I'm a 'big sister!'

Hello All…
Wow…a whole week has gone by since my last blog! I had one busy week however.
First things first: I have a new baby sister. To clarify, I have a new baby host sister, and my host mother, Georgina was mistaken when she told me she was just 7 months pregnant. She had a baby girl late last Thursday night and although I believe she is a few weeks early, she is healthy. Apparently she will not get her actual name for another 3 months (in which a naming ceremony will take place) but for now she is called “baby” or “ya” (one of the names given to girls born on Thursdays). Little Patrick, my host brother, doesn’t really know how to take the idea of another baby in the house. I saw him walk past her crib and he a face, said “baby…go” meaning ‘go away.’ He says ‘go away’ all the time.
On Friday I packed my back pack and headed to Kumasi to meet with three other volunteers, one from Sweden (and from my organization) and two from Denmark (whom I met through Emily-from my organization). The 4 of us found a tro tro headed to Cape Coast and proceeded on a 4 hour, sweaty, crowded, fairly uncomfortable ride. Once we arrived we found our hotel/guest house, dropped off our luggage and headed straight for the beach. I had no idea how much I missed the ocean! It was great to lay on the sand and hear the rolling waves. I was in Cape Coast until Monday afternoon and the whole weekend consisted mostly of laying on the beach, eating pizza, pasta and greek salads, sharing drinks with other travelers and volunteers and meeting many new friends. Each night we hung out at the Oasis Beach Resort where there was a lovely outside restaurant and bar (and club at night). And each day I met people from all over Europe, New York, various other countries in Africa, people just passing through and many Ghanaians from Cape Coast. On Saturday my group (plus another Danish girl and a girl from Germany who joined us) traveled one hour west to Kakum National Park. While we saw no animals at this park, it was a beautiful rainforest with many trees and vegetation. We paid 7 Cedis for an hour long nature walk/hike and the canopy walk. I loved being outdoors and being active (although I the heat was a lot to take in). For those that know me well, you know that I have a fear of heights and was therefore quite worried about the canopy walk. I did not let my fear get the best of me though and I conquered the canopy walk. This was amazing and beautiful-the picture will explain themselves. We learned all about various plant species on the nature walk and our guide should us a tree that is used to produce Viagra. He then went on to explain what Viagra is used for “to make the man strong and to please the woman. If you use Viagra, the wife will be happy and will cook a big meal for the man.” How interesting.
On Saturday night we attended a wonderful performance at the (very) old Cape Coast Castle. We watched African Footprint International, an African drum and dance group that have traveled to Europe and most recently Denmark, and a Danish youth choir to create one interesting night of cultural diversity. The choir sang in Danish, which of course I do not understand, but it was still beautiful to listen to and the African Footprint drummers played along with electric guitars. After the choir was finished the dancers took the stage and performed. Saturday night I also met a family from Seattle, Washington! Well they lived just outside of Seattle and moved to Canada many years ago but still, it was really nice to talk about Pike Place Market and the Space Needle. The parents and two daughters (17 and 20) and the elder brother have been traveling the world for the past 3 years (started in Hong Kong) and were currently working their way through Africa. The third son, recently out of the military, joined his family for a month or so but heads back to the PNW soon. It was great to meet new friends! Email addresses were exchanged and I hope to stay in touch. In addition to new friends, I have a nice tan coming along!

It is Friday and lunch just ended. Each Friday the kids head to the church after lunch to be blessed by the Pastor and the school concludes early. I am sitting in the computer “room” typing to save precious time on the internet later today. Children love to watch me type saying I am so fast. Starting next Monday all classes, excluding the nursery school, will be taking 2nd term exams. I read the topics that will be included on the tests for classes 3, 4 and 5 and realized that about half of each class will be passing these tests. I’m not sure what “passing” is or what happens to those students that perform poorly but I have spoken with the teachers and started taking the few students who are really behind out of class one by one. Until the exams start (and will go on all next week) the teachers are just refreshing the kids minds and going over all the topics from the term. Many of the kids will do just fine but I am going to do my best to help them before and during the exams. After the exams I am going to try to do an art project or game of ‘football’ with each class to make sure they are also having fun. Then April 10th starts break between the terms and lasts 21 days! I have three weeks and have no idea what I will be doing. There are many volunteers going to the big national park up north and I want to join them but that will not take a full 3 weeks. We will see.

Each day I have worked one on one with children in classes 3, 4 and 5. Yesterday I took Jennifer Owusu, class 4, out and we worked on Math. I quickly realized that she have no concept of what multiplication means so we stepped back and worked on addition and subtraction. Even this was quite difficult for her. Jennifer is the girl who I believe to be dyslexic, at least with her numbers. She and I wrote out numbers 1 through 20 and I made her say each one. She gets confused easily when I go out of order but I want her to be able to read the numbers without the repetition on counting 1, 2, 3 and so on. I would really like to see progress in her before I leave in August.

Yesterday Naomi, my host sister, and I went to Tafo (a 15 minute tro tro ride away) to pick up my dress. Last week she and I went to buy the cloth for my dress (5 Ghana cedi’s for 3 yards of African print) and I was fitted. We went back to Tafo to try on the dress. There are many styles to choose from, I choose a longer dress with a slight front slit (so I can actually walk) and an off the shoulders top. To get the dress made cost just 5 cedis so in total I paid $10 for a dress specially made for me. I promise to get pictures up as soon as possible.
Alright I guess that is all for today. I am headed into town to spend some time on the internet and then will be meeting friends for dinner. Have a great weekend!

***I promise I am trying to get pictures up here. I keep trying to upload them but either the files are too big or the connection is too slow. I'll keep working on it.