You are welcome! It’s the first thing you hear when meeting most Ghanaians (pronounced ga-NAY-uns). It may sound a little backwards, but it's really is a beautiful thing. It’s said from the heart, and every time we hear it, we truly do feel welcome. We finally arrived in Ghana this last week and have settled into our ‘flat’ here in Alema court.
Michelle on the Front Porch
View from the front porch
Street in front of our flat
We’ve also moved into our office, it is located next door to the temple, which is the most beautiful building here in Accra. I think we have the best view in the whole building, our window looks right onto the temple and the angel Moroni in perfectly centered. We love our little office, though as of yet it is still quite bare, but Michelle is working on that. Our office is on the third floor, which in Africa is called the second, the ground floor being labeled 0. We're still getting used to that!
Our office building next to the temple
Michelle messing around in front of the office
Our office is one floor below three general authorities. Michelle and I met with them on Thursday, and they were so gracious and warm. We felt at home. Elder Cardin is being released next week as the area president, and Elder Dixon will take over. Elder Sitati will remain as councilor and we will have another (Elder Curtis--newly called) by the end of July. They are great men, and we are excited to be working so closely with them. We are used to seeing them speak at conference on TV, but not used to being in their offices, and meeting their wives and such. We will be blessed. We have six new mission presidents coming in our area in July..so that means we are gearing up for travel in July August time-frame for medical training and missionary health review. There is a new mission here it is the Cotonou-Benin which is previously part of Cote D' Ivoire (The Ivory Coast). The local missionarries here have been in members home, and the mission president will move back shortly and the mission should be up and running again. The old mission home was taken over, and I think burned, and is not suitable for use after the latest political unrest. We probably won't be traveling there...at least not in the coming months--until things settle down a bit more. But we are happy to have the mission back up and running. There are four missions in Nigeria and we will probably spend a couple weeks there. There is a little bit of trouble in Lagos, but the rest of the country is safe. There are three missions here in Ghana (one is the MTC, one in Accra, and one in Cape Coast--we will head there first). There is also a mission in Seirra Leone as well as lots of humanitarian projects which we hope to in some way be involved in. I'm looking forward to visiting this mission I think the most. We may travel there second...who knows, but we need to get our French polished up a bit more first.
This week we have tried to orient ourselves to this area of Accra. We feel safe here…except on the roads, but we are getting a crash course in driving. It is very unlike driving anywhere else. Let’s just say it keeps one on his toes. We should be getting our official Ghanaian drivers license Monday, and am told that itself is quite an experience. In the car, we carry with us Books of Mormon, pass along cards, a first aid kit and a few boxes of Malaria medication—it is quite a combination. We have been told to have a little money for bribes (in case we get pulled over), so we always carry that as well, but hopefully we won’t find ourselves in that position—one never knows.
We haven’t really done much work yet. We are preparing for our first visit to the MTC in Ghana. We have a trip planned for tomorrow. We have a last set of immunizations to give before the current missionaries leave early Tuesday morning. We will stay overnight at the MTC Monday.
We find our experience here much the same as our experience in Dominica, so we really didn’t experience much of a culture shock. Frequently, however this is a common experience. In this last batch, two missionaries from the states turned right around and went home as soon as they stepped off the plane. It really can be scary if you are not prepared. A few things we’ve noticed however that are different. First, the people seem a lot warmer and friendlier. Second, there is a lot more disease apparent. Lots of polio victims begging at the intersection etc. This week, missionaries from Accra have been treated for malaria and Shistosomiasis. (Who knew in medical school, I would ever see these things?) I received a call this week from one of the humanitarian workers about a boy in a village north of here. (We do a lot of advising over the phone and internet.) Anyway, he has a hole in his neck which doesn’t bother him until he eats, then his food tends to come out of the front of his neck…and this is somewhat bothersome to him (go figure). Anyway, from the photos, it looks quite apparent that he has a thyroglossal fistulae, and we got them in touch with a surgeon here in Accra—hopefully they can repair this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him just live with it, as long as it is not infected. Third, the dress standard…is quite unique. We’ve both noticed that the women dress very modest. The Sunday dresses are striking! And we’ve noticed that the woman can carry anything that you can imagine on top of their heads without missing a beat. We’ve seen trays of elaborately stacked peanuts, laundry, tons of baskets, propane tanks, and even on the corner, there is a woman who carries around a whole little display case full of bakes…its very impressive. Michelle has been quite taken by the baby straps. Any woman with a baby or toddler usually has them strapped to her back, where they seem quite content.
This lady has a display case on her head
We had a long, but great final week at the MTC. We spent most of the week training on the church’s medical records and computers, one day was spent reviewing Tropical Medicine. I think after learning what we were about to come up against in Sub-Saharan Africa, Michelle seemed a little less enthusiastic about coming. You know… worms, bugs and parasites—malaria, typhoid, meningitis, cholera, shistosomiasis, TB and many, many more.
We left the MTC with 400 missionaries last Monday
Now we are here and somewhat settled, so let’s go to work!
Elder & Sister Fife
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