun-deprived. When we lived in CA and Leah was 2 years-old, I was always amazed that people would stop us in the store and say “Wow! Your daughter is SO WHITE! I have NEVER seen a child so WHITE!” I am not kidding, it was like a running joke. I don’t think you could get away making that comment about any color other than white though and I don’t suggest trying.

The flight from JFK to Accra is about 12 hours. I would love some suggestions of things to keep Alex and Leah interested and happy for 12 hours. I think our ipods last about 3 hours each. My laptop (if I bring it) will last close to 3 hours, ooh 3 hours of backgammon;). I know there will be movies, sleep, food and snacks… but 12 hours in the air? I picked up the 3rd Traveling Pants book for Leah as a surprise… she will devour it in an hour or two. I should have picked up the 4th as well… there is still time.

Yesterday Aaron and Leah completed their shots! Today I am ordering 15 family pictures at Costco. I am making copies of our passports. (You keep the copy on you at all times, rather than keeping the real thing – except for when you are at the airport, you better have the real thing). I will pick up 400 Signing Time temporary tattoos for the school kids. Doing wash and then spraying our clothes with insect repellant. Do you think I should spray then pack or pack then spray when we arrive in Ghana? I just don’t know.

A few days ago I checked weather.com for Accra Ghana. I was stunned to see highs of 91 and lows of 77 with 100% humidity. I don’t think I will be wearing my Signing Time sweater while we are there. We are basically going to live in a sauna for 10 days. Feel free to check out weather.com while we are traveling. You can see what time it is in Ghana. Ghana is 7 hours ahead of Utah.

Today I rationed out all of our food that we are bringing to Africa. We have dinners “catered” each night – I can’t wait to report on what they make for us. From what I hear it is mush and spicy stuff and always a hard boiled egg. Breakfast and lunch are up to us. I guess the easiest way to describe packing for this trip is to imagine a game. In this game you can’t bring chocolate or anything that will melt. You can’t bring anything that you don’t mind eating even if it is smashed to bits. You can’t bring anything that might pop or explode under pressure, turbulence and general baggage handling. Only bring things you are sure you want to eat even if they are warm. Bring small packaging, but not too small if it has extra wrappers. Think Skittles, not Starburst. Bring things that don’t require refrigeration… remember if the power is on for 20 hours, it will soon be off for 20 hours.

I had bought some dried apricots and dried blueberries as well as a huge bag of trail mix with dried fruit in it, but I realized the fruit will probably plump up in 100% humidity and end up moldy. I will return those tomorrow. Besides we can eat fruit there, as long as it has a thick rind that is cut off. We can eat bread there as well. We packed peanut butter and tuna fish and beef jerky as our main protein. I laid the food out for each person and then put 2 days worth of food in a gallon ziplock bag. That way we can grab a ziplock and toss it in our backpack every couple of days.

We can’t eat a lot of things. No vegetables unless thoroughly cooked. No thin skinned fruits. From what I have read it is best to consider all water polluted unless it is bottled and brought in from somewhere else like Europe. SO I am thinking no fish:) Most people can’t afford meat. It’s sort of like Survivor Ghana – but only for 10 days.

I found 3 skirts for Leah and 2 for me on ebay. Walmart had t-shirts for $2.50. I have 4 dark blue shirts and 4 bright blue shirts. When you see the pictures and it looks like I only have 2 shirts, just know I actually have a fresh one each day. Curry from SOHI suggested a shirt a day rather than doing laundry (BUT remember we don’t want to look like we have 10 different shirts). Our laundry would be done by hand by the girls (me and Leah) some locals would come show us how to do it, which by all accounts means scrubbing until your hands blister. In the humidity your clothes take 3 days to dry. While drying, bugs land and lay eggs, so you have to iron everything before wearing to kill the bugs and eggs.

Since we are there over a weekend, we will be able to travel. Now, Ghana is not safari Africa with lions, it is more rainforest Africa with monkeys. We will visit Kakum National Park When we travel we will be staying at a botel. Say hotel but with a “B”. You may be asking what is a botel? Well it’s a hotel over water and the best part is there are crocodiles in the water. (of COURSE there are!)

Remember when I suggested you ought to donate just to see what happens next… yeah that was before I knew we were sleeping over crocodiles…. LOL If you haven’t Chipped In already, what are you waiting for???

No shots here!

Here’s the first batch!

Yesterday we went in to the University of Utah Travel Clinic for a health consultation about our upcoming trip to Ghana Africa and (drum roll please) we had our first round of shots! We had our “exotic shots” done today and we will each see our regular doctors for the less exotic shots. An exotic shot is Yellow Fever, we also had MMR (Measles, Mumps & Rubella) shots because they have shown that live shots should either be received on the same day or a month apart. Believe it or not the stuff for typhoid is taken orally. The consultation and paperwork took more than 3 hours.

Alex had never had a shot in his whole life, so he was a little concerned about the whole thing. We went oldest to youngest and Alex and Leah laughed hysterically as each person winced at their shots. They laughed at each other but neither one was laughing when it was their turn.

Alex Gets His First Shot. Leah Laughs Hysterically!

Not SO Funny Now is it Leah?

Rachel’s First shot & Rachel’s Second Shot.

Aaron’s Second Shot. Leah Is Empathetic.

After Alex’s second shot he turned very pale and then almost green. I said, “Alex, you don’t look so hot!” He said, “I feel sick!’ Aaron grabbed the garbage can. I grabbed a cup of water. Then we had Alex lie down on the sofa. He sucked on a candy cane and eventually the color came back to his face… eventually.

In case you haven’t heard, we are going to Ghana . Take a look a the count down to our flight on the right hand side of my blog. With your help, we have raised over $12,000. We are still $4,400 away from our fundraising goal.

We sent in our Visa applications two days ago. Aaron had accidentally run his passport through the washing machine a month or so ago, but his replacement came just in time. Aaron, Leah and I went to Rite-Aid to have our Visa photos taken. It took 45 minutes! When I went in and said we needed passport photos, the woman look frightened. I said, “Is there a problem?” She said, “No, not really we just don’t do them very often.” I guess that was evident when she called for some of the stock boys to come move a large display that was blocking the white screen where the pictures are shot. (Are you kidding me?) The man who took the pictures did not seem to know how to use the zoom, so he took the pictures at about 8 inches from our faces. Note to self: Next time go the post office.

Leah was able to meet with Curry from Signs of Hope International and ask questions. Her first question was about the machete men. (Are you surprised?) He explained that these men are working in the field and yes their machetes are just about as long as Leah is tall. Curry told her that she will get to cut grass with machetes when we want to play soccer with the kids. Yes they cut the entire field with knives before they play. (And I hardly let her slice a tomato!)

We also talked about what we should bring to eat and drink. We are each to pack 2 suitcases and split our clothes and food between 2. That way if one suitcase gets lost, we still have half our clothes and food. While we are there we will have dinner catered each day. This is supposed to consist of bread, beans, rice and always a hard-boiled egg. That’s what they said to count on.

So we need to bring or buy food to eat for breakfast and lunch. Things to bring: beef jerky, pouches of tuna fish, jars of peanut butter, granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, fruit snacks, pop-tarts, packaged cheese and crackers. Basically, anything that still tastes good even if it gets smashed.

Do not bring chocolate. It melts all over everything. Do not bring packaged chips, they gets smashed and explode all over your belongings. Do not bring candy that has a lot of wrappers. Trash is an issue and you need to plan on being responsible for all of your trash.

Oh yeah bring lots of ziplock bags and your own toilet paper!

Looks like a meal fit for a king!!