Saturday is Beach Day!

Entry 3 21/10/2013

Beach Day!

Hey everyone!  On Saturday, The Achiase Children’s home went to the beach for the first time since I’ve been here.  The kids get super excited because the do not often get to leave the compound!  Mr. Sam owns a trotro, so we took two trips and he drove everyone from the orphanage out to Winneba Beach, where we spent the afternoon.  Bear in mind that a trotro is slightly larger than a minivan, and we were able to squeeze 23 adults/teenagers in for one trip!  Us volunteers bought lunch and gas for everybody, and Mama Sarah made some delicious fried rice with chicken, along with a treat of popcorn and a peanut-brittle-type dessert.  The kids love the beach and the water and had an amazing time. A few of our older boys set up a makeshift high jump out of palm leaves and were leaping over it.  I took a couple of pictures because I was astounded with the vertical-abilities of the boys. 

 The waves coming in are huge, but luckily there was a smaller controlled pool of ocean water where the little ones could splash around safely.  There were many other beach-goers as well, many of the men took notice of the six white girls and I received my first marriage proposal!  (Don’t worry mom and dad, I kept my wits about me).  By the end of the day we were all tuckered out.  The kids were sandy and salty, the volunteers were sunburned, and everyone was ready to sleep soundly that night!

Since when am I a minority?!

Entry #2 18/10/2013

Running in Ghana:  The only thing worse than going on a run in the hot, humid, African sun, is doing so and then coming home to the water turned off.

Jogging for pleasure is practically unheard of in Ghana, at least in the Central Region where I am living.  My first morning here, we woke up at 5am and went on a quick half hour run.  Being the athletic enthusiast I am, and in relatively good shape, I was utterly unprepared for the difficulty caused by the altitude, heat, and humidity! It felt as if I was running through sand while smoking a cigarette (I would imagine). Luckily the running gets easier once you’re acclimated.  One thing that doesn’t go away however, is the gaping stares from children and the elderly alike as you run past.  Many of the kids will wave and yell Obruni (white person), because they are excited to see foreigners (we’re rare and fun!).  All of the attention can be great though, when you’re tired and running back home, as many of the people along the road will cheer you on and give high fives and you feel like Oprah finishing her marathon!

Health in Ghana: All of the children are enamored with modern western medicine.  For anything from a bruise to ringworm the kids will ask for a “plaster” (their word for band-aid).  Kids, both our own and those from neighboring compounds, will come asking for a plaster multiple times per day, enough so that we now require the child to be actively bleeding to receive a bandage.  They also love to get cough medicine, fever reducer, and any of the ointments, creams, or gels that the average American would find in their medicine cabinet.  Often times, the kids are just dehydrated because they don’t drink nearly enough water,  (Mom, dad, sound familiar?) or their stomach pains them because they haven’t defecated in a couple of days.  If a child is actually sick though, (usually with Malaria or a stomach bug) we can only give them half the dose of medicine that would be given to an American child, because their systems aren’t used to it. 

           

God in Ghana:  While typing this, I can hear a preacher in the background yelling at the top of his lungs in Fante (local language) to many eager listeners.  Bear in mind that it’s midday on a Friday and I live in the middle of nowhere.  Religion is a major part of life here in Ghana, people are predominantly Christian and Muslim, and it shows.   At all of the rest stops for our bus trips, there were make-shift mosques (which I was tempted to enter as they were the only shaded areas around), and everywhere businesses are named things like “Jesus is Coming” burger joint, and "Blessed by God" taxi services. Religion here is as much of a marketing tactic as it is a way of life.

            Even today, while helping to entertain kids in the nursery at school (ages 2-6) the only children’s songs I could think of were the catchy tunes I had heard at Echo Ranch Bible Camp. At first I assumed those were off limits, but low and behold, chanting about being protected by our Lord is fine, even encouraged, here with Separation of Church and State being a foreign concept.  As a public school child through and through, I kept thinking the board of directors would come in and shut down my make-shift choir, but the kids gave up before that could happen and we moved on to coloring pictures of the sun. 

            Being in a foreign country, I had expected to be surprised by day to day life, but that doesn’t make all of this any less novel! Love from Ghana, everybody!

  

And so it begins!

14/10/13   Entry #1

The Setting: Hello friends, family, and strangers!  Although this blog has taken me a while to set up, we are now in full swing!  As a background, I am Living here in Ghana for six months volunteering at an orphanage and traveling around whenever possible.  I arrived here on September 30^th and have been having a great time ever since.  The weather here is hot a muggy, so I find myself constantly damp (as expected) and greasy.  Soon we are going into the summer season where just sitting, one will break a sweat. 

            The Living Arrangement: I am living in a house with five other volunteers (and our cook), which is luxurious by Ghanian standards.  We have both electricity and running water, which is quite the treat on the hot Ghanian days.  The orphanage I am working at services 38 children with shelter, schooling, showers, and 3 meals per day.  The home is called the Achiase Children’s Home and is run Mama Sarah, Mr. Sam, and Auntie Mary, with help from the older children (16-18).  We have one child who is deaf and goes to a Deaf School school in town where they can tailor to his disability. 

            The Milieu: Many of the kids come in family groups, so most of the children have a couple siblings living with them.  Kids can come to the orphanage a couple of different ways, either parent’s are deceased, or more commonly, the parents have too many kids to take care of, so they send a couple to the orphanage.  The kids will occasionally go home, but usually end up back at Achiase within a week or so.  A couple of other kids have just been left by their parent’s in public places e.g. a market, and are then brought to the orphanage.

            Traveling: This past week, four other volunteers and I traveled up to Mole National Park for a couple days, which was quite the ordeal!  We started in Achiase around 5 am Monday morning, and took a taxi into Swedru to the tro-tro station, where we caught a tro-tro for a six hour van ride up to Kumasi.  If for some reason those of you in the USA are dissatisfied with public transport, Traveling for even a day in Ghana would lower your standards exponentially.  In short, we fifteen adults were crammed into a vehicle the size of a mini-van with no air conditioning in 85 degree weather! As a bonus the elderly gentleman next to me was eating pungent dried fish, but hey, all part of the experience! When we arrived in Kumasi, we were dropped off in the largest market in West Africa, which, for someone from Juneau, Alaska who gets stressed out being in Fred Meyer’s on a Saturday morning, was almost unbearable! We quickly took a taxi to our accommodations and settled in for the evening.  The next morning we took a massive bus up to Tamale (another 7 hour bus ride), then caught a final bus up to Mole National Park which we heard was supposed to take 2 hours, but in reality took six. (Surprise!)  The next morning we went on a walking safari where we saw, tons of warthogs, water buffalo, monkeys, crocodile, antelope, deer and tons of gorgeous birds!  At breakfast, a monkey jumped up onto our table and stole a handful of jam and a ton of sugar cubes, quite exciting! We spent the noontime in the sun at the pool, and all received severe sunburns just in time for the afternoon driving safari, which was just as you’d imagine.  Eight of us sat atop a jeep and drove all around the national park, seeing many of the same animals as the morning safari. The trip was a blast, but we were all excited to get home and see the kids again and eat the cooked food!