Photos from Ghana

6/24/12

Hello Everyone, These past few weeks have been even more incredible than the first few! I have been in Ghana for about six weeks now, and I can’t decide if it feels like it’s flying by or I feel like I’ve been here forever. Either way, it’s all very exciting and I absolutely love it. I’ve spent most of my time hanging around the house and the school with the kids recently . I haven’t done any weekend trips recently – only to Kokrobite Beach where they have a couple resorts – but I do have a couple planned for the next few weekends. I did get pretty sick a couple weeks ago. The kids gave me an awful cold, so that was a rough week with a bout of homesickness, but I’m all healthy again ! I have also begun teaching ! Along with Lisa, I am teaching Classes 1 – 3 in French ! They have never had a French class before so we’ve started from scratch with them and done a fair amount. It’s difficult to teach the little ones too much, especially since their English is also very rough, so we do very little with them. Class 3, though, is great. We usually do an hour and a half each day with them. So far it’s been basic conversation, numbers, colors, vocab (food, body parts, etc..) with them, but it’s really great. I enjoy teaching very much here. I didn’t think that I would because it was very difficult to teach at Sankofa, but the kids here are much more focused, so it makes it easier. I have found it difficult to write these emails. It’s hard to pick and choose what to put in and leave out just because there is so much! So I’m sure a lot of this reads like it’s all very random and that’s why. Haha. There is of course one thing I always want to talk about and could go on forever about: The Kids. In the past two weeks after adjusting and meeting everyone at the School, I feel like I have really gotten to know the kids. There was one night probably two weeks ago after dinner that I was playing some Frisbee with the older boys and then I saw one of them do a hand-shake dance with one of the older girls and I asked them to teach me. So, they taught me that one… then six or seven others. When I was exhausted from dancing, singing, and laughing, I looked around and all the babies were asleep, all the other volunteers had left, and I had completely missed dinner. They didn’t mind, though, and neither did I! I had so much fun that night and now I stay pretty late every night just hanging out with the kids, doing whatever. Sometimes it feels like we always end up doing the same thing or playing the same games over and over, but it never gets old. These kids are incredible and I am never bored around them. It is in fact the opposite. I am always moved by these kids in some way every day. I know that I cannot possibly express to you all exactly who these kids are, but I will try! I have told you bits of a few kids, if I remember correctly, but now I’ll take some time to tell you a bit about a few of them I have really gotten to know. Antoinette    Antoinette is simply adorable. I’m not sure how old she is - probably 8 or so. (It’s tough to tell their ages here and they don’t always know when you ask them.) Regardless, though, she has the very endearing attitude of an eight year old beauty that has realized people love to play with her as much as she loves being played with. She’s spunky and smart and loud and her laugh just makes me melt. It is beautiful. Last week, though, she got pretty sick. She was running a high fever, she wouldn’t eat anything, and she just slept most of the day when she could. It was the first time I had seen her cry and it broke my heart. She has no siblings at the school, but does have some at home. I believe her father isn’t in the picture for one reason or another anymore, so it’s just her mom. Unfortunately, from what I’ve learned, though, her mother has rejected her – she simply doesn’t want to take care of her despite the fact that she’s able to support the child. When Antoinette wasn’t getting better for almost a week, her mother finally came by after Patrick (the headmaster of the home and my host father) called her and brought her back to Accra. We’re told she’ll be back on Monday, so I’m praying she’ll return healthy and back to her old self ! Christiana    Christiana is easily one of the most wonderful children I have ever met. She is 10 years old and pure beauty inside and out – sounds completely cheesy, but it’s very true. She is very shy and quiet, but she loves to play music, dance and sing. Her family is a bit confusing, but I think she has both some older brothers and sisters living in the home. She fits somewhere in the middle of the older boys and the little kids, so she has a lot of fun hanging out with everyone. I can’t get her to talk much because she’s so shy around us and her English isn’t great, but I honestly just watch her come alive when she’s singing and dancing in church. It is wonderful. Priscilla & Tina    Priscilla and Tina are twin six year olds and they just crack me up! They look identical – the only way I can tell them apart is unfortunately from the burn scars on Priscilla’s arm. Other than that, they are literally identical in looks and personality, though I’d say Tina’s a bit more outgoing and giggly. They both are very inquisitive. They sit on your lap or on your hip and point at things – “Madame, this is what?” – and honestly wait for an answer they understand. Then they giggle and repeat it over and over. Like my headbands. They all have short hair hear so a headband makes no sense to them, so they like playing with it. And freckles, too. They have beautiful dark skin so no marks like my Irish freckles. They point at one and say “Madame, this is what?” and then point out all the others on my shoulders and arms – “freckle, freckle, freckle.” It’s cute. They’re also very good at the puppy-dog face that gets them pretty far with the volunteers. One thing I think is funny about them is that they are both scardy-cats. Unlike most of the kids at the School, they hate being flipped upside down or spun around too fast or playing on the big swing they have there. They just like being held :]. Blessing    Blessing is Priscilla and Tina’s older sister. Her name is perfect for her because she is a true blessing to her family. She also has two little brothers who don’t live at the Home, but attend the school during the day. She is the oldest of them all and for that she has grown up way too early. She bears a very heavy burden at only age eleven. Though she beats on her sisters a bit sometimes, she is incredibly protective of them and cares very deeply about them. When Priscilla was sick a few weeks ago, their mother came to pick her up and take her home for just a few days. I happened to arrive at the Home when her mom was packing her things for all of them to leave and I have never seen a child’s face more grieved than Blessing’s. You could honestly see the weight of all of her family’s difficulties in her eyes. Even when the three of them returned a week later, the twins were perfectly happy and healthy, but it took Blessing a few days to readjust and to start laughing again, to be a little carefree again. Despite all of the responsibility she has, she is still a very sweet girl – a bit rough around the edges sometimes, but a very thoughtful girl. The Older Boys – Joshua, Yvonnes, Augustine, and Evans    “The Older Boys” is what we call a group of boys that are aged about 11-13. There’s Joshua, Yvonnes, Augustine, and Evans. They are such a fun group of very kind-hearted boys. Joshua is beautiful, but very shy. I also see him come alive very much at church where he leads the prayers and songs for the other kids and sings loudest of them all. I play a lot of Frisbee with him, and I’m trying to teach them all the game of Ultimate Frisbee, though I think it’s mostly lost in translation… Yvonnes is funny – he’s clearly the leader of not only the Older Boys, but seemingly all the children. He keeps them all in line. Augustine is a nervous little thing that has the biggest crush on one of the volunteers here, Katie. He is very sensitive, unlike the others. It’s awful of me to laugh at this, but he’s a wicked cry-baby. He cries a lot and that only makes the other boys pick on him a bit more.. He’s a sweetheart, though. Evans is a quiet one, he doesn’t have as strong a personality as the others, so I haven’t gotten to know him terribly well. I have all of these in my Class Three French and they are a joy to teach. It’s mostly basic stuff I’m teaching them, but they learn quickly and they are so excited to be learning French. They always come up to me after school and show me their notes and homework and try the bits of conversational pieces I’ve taught them. It’s so great to have them around. Souley & Fuela    Souley (I figured out that’s how you spell his name) and Fuela are still very well! They went back home for a weekend (and like Blessing, came back very sad for a couple days), so I missed them a ton, but they’re back now. Souley is as cute as ever, though his increasing number of stomach aches is starting to worry me a bit :[. Fuela seems to have fully adjusted to life at the Home. She is very bossy for an 18 month old - very much a diva baby. She has even perfected her “pick me up or I’m going to start crying right now” face for us volunteers. It’s impossible not to pick her up, though, she’s so damn cute. I tried attaching pictures to this email, but the internet isn't good enough right now :[. It's raining today, so the power and connections are touchy... Hopefully soon ! So that’s been most of my past couple of weeks! I haven’t done much traveling because I was so sick, but I have some good ones planned with a couple of the girls. Our host mother Mama Pat is taking us to the Western Region, maybe into the Ivory Coast if there’s time. She has family there and she says the area is beautiful, so she wants to show us some of it. I also plan on going to the Volta Region again! I loved it so much and there’s so much more hiking and wonderful little villages to see up there, so we’re planning a trip up there as well. I also want to make it up to Kumasi if I can. It’s the largest market in West Africa and I’m told it’s something to see. I’ll keep you all updated of my travels in my next email. If there’s anything in particular you’d all like to hear about, let me know. I’m sure there’s a million things I’ve left out. Thank you everyone, as always. Cori

Update from Kasoa, Ghana

Today is a rainy day. And a “rainy day” in June in Ghana means an unrelenting torrential downpour for endless hours that shuts down the power grids, floods the streets to impossible depths, and completely strands all inhabitants of Kasoa in their houses for the duration. That is where I am now: left to my own devices, bored out of my mind, looking for anything to do until the kids get out of school in about two and a half hours. The laptops have all died and my eyes have gone cross from reading too much Sylvia Plath (I read the entirety of The Bell Jar last night and this morning), so I shall write a rather lengthy letter now that I will type up later and eventually send as my long overdue second email to you all. Here it is. Enjoy. Quite a bit has happened since my last email: Goodbyes to Sankofa and Eguafo, some traveling, the move to my new Ghana home, and my start on the new project where I will be for the rest of my time here! I’ve labeled the sections so you can skip around a bit – this is terribly long, so sorry. The truly important stuff everyone must read is under “My New Placement,” which is starred at the bottom.    Goodbyes to Eguafo and Sankofa I had only been in Eguafo about a week and a half, but even with just that little time, It wasn’t easy to say goodbye to the kids. When I left Sankofa, it was also the last day of a group of six Canadian girls’ time with the program. They had been there for four weeks and so along with Sarah, the other American volunteer I was with, we all threw the kids a little party and cooked them dinner. We made some rather festive decorations out of just construction paper, thread, and markers. You get very crafty with limited resources I’m learning very quickly. We also made them each a little superlative certificate. Kwasi got “Best Picture Taker” and Anthony got “Most Creative.” We had a lot of fun stringing up the decorations and presenting each of the little awards. We also presented David with his gift: a male goat so he can begin breeding goats to raise money for the Center ! He really liked it I think. Then we cooked dinner with all the kids, served them, and just hung out the rest of the night while the kids played drums and danced. It was a perfect last night in Eguafo. All of us then had to pack up and say our goodbyes to the kids that came down to the house early in the morning. I said goodbye to most of the kids, including Kwasi the night before, but of course Anthony had to come along in the morning and give us all a hug as we were getting into the trotro. I cried a bit – a lot actually. It was ultimately my choice to leave Eguafo and head to another project, though I do really miss it now. As I think I mentioned in my last email, the program in Eguafo is heavily teaching-oriented, rather than helping out with the kids and the orphanage itself. As there were other places that had more of what I was looking for that also needed help, I decided to switch. I felt I would be more useful there. I have kept in contact with David at Sankofa to help him with some grant-writing he wants to do to fund the orphanage. They have official international NGO status, so there’s a lot of opportunities involved in grant-writing. I do hope I get to help them in that way for as long as they need it ! A Small Tirade on the Topic of Trotros – read this bit, it’s interesting stuff I must explain what a trotro is exactly. They are the most fantastic and awful thing I have discovered about traveling in Ghana so far. Picture in your mind a standard twelve passenger van. Now picture it hollowed out inside, remodeled with enough seats to fit no less than 23 fully grown people, and driving around a barely paved road at ungodly speeds with dozens of other trotros and taxis on the roads. That is a trotro. Looking at it from an academic perspective, it is truly fascinating. It’s a well-developed transportation system that seems to lack any order, yet is incredibly efficient. Each of the trotros has a license to operate from the government, but beyond that there are no apparent laws. The fares are not set. They are commonly agreed upon by the distances and amount of space you take up, but are usually negotiable. There seems to be no order or system when you first get to a tro station. Everyone’s screaming every which way, asking you where you’re going, and fighting over who gets to take you to wherever it is you’re headed. Then you just hop in the tro, and you’re off at no particular time, just whenever it’s filled with the 22 other people – and usually a live animal or two. Most of the time you don’t even pay until you’re halfway there or whenever the Mate – the driver’s aid – asks you to pay. They are very cheap, also – from a Westerner’s perspective, at least. All the traveling I did two weekends ago, way out to Akwidaa in the Western Region from Eguafo and back again (two taxis and four trotros) only cost about 12 cedi, which is about 8 USD. Blows my mind. Now looking at it from a sane person’s perspective (who is used to driving laws and mandatory vehicle inspections), trotros are terrifying. They are all as dilapidated as the roads they drive on. They break down quite frequently. And the drivers are simply insane. They’re the only way to travel here, though. I’ve found that I love them; But not the drivers and their mates because they’re pushy, rude, and reckless. My Travels So Far Now back to the destinations. I’ll only talk about the Volta Region, cause it’s been my favorite. From Eguafo that morning, we went back to Accra (about a four hour trip), had lunch at the IVHQ volunteer house, then hopped in a trotro to the Volta region (a six hour trip). It was a long day, that Saturday. After a bit of a hiccup with our hotel reservations, we found a nice little place and slept very well that night. We woke up the next day and organized a guide to take us to the tallest mountain in Ghana – which the Bradt guidebook tells us is debatably the tallest in West Africa, but they can’t be sure. Our guide told us, though, that it was a crummy hike so he took us instead to the second tallest in Ghana – Mt Gimo, I think it was called. It was a four hour hike up and the most beautiful thing I had seen up to that morning (the Falls beat it the next morning). From the top we saw the other mountains around us, Lake Volta, and nothing but beautiful green Ghana forest with the red clay roads weaving in and out in various places. Truly amazing. We also did some yoga on the top of the mountain, which was just fun ! The next morning we went to the Falls. I forget the name of the town they’re in, but they’re a set of famous falls that Ghana is known for. We didn’t have the time to hike up to the higher falls (a two hour rigorous climb, we were told), but it was only a quiet 45 minute walk to the lower falls, so we just did that. We were not disappointed: it was so beautiful. I’ll see if there’s a way I can get some pictures to you all, but honestly, they wouldn’t do them justice at all, I’m sure. The People Along the Way I do have to say that one of my favorite parts of this trip so far has been meeting so many interesting people. Here’s just a sample: Ghanaians – each and every one of them, all the kids especially, the Canadian girls who all very different but go to university together, a young British man that picked up and moved to Ghana a few years ago to start an NGO here building schools across the country, three German film students doing a project in Ghana, one hilarious Australian girl I’m now living with, a British doctor doing the IVHQ medical program, and many more people… It’s been pretty amazing. I love people and their stories. **My New Placement: West Africa Children’s Foundation / School *** Early last week I finally made it to my new home in Kasoa, Ghana. I am living with ten other volunteers in a homestay. The family founded the orphanage I’m working at – Patrick and Mamma Pat, with their three boys Arnold, Mettu, and Jeho. The house is about an hour and a half from Accra and it’s a world of difference from Eguafo. It is an urban area – not a Western city kind of urban, though. They just have a market, a major trotro station, and what kind of seem like neighborhoods. Here they even speak a different language. In Eguafo it was Fante; in Kasoa its Twi. I know a bit of Twi and zero Fante, so it wasn’t a huge change – especially since everyone speaks English anyways. Haha. I don’t like Kasoa as much as Eguafo, but I love the work I’m doing with this orphanage much more, I think.  The days are long. I wake up every morning Monday through Friday at 5:30 am, bathe the babies and toddlers and little ones, feed everyone their breakfasts, and then just play with the kids until school. Then we have our own breakfast back at home, hang out in the morning or go to the market or internet café, until lunchtime. Then we return to the orphanage and serve breakfast for all the kids that live there as well as all the kids that attend the free school in the same building. There are about 45 kids that live there and 70 more that go to just the school during the day. Patrick founded the Children’s Home and the school (they’re in the same building) just last year, I believe. A big struggle with urban areas in the developing world is that there are a lot of street children. Patrick told us that he was walking around town and found three children just playing in the mud in the streets – very emaciated, very dirty, no clothes, and not in school. He said he had seen it most of his life around Ghana, but he stopped and asked them where their mother was. They simply said they had no idea. Those three kids now live in the home Patrick started where they have a safe place to sleep, receive three meals a day, and attend school. I’ve learned that the vast majority of these kids have that similar story. Most have no father, but do have a mother who is simply incapable of supporting them. It has not been a quick fix for them, though. I’ve observed their lives for one week and they are happy children – obviously scarred, but happy. The differences between Sankofa and this Home have surprised me. Though the kids here have more food to eat and more clothing (some have several outfits they all take very good care of, very adorably), what they don’t have is shocking. They have no proper schooling because they can’t afford the school fees for government schools. They have no toilet so they simply go in the back of the house. The most amazing thing I’ve seen, though, is that they have each other. The kids in Eguafo were close with each other, but not as close as these kids. They are much younger, also (the average age is about 6 whereas is was about 13 or 14 at Sanfoka), so its even more surprising how much they care for each other. They all fight and bicker as kids do, but they all act as siblings. Most of the kids in fact have siblings that live in the home. It is truly touching the way these kids interact with each other. For example, my favorites are Fuela and Soulie – those are spelt phonetically, I haven’t the slightest clue how to spell them. I know that they’re Arabic names, but I dunno anything more. Fuela is about 18 months and Soulie six years old. They have a mother, but last year their father was killed because he couldn’t pay for the rent on his land. Awful. It left their mother unable to support them and she gave up Soulie to the Home when it opened last year and Fuela came just the day before I did ! When I first met her she wouldn’t let anyone go near her, but I didn’t know that so she looked at me scared a bit and I went to pick her up. She just shrieked clearly terrified, and started crying. It was adorable. Soulie ran after her, put her next to him, and held her until she stopped crying. She eventually came around after playing some games with me and Soulie. She began to get more comfortable around me and would let me bathe her the next day, but up until the last day or two she still ran away screaming from anyone else. Anyways, anytime Fuela cries, Soulies right there and just holds her and yells at the kid that made her cry. Haha. Each morning Soulie gets all her bath stuff ready, gets her school dress, puts away her other clothes, and walks her over to let us bathe her. Then they bathe and he dresses her and they’re ready for the day ! At each meal she makes sure she sits next to him, rather violently shoving aside anyone that sits between them (we’re working on the manners, but the language barrier with the babies is tough), and he makes sure she eats all of her food before she gets up. All of the siblings are like that in the home, as well as many of the kids in general to each other that aren’t siblings. They are incredible. Even when they do fight and there are suddenly 10 children under the age of ten all melting down with tears and shrieks during lunch… It’s fun. I could go on forever about these kids, but this email is now far longer than it should be.. I’ve probably exhausted and bored you all, but its entertained me this rainy afternoon. I’ll check in again next week. This weekend we’re going to Kokrobite Beach and the Accra Cultural Market ! There’s a football match on Saturday we’ll watch at the beach – Holland is playing and there’s a lovely Dutch girl here at the house with me, so we’ll watch it :] ! Anywho, thank you all again. I am truly blessed to be here meeting all these people, seeing these incredible things, and working with these amazing kids. I really appreciate all the support everyone has given me to be here. Take care, I’ll be in touch! Cori