Goodbyes, round one

Greetings from Nkoranza! Katy, Maaike, and I are traveling this weekend. Nkoranza is a little town about an hour away from Ejura. We're staying at Operation Hand in Hand, a shelter for handicapped children in Ghana. It also has several guest rooms. The grounds are beautiful! There is a restaurant and a pool (for the children). We're staying in a suite, which contains an outdoor shower and toilet. (A real toilet. Outside). We walked into town to use the internet, which is also run by the same people, a Dutch doctor and her American husband. I will take plenty of pictures, of course. =)

It's been a busy week. Nathan left on Thursday. It was a sad day. We all got up with him at 4 am and after his quick goodbyes to the boys and Dada, the five obrunis walked him to the tro tro station and waited to see him off. We stood at the side and sang, "Na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye." It was strange to watch the first volunteer leave. I know I will be a mess when my time comes. Nathan snuck out in the early morning, and I can see the pros to that. The entire village was not yet awake. However, I also see that as a huge con. I am glad I will be leaving the same day as Katy, though, so we can at least hand each other tissues on the tro tro.

It was exam week at school. We didn't do a whole lot.

Yesterday was a really fun day. As the boys' Christmas present, we took them all to Kumasi and went swimming at a fancy hotel. They had a blast!!! We were there for about three hours, and then we took them to our favorite hotel restaurant, called Sanbra's, for dinner. I think they had a great time. It was fun to take them to "the city." They were all so well behaved, too. It was so cute - they all got dressed up and wore their best clothes, shoes, and necklaces. I think they were excited to get outta the village for a day, too.

Esyllt left today for Kumasi where she will be volunteering at another project for the next month and David leaves on Wednesday. It's a sad time at Namaskar house, with everyone leaving. The new batch of volunteers start arriving the first week of January.

Sorry this one is so short. I will have plenty of stories to share "from the road" over the next two weeks. I'm eagerly awaiting my new computer charger's arrival so I can resume typing from home. I'm not so good at the off-the-top-of-my-head stuff!

Hope you are all well!

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