Leaving Leverett for Amsterdam & Accra

As I packed for Liberia (warm weather clothes, rain gear, sunblock, sandals), I was simultaneously moving out of my room at Leverett House because sprinklers are being installed over the summer.

On the day of my departure, as is my nature, I still had much to do: pack for Liberia, pack up Leverett belongings, check in online for my flight, return library books, buy gifts, buy a camera, get new glasses, get my health letters & yellow fever verification & malaria meds from the doctor, say goodbye to a few friends and students, and… receive my passport and visas from the Liberian and Ghanaian consulates in DC!! (The photo, of my partially packed room, is the first taken with my new digital camera.)

Miraculously, it all got done, and I was off — first to Amsterdam, then to Accra. I had a sad 5-hour layover in Amsterdam and then flew to Accra, Ghana. The sunset on the way there was beautiful, especially over the Volta River.

I spent the night in Ghana at the house of my former Peace Corps Supervisor, Dave McNally and his wife Julianna White, with their beautiful children, Aaron and Grace. I was greeted in Ghana with a soccer sign—and little Aaron was playing with his beloved soccer ball every moment he had the chance. Indeed, soccer was to make quite an impression my first weekend in Africa…