40 New Family Members Part 1

Hey Everyone! I realized I’ve been talking about the kids a bunch, even referring to them by name, but I have yet to “introduce” any of them individually.  Over the next few days, I’ll be posting groups of pictures with a brief description of each of them in a series called “40 New Family Members!“  Stay tuned!

This is Maafia (known at school as Gifty).  She is 7 years old and in Class 1.  She lives here at the Children’s home with three older siblings: Martha, Emma, and Francis (who is away at senior high school right now).  Maafia is an awesome dancer, loves braiding hair, and enjoys just about any hand-clapping game you can think of! She is also the only African child I’ve seen here so far with freckles! She’s one of my favorite kids to just sit around and hang out with, and never ceases to put a smile on 

my face!

This selfie-queen is Martha, Maafia’s older sister.  She turned 11 in January but acts much older (most of the time).  She is in Class 3 and always works hard at school.  Martha takes the role of Big Sister quite seriously and always puts Maafia before herself, helping her with laundry, giving her extra food etc. Martha is also exceedingly interested in church and makes sure never to fall asleep before doing her evening prayers.  If I ended up coming back to Ghana couple of years from now, I don’t doubt that Martha would have grown into an even more beautiful, strong-willed force to be reckoned with!

 This young gentleman is one of the most recent additions to the Achiase Family.  Is name is Emma, but that won’t be of much use to you, as he is deaf. I find watching he and the other kids interact remarkable- with no language or official communication he is easily able to join in all of the games the kids invent, and is always laughing the loudest out of anyone.  He attends a School to the Deaf in Swedru and is starting to learn to write his letters.  He and I have also been intermittently working on the sign language alphabet (the extent of my ASL knowledge).  Emma enjoys coloring and playing with the animals around the compound (especially the dogs!).