Flight to Accra

On Wednesday Jan. 14th I flew to Accra. We left early because heavier than normal traffic (for a Wednesday) was expected.
But it went smoothly and we arrived at Schiphol quite early, around 8:00AM
Departure time of my flight was 11:45AM

I was kind of tired when I got up that morning .... my dad was admitted to hospital on Tuesday. He seems to have a food poisoning/virus but I am not sure about that yet. An examination in still going on...
So I went to see him on Tuesday evening, which was good. And afterwards I still needed to do some packing....

The mystery of the locked suitcase ...

Another thing was my suitcase would not open. It is a hand-me-down and we did not see it has a combination lock (3 numbers). And somehow it got locked LOCKED :-) and we did not know the code
So Albert Jan tried a lot of possible combinations and I already said goodbye to my suitcase in my mind.....
After trying more than a hundred combinations he found THE ONE.

So we checked in and I did some shopping. I wanted some small, really Dutch presents and I needed some alcohol wipes.
A lot of walking at Schipholv... to the bathrooms, to Etos, to HEMA and to the restaurant upstairs for coffee. 
Made a phone call to ANWB because I found the insurance policy  unclear.
And finally we said goodbye and I went through customs. Got a phone call when I had taken off my shoes and all my stuff was on the conveyor belt...

Off to London

The flight to London was great. It got nice and sunny as soon as we flew above the sea. Who says it's always raining cats and dogs in the UK? The weather was awesome.

I got out and went through customs at Heathrow. That was a bit hectic and tense. A lot of people standing in line, putting all liquids from their hand luggage into a plastic bag, and waiting .... I was afraid to lose stuff... like my boarding pass or even worse: my passport or wallet.

But that went well and I started traveling to the correct gate, which was quite a trip, a walk, an elevator, a train and another walk, that's what I remember. Took about 20 minutes. Got myself a coke from a machine, threw in euros and got UK pounds back.
I felt thirsty, hot and dirty... While everybody else, mainly African, who was waiting for boarding looked very clean and neat to me...

Flight to Accra

The flight to Accra was good too. They had special gluten free meals for me on board and I was always served first. Sometimes having a diet is an advantage :-)
We had to fill in 3 cards, one about duties, one arrival card and a form about health. Due to Ebola. So everybody was writ.ing for quite some time. 
It took about 6,5 hours to get to Accra. When I got out of the aircraft the heat immediately struck me. The air was hot and not clean, due to the harmattan.

We were driven to the airport by train. People were being really nice. They smiled at me and started talking because they saw I felt very WARM

The first line was in in front of a table where an employee was checking your health form and taking a picture.
At the next counter my passport and visa were checked. The officer asked me what I was in Ghana for so I mentioned FARA and it was OK. Then off to collect my luggage. That took some time but picked up the suitcase. Talked to a Canadian girl who came to Ghana for volunteer work. Her backpack was not there yet and she did not know who was going to pick her up so I said: We will go through customs together and if nobody is there for you my friend Yemi will know what to do.

VIP treatment

But suddenly I was called by an officer and he told me to come with him. A lady had recognized me. I did not quite understand but he said there was no problem, not at all.
We went all the way back and it came out I got a kind of VIP treatment. An employee from FARA got through customs and was looking for me, to pick me up!

After a few minutes a lady called Patience showed up and she took me to Customs and there was Yemi! That was so kind.
Customs was no problem at all, I told the officer what I was carrying and he let me through without even looking through my stuff.We went straight to a comfortable air conditioned car with driver ... which was nice, because I felt hot and thirsty.
I immediately sensed how nice, helpful and calm Ghanian people are.
Felt at home immediately. Good vibes here.

Airport region

The part of Accra where I am now, the airport region, feels like a modern African town with an American and sometimes a Jamaican touch.
That is the best way to describe it. The roads are not too busy and the traffic not chaotic. There are many modern buildings and also many stands on the side of the roads where you can buy food, pots and so on. You see people carrying stuff in bowls on their head. Looks like a very modern Africa, very different from Nigeria in 1990.
We went to a Shell Gas Station to buy some food. They had - among other things - Jägermeister there.
Employees are always saying Hello, how are you?  when you enter a shop... so different from the Netherlands.

Yemi's house is comfortable, large, clean and bug free. Don't need any mosquito net here. It has a swimming pool too. 

Cold in Africa ...

But no time for swimming, I got a tour through the house, drank a lot of water and went to bed. 
Slept in an air conditioned bedroom. It got really cold during the night and I was too sleepy too remember how to turn off the airco and fan, so I needed warm pyjama's and a blanket and was still feeling cold.