Departure from MSP through JFK to ACC, Ghana, Jan 3 to 4.
The first post will contain multiple entries because of the two-day travel to Ghana, but thereafter we shall post every morning.
Kathy Tuma.
We depart today for our interim in Ghana by celebrating the retirement of Kathy Tuma, Assistant director of IOS, who served St. Olaf students studying abroad for 40 years. Friday, December 28, 2018 was her very last day at the office. Below is a picture of Kathy and I, Abdulai, taken at her office that Friday afternoon, while she parked her belongings, and handed over to me the final package for our program in Ghana.
As Assistant Director to Jodi, Kathy was the go-to person for our interim in Ghana.
Kathy, your retirement rob as of your smiles and your dedication to detail that made our planning so easy, but wait a minute; not the changes you brought into our lives. Thank you for everything.
MSP- Terminal 1 en route to Ghana
Jan 3, 2019
The group started out in different places, but the majority of us met at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport around 11 a.m. Abdulai was there to greet us at the Delta check-in area, and we checked all of our bags.
Our flight departed from Minneapolis at 2:45 p.m. CST and arrived at JFK at approximately 6:30 p.m. EST. The plane was noisy and there was quite a bit of turbulence, but we still made it to New York before our scheduled arrival time. Li was waiting for us at the terminal as she had flown in from Denver a few hours earlier. We all gathered at our gate and then split up to find some food.
Everything was expensive and the line for pizza was almost 45 minutes. Abdulai may have been judging us for spending so much time as money, as he bought a plastic water bottle to refill later. Afterwards, we camped out by the gate and waited for our 10:45 p.m. flight to Accra!
The terminal was packed, and there were a lot of international flights around us. We are all tired at this point, but ready to land in Ghana!
Justina, Mac, Maggie, and Clara
Arrival in Ghana. January 4, 2019
Today we landed in Accra, Ghana and started our month-long adventure.
Right off the plane, we saw burger king that felt familiar, but in the parking lot, there was also a man bathing a monkey.
In our coaster bus, driven by Kwabena, through Accra gave the group a taste of what our surroundings look like and what to expect in the coming days. On our drive to lunch, we experienced how crazy the traffic is and saw women caring fruit on their heads.
We had a lovely long lunch where people got there first taste of the local food.
Everyone got something a little different but, Jollof rice was the crowd pleaser. After lunch, we headed to the Pink Hostel where we will be for a couple of nights.
It was a great first day, and we ended it with a chill night spent as a group.
Looking forward to a busy day tomorrow.