About our arrival

Joe here: Here's what I had written earlier, read it as my first post from Ghana:

Upon landing in Accra, we were taken by charter bus to the main Peace Corps office very close to the airport. We 73 trainees sat beneath tents and a 'sun hut' in the rain for self-introductions by PC staff and an arrival blessing by local religious figures. One priest stood gesturing a primative looking shot glass back and forth while speaking rapidly in foreign tongue, the words "Obama' and "Peace Corps" interspersed. After the ceremony we were bused to Valley View University on the outskirts of Accra. We spent day and night on the campus getting to know our fellow trainees and Ghanaian trainers. One night a talent show was put on, and I am proud to say that I am part of a very entertaining group of singers, musicians, dancers, and comedians. To say more about our group, we span about forty birth years with Hallies and mine among the most recent and three in the 1940s. We are scientists with higher degrees, artists and art teachers, mechanical engineers, farmers, a cowboy, a somelier, a former marine, a couple repeat Peace Corps volunteers, and more. On a different occasion, the teachers in the group, led by a couple Ghanaian PC staff, took a tro-tro from Valley View to a nearby market to practice some few Twi phrases: Way-yeh dee-en (What is this?), Sen, sen? (How much?). Being the first time, aside from the airport, that we 'obronis' had ventured out into public, sensing the staring adults, the giggling children, and the sunscreen-stinking trainees, I couldn't help but have the realization "Whoa, I'm really in Ghana."