WEEK OF FIRSTS by Emily Scarvie

Week one of our trip was all about exploring Ghana.  We traveled around various parts of Accra, visiting markets and landmarks, learning to bargain, and getting to know one another.  We spent the first weekend in Elmina, getting to experience the beautiful coastline, rainforest, and the sobering reality of the slave castles of the transatlantic slave trade.

Week two has been a completely new experience.  This week we started our internships and embarked on our five-week adventure into living like Ghanaians.  On Monday, we left the house around 8:30am with everyone on either the bus or van, ready for our internships.  As we dropped each person off, I realized we were getting closer to mine, and I was SO nervous.  At this point in time I had no idea what to expect, what they’d have me doing, how often I’d be able to write for them, and if they let me write, would I be able to without much context on the way certain things (government, economy, etc.) function here.  We arrived at my internship last and it felt like I was saying goodbye to my parents on the first day of kindergarden; I wanted to say “please don’t leave me.”  But the people at Today were very welcoming and showed me where I’d be working for my time here. Day one was pretty uneventful (which was expected), I was introduced to the team and given the task of writing an article on my first week in Ghana.  I was excited that they were already giving me the opportunity to write for the paper, which I had really been hoping for.  I sat at my desk, observing the interactions between my coworkers and trying to put into words my first impressions of Ghana from the week before.

One of my biggest concerns before coming to Ghana was figuring out how I was going to get to and from work every day, or more simply put, the tro-tro.  I had heard all of these horror stories of students getting on the wrong one and ending up an hour away or getting completely lost.  Before our first week of work, I hadn’t even attempted to ride one, though we had seen them around the city.  I kept telling myself I was just going to Uber or take a cab home on my first day, but the end of the day came and my boss told me that their driver would be taking me to the nearest tro-tro stop.  Basically, I had no way out.  I was considering ordering an Uber but I kept saying to myself, “you know what Emily, if you don’t figure this out now you never will and you’ll spend the whole trip paying for Ubers.”  After driving for a bit and asking various drivers where they were going, we found a tro-tro that was going to my stop.  I hesitantly boarded, with no idea where I was going or where I was supposed to get off.  But surprisingly, I really enjoyed it.  When I first got in, it was just me, the driver, and the mate.  They started speaking to me in Twi and I actually understood it!  I was able to have a short conversation with them and it was so fun (and they seemed to think it was funny).  As more people got on, I got a little nervous about knowing when it was my stop and how I was going to get off when it was (these things are packed full of people).  I asked the girl next to me if she knew where my stop was and she was so kind to me.  She and a couple others told me they would tell me when it was my stop so I wouldn’t miss it.  It ended up taking about an hour to get home because of traffic, so I was able to just sit back and take in the city.  When we got to my stop, they let me off and I walked the two blocks to get home.  An experience I had been so terrified of had turned into the best part of my day.

Throughout the week my internship started to give me more tasks, which I was excited about.  I wrote the article on my first impressions of Ghana and was given a full page for it, picked international and Africa news stories to display on their respective pages, started writing an article on gender in Ghana, and went on assignment to the British Council to report on an insurance panel event.  Going out on assignment was exciting because I was ready to get out of the office, but I was really nervous.  They gave me a brief description of the event I was attending but all I really knew was that it was an insurance symposium to celebrate 25 years of the company.  We arrived at the British Council right on time and were given water and escorted to our seats.  I felt a little uneasy sitting there taking notes the whole time (no one else was) but it was necessary.  I made note of everyone’s name, who said what, what positions people held, etc.  After the event we were driven back to the office and I was given the task of writing an article on the event.  Thanks to my very descriptive notes, this came pretty easily and I was able to finish in a couple hours.  In the paper the next day they had posted my article and the photo I had taken at the event.  I was really excited and took two papers from the office to keep; I’m still not over seeing my name written at the top of a published story.  Week two was coming to an end and I had already written two published articles for Today (and mastered the tro-tro).