Day 2 - Welcome to Tamale

Finally...we are in Tamale! We flew in from Accra this afternoon and arrived at our hotel, the Radach Lodge, around 2pm. Thankfully, we have wifi so we will be able to blog every day during our journey! :) Just to introduce myself- My name is Lyssa, the honors and nursing student on this trip. I came last year with the group, and hopefully I can continue to come back with more nursing students!

After arriving in Tamale, we met Cosmos, our guide during this week. As we drove around he explained details about the town and showed us the taxi station, the educational ridge, the Tamale Stadium, and the largest mosque in Ghana. While we traveled through Tamale I noticed things look quite different from the southern region we were in. The roads have less traffic, there are mosques on almost every corner, and motorbikes, taxis, and bicycles are the way of transportation. This is quite different from our experience in Accra where the streets were crammed with cars and trucks! I noticed that there were not as many street sellers coming up to our van, which was a nice break since we had so many in Accra.

After unpacking at the hotel, we went to Swad's Fast Food for lunch. It is an outside restaurant with surprisingly quick service! We tried chicken marsala, mushroom lamb, jollof rice, vegetable curry, and (my favorite) potato chips. After lunch we went to the Tamale Children's Home where we we implement the engineering design project over the next week. We took a tour of the property and looked at how the polytanks were holding up from last year and double checked our design plans since this is the first time most of us have seen the place in person.

One thing I noticed that made me very happy was the road improvements on the streets leading to the home. Last year the road to the children's home was only narrow enough for our bus to fit through, but this year it has been widened and drains have been put in alongside it. Cosmos told us that it will eventually be paved! Another big improvement I saw was a garbage can out in front of the home which is actually being used! This is something we were pushing for last year since trash is a very serious issue for the children.

So, while the engineers were assessing the property, some of the honors students and I went in to the nursery to check on the children. Several of them from last year have returned home to their fathers, but there are many new infants and toddlers in the nursery. They were all enthusiastic and excited to see us!

Well it's off to bed for now...tomorrow is going to be another adventure as we begin to work on the project and start to see all of the past year's hard work fall into place. :)