Twenty four hours of change management

I do know that here, in Accra, Ghana it is 1:35 AM but it sure doesnt feel like it.  We left CCA head office in Ottawa promptly at 3:30 PM Friday and, through a series of blessings we caught all connections and arrived in Accra at 8:40 PM tonight.  People definitely are wondering what their body time is, Ontario?  Home province?  London (from our layover in Heathrow today)?  Not sure, but I'm still up.

When you arrive here the heat and dust hit you like a brick wall.  The sands of the desert blow into this city in the dry seaon and you can litereally feel it on your body!  It was a balmy 25 C when we arrived, and my hotel room at the Paloma is registering a little higher than that (although I can hear a fan going phew!)

The people are patient here,  The plane we came in on had 300 people on it.  We touched down a little after 8:30 PM and it was after 10 when all of our luggage arrived on the belt.  Then there was a queque of us waiting to declare at customs, we all had made a big loose circle around the one little gate you go through (then you move into spaces that are opened up by unwitting customers to move a little ahead) which took another half hour (I delcared some duty free stuff, which, according to the card should have put me in another line but they took the card without looking at it.  Being honest I walked up to an inspector and told her I had things to declare, she asked if the officer had told me to come to her and when I said "no" she smiled and said "then you are free":)  There were so many people throughout this customs process moving into line ahead of others, skipping ahead because they didn't have a cart, and guess how many irritated comments I heard? 

One.  Mine.  It was in my head.  The rest of this group of people waited patiently for this process most of them smiling and talking.  I actually hung my head when I was beside a gentleman who was quietly singing a nice song. I probably looked at him with a little irritation and he smiled back.  "You go ahead of me," he said. 
"And welcome to Ghana."

I wonder who is going to learn from who on this adventure.