Mondo's volunteers in Ghana

It is common to fall ill during your deployment. Within the two months in Ghana, It has happened to me twice. First I received the symptoms of a cold. I  was celebrating my first week in Ashaiman with a constant runny nose and a symphony of coughing. The second was a stomach infection that took me straight to a hospital. First Symptoms It all started one evening when I was having dinner at home. Suddenly I didn't have any appetite. Even the simplest fried yam on my plate made me feel nauseous. I assumed I'm simply exhausted from previous days so called it for an early night. Before falling asleep I took my temperature, just out of interest. It was 37,2. "Okay, let's see what the morning brings," I said to myself and tried to fall asleep. Well, what the morning brought me was definitely not a rest. My night passed by giving multiple visits to the toilet (diarrhea - of course!), constantly adding layers to stop chills, and seeing strange dreams. Finally, around 4 AM...

They say that the first month of the deployment is usually the most chaotic. And coming from my experience - amen, it's true.   Culturally my month has been quite impressive and colorful. I've attended a funeral, a wedding, a church service, seen a local football match, visited a local school, and well.. taken into a hospital due to bad street food (the famous jollof). I'm glad that in a short time I've experienced so many different (and mostly fun) aspects of Ghanaian life, so this eases the slight pain I've had with getting used to local meals, constant attention on the streets, understanding the local English accent, and working on my tasks. Hello tasks my old friends Obviously, I knew my tasks before arriving in Ghana. But one thing is to have them on paper, the other is their accordance with reality. You may be hired as a Financial Officer in the EU volunteer program, but in reality, you travel to another country to be a secretary and buy stuff for the office....