Still sick...

Being ill doesn't count for much here. I get woken up every half hour to "can I use your comb?" "can I use your pen?" "come out, so and so wants to meet you." I missed church today though, which is sad. I think it would be interesting to see how church is in Ghana. Miracle came afterwards to tell me how church went. Apparently they don't have communion at her church...interesting. She wanted me to read about Moses and the plagues. Everyone here is very surprised but delighted to know I am a Christian. Perhaps most of the volunteers they've had are not?

All Better!

I didn't make it to school on Monday or Tuesday since I was still feeling sick. And now I am missing my morning classes. I am better now, but school is canceled when it rains. Ghanians think being in the rain makes you sick.
I'm having a difficult time with Nana. He keeps asking me for money. And he asks for things I don't think he needs. He wants to get a computer and meanwhile the kids are wearing clothes that are falling apart. Honestly, I don't trust him. He talks about how he has to work all the time (he's a taxi driver) because he doesn't get enough money from donors. Yet, I always see him playing checkers in town and Katja runs into him at the internet cafe nearly every time she goes there. And, I often see his empty taxi parked in town. Every weekend he goes out with his friends while his wife stays home to take care of the house. I'm sure some of this is part of Ghanian culture where the woman does all the work at home, but Margaret has 13 kids to take care of as well as volunteers to feed! I'm sure that is more than most women in Ghana have to handle. He barely spends any time with the kids.
One good thing is that the kids have gotten a little better about not hitting each other. They love the "toilet game" where they pull my hand like a lever and fall between my legs. It's never boring hanging out with them. They've all got strong personalties. They are very happy children overall. They just need to learn how to control their anger.
I tried fufu for the first time today. It's cassava and yam beaten together until they turn into something that looks like bread dough. But it's the consisntency of over-chewed gum that's gotten too soft. I couldn't eat it! It's the first thing here that I physically couldn't make myself eat. Ew!!

Fufu with fish sauce...never eating this one again.

Isaac walked to the orphanage almost everyday just to help make Fufu.



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Making Fufu - it's mixed by being hit with a big stick

Trip to Kumasi

Today Katja and I left school early to go to Kumasi. We met up with Katja's German friend Michael who works at the internet cafe in Oyoko. We had some awesome food in Effiduase (something not made out of cassava or yam...yea!).
The people in Kumasi don't pay so much attention to white people like in Sekyere. But they do try to sell you things. They will follow you trying to get you to buy something. One guy grabbed my arm and wouldn't let me go. It hurt!
We went to a supermarket in Kumasi. They only had one kind of shampoo! A little different than in America :)
Katja and I are staying the night here. Our hotel has running water and a toilet! Granted the water comes out of a faucet at my knees and the toilet is broken...but still! There's a toilet!!! It's much better than going to an outhouse that sometimes has worms crawling on it.
We had dinner at Vic Baboo's, a place that's "famous" for it's good food. I'd say the quality is a notch below Denny's :)

Michael and Katja

You can't keep your bottles in Ghana...they get sent back to the factory and are reused

Chicken and fried rice...yes, a meat other than fish - yea!

The supermarket in Kumasi - so many cracker choices!

Prempeh II roundabout in Kumasi

Presbyterian church of Kumasi

View of Kumasi from my hotel balcony

Football and a Funeral

This morning Katja got up and went to (supposedly) the biggest market in Africa. It's a huge maze! It's 14 football (soccer) fields large! It's setup is totally random, so it was hard to find what we were looking for. There are people hacking up a pig on one side and someone selling sandals on the other side. We first bought Baflots which are sweet bread balls that are deep fried. So good! After wondering around for an hour we finally found material. We're going to have a seamstress in Sekyere make clothes for us. We found some movies to buy as well. The movies here are so funny! The story lines are like soap operas and the acting is really over dramatic.
We went back to Sekyere today for a funeral. Neither of us knew the man who died, but Nana wanted us to go. Margaret loaned me some traditional Ghanian clothing to wear. The skirt was a little hard to walk in and the head wrap gave me a headache. But, Nana was ecstatic about how beautiful he thought Katja and I looked. Haha! At Ghanian funerals everyone sits in chairs in a "U" shape around a picture of the person who died. First we went around the "U" greeting everyone in the front rows. Upbeat African music is played with singing and drums. People traditionally give the family of the person who died a donation for funeral costs. People can sit at the funeral for as long or little as they like. Nana had us sit for only about five minutes. Then, we went and got drinks at the "American Pub" (it's not so American looking, lol) and went back home.
After the funeral Katja and I left for Kumasi again. We met up with Michael and two more German friends of Katja's - Julia and Hannah. I can follow a conversation between two Germans pretty well - three is hard and four is really difficult. They all talk so fast! (Or at least it seems that way). It's been interesting getting to talk to Germans and see how they view what's going on in the world. Julia is from East Germany, so it was interesting to hear what her parents and grandparents thought about growing up in the DDR.
Our tro-tro broke down on the way to Kumasi! We got very lucky to find another one down that could fit four people. At the stadium we bought all kinds of fanfare. I think we were wearing more Ghanian stuff than the actual Ghanians!
Ghanians would stop us in the street all surprised and happy - "You support Ghana?! You support the Black Stars?!" It was great.
The game was interesting, but the student section at gopher football games is much more rowdy and exciting. I think I find football (soccer) rather boring to watch :/
But I got to have ICE CREAM at the game! SO good! You suck it out of a bag, but it's still yummy.
Katja is staying with a different family near Accra for a week, so I was on my own to get home.
It was a little scary. I got in a taxi outside the stadium. Traffic was dead stopped, so all these men kept coming to my window. Some of them were very nice and asked me how I liked the game. A few asked me to come home with them. Once stuck his had inside the taxi to stroke my face. Awkward!
Thank God I met someone I knew at the tro-tro station in Kumasi. Naomi, a teacher at my school, was there and she helped me find a tro-tro and a taxi in Effiduase.

Part of the market in Kumas

The market was very busy and it was a tight squeeze through the market pathways

More market

Mmmm...fish!

Walking around with my yummy Bahflot (sp?)

Katja and I in the traditional Ghanian clothes...good lookin' huh?

Hannah and Julia at a restaurant in Kumasi

Katja and Michael eating American food

We got into the Black Star spirit

Check out those earrings

Some guy walking around the stadium with a smoking pot...not sure what that was about

Libya vs. Ghana

Katja and I in the sun

The guy behind me at the match was wearing a MN Vikings jersey!! I asked him about it and he had no idea what I was talking about and pretty much ignored me. Wonder where he got the shirt from...

Julia, Hannah, Michael, and Katja enjoying the football match

A New "Family" Member

For the first time here I carried water on my head the whole way to the house AND didn't spill any of it. Normally I get to the house totally soaked. Next step, carrying water on my head without hands. I did laundry by hand for the second time here. It's so much work! It doesn't help that my clothes are usually covered in dirt since the kids are always climbing all over me. I never realized how convenient a washing machine really is.

Tonight Nana called me over to him and told me how he's been with another woman and had a 1 and a half year old son. He'd been battling with the baby's grandparents (the mother doesn't want to keep the child) for custody. I thought it was odd, but he asked me (not his wife) to come with him to pick up the baby since everything was finally resolved with custody issues. Nana had went on at some length how the baby would be so much better off at the orphanage. But, I don't agree. The grandparent's house is really nice and they have ACTUAL furniture and live in a less isolated city. The grandfather talked to me for a while about how he felt he was plenty capable of taking care of Acusi (the baby). He and Nana got in an argument and both kept asking me to agree with their side of the argument. It was rather uncomfortable.

The mother of the child came with us in the taxi back to the orphanage. She walked up to the house and Margaret stood there and didn't seem to care that her husband's former mistress was there. Katja says it's considered acceptable in Ghana for men to be with women other than their wives.

Laundry

Playing Class

The last few days have been rather uneventful. Things have changed a bit with Acusi being here. Kwaku doesn't like having to share Margaret with another baby. It's odd though. Kwaku is a year older than Acusi, but because of poor nutrition Kwaku is the same size as Acusi. The electricity has been out for the past few days. We can't get fresh water from the pump, so the boys have to walk all the way into town to get water! It's quite an exhausting trek.

Teaching has been very frustrating this week. The children have caught on to the fact that I won't beat them. If the teacher is there the children are well behaved, but if not, they will not listen to reason. It's very exhausting and I end up shouting most of the class for the kids to sit down and be quiet.

The teachers here frustrate me as well. They often don't even show up and the kids just sit in the class all day doing nothing. And when they are around, they often teach from their desk and sit the whole time. They give the kids exercises but give them the answers. I don't know how that method measures whether the kids are learning the material. I'd say most of the kids are about 2 grade levels behind American students.

For instance I had each student in grade 6 read individually with me. Most of them have no idea how to read. I'd say about a fourth are illiterate. Reading and learning is so important to me and it's sad that these students are missing out.

But, I did run playing class myself this week. There were about 20 kids total which was perfect. It was really fun. We played cat and mouse, red rover, sang some songs, and did the bobo clapping game. Ebenezer took a lot of pictures and they turned out great!




The cat and mouse game


Red rover, red rover send someone right over!

Everyone playing the clapping game

They're kicking, I'm screaming!

The students in grade 2 have gotten so bad! Whenever I tell them to be quiet or to sit down, the students that are sitting and being quiet smack those who are misbehaving. And since there are so many kids misbehaving, class turns into a giant slap fest! I'm not exaggerating. It's total chaos sometimes. I know that if I hit the kids I'd have instant order in the classroom. But, I just can't hit a 6 year old with a stick.

I took my camera with me to school. The kids absolutely love to have their picture taken. When I show them the pictures, they just go crazy with excitement. Some of the kids stood up on a desk and fell down when the desk broke...oops. I think this will be the last day I bring a camera to school :)

Our Savior Sekyere Primary School

Inside one of the classrooms

Grade six posing for a picture

After seeing the class picture :)

Grade two posing for a picture

Right before the desk in the back broke

No School

The kids had a field trip today to play football at a local park, so I didn't have to teach. I went with Boat to the internet "cafe" and helped him apply to universities in London. I don't think he realizes what it takes to get into a university. His grades aren't so great...I hope he can figure something out.

I'm feeling a little home sick since I've been alone this week. I'm excited for Katja to come back so I'll have someone to talk to. She's staying with a family near Accra and observing at a school there.

The kids take a picture of me eating dinner most nights, so I have plenty of pictures of typical Ghanian meals.

Breakfast! Bahflots and porridge made out of maize

An egg, bananas and MILO

Dinner...Ground yam with palm oil

Spaghetti with cassava leaves and pods

Plantaines and yam with fish stew

Rice balls with ground nut sauce

Church

So I got sick again!!
Something flu-ish. But it was my last chance to go to church with the family, so I sucked it up and went. Church is a big deal. We went to a joint service in Effiduase. So, it took an hour to get to church, then the service was three and a half hours, and then an hour to get home. The service was interesting. First we sing a song, then the entire congregation breaks into groups for little bible studies, then the pastor gives a sermon, we sing the same song as before, the pastor gives another sermon, we sing the same song again, and the pastor gives one last sermon. Then they take offering...twice. People who are giving money are supposed to hold it up in the air in their fists. Then they had people go around an announce to the church how much money they were donating to repair the church. Finally, we end with the repeated song. Also the church doesn't do communion...ever.

Back in the Swing of Things

Katja came home Monday night! It was great to see her. Sadly, Kwaku has malaria. It's so hard to see such a little kid so sick. His fever is very high and he is so weak. I hate that I can't make him feel better. It took a while, but Margaret finally gave him some medicine and his fever is a little lower.
Katja and I went to a seamstress in Sekyere to have clothes made. We bought material in Kumasi and wanted dresses made. She only measured our busts and waists, so the clothes may not fit. She doesn't speak English, so we had to draw the clothes we wanted. I still think she didn't understand, but, she's so ecstatic to be making something for white people, it's become quite the experience. It will be funny to see how it all turns out.
Today, the kids in grade 5 were behaving beautifully, and we were having a really fun lesson on rhyming and poetry. All of the sudden there was shouting and I turned to see a boy and girl standing on their desks. The girl was holding the boy against the wall, choking him while they both bunched each others' faces. I couldn't get them to stop fighting. Evans, the grade 2 teacher came in and forced them out of the class and apologized to me.
At the end of the day, Katja came over to me saying how she'd seen the worst thing. She'd seen two students (my students), the boy and girl, leaning their foreheads against the school wall with their hands behind their backs. Three of the teachers were taking turns hitting them with a cane and laughing. The children were soaking wet from crying so much. I hate the way they discipline here!

Last Day in Sekyere

So today is my last full day at the orphanage. I taught at school today, but grade 2 was so bad I ended my lesson early. I got to talk to the head master and the substitute for grade 1 for a while. It was interesting to hear their views on America. It took a long time for me to explain to them that not all Americans are super rich. They didn't believe me when I said that there were poor people here. I felt bad dashing his hopes, but the sub planned to go to America and make lots of money. I explained that it's not so easy to get into America or get a job once there. I think he thought people just hand out money.
We had playing class again. This time it didn't go very well. I had some extra toys and Katja had a lot of candy, so we thought we'd give out prizes when the kids won games. As soon as I took out a toy to give I got swarmed by ALL 30-40 of the kids. It was actually kind of scary. They were grabbing at me and the bag. The littlest children were crying because they got pushed out of the way or trampled. The kids wouldn't listen when I told them to back away. I never thought that would happen. We ended playing class an hour early because Katja and I were so exhausted.

Tonight the kids made me gifts and cards. I'll definitely miss them - especially Miracle, Solomon, and Kwaku.
Kwaku is almost better, but he is very weak. He can't stand for long and still won't eat much. I wish I could stay just to take care of him.

As it was my last dinner at the orphanage, Margaret made me something special - Yam balls! Their like deep fried balls of mash potatoes. They're pretty good.


The headmaster and the grade one sub

Katja giving out candy at playing class


Addo making me a drawing

The kids made me a paper hat :)

Yam balls...mmm

The kids playing tag

Goodbyes

This morning it rained and the kids didn't have to go to school. So I got to have some extra time with them before leaving for Kumasi. It was hard to say goodbye, but I think it was harder for them than me. Solomon was crying and angry with me both for leaving and for not giving him candy. Atta II was mad at me for leaving and wouldn't give me a hug. Sarfo was crying and wouldn't hug me goodbye either :( It was hard fo me to say goodbye to Miracle, Solomon and Kwaku (yes, I had favorites ) and I'll miss them. Thankfully, I'm coming home with about half as much stuff as I brought! I was able to put one of my bags inside the other...woot!
Katja and I went on our way to Kumasi. We went to the cultural centre and I bought some souvenirs and handicrafts. There were drum makers and painters that we watched do their work. It was cool to see how everything was made. We got a super cheap hotel that had a working toilet!

Kumasi traffic

Another roundabout statue

Ghanian marketing - "God First Boutique"

Last Day in Kumasi

Katja and I slept in and got some breakfast (more of that bread and egg stuff...so good!). We went and visited a family Katja had stayed with for a weekend when she first arrived. They were Muslim and lived in a Muslim community, which was interesting to see. They must be pretty wealthy because the family had lots of decorations, television, a computer, and a big kitchen. The mother was a very interesting women. She'd gone to university and spoke English very well. I met her 2 week old baby who was so sweet and small. I was invited to come and visit again if I come back to Ghana.
On our way back to the center of Kumasi, it starting raining like crazy and we got soaked. I had to say goodbye to Katja pretty quickly. It was so great getting to know her and I'll miss her. We've talked about going on a road trip through the U.S. in a few years, so hopefully that can happen.
I met a girl from California at my hotel. She'd been in Mali for four months and was staying in Ghana for many more months doing public health work. It was good to have someone to walk around with at night. Kumasi is a safe city, but being a lone white girl, I'd stick out quite a bit. I can't believe I leave Ghana tomorrow!

Made It Home!

After about 45 hours of traveling I finally made it from Kumasi to Accra on a bus, from Accra to London, and London to Minneapolis. I can't believe I was really in Africa. It all sort of seems like a dream. There is so much in Ghana that I didn't get to see and hope I can go back someday.

More Pictures and Videos

Here is a slideshow of the kids and I hanging out. There are some videos too.
The kids learned the art of making funny faces as you will see.



Slideshow mat

Atta II playing ping pong against the wall


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Solomon and Addo dancing


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Kwaku's favorite thing to say is "Yea!" You can see how he doesn't like anyone else getting in on his attention :)


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Solomon loved this video and had me play it for him all the time. He was quite impressed with his ability to twist his arms in and out.


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