Adventures with my rucsac: If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom, Confucius

Three months after touch down in Accra and it was time to set myself a new challenge – new job! The first day was like being the new kid at school, dressed smartly, hair brushed (only big days see the hairbrush come out) and nerves if I would be able to find my way to the office and be there on time. I had gotten horribly lost on my way to the interview and had arrived 30 minutes late, dusty and sweaty – not a mistake to be repeated again.

So what can I say of week one? Well, it has been a fast introduction, but so far so good.

A couple of days have been spent planning for some research with female sex workers, who we have a project with in James Town. James Town is the oldest part of Accra, a fishing community filled with crumbling old colonial buildings, in between the many markets, makeshift houses and open sewers. Just a 20 minute minibus ride away and you can be in the newly built shopping mall in the centre of town, but it feels as if you could be hundreds of miles away.

The community centre on the beach front in James Town where a lot of activities with the community here take place. Drop in and you will find women with babies on their back playing ball, teenagers practicing a drama or young guys drumming and singing.

James Town lighthouse - a beacon for lost boats and lost foreigners!

I also had the opportunity to travel to Suhum, in Eastern region, about 2 hours away on a very bumpy half-built road squished on a trotro. It is a small town whose economy is mainly centred on quarrying and cocoa, and the small town centre has the feel of nothing much happening apart from the dusty wind. In the (as always) grand local government building, my new colleague was leading a training sessions for peer educators from community organisations. The aim is to train up community peer educators who will then go back to their communities armed with knowledge, the ability to refer people to health services in their area and condoms to sell. Although the HIV rate is low compared to many sub-Saharan African countries (1.5% in Ghana, compared to 4.9% across sub-Saharan Africa), rates of other STIs is high, as is teenage pregnancy.