Ashley Shira’s Blog

Day Two

Our second day in Africa started quite early….sort of! At 1 am I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.  After tossing and turning for a few minutes I sat up in bed and found Kim to be awake as well. We sat up and chatted for a little while. We had to laugh because both of us were hungry and awake in the middle of the night.  I guess you can’t blame our bodies’ b/c back it home it was dinner time! We were finally able to go back to sleep around 4.  We woke up at 8, showered, packed a bag for our shopping trip, and headed downstairs to meet Kaitlyn and Emily.  Gilbert, our driver, arrived promptly at 10 am.  We have found that nothing here happens on time or as it seems it should and that morning was no different.  We went to get the mission car and found it had been taken to have the insurance renewed.  After about an hour of calling and walking around we finally decided just to take Gilbert’s truck and pay him for the fuel.  So we headed off to the city (Accra) to do some shopping.  Our first adventure was at the bureau where we exchanged some money…..it is always nice to feel like you are getting more back than what you gave them.  The currency here is Ghana Cedis. Now time to shop….We stopped at a jewelry store, an art gallery, and a leather shop…..we found lots of good gifts and souveneirs!! (Kim and I never have a problem shopping!) Then we went to a food court for lunch….this is what Kim and I were worried about, but it worked out great.  They served pizza, grilled chicken, burgers, and even french fries….we were happy to see that but still always cautious of what we ate and drank. After lunch we stopped by the grocery store in the city.  It is called Koala.  They had a good bit of imported items, including things from the states but they were expensive. We got some bags of pasta and bottles of marinara sauce….we decided we could live on that for quite a while. We also picked up some Coca-Cola Light!!! We only got a few  because they are very expensive, but every medical student needs their caffeine! Our final stop was at the Artist Alliance Gallery which was amazing! We got some great locally handcrafted items.  We finally made it home around 6pm and we were wiped out.  Kim and I made pasta for dinner and played a few games of Phase Ten Dice.  We settled into bed around 9, but spent some time writing in our journals before calling it a night.  We were ready for a good night’s sleep and would be getting up early the next morning for the 7 am church service then a trip to the beach!!