Yah man!

Okay so hi again. So I left the airport and came out of baggagge to heaps of people downstairs holding signs with hotels or names of people on them. I searched for mine but couldnt see anything and was sent to the information booth. They then informed me that anyone with a pickup has to report to information and no one had come for me yet.(It was already about 8.30pm and my flight arrived at 7.30) I started to get a tad worried and no one was answering the only contact number I had..ahh After about 15 minutes of sitting in the information booth really getting nowhere I decided to walk outside and see if someone was perhaps out there waiting for me. There was this big long baracade fence with shitloads of ghanians standing behind it watching everyone leave the airport, some were taxi drivers trying to get business, some had signs and some were just having a squizz. I was starting to stress at this stage and begun to frantically peer closely at all the the pieces of paper hoping there would be something with my name on it. suddenly I see the funky looking dude with dreds holding up a sign saying VANIKA AUSTRALIA! close enough! I just hugged him straight away, I was so happy. His name was Koffi and he is a performer/drummer from cape coast from asanti music theatre which is where I am starting in ghana and will do some lessons etc. He is a kool guy, very helpful and says YAH MAN all the time which is funny as. We got in a cab and caught it out to a tro-tro station in accra. It was hot and wet at this stage but I was just so pumped trying to soak everything in. accra is the main capital so it is quite established but there is just so much variety, everywhere you look something is going on. This was a sunday night at about 10pm and there was a market still going. Woman with big bowls balancing on their heads, and young rowdy men screaming shit in fanti (a local language here) and people sleeping on doorsteps. so many taxis and buses everywhere. We hopped into a parked tro-tro which was going directly to cape coast and waited. i think we waited 2 hours in that thing. The way they work is you pay your fare then you just sit and wait for them to fill up before you leave...no matter how long it takes. (Tro-tros are any form of transport which isnt a taxi, so they are like different kinds of mini-busses which will take you anywhere. ) When we hopped on there were only 2 other people in it, so we had to wait for about 10 more people to come aboard before we could even leave! Apparently they are usually quite fast but because this was direct and it was a wet sunday we had the short end of the stick in regards to numbers. Compared to people back in melbourne cracking the absolute shits at Connex if their train is 5 minutes late this accepted norm was pretty amazing to see. We bought these frozen yoghurt things from one of the men selling them outside our tro-tros window. They have these glass carts with a little candle in them and they open them up and there are frozen yoghurts in a cabinet underneath for you to buy. There are also people who have the yoghurts in a glass case on their head, and some on bikes. These guys hover around the main streets and parked tro-tros trying to make a living. Anyway after sitting around listening to gospel reggae, talk back and mariah carey on late night ghana radio we were full up and off. Took ages to get to cape coast and koffi dropped me at this little place where I was staying. It was very late and dark by this stage so he said he would come for me in the morning and show me around. My room is green walls with a bed in the right hand corner, that's it. Its simple and clean though and tehre is a fan. I set up my mosquito net and listened to all the sounds outside before drifting off to sleep. There were heaops of roosters making cocka-doodle doo sounds at like 1am which was rather random. I was woken up at about 5-5.30am by some man singing something in a different language. All I know it was terribly off key, he had a microphone and it was fucking early. He repeated this every 20 minutes and the roosters were going beserk. I could hear people outside but had no idea where I was and who they were so I was a bit hesitant to even come out of my room. By about 6.30 I was wide awake and opened my door to my new family. Straight away there were these ghana boys about 16-20 who said hello ansd welcomed me. I was shown to a toilet. I cant even explain this shit its so surreal but I totally embraced it and loved it. There is like all these little rooms around a sort of courtyard area. There are bucket showers and a drop toilet around the back. From what I can gather some of them are related some are just friends but they all live in this little establishment called antien? The main lady gave me the fanti name abbana (spelling) and they have all started calling me that. I helped them cook breakfast by faning the fire and I was invited to eat with some of the kids. this dsalty dough stuff with these little fish still with heads all shrivelled and sauce. It was hard to stomach for breakfast but didnt taste too bad. I have to finish here which sucks because I have already been on for an hour but I think i will pay for another and finish off because there is so much to say. Its so hard to pronounce peoples names let alone remember them. But I know how to say How are you? Im fine, im good! OSTEN DAN BUKKAW OHH YEAHH hahah it sounds better when they say it but mmm.. my little aunty (cant remember her name) always jsut says ABBANNNAA OSTEN DAN SOMETHING..and Im like OHHH YEAA (which means im fine) the kids are so cute and they are so nice. aunty lady wants to do my hair for me tomorow and they are going to take me to cape coast castle. koffi rocked up after a few hours and we headed into town.