Traveling...

Today is June 8 and my trip is coming to an end… I haven’t written in a while so here’s a recap:
We’re getting more and more rain. When it pours, all the frogs and huge snails come out. The other day, I caught a frog and the kids took turns to pet it and even though they were a bit scared at first, they really enjoyed it and they were disappointed when I released it.

On June 4, Sequina (6 yrs old) was adopted and her adoptive parents came in from Spain to get her. It was a very emotional moment and I’m very happy that I got to witness it. It’s incredible how much love that couple already has for her. The process had been going on for 2 ½ years.

We brought our puppy Komi to live on the orphanage farm. It’s safer because he used to follow us on the road when we left for work and we were afraid he was going to get run over.

Last Saturday, Tanya and I took 15 kids to the pool. My little ones and a few older kids (10-14 yrs old) It was raining but not too hard so we swam anyway. It was fun but exhausting. The little ones all fell asleep on the bus on the way to the pool. Nice!!
There were cages with monkeys, crocodiles and snakes at the hotel we went too and I walked around with the little ones before swimming. I had JoJo on my back and Paul cried the entire time because he gets very jealous when I’m carrying Jojo and not him.
The mamas always tell me that Paul is jealous as soon as I do anything with Jojo, even if it’s just taking him to the potty, changing his clothes, etc. Jojo has had a lot of blood in his poop lately. I told the nurse and we got some medicine but I’m not sure what’s going on. At home, we’d freak out if that happened to us or to our kids.

I’ve had an infected wound on my foot for a week now. I wasn’t worried at first because I’ve been cleaning the wound and applying antibiotic cream, but it keeps getting worse. And the area around it is all red and all my blood vessels are sticking out. It must be a flesh-eating bacteria J Rebecca, one of the other volunteers, has dysentery.
We’re all falling apart! A few of the kids have had malaria recently.

My last day at the orphanage was very difficult. I went for the entire day which was good because the nursery teacher was out sick. Not that she does much really. She makes phone calls, listens to music and falls asleep in class. The nursery kids have rest time between 1-2pm and she’s the first one to fall asleep and generally the only one.
The kids were very good and well-behaved. The little monsters have become little angels, almost.
On Wednesday mornings, all the kids have worship, even the nursery children. It’s complete chaos, no one listens to the teacher. The kids run in and out of the classrooms. Worship lasts for 1hr and it was painful for me. Between the noise from the kids and the teacher repeating the same 4 lines of a psalm to try to get the kids to learn it, I thought I was going to lose it.
In the afternoon, Monkiki, the monkey, jumped on me and bit me behind the knee but pretty hard. Usually he bites me a lightly on my arm to play.

Every day after dinner, all the children gather for worship. They pray and sing. They asked me to join them to sing me songs. I was very emotional but really tried not to let them see me cry. During one of the songs, each kid came up to me to hug me and say goodbye. I was crying the whole time. The little ones were next to me, on my lap and sitting on the ground in front of me. Many of them fell asleep so they were taken to bed by the older kids and I didn’t get to say proper goodbyes but I thought it was probably best because I would have been a wreck. After all the kids took their turn to say goodbye, Aja, the father figure, asked me if I had anything to say. I tried to speak but lost it and I bawled. The kids were getting teary eyed too. After that, I had to run to my final dinner with the 3 other volunteers and Baba, one of the orphanage directors, gave us a ride home because it started pouring and it was dark.

The next morning (Thursday/yesterday), I went into Accra to meet up with my nieces Ciara & Cristina, only to find out that Cristina already went home because she caught malaria. So it’s just Ciara and me. It was very strange to stay at a hotel overnight last night. It had a flush toilet and running water, even hot water, and AC. Total luxury!!!!
We went to Makola market and then to the craft market. We met a rasta who took us to his brothjer’s drum shop and they played and danced for us with their band. It was fun. Then for dinner we met up with Ciara’s tour guide. She was here with the University of Georgia and they had the same guide for 3 weeks. It was fun.

This morning, we got up at 5am to go catch a bus to Cape Coast. We got to the bus station really early and we were able to catch an earlier bus that made a stop in Cape Coast. It’s a 3-hr ride. When we got there, the taxi drivers harassed us and we tried to negotiate a rate but they were being very unreasonable. Cape Coast is a touristy place so they thought they could extort us. A woman named Comfort came to our rescue and took us with her in her taxi because she knows the driver. Another woman got into the argument too and both of them argued with all the taxi drivers for 30 minutes. They yelled at them for trying to rip us off and told them that tourism in Ghana benefits all of them and that they shouldn’t forget that if they rip us off, we won’t come back. Anyway, we were in the middle of that brawl and it’s the first time we were in such a situation in Ghana. But again, people are so friendly here that I’m not surprised that someone looked out for us.
We got dropped off at our hotel, a nice resort in Elmina, by the water. The water is too rough to swim though. It’s overcast today. We visited Elmina’s castle were slaves were kept and put on ships to go West. It was very emotional and it’s strange to think that such a horrible thing could have taken place in such a gorgeous setting.
We saw all the fishermen in their colorful pirogues bringing their fish back to shore to the market. Hundreds of pirogues.

We’re back at the resort and the computers crash every couple of minutes. So it’s taken me 1hr to type this entry.
I think I will go horseback riding on the beach now. Tomorrow morning, we’re leaving at 7:30am to go to Kakum National Park to go on a canopy walk. Ciara already went and already told me she wasn’t doing it again because she couldn’t finish it last time. It’s really high up apparently. I’m afraid of heights so we’ll see how I do.

After the park, we’ll go back to Accra and go out to dinner there. Then on Sunday morning, we’re heading to my orphanage. We’re going all the way up to Akosombo on Lake Volta to hand out by the lake and see the dam. Then we’re spending the night at the orphanage guest house. I will get to see the kids again and I’ll give Ciara a tour of the orphanage. And I will cry again when I say goodbye… Then on Monday morning, we’re planning on visiting a bead factory before heading back to Accra to spend our last night.

I’m hoping to see the nurse at the orphanage on Sunday or Monday so he can have a look at my foot. I wonder how long it takes for gangrene to set in… J
Seriously, if it doesn’t get better by the time I’m back, I need to see a doctor right away when I get home because it looks very bad.

Because of the computer issue today I can’t upload pictures but I will when I get home. I took over 1,000 pictures of the kids! They’re all so gorgeous. There are 4 I want to take home with me:
Victor – 4 years old. He’s just gorgeous and I love his personality. He’s in the process of being adopted by a former volunteer from France.
Paul – 2 yrs old. He’s HIV positive and apparently is not adoptable but it may be because he has extended family.
Kelvin – 3 yrs old. He’s a little macho kid. He reminds me a lot of Eric, just the way he looks and walks, and acts. His mother is in jail and he will go back to her when she gets out (not sure when that will be) but he’ll be at the orphanage at least until he’s 5.
JoJo – 4 yrs old. He can’t walk or and only says a few words. He’s so sweet. He’s in the process of being adopted.
So I can’t take any of them home…
You’ll see from the pictures what I mean when I say that they’re gorgeous.
Talk to you from home on Wednesday!