Day 1 Overview

May 26
Accra, Ghana
Just before bed time.

We had our first day in Accra. We went to Accra mall. (Similar to mall in Bloomington except with palm trees). We bought a phone ($20). Went to Osu market and bought some "formal" African clothes for meetings ($18). We went to Internet Cafe for some quick blogging. Then strolled around the Kwami Nkrumah Circle market (a mile of open air vendors ). Then took taxi back to hotel to meet with our contact who is arranging for us to meet with insurance companies tomorrow.
All of this is cataloged in photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/africanjones2go/AfricaPics#
Enjoy!

Some observations along the way:

• People here are really helpful. Everyone was so willing to go out of their way to show us around, introduce us to people, and make sure we had a good experience.
• The taxi cab driver complimented us on our negotiating with him from his original offer to take us to town for 7 Cedis to 5 Cedis. He took us all around and was very helpful.
• Everything is fairly inexpensive.
• Many taxi drivers are from war torn countries (Ghana is very welcoming of foreigners and they can find employment easily as taxi drivers) but they don't know where anything is. (Bring a cell phone and a map).
• We heard American country and western music in the restaurants (the music world is definitely flat).
• They recycle everything (and even make goods from discarded materials) I hope you wont mind the potato chip bag coin purse as a present, and they are very energy conscious (with shutoff switches on every outlet).

Tomorrow is our first real day. Will have some substance to report back later.
Bye from Ghana.
Jim

Arrived In Ghana

Day 1-May 26
Dateline Accra, Ghana
We arrived in Accra last night around 8:30 p.m. local time. We are five hours ahead of folks at ISU. The plane from London was packed. I was surprised at how many people were actually wearing business suits and sports jackets, especially since we were heading to place where it was 90 degrees (at night).Most of passengers were African but there were a few Americans going there working on projects in Ghana. I sat next to a twenty-something guy who works for Open Society Institute that promotes transparency in government (Ghana is a leader in this),and behind me was an engineering student who had developed a way to make bikes from bamboo that have the tensile strength of carbon steel. He is trying to find an investor to actually build the bikes here and ship to U.S.Only a senior in college.
Horace and I arrived without difficulty at hotel. Nice place. Inexpensive by American standards. I am blogging from restaurant connected to hotel. It is all wireless. Answered my emails earlier this morning.Very easy. Will be heading to town to exchange money, buy a wireless phone, and then make a couple of contacts. Tomorrow will be first full day of meetings.Bye for now.
Jim