New Entrant Planning

Wednesday, July 8th.

Obed and I were up early and off for breakfast. Then we hung around and organized our stuff before going back to watch Marie and Diane in the pool. Eric picked us up at 9:30 and took us to the GNAT offices. We met in a different meeting hall from last year and had a brief meeting where we were introduced to all the GNAT people and the co-tutors. I introduced the Canadian teams to them. There were many familiar faces and it was nice to be recognized and remembered by them. Ernest introduced me as a Ghanadian. Then we went to our 'Youth Group' or 'New Entrant' Program planning room (same as Cameron's last year) and listened to an introduction by Thomas Musah, our course director. The other group met in the resource centre and began to work with their co-tutors under the supervision of Ernest Assamoa.

Thomas Musah and Thomas Baafi gave us the timetable of classes and their input before leaving us to plan our roles. We discussed what we wanted to do and what role each of us would take. Obed, Pascale and Vanda all have much more experience leading workshops than I do, so I think we are in good hands.

Then Thomas came back and took us down for lunch which was the usual fare of chicken or fish and rice or banku. We spent the afternoon in our room doing some more planning before Diane and Eric came to get us to go to the ForEx to change our US$ into Ghana cedis. The ForEx was a little, hot, hole in the wall. We got a rate of 3.4 which I think is low because of the Greek economic problems. I changed $4000US and walked out with a big pile of bills. Then we went back to GNAT to pick up the others and be measured for our union clothing. The women are going to get extra clothing made too. When we were driving around Eric met and introduced us to his wife and son.

Back at the Coconut Grove we hung around the pool and had a drink. Bonnie and I were the only ones in the water. We had dinner outside before gathering around the pool again for a couple of beer. Diane, Marie, Brenda and I were the last off to bed about 11:00.