Well, I made it.  Touched down last Saturday evening, and pretty much breezed through.  The apartment is great, the staff is attentive to all our needs.  They make us feel like royalty, even though we really haven’t done anything towards the mission yet – unless you count training and getting here in one piece.  The Ghanaians are a very polite, welcoming people.  After all they’ve been through over the years of colonialization, slave trade, dictatorship and resultant poverty, they are more charitable than I could ever be.

No matter how many times I do it, going through customs always gives me the heebie jeebies.  I don’t do anything illegal (I think).  But sometimes, I’m  just not sure.  The guy started asking a bunch of questions.  Nothing to really get alarmed about, but quite a few, whilst staring at the 4 huge suitcases and backpack bulging at the seams.  I told him I am working with Stanford SEED, coaching companies to transform and grow.  He immediately smiled and proudly said, “I have a business!”  He’s the owner of Tasty Catering, and wanted to know how to get into the program.  Ice broken.   I now have a friend in the Customs and Immigration Department.

Most of the people have two or more businesses.  The entrepreneurial spirit is very strong throughout Ghana.  For example, Melissa, who’s been guiding us, or more accurately, wrangling this 10-legged critter around West Africa, has a couple:  Managing Director of a family run hotel, co-owner of Valley Fresh water company, and her work with SEED.  These are all very hands-on enterprises.  Being the person at the top generally means continual training and reinforcement of some basic work procedures all the way up and down the organization.

I’ve got just a couple of pictures of the apartment for this post.  There will be more as I get caught up.  The first few days were focused on getting settled, finding proper stores, the mall, and getting the proper documents in order.  The trip to FIMS, the Foreigner Identification Management System, was such a pleasant field trip for the team.  This was where we got our foreign identity cards.  Think DMV with a lot more smiling and courtesy.  They are big on fingerprint scans here, just like at the airport.  All ten fingers, and a bonus index finger scan for kicks.  My favorite was labeled “Living Detector.”  The lights turned green for me, and since I got out of there with my card, I must be living!

What I saw when I walked in. Except the laptops, which had to go up first. Priorities, you know.

Nice bed, spacious living area. Blank walls. I’ll get right on that.

The bathroom. You can pretty much guess what’s inside. That’s me behind the flash in the mirror.