proof of life

I've finally found an internet cafe that has electricity! I had to travel 2 hours O/W to Accra to find one. There's one about 30 minutes from where I live but when I went there the other day, it was closed b/c there's no power. I'm not going back there! After 30 minutes on the over-crowded trotro, I had to walk 2 miles O/W to get to the internet cafe. 2 miles in the heat. I'm not doing that again.
My first day was very long and exhausting. I barely slept on the plane b/c I had a sinus infection. The orphanage driver picked me up and took me to the house in Agomeda. I only had less than 5 minutes to change and get a ride to the orphanage. And the older kids were performing (dance & drums) at a fundraiser at the Alliance Francaise in Accra that night so I went with them and we didn't get home before 1am.
To get to the oprhanage, I take a trotro about 20 minutes and then I have to walk about 1 mile. It's incredibly hot. I haven't stopped sweating. It's ridiculous. There is electricity at the house but it's on once in a while, randomly. We have a fan in our room but without power, it's not very useful. Every night we say that we're going to sleep outside because it's just too hot in the bedroom. There are 3 other volunteers with me, all British: Tanya (who's been here for 4 months), Laura (here for 2 weeks) and Rebecca (arrived a day after me). I share a room with Rebecca. We have 2 sets of bunkbeds. I sleep at the bottom because we can hear the termites chewing through the wood and there are little piles of wood dust everywhere. Laura slept on the top the first night and fell through because the wood is in such bad shape.
I have lots of mosquito bites on my feet and ankles. Most of them from 1 night waiting for the trotro in the dark after work for 1 hour without repellent on.
I work from 1-6pm but I arrive at the orphanage around 11:30am. I eat with the kids. with my fingers :-) Most nights, I get a ride back to the house from the orphanage driver but on Friday, I waited for a trotro for an hour. Some people just stop to give us a ride. Yesterday, we went to the market and we got the best of rides because it had AC.
This week, I'm off Saturday-Sunday but starting next week, it will be Thursday-Friday. Tanya will be on the same schedule. This week I was the only volunteer working in the afternoon but Tanya is switching to afternoons tomorrow. It will be nice to have someone else there with me.
The children are little monsters. Really. I thought that they would all be well behaved but I was very wrong. The girls are the worst. I take care of about 15 children aged 2-10. I have a couple of special cases:
Joseph (JoJo) is 4 years old but looks like a 10 month old. He can't walk and he only says Mama. He's my favorite. He's always with me since he can't walk. He only walks when you're holding both his hands. If you let go of one, he panics so we're working on that.
Peter: he's about 10 and he only says a few words. He's very affectionate and needs constant attention. Every 5 seconds, he tries to get my attention by calling me "Mama, Mama!" He's good though. He tries to help me with the younger ones. When he was 3, before he was at the orphanage, he spent 3 months in a cage because he had TB and it traumatized him and all his problems started. Apparently, he was speaking before that.
Kim: I don;t know how old he is. probably 8-10. He's one of the specials (the handicapped are referred to as specials) He's mentally retarded. He needs affection and when I'm taking care of him and then start paying attention to another kid, he gets mad and hits the other child. He's very strong and he often throws big rocks at the children and at me. He's hit me and pinched me many times.
My favorites:
JoJo
Paul (Pollie Pepe): he's 3 and he's just adorable. he's got the cutest smile and dimples. He's HIV positive but he's fine with his medicine.
Kelvin: he's just very cute
Victor: he's very cute too and I love the way he laughs.

You'll notice that there is no girl in my favorites! They're just horrible.
When you say no, or tell them not to hit, or stop, or whatever, they keep doing it and give you a look of defiance. It's jut best to ignore them. They also poop everywhere even though I tell them to go to the bathroom.
There are no photos allowed at the orphanage but I'll try to take some anyway. We're only allowed to take pictures on our last day. I did take pictures of the show the 1st night.

What else... the water rarely runs in the shower (it's only run once since I've been here) so we have to fill a bucket from the tank in the yard and shower with that.
At the orphanage, there's a tank too and we use that to give water to the kids and to bathe them.
We drink purified water in small plastic bags. The hosue is in a very small village but there's a bar and they have a small generator so we can get a cold soda once in a while and it's such a nice treat. We buy dinner from street vendors by the house or we get ingredients and we cook.

Yesterday we went to a town 30 minutes north of Agomeda and we went to the market and then we went to see the English soccer final, Chelsea vs. Manchester United. There's a player from Ghana on the Chelsea team so they were all into it. Rebecca really wanted to see the game so she stopped a guy on a bike and asked him where we could watch the game and he took us to a yard behind a house and there must have been about 150 men on benches watching the game on a TV. He asked 4 guys to move and we started to get our seats but he changed his mind and took us to the VIP club upstairs in the house. So we watched there with nonly 15 other men. They told us that everyone would have touched us outside so it was better to be inside. Anyway, it was quite funny.

I can't upload any pictures today because the computer doesn't have a USB port. It's so hold, I'm surprised it's working at all.

I can't believe I now have another 2 hour ride back to the house. It's just too hot and humid to travel. I bought a SIm card for my phone and I've been able to talk to Eric so he will probably update the blog next time I speak to him.

Thank you again for the donations. The kids were very excited about the new stuff. I'll tell you more about it next time because my internet time is running out.

Ben left for Saudi Arabia this morning. Ben, send news soon.

Talk to you soon I hope.