Dear family, friends, and general blog browsers,

So if you know me, you have probably heard me talk about my summer trip to Ghana this summer more than let's say a few times. You have heard me complain about the slow process of becoming prepared but have also seen me jump up and down from all the excitement that I cannot contain within me at times.

Below is a little description of what it is I will be working on oversea in Ghana:

Along with my partners Jessica Barker and David Marmor will be working with a solid waste management (SWM) company called Zoomlion which is currently the largest SWM company in Ghana. We are scheduled to work on two projects, the first one will be on a plastic recycling inventory - what plastics are used in the country and what the facilities are like to recycle them and the second one is working at the Korle Bu teaching hospital to categorize the waste being produced.

Continuing on.... I would like to get started on where I stand with everything related to this trip ....with the fact that there is only 21 dayssssss until departure time, which means I've got 21 days to actually wrap my head around that fact that I AM Going. Apparently all the planning/work that I have done so far for preparing myself for this trip has not been enough, at least not mentally. When it comes to every other way of being prepared however, I must say I am ready to go. From booking flights, getting vaccinated, travel insurance, passport application, organizing fund raising events to budget preparing and still on going work I must admit I still feel as if I wont be leaving in a long while from now, even though I will be leaving in TWENTY ONE days!

And the part that I find most interesting is that, due to the fact that I have such a vague picture of what life would look like 9452.19 kilometers away ( distance between Canada and Ghana), I keep on trying to picture life here.... without me. I definitely will not be going to Windsor to my family and I definitely will not be spending my late summer afternoons at Windsor's good old river front like I do every summer since I've started university.

And as for how I picture life in Ghana.. well.....the painted picture in my head is currently too good to believe. Me being in a different continent, country, city, with my parents being in peace (inside joke only some people will understand it) and be doing the kind of work that is of greatest value to me is just too much to ask for. And by work I don't just mean working with Zoomlion, I mean what I get to do since the time I would wake up in the morning to the time I go back to sleep (may or may not include me being very sick, hot and sweaty, me missing everyone terribly) !


I am going to end my second post here, I am noticing that I've been talking generally about everything and not specially about one topic. Maybe I should start posting material based on themes or specific topics, if you have any suggestions on how I should do this please let me know. I am very new to this and I feel like I need to talk about everything.

Also, I feel very awkward writing my thoughts away on this blog and having it fully exposed to the world but I am already starting to get over this fact.

I am hoping not only this blog allows me to enhance my communication skills but also provide some sort of reliable insight on what the process of traveling to Western Africa and working on development projects will be like.

Kate

ps: for those of you that do not know me, my full name is Katayoon Pejman, my first name means planet Venus in Persian and was apparently the name of one of the greatest queens in the Persian history. I love the connection between the meaning behind my name and the word Ghana which means the "land of warrior king", just a little side note.