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 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. 

Day 23: Consulting Project - Camfed All the Way!

After a successful event yesterday, my confidence was running high on being able to deliver a useful session for the Camfed staff - 6 girls who were Camfed beneficiaries and who have now taken up the responsibility of running ICT centers in the north of Ghana.  

By now, we were running on auto mode for 'Go!' 'Go!' 'Go!'.This week has been the busiest by far & most busy for Olivia & I.  Though we were still reeling from the high intensity event yesterday, we were looking forward to meeting the girls. Most of them had traveled long - all the way from Tamale, a town north of Accra - to attend the training. Both of us wanted to make sure their travel worthwhile.


By 9:00 am we reached the Camfed office to find the girls already up & waiting for us. We got everyone to introduce themselves, their favorite food (it always excites people here), and what they'd like to learn today. It was interesting to notice how excited the girls were about the training and we were glad that most of what they wanted to learn was a part of our agenda for the day! :)


We started by introducing them to the internet & Google search. 15 minutes into the session, we noticed a few blank stares & confused expressions. That's when we got the cue that a lot of what we were telling them were way too advanced for them to grasp. Having made changes to our plan on the fly several times earlier during our women entrepreneur training, we quickly scaled back to start with simple concepts like what was a browser, how to exit, minimize/resize a browser, the functions available on the keyboard etc. By noon, the girls knew how to get to Google.com, search for something & when done to close the browser. This was a big achievement for them and it was very satisfying to see the sparkle in their eyes every time they got it right!


We all went out to have a quick Ghanian lunch right across from Camfed's office. As usual I ordered Jellof rice (yes, I've fallen in love with jellof! ;) ). Olivia, being the brave one, tried Banku this time 'coz we'd heard so much about it, but by the way she was pecking at it - it was evident she didn't particularly like it. :P


Post noon, it was time for us to introduce the BIG one - Gmail! We spent the next hour setting up Gmail accounts for all of them. A concept that seems so obvious & simple to us like what an email address is took us about 30 minutes to make the group understand. We caught ourselves using offline analogies to explain these  concepts. For example, email id = their address online just the way their home address was their offline address. We even did a small role play of how an email/letter goes from one computer to the next.It was fun! The most interesting was explaining what a 'Security Question' or a 'Password' is to this group who've possibly just spent only a few hours their entire life on the internet.  

By 5:00 pm, they were animatedly sending emails to each other and got excited every time received an email from their friend sitting across the table. By then it was already clear that some of them were quick in learning technology as they were doing all kinds of searches like Image search & playing videos on Youtube etc while a few others were still trying to get their head around how to get to Google search without support. The usual learning gaps in a class began to appear & made it obvious that technology wasn't for everyone - some people just got it and they were a pro at it in no time! while for some others... it takes a while.


We left the office feeling satisfied with our power packed day. The girls had come a long way from not knowing what a browser was to owning email ids & sending emails to each other. One of the my most satisfying days thus far. Wish I could've stayed longer to ensure they knew the concepts well enough to be able to train people coming to the IT centers.


The rest of the Reachers had spent the day teaching at a Liberian refugee camp. I hear their sessions went really well too. :)

Day 12: The Art Market

 It was cloudy Sunday morning. I woke up early to go for a jog - yes, I was getting fat. :| Got so engrossed in the rare workout session , that I missed breakfast! :(

Headed out to the 'Art Market' at 11 am to check out African handicrafts. They had some really interesting stuff but their sales strategy is very 'in your face'. As soon as we got into the market, we were just surrounded by men trying to sell their items. They're just too pushy in making you buy their item - which backfired mostly coz half the group could not endure more than 15 mins of it & left the market. Since, I acted like an equally poor person from India - I guess I didn't get haggled as much. Found some really interesting stuff - in the meanwhile, a one of the sellers got too friendly & started introducing me to the rest as his new lover & wanted my email id!!! It's just a Ghanaian thing I guess, but this overly fake friendliness is slightly beginning to getting to me. :|

  The ATM Incident:

After an exhausting morning - coz it was really hot and humid outside and multiple trials to get some cashout, I finally located the ATM that was accept my debit card. Hopeful that I can finally get some cash, I put my card in only for it to get sucked in and there 'no response'! I just stared at the machin willing it to do something and hoping not to panic (that card was my only source of cash for the rest of the trip). After 2 mins of waiting, I walk up to the lone security guy standing descretely at the corner to find out what my options were. And he said in the most casual of tones 'Well, you wait 10 minutes'. I tried not to look flabbergasted at his careless response - so I tried again to find out if there's a plan B if the card didn't come out in 10 mins, but the security seemed convinced that after 10 mins it would just magically come out.

I waited impatiently for the next 15 mins & wow! the screen moved to step 2. In my hope that it's finally working - I tried to enter pin and there! It got stuck again. It finally struck me that that each step of the cash withdrawal process took 10 freakin' minutes to process!!! It was the quite stressful - and then you just learn to let go and expect so much less. For eg, having your bed made by the cleaners is a delight in the flat vs an expectation. You learn to appreciate the small things in life.. like the way I was overjoyed when I could finally got my debit card out of the machine!!...and in a strange way - I like it! :)

The rest of the evening - I worked on getting my blog up. Enjoy!