All is quite on the home front

So just giving an update I am ok and life is good I am just learning my language and eating well. Sucks that MJ died he shall always live on forever or at least while I play beat it on my Ipod. So don't hesitate to write a letter it would be nice to get some mail. For now that is really it life is good and hope all is the same for you.

6/21/09

So I am now in my home stay and learning my language I am learning Dagaare it is spoken in the upper west which is where I am going. My family is very nice they hosted a volunteer last year who is in the same region so that is nice. It is hard to learn one language while everyone here is trying speak to me in twi. I just have to tell them that I am learning dagaare and they are fine with me speaking English. Today I started picking up trash in up area of town and before I knew it all the children had filled my bag so we filled more and more until I couldn't hold any more. Then showed them the place to put the trash so I don't know if this will catch on but it is worth a try. I am fine eating well I don't know how I am supposed to loose weight when I am being fed so much food. I hope all is well back home and everyone is fine.

6/17/09

So tomorrow I will join my host family for the remaining of training. So far everything has been great a few people have dropped out for their own reasons but everyone is great. Things seem a lot like summer camp so far with all of us being in a large group splitting up into our sections from time to time. I have been eating well they have been feeding us American food with the option to eat Ghanaian food so figured that I would just eat up while it lasted and eat Ghanaian food when that is all there is to eat so I haven't eaten with my hands yet but I am looking forward to it soon. I hope that no one is worrying about me back home because I really am having the time of my life. I need to take more pictures but besides that I have been enjoying the hospitality of the Ghanaian people everyone is really nice.
So until next time Peace, Love and all that good stuff
Austin

Updates

6/3/09

1. So I made it through pre-registration in Philly and now am riding on a bus to JFK to depart for Ghana on an 11 hour flight. All 66 other volunteers are really nice I think we will all get along I already know that I will make lasting relationships. I got my yellow fever shot and my first malaria pill so i am looking forward to those vivid dreams.

6/4/09

So I made it to Ghana today and at 7:30 it was 80 degrees and very humid. Everyone made it through customs unscathed and we drove to Peace Corps headquarters in Accra. We had all of our introductions with the staff and meet more people that I have to remember there names. We checked into our rooms while we stay in Accra which are pleasant and better then we will get during service apparently. Not much else to say right now just a little tired from the flight so I a going to try and nap.

6/5/09

So it is Friday and I got some more shots which was nice. Thus far everyone is really excited and glad to be here we walked around Accra a little but really just enough to know how to get back to Peace Corps headquarters. Don't really have much to say besides that I am loving it here people are nice and we are being fed well. I will see how long this daily writing will last, but I suspect that I will be switching to a weekly update.

6/6/09

So today we split up into groups of five and set out to Accra having to travel on our own. We rode on trotro's which are basically vans that pick people up and drop off others continuously. This was a fun experience because we where able to build our confidence and figure out how to move around the city. We walked around the market and you can really buy anything that you would ever need if you had too, this is reassuring because I will need to buy things at some point. The market was like others that I have been in such that being white means you have money but once we explained that we were Peace Corps no one really bothered us. All in all the day was fun and everybody had great stories to tell. Well this is probably going to be the last time I continue the day by day report. I just want everyone to know that I am eating well and being taken care of with the utmost care.