Preparations

All good assignments are written the night before, somebody once told me. I personally find the mere thought of writing a sensible 2000 word essay within 24 hours of the deadline is enough to raise my blood pressure significantly - I am not a natural risk taker. There is truth in the saying that one uses the time that is available, and it is true that many hours could have been saved by me had I left things later to organize, but I do think that on this occasion I took that lesson a bit far....

I enrolled in Cross Cultural Solutions (the organization sending me to Africa) within days of the cut off (presumably because this is the absolute minimum amount of time that planning will take). I spent large amounts of money on enrollment and flights and the privilege of being jagged repeatedly with needles - in the same spot where the bruise remains from the week before. And I began a course of tablets that give you indigestion and can apparently compromise your sanity. Then I stuck my passport in the post and prayed that my visa would arrive in time.

 "God is never too late" I was told reassuringly. And more alarmingly a minute later... "He is never too early either". Funnily enough it was the second half of this piece of wisdom that kept me calm as I half expected my visa to arrive, in true essay style, within 24 hours of the deadline. Thankfully God did not heed this advice and I received my passport and visa over a week before I needed it.

Then I set about the trivialities. This had me learning how to sew a buttonhole via step by step instructions from my mother over the phone (mum, I still haven't done this yet!), phoning from the camera shop to find out what kind of camera I own (yes I have had this camera for a long time but it might be worth pointing out that I have yet to set the time and date properly so that it doesn't keep resetting itself) and writing my will in case, as my father delicately put it, I get eaten by a lion.

Items such as a Ghanian travel guide, local currency and mosquito repellant have so far been neglected. I did however, as I might have gloated about afterwards, go into a bookshop and buy 3 books in the space of 10 minutes without any prior decision making time. I believe that even people with a natural ability to make decisions could be pardoned for the inability to make this claim.

I spent this afternoon running (yes, really running) around town trying to find a post office or bank or in fact any other institution that might have any idea how best to access ones finances in Ghana without spending them in the process. Having waited in line at several post offices and watched several different members of staff read the travel card instructions and wonder aloud about the charges and tell me they only had euros and dollars and they didn't know which one they used in Ghana, I had given up. Trusty old visa then....