Do I have to start packing soon??

Tuesday July 15, 2008: I remember like it was yesterday, I was beyond frustrated after being taken to the hospital the night before I was supposed to (finally) be leaving for Africa and having the doctor tell me I have pneumonia. I was then delayed for a third time and I thought I would never make it. Now I have just over 2 weeks left in Ghana and I am overcome with feelings of achievement, sadness, excitement and anxiousness. Home sounds wonderful but leaving the kids? I’m not sure that I can. I don’t think I have fully grasped the fact that I have actually been living here for the past 5 months and how strange it will feel to not walk down the now familiar uneven dirt path to the main road and wait for a tro tro everywhere I go. Suddenly I won’t have the wake-up call of children right outside my window or feel genuinely adored when I have 6 kids scrambling over each other to give me a hug. When I get back to the U.S., just about every aspect of life in my past 5.5 months will be very different. I guess that is all part of the experience though, never forgetting all that I have learned during my time in Ghana and taking that experience home with me.
On to what I have been up to since the last posting: After meeting Jeanette and our driver friend Duku to pick up our dresses from the seamstress, I spent a long while at a café mindlessly surfing the net. Around 6 my friend Harman picked me up to go to dinner. Harman is a friend I met over Easter weekend at Cape Coast. He is Indian nationality but has lived in Ghana for the past 9 years. We enjoyed a delicious dinner of pizza, spring rolls, and kebabs. After dinner he took me to meet other friends of his at a guesthouse one of his friends owned. We sat outside in a courtyard, drank some beers and had interesting discussions. Being American, there was a lot of talk about U.S. politics, a topic I have not grown tired of discussing. Another topic was HIV. Somehow I mentioned I was teaching sex health at my school and had visited the hospital HIV clinic and apparently this made me an expert. I was answering questions I didn’t know I had the answer to. All in all, an interesting evening. Harman helped me get a taxi that night and made sure he scared the driver a bit to ensure my safety. He was definitely more cautious that I am but I was grateful for the concern and the call to make sure I arrived home in one piece. Saturday I stayed with Tony and Jeanette at the "Palace" and dined on dinner, pasta and salad (Yum!). The deliciousness continued the next morning with a veggie and cheese egg scramble, bacon and toast. We spent a few hours at a nearby hotel pool where ballads by Brian Adams, backstreet boys, and Celine Dion blared all afternoon.
Around 3 I jumped in a taxi headed to the Suame roundabout (all large Ghanaian cities are covered in roundabouts) to meet Naomi and Julia, one of the new volunteers from Germany. Naomi had asked me earlier in the week if I would join her in visiting some friends at a boarding school. Angel Education Complex is a boarding school for children from kindergarten to junior secondary school (JSS), which is similar to our 8th grade. The two girls we were visiting are singers that sometimes appear at Columbus (the church where my host father is a pastor). Linda, 13 and Portia, 15, are sisters and are attending this fairly expensive school. The girls were thrilled to see us and happily took us from room to room, showing us around. I could immediately tell that this was a considerably costly school for Kumasi, though still looks nothing like private schools at home. We were shown numerous rooms in the girl’s dormitory and I was surprised to see that a room the size of mine at home could house 8 to 12 or even 14 girls. There were at least 6 bunk beds in each room. The classrooms were very nice however, with desks meant for older children and actual white boards! We thanked the girls for the opportunity to see a private school and after a few pictures; we were on our way back home. Sunday night: movie night. This time we watched "Ice Age." After the film Naomi brought me a dvd of the girls singing and the kids in my room begged me to put it in. Linda and Portia are very good indeed, and the dvd is actually available for purchase. After 9 pm I told the kids it was time to get to bed, at least for me, since there is no established bedtime for the kids at the orphanage, took a cold bucket shower (the running water is finished for now) and wrote in my journal. I have had to buy two new journals since arriving in Ghana because I write an entry almost everyday.
Monday I did less teaching and more running around trying to make my lists of things I want to do before I leave. First off, the 10 desks were completed and set aside for me to see before they are used. Overall they look great, though the edges are quite rough and I made a note to also find some sandpaper to smooth the desks before the students use them. The total cost to purchase the materials and get the desks put together was 180 Ghana cedis. I also made note that all but two of the chalkboards (in classes 4 and 5) are useable though I want to buy a duster/eraser for each classroom. Most teachers have been using old t-shirts to wipe the boards clean, a method that does not work well. Finally I am hoping to be able to find wood to create borders around the posters I want to put up in the classrooms. Right now I have had a difficult time trying to keep posters (of the world, Africa, ABC and 123 etc) on the cement walls. The classroom walls are so bare and depressing and I would love to live-in them up just a tad.
During all my run-around I noticed one of the boys that live at the orphanage, Samuel, sitting on the stairs looking very ill. He said his stomach is "paining" him and when I put my hand to his forehead, he felt like he was on fire. I walked him up to the main part of the house to see Naomi. She was washing clothes and told him to get some cool water to bathe himself. I decided to needed to help him get the water since he seemed very weak. After leaving him to his bathing I spoke with Naomi. She says the first thing is to cool off the body with water and then he must sit and wait for her. This is the case with all the children when they have fevers, which seems to be all the time. I was reminded of how blessed I am to have the parents that I do. When I am sick at home, I am allowed to lie on the couch all day, in front of the t.v. and my mom or dad makes chicken noodle soup for me and sometimes buys me fruit popsicles. I still get this treatment and I am 22, but I when I was younger I actually enjoyed being sick because I was so cared for. That is definitely not the case here. (Thank you mom and dad).
Before lunch I once again went through all my supplies, sent to me by my mother and family friend Trisha, to see what could be given to what class. I decided each class should get a new box of chalk and I have quite a few new pencils. There are also flash cards and crayon boxes. I have two English books I used in elementary school and a few other goodies to offer as prizes and I decided to write a quiz for classes 4 and 5 with the top two scores in each class earning the books and 2nd prize. Though now I fear I won’t have time to get these and my sex health test completed before next Monday. Busy Busy Busy.
After school on Monday I had planned on going to Tafo-the next large town before near me, before Kumasi, to use the internet and go to the bank ATM. To my disdain the entire branch was out of service and I truly had no more cedis left. The security guard told me I had to go to Kejetia in Kumasi and I informed him that I did not actually have enough pesewa to get there. I then spent the next 20 minutes trying to get a tro tro before the storm clouds overhead opened up. This is one example of a scenario in Ghana that I am not going to miss; when entire bank branches do just stop working and the next ATM is not 30 minutes away. Once I got home those feelings had disappeared and I spent the evening with the kids. I brought my ipod and speakers outside and filmed the kids having a dance party, I also took some pictures of baby Roseman in the outfit I had given to her. After dinner I took one of the word game books provided in a box sent from home and invited some of the kids to fill in the missing letters and write games using alphabetical order. It was me who finally said I was tired and needed to retire for the night, the kids could have played word games until their eyes fell out. This is just one of the MANY things I will greatly miss.
Today I am going to work with class 4 and 5 teachers to write the quizzes and possibly take class 4 to P.E. (weather permitting). Then I must trek to Kumasi to get money from one of the fully functioning bank branches and hopefully purchase mattresses for the few kids still sleeping on the floor at the orphanage. More later!
Wednesday: I am taking a short break after spending the morning sanding the new desks with the sand paper I bought yesterday. After class 5 finishes their lesson I will let them bring the new desks into their classroom. Yesterday the rain came down so I was unable to take class 4 to P.E. but I did spend the second half of school in the vocational school room. While two of the students focusing on catering (Charles and Shonda) were conducting their particles, I was finishing writing my sex health test. The two students decided I should try everything they were making so they brought me vegetable jollof rice, cabbage salad, a beef kebab and pancakes with orange flavoring! All of which was delicious and I no longer needed lunch. Earlier in the day Charles and I stepped outside so I could speak to the headmistress of the technical school he hopes to attend next term. Charles tells me he is interested in becoming an electrician. Because the forms for next term are not ready, Charles cannot show me the application, however, he can bring the enrollment money and the headmistress can write a professional letter to me declaring his admission. Finally I told Charles that I want his family to be involved in his schooling so if they could get 10 cedi’s I would pay the remaining 40 for his enrollment fee. Today I spoke to his grandmother on the phone and everything seems to be working out. His grandmother, Nana, was very grateful. I gave Charles the money today and on Monday he should have the letter from the headmistress. Though I wasn’t sure at first, Charles has proven to be very responsible and serious about his future. I am glad I can offer assistance.
After school I went with Daniel to drop off some of the children at home. Daniel is one of the men living in the community and helps bring the children to and from the school each day. Since the bus broke down months ago, Daniel and a few others go in a tro tro to various areas in the region to pick up kids and bring them to and then from Columbus school. Daniel and I went in the tro tro that drops children off near Kejetia. I have a few photos of about 20 or so kids crammed into the vehicle. After dropping all of the kids off and waving goodbye, Daniel and I began checking off my list of things I needed to do in Kumasi. ATM, buy fruit at the market, purchase sand paper, cement nails, clear tape and phone credit. We checked prices of mattresses but decided to buy them at a place closer to home. I will finish writing my math quiz for class 4 tonight and Friday morning I will give them the test and present awards for the top grades. Class 5 has their English quiz tomorrow where I will also be giving prizes. There is still much to do at the school and orphanage before next week when I go to Accra to meet my friend Rachel. I think I will end up doing two blogs this week. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!
-Erin
I haven't been able to upload pictures lately but I promise to put everything up as soon as I get home. (in 20 days)