Foot prints

I have written numerous times here about trips I was supposed to be making to unusual and exotic places. Indeed my shelves have filled up with guidebooks I haven't yet had a chance to use. Due to all sorts of funding and logistical trouble everything had been pushed back and then further back. But finally the tides are changing!

Next month I am scheduled to make my first business trip. It is not to Russia, Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan. No, it is quite a different continent all together. I am scheduled to spend two weeks in February trotting around Accra, Ghana. Before you roll your eyes and think to yourselves "yeah right, we'll see about that": the arrangements have been made and I have my letter of invitation personally signed by a delegate of the Dutch consulate in Ghana already. What I need now is my visa and my shots. O yes, and some idea of what I am supposed to be doing there...

I will be travelling alone which is something I have not done on this scale before. I will be met at the airport (I assume!) but, after some initial introductions, it will be just me and the city. Of course I am very excited but I cannot deny I am also a bit scared. It's not a very tangible fear as I know next to nothing about Ghana, nothing either good or bad. I don't know if I am afraid to get lost, robbed or to simply find myself out of my depth. Whatever it is, I better get over it as this will not be my last trip alone. The next one has been scheduled as well.

In April or May I will at long last get to travel to Russia and then again in June. Astute readers may have picked up that by then the original 6 months that I had mapped out for this job will have long since passed. It took a while for the really good stuff to materialise but now that it is happening, I am not about to jump ship just yet. This is too good an opportunity to pass up on. I want my passport to look like this: