We Have Friends!

Alan and I have slowly begun to feel like we are building a nice little group of friends here in Accra. I think I've forgotten how long it can take to really feel like you have a network of friends. Being in NYC for a number of years, I think I took for granted how wonderful it is to have such good friends around you all the time. It was a bit of shock to have my whole network taken away and to start over again. But after a week of fun social events, I think Alan and I finally were able to say, we have friends!

Monday last week was Alan's birthday so I organized a little birthday dinner for him at the "fancy" Italian restaurant here. We invited about 10 people and had a little party there. The waiters even sang Happy Birthday to him as they brought Alan's cake out (I of course made him his favorite - Red Velvet). We had a really nice time and had a lot of laughs.




Then on Tuesday, I met Uxoa, her husband Carlos, and their two cute girls. Uxoa is a good friend of my good friend, Fiona, who I know from NYC. They are all from Colombia and Uxoa and her family were just living in Kenya for 5 years and just moved to Accra for her husband's work. So Fiona put me in touch with them, sure that we'd all get along well. We were so excited for their arrival and just had a good feeling that'd we'd like them. Uxoa and I have been talking for the last few months preparing for her arrival so I felt like we already knew each other. So we gathered around their hotel pool and spent some time getting acquainted.

Wednesday and Thursday were full days for work for me at Chance for Children and even there I've made a few friends.

And then Friday, Uxoa and I spent most of the day looking for odds and ends she needs to set up her apartment. It's always fun setting up house and I've figured I'd do my best to help her quickly find what she needs. We had some success even though rain and Friday's heavy traffic delayed us a bit. Friday night was our usual Guinness work people pizza night at Mama Mia's...our favorite pizza place here. We laughed pretty much through the whole dinner as Alan and his work friend, Paul, engaged in non-stop banter...most of which is completely ridiculous 5th grade humor, but, nonetheless, very funny!

Today, we hosted a lunch for Uxoa, Carlos, and their children and our friends/neighbors Dyane and Antonio. Dyane is from the US and Antonio from Chile and we've really enjoyed them over the last few months. We reguarly do dinners with each other and they are usually the recipients of all the baked goods I'm making...lately lots of bagels. I'm kicking myself now because I totally forgot to bring the camera out today, so you'll just have to trust me that we had delicious tapas that I made and a full house of people! The girls had fun playing hide and seek while the adults chatted mostly in Spanish while I desparately tried to keep up with the conversation. We then took Uxoa, Carlos and the kids to the Accra Mall to see what it is all about. We did some shopping and exploring and then went back to their place for wine. They've just moved into a nice complex that has a cute backyard we wish we had at our place. So we attempted to sit outside to have a glass of wine, but soon started getting eaten by mosquitos and had to run back in to avoid the dreaded Malaria.

And tomorrow, there are more friend activities planned. We're headed to the beach to celebrate our New Zealand friend, Bek's birthday, along with her husband, Gregor, and some other families. Hopefully the weather holds out.

So, all in all, we're feeling pretty good about the friends we've managed to make and have just realized we had to be patient. We're looking forward to many more dinners, parties, and fun outings.