akwaaba

so i just wanted to let you all know that i made it here alive. i got in late friday night after two loooong days of traveling. more on everything later, but i just wanted to say that im alive.

gateway orientation

so as we speak, i am sitting in the dulles conference room at the doubletree hotel in queens. i have decided that queens is terrifying, btw. my mom dropped me off yesterday and ive had orientation activities ever since. ive been rooming with this girl, sara, whos going to ghana on the community service program too. there are five americans going to ghana (4 girls, 1 boy) and the other three (beside me and sara) are going to be attending school. we're doing our orientation with the five americans who are going to portugal (3 girls, 2 boys, all attending school). everybody is really nice, which is great because we're going to be together for a while. the portugal students are going to be flying with us to london, where we'll split up after our layovers. then us ghana people have a four day orientation in a hostel in accra after we get there. our flight leaves jfk at 10:50 tonight, so i have a lot of time to kill. our flight doesnt get into ghana until tomorrow night, their time. more later, im going to go nap.

no thats not it

darn, that wasnt everything that i needed to say. i forgot to say... IM LEAVING HOME TOMORROW!!!! i just got back from a truly american dinner (all you can eat chinese buffet) and now im trying to finish packing. my suitcase stiiiiill weighs 65 lbs and i really dont want to pay the $50.  hopefully my mom will mail me some stuff if i ask nicely. well im going to go to bed and hope that the packing fairies finish everything for me while i sleep.

so i guess this was supposed to be my first entry

hi everybody! so afs wanted me to make this my first blog post but i forgot, so it will just have to be my seventh one.
ok, so im going on the spring 2010 semester long community service trip to ghana through afs. i found this program senior year of high school right before i was about to send in my college applications and decided that i had to do it. there was no question, the second i read about it i knew i had to do it. i always loved travelling and doing volunteer work, so this program seemed perfect. out of all of the countries, i picked ghana because it sounded like such an interesting place and was extremely different from anywhere else that i had ever been. i have no idea what im going to gain from this experience. ive been trying not to think about it too much because i dont want to set expectations (expectations inevitably lead to disappointment and it would be reaaaally pathetic if i found a way to be disappointed with this trip). hopefully i can share a little bit of american culture, maybe promote some international peace, the usual :) what barriers or challenges have i overcome to become an afser?... hmm, im going to have to say that the biggest one was getting together all of the money for the trip. im paying for almost all of this myself and it i didnt exactly have this kind of money laying around, so that was a challenge. i worked two jobs while going to college full time which i dont advise anybody to do, but i think its going to be worth it. im pretty sure that my family and friends think that im crazy for doing this, but everybody has been supportive, especially my parents. i think i gave them both minor heart attacks when i told them that i was going, though. a few people told me that they couldnt picture me doing this, but whatevs. ill show them :) anyway, im pretty sure thats it for now.

all packed and ready to go (kinda)

so i just finished my preliminary packing and it went.... well, i guess it went better than expected, which is good. unfortunately, i seem to be stuck at about 64 pounds and thats with all of my cloths in my carry on. ive decided that posting my packing list right now might not be the wisest choice since i get the feeling that the response from all of you is going to be to lose half the stuff im bringing and that just wouldnt work for me :) maybe ill brave up later tonight. well, im off to staples to get the last thing (hopefully) that i need. countdown: four days!

less than a week!

its just starting to hit me that im leaving soon (aka, in about 5 days!). i tried to pack the other day but it didnt work so well, as in i couldnt fit everything in my suitcase. i wasnt even close. i went to the store to try to buy a bigger one, but it turns out that the one i have is bigger than all of the ones there. it is going to be a miiighty difficult challenge to make all of my stuff fit since i completely stuffed this particular suitcase when i went to hawaii, and that was only for about a week. afs just gave me my placement, which im very excited about :) im going to be living in akim-oda and working at a primary school (which certain people seem to think is exceptionally funny considering my love of children). i have to run a million errands now but ill be back later to (hopefully) get some opinions on my packing list!

the countdown begins

10 days until i leave home! its coming up so fast that it still hasnt quite sunk in yet. i weighed all of the stuff that ive been collecting for the past few months yesterday to see how much more i could pack and luckily im only about halfway to the allotted 44 lbs (which is crazy awesome since im that person who brings a full backpack and a second bag plus my purse to stay at a friend's house overnight). i still have a couple more things to buy (toothpaste, batteries, etc.) but other that that im all done shopping! i never thought that i would be excited to not be shopping. i went yesterday to gnc to try to figure out how to get protein while im away (since im a vegetarian and the word on the street is that theres no tofurky in ghana) and i found the solution. unfortunately, this solution involves six containers of protein powder drink mix which are each about the size of one and a half newborns. at least it came in different flavors.