Day 30: Over & Out!

Reached Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad India @ 8:30pm.

It was a truly unforgettable experience. Never should you miss an opportunity to travel to that wonderfully vibrant continent called Africa!

*sigh*

Day 29: Emirates All the Way!

Today was our final day together. The day started with a de-brief about the program at breakfast. The 2 hour long de-brief was quite vital to learning about what each of us thought about the program, things that worked, things we’d like to change etc. Observing each person unique observations and perspective was interesting. Some of the key areas were echoed a few times but otherwise, most of us thoughts & experiences were unique to each of us.

Since I was the first one to leave with 5 pm flight, I rushed to finish my last minute packing and headed out of Holi Flats by 1pm to check in my luggage @ the airport. Ibrahim, the other driver, dropped me at the airport. The plan was to check in all my luggage & then head back to Holi Flats to spend some more time reading/blogging/talking to people before I boarded the flight at 4:30pm. I ran in with my luggage to the check in counter only to be sent to the customs guy for checking. The customs guy, was a big pleasant man in his late 40s. While checking my luggage, in a true Ghanian way(casually), he asked me whether I’d marry him! & I (in a true Ghanian way) responded with joke that I did in fact love the country! :)

After an almost emotional farewell with the rest of the Reachers, I came back to the airport to board my flight at 4:30pm. It was a long journey – 8 hours to Dubai + 10 hours in Dubai airport + 4 hours to Hyderabad, India.

Day 28: Goodbye Ofankor!

Today everyone seemed edgy with news of the ash cloud over Europe and flight cancellations on the rise. But apart from that, some of us were also super excited about our final sessions of all 3 projects: Women entrepreneur training; mentoring students @ Amasaman School & training teachers @ Amasaman school. The teams working on these projects were all geared up for their last session & we wanted to ensure we left with a *Bang!*

For the women entrepreneurs, Gopi, Olivia & I had planned a graduation ceremony. Our last module was mostly a recap of the last 3 weeks & some more gyaan on marketing & costing principles. Post the session, we got everyone to do the graduation walk (walk all the way to the back of the class & then march right to the front). Gopi added music to the ceremony. It was fun to see their excitement to see the Google T-shirts & certificates they received on graduation. One of the women – Navadis – was particularly animated and added some fun to the ceremony through exaggerated gestures.

Samuel, the TVN staff who organized these programs for us, had some good feedback to give about the women entrepreneur training (it was good to hear!). It was particularly rewarding to learn that some of the women have already started asking for their next load for the business to implement some of th ideas discussed during the training. I really hope one day they’ll be all able to achieve their dreams – provision store owner wanted to own a super market, a Yam seller wanted expand her business to include other products etc.

We said good bye to Ofankor where we’d come every week for our programs and started back to Accra by around 3:30pm. Yet another program completed.

We had our final team dinner @ Polo club. I feasted on shrimps!(not even the least exotic when compared to croc tail, but I’ll live)

Day 27: The last lap

I’d entered the last lap of this trip with just 3 more days to go. I must say I was anything but happy about this. 

Most of our programs were done and we were creating final presentations, metric measures & some basic hygiene work before wrapping up all t the programs. I had one more module of the women’s entrepreneur training left to deliver and some content to be sent to the Camfed staff – but otherwise was done with my stuff.

Everyone was much more laid back this week, with people planning on doing a detox on getting back, to-do list for the weekend ahead at our homes etc. I didn’t particularly want to do any of it – but there was 1 reason I wanted to get back – I’ve been off MAD for the longest time and wanted to get back to it. Barely got a chance to read those emails while here and a month off MAD seemed like much longer.

I spend the morning, doing some personal chores and then headed to office to prepare our final content for the Camfed folks, write up by post for the official Google Reach blog, check my flight details etc.

After office, we headed back to Holi Flats. Olivia and I (partners in crime) went to the Best Western Hotel right beside the hotel for a drink & some fast wi-fi to prepare for the Women’s Entrepreneur training tomorrow.

Day 26: Ada's beauty: I'm swept off my feet!

Beatrice, our local program coordinator & our right hand during this 1 month, had planned a day for us at her summer cottage in small town called Ada, about 3 hours from Accra. I wasn't too sure if I wanted to go as this was my last free day in Accra & was torn between wanting to explore the city & checking out this new beach town which was apparently really beautiful. I finally decided to go to Ada & now I'm so glad I did!


We all filed into the big blue van in which we had spent so many hours prepping, reading, eating, clicking pictures, sleeping/drooling(I'll always have a thing for big blue vans from now :P).  3 hours passed by quickly and before I knew it I was at Beatrice's cottage by the side of a lake. It was really beautiful, serene & calm. Definitely a great weekend getaway! 

As soon as we got there, the calmness of the place hit us & each of us found our tiny spot by the wooden shack where we just found our comfort in reading, just lying under the sun, staring into the horizon (pretending to be deep in thought - me!), talking about profound ideas (read: Gopi ;)) etc. All this topped with mouth watering food served by Beatrice was just too good to be true!

 About 2 hours later, we all got jumped onto the boat hired for the trip & set out to the 'undiscovered' island (at least I'd like to believe that!). The only way anyone could get there was on these boats. I'll never forget the breathtakingly beautiful beaches (read:white sand!), the small colorful cottages & the hundreds of tiny crabs that played 'catch-me-if-you-can' with the waves that crashed against the shore. I ran around collecting loads of shells (dunno, what I'm going to do with them now) and chasing crabs since I was sure they would run away as soon as I neared them.

After another session of staring into the horizon ( I was getting pretty good @ staring ;)), we started back to where the boat was waiting for us. This place reminded me so much of Kerala, India - all the coconut trees, the 'backwaterish' looking scenery - I could've easily fooled myself into thinking I was in Alleppey, Kerala instead of Ada, Ghana. :)

We soon started back to Accra. By now, I was convinced I had seen one of the most breathtakingly beautiful beaches in Ghana. 

Back in the city, we made plans to go out and stay out late as it was our last few days left in the country.

We hit Rhapsody's by 9:00 pm & went on to stay late at this really cool African pub called Afrodisiac!

The feeling of not wanting to leave this place was getting stronger... :|

Day 25: Last Saturday in Africa!

This was our last weekend in Ghana, so I planned to stay in Accra, do some shopping and to really 'go local'.

Oxford Street, Osu: Olivia, Megan, Mohit & I set out for Oxford Street in Osu to first get cash & to buy some Ghana football t-shirts. The road side shops on Oxford street sold all kinds of things from Ghana flags to small souvenirs to football t-shirts. Since this is a busy shopping area for expats, bargaining is a challenge. But we still got most of our stuff bargained down to half the price they first quoted - but we knew we were still paying too much. Estelle's way of looking at it was 'Oh well, atleast you're contributing to the local economy'. :) I guess a few extra cedis doesn't matter when you put it that way!

Tettah Quarshie Art Market: Bitten by the 'go local' bug, we decided to take a 'tro-tro' to our next destination - the Art Market. Tro-tros are minivans which is the only public transport in Accra apart from taxis. It was a delight travelling in a tro-tro after travelling mostly via taxis 'coz of how cheap it was. The minimum we've paid for a taxi is 5 cedis while in a tro-tro we paid only 45 pesewas to get to the Art Market!  @ the art market - the story was almost the same as last time - aggressive selling is what they know. They'll say good things about you, their product, about how they'd to give it as a gift for a 'small' amount etc are all sales tactics used. It was a rich experience to just stand around, take in the sight and observe how they try to get you to buy more. They're all one team and tries to make you buy as much as possible even if its not from their store. The market had some really amazing paintings & loads of very good wood carvings of masks, African symbols etc. It was very tempting to buy loads of stuff - just exactly what I did and burnt a hole in my pocket. :| (I was an easy task for the salesmen!) ;)

Team Dinner: It was time for our final team dinner with Estelle, Yens, Awo & Juliana - the Googlers that comprise of Google Ghana. Smitten with tro-tros, we took another tro-tro from the Art Market back to a restaurant called Monsoon on Oxford Street (the place I bought crocodile tail from!). We were almost tro-tro power users! :) The food was really good - it seemed as though each restaurant we went to was almost better than the other! Ghanians really know how to cook! :) 

Day 24: Action Packed Day: Camfed | Busy Internet | Accra High School | OrphanAid Mentoring

We were almost at the end of our programs and at the end of our last full week. *Damn!*

We started the day with our itenary well planned out - it was going to be sessions Busy Internet (biggest internet cafe in Ghana) & Camfed in the morning followed by OrphanAid mentoring & Accra High school sessions in the afternoon.

The girls from Camfed who we had trained yesterday would come to Busy Internet for some hands on sessions on the internet. We got their at 9:00 am . The next 2 hours was spent in getting them to send emails to each other, search for things on the internet - including image search, chat with each other etc. The girls got most excited when they  searched for 'Samuel' (their program coordinator) and found his picture - which resulted in them searching for each others names! Gmail themes was also a big hit & soon you could see all sorts of colorful Gmail inboxes. 

Alongside Camfed training, Gopi, Yannic & Mohit fielded any questions from the 'walk-in's to the internet, about Google's products and did their bit in reaching out to as many as possible. 

After the session, we had a quick lunch @ Office & the teams left for OrphanAid mentoring or to Accra High School. I was excited about this mentoring sessions as I loved working with college students and the group we were to mentor was just that!

Olivia, Megan & I got there 30 mins early so we started by general intro to get to know everybody & what they were doing. It was interesting to hear about their courses & their interests. One chap who evidently was an artist had painted his jeans all over - making himself a walking gallery of his artwork!  We used role plays to show them what a good and a bad interview looks like and they were very quick at picking up the points on what makes an effective interview. Then, we got a few volunteers from the participants to do the role play for the group and some of the questions they asked were very smart & interesting. (I've even added some of them to my list of interview questions) ;) 

Our 15 mins Q&A session stretched to almost 45 mins as their inquisitive minds tried to make maximum use of us being there.  Questions about 'How to sound convincing', 'How effectively answer specifically to the question asked' etc

Soon we were heading back after promises from them of working hard, of getting good jobs & of seeing us in Google! When we were heading for the session, we were quite tired but we left the place refreshed & excited about those students! After feasting on some really delicious kebabs they served on the street side - we headed back to Holi Flats.