Reaching Ghana
on The Ghana Experience (Ghana), 07/Jul/2010 06:23, 34 days ago
I started my jouney from home in Mumbai at 23:00 on 3rd July. All ofthe family and my friends Mickey and Sujeet had came to drop me at theairport. With tearful eyes of my wife Tejaswini and mother, I said byeto them and entered the first security gate of Chhatrapati ShivajiInternational Airport of Mumbai. I had taken and been given lot ofsuggestions from friends, relatives who had some experience goingabroad. There was a bit of anxiety since I was going to set my foot ona foreign land for the first time. I was lucky that just immediatelyafter passing through the first security gate, I met my old classmate,Vallabh, who works in the airport. He guided me about the airlinecounters and how to proceed at various counters. There was very bigrush and very long ques at almost all the counters. One secuirityperson told that it is always like that on weekends when majority ofthe people try make their travel.My first flight was for Nairobi. The Kenya Airways flight was bitdelayed so I spent 2 hours at the airport. It was nice experience toexplore this glossy place, although everything was very expensive frommy standards. It was interesting to watch passengers of variousnationalities. At last the flight took off at 4:15 am. With last callfrom my local sim card I said bye bye to my familly members andswitched the cell phone off.After some time the journey became boring. There was nothing to seeoutside the window since it was very dark and I started to feelheaviness in my head. I could not sleep properly as I had to keep mybag near the seat and being economy class there was not enough ofspace near the seat. The food they served on the plain was almosttasteless except the pieces of fruits which were really very fresh.May be it was due to the non vegetarian option which I chose. Most ofthe passengers were Indians, mostly Gujaratis and to my surprise therewas an option of Jain food available by prior notice.The plane reached Jomo Kenykatta airport at Nairobi at 10:30 am IndianTime (IST). I did not change any settings of my cell as it was reallyconfusing with the change of time zone. I wanted to keep track of howmuch time I was spending on the flight. The airport at Kenya was niceexperience even though it was small and less glossy. The staff wasvery helpful and guided correctly towards the proper gates. Thetoilets were clean. Here everybody had a smiling face. The shops werenot very glossy but seemed customer friendly although I did notpurchase anything. I wanted to make a call home but they startedsecurity check for the next flight for Accra which was to leaveNairobi at 12:00 again IST so I had to hurry towards the queue. Thereis time difference of - 2.5 hours between India and Kenya.The flight was delayed by 1 hours. Here I forgot to collect my cellphone which I put in the tray and the security personnel had taken itto check it. Fortunately the lady at the counter came in the seatingarea and asked about whose cell phone it was and I got it back. I metone Pakistani guy, Imran. After seeing each other we smiled at eachother, I feeling that he will be Indian. He had all the updates aboutIndia and asked me questions about Bal and Raj Thackeray. He seemed tobe more updated with Hindi films than me. He was going to Freetown inSierra Leone where the next destination of the flight was.This wassmaller plain but this time despite the feeling of spinning of insidesof my head, the experience was good. The food they served was great. Iagain purposefully made the option of non vegetarian food to makemyself used to it. They served a chicken pattice, egg and spinach andsome pieces of potato chips. The yogurt was really yummy. I peeked inthe neighbours dish to see what they had served in the vegetarianoption and to my surprise there was pulao and curry (The Marathi wordRassa will be the exact word matching to that curry.)The aeroplane reached Accra at 18:00 hours IST and 12:30 Ghana time.The airport was not so a great experience but I had no hasslesclearing through the immigration and customs. They did not checkanything and asked me nothing about the things which I was brining in.One lady just saw my passport and that was all. The drivers from thehotel Sunlodge where we are going to stay for next week, had came toreceive us. There were in all six volunteers who arrived at the sametime. Four of them were in the same flight as mine but of course wedid not each other during the flight. There is one Indian volunteerRaj who is from Jamshedpur and came via Delhi and Dubai. There is onePhilipino lady and two Kenyans and one Ugandan guys. It must be a bigtask to co-ordinate these travels of all these volunteers coming fromdifference locations in the world. But somehow every thing was nicelyin place. They all who did it need an applause. At the airport, as onefinds in India, many people came forward and started to renderunwanted help with the luggage. The driver who was receiving us had tobalk at them to tell to go away.The hotel is good and the staff is also very helpful although it isvery difficult to understand their accent and I have to ask repeatedlywhat they want to say. While in the I did not know what to order aseverything on the menu seemed alien to me being used to see the menuin the Indian restaurants. Seeing my confused face, the waitress askedwhether I shall like to have what my other friends have ordered. Isaid yes and found a big heap of potato chips and big peace ofchicken. I really wanted some light snack, a Vada or an Idly wouldhave been proper but this was the point of realisation that I am goingto miss them for an year.Rahul Chakraborty who was with me at my batch at the time of selectionand PfC (Preparing for Change) training had came to meet me. It wasgreat to meet him in person although we had been in touch via emailsand online chats. I also spoke with Rose another Indian volunteer fromPatna who is based near the same place where I shall be based i.e.Bongo in the Upper East Region. There is one couple Nandini and Maniwho are from Tamilnadu and been in Ghana for some years. They had alsocame to meet us. There are many other volunteers who have came here toassist us new volunteers. There seems to be very big and closely knitgroup of them. Everybody is very friendly and nobody seems to behaving any reservations about the other people. I shall get to knowmore about this community of volunteers, who number almost 80 in thewhole of Ghana and spread across different regions of the country,tomorrow when in-country training starts.