Taking the orphans to the beach

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So this morning there was some confusion about whether the puppy is a boy or a girl...there has been a lot of debate! We spent last night looking after the pup, trying to get it to eat but to no avail. It didn't want water either, and just kept crying. I guess it's used to being around 30 kids at the orphanage, as well as the other puppies in the litter. I tried hand feeding it pasta and vegetables and it ate some, so that is good 😊 We took it back to the orphanage today though.



We got to the orphanage for 9am, to get the kids ready to take them to the beach. They were super excited. The little ones had a big bowl of sunscreen they were smearing eveverywhere, and they were getting on their swimsuits. We all got in 4 taxis - 9 of us in ours! (yes, a standard size car). I sat in the front with Nini on my lap, who was so excited he was shouting out of the window and wriggling around lots. He's such a cute and smart 4 year old. When we got to the beach, the taxi driver tried to charge us 7 cedis, and we weren't having that, so we gave him 5 and pretty much told him to suck it up, it was all we had. We walked up on to the beach and they decided that the kids could go free, the Ghanaians could pay 2 cedis and the Obrunis 3 cedis. Racist, much?! In the end, Kat bargained 20 cedis for the lot of us, so it was a done deal.



The kids raced straight off into the water, and we followed. I didn't bring swimwear to Ghana as I'd never wear it anyway, so I just ran into the sea dressed in whatI was wearing. It was about 27 degrees today, so I knew it wouldn't take long to dry off. All the volunteers were in the water with the kids, there was a lot of laughter and splashing - so much fun! I took some great photos today - kids playing on the sand, building castles, burying each other....it was great to see them smiling and laughing 😊



We stayed at the beach for a good few hours. It was a fantastic day. Sonja bought lots of bags of little snacks for us and the kids to share. They were kind of like savoury biscuits, like mini-cheddars in a way, but in sticks.



What I found weird is that the little kids wore swimwear but the older kids aged maybe 10-12 (the boys, anyway) went naked. It was kind of uncomfortable, as I have done child protection courses etc, and it just felt wrong to have them naked, running and round and backflipping on the sand! But then I reminded myself that this is a different culture, and just because Britain is uber-careful about such things, these are just kids having fun. To be honest, they all look younger than British kids anyway. The 12 year olds, I would have put their age at about 9 or so. We were discussing the fact that the kids were naked, and Kat piped up with "They sure do have a lot of bounce in them!" to which I looked at her quite shocked and started laughing, and she was like "OMG,I meant the kids, doing backflips and stuff!" I have to admit, it was quite disconcerting having a 12 year old boy who'd been naked just minutes before, sitting on my lap on the way back in the taxi though!



This afternoon, I just stayed at home. We had brought back a different puppy from the orphanage - a boy this time - and we named him Calimucho. So we spent a lot of the afternoon playing with him and introducing him to Rusky and Bobby. Oh - and I spent a while trying to sort out my stupid laptop which wasn't reading my camera, for me to back up my photos - but all sorted now! Kat left at 5.30pm so we said goodbye to her and then I popped up to the shop to get some soft drinks - some coke, juice and some La Casera (which is like Apple Tango but way sweeter, and so yummy!). Then Claire, Mathias and I decided to play Catch in the dark in the yard, with a rugby ball. We weren't very good at it...



I am dreaming of cake right now. Cake, Cadbury's chocolate, crisps (they don't have crisps here, only plantain chips, unless you go to the big international mall in Accra)....mmm yummy stuff! I have a stash of snacks in my room but they're pretty mediocre at best - some anaemic looking Bourbon biscuits, some rip-offs of McCoys whichvI got in the mall a few days ago, and my other purchase from the mall, some RichTea biscuits which is the only English biscuits they had. Tonight's dinner wasn't too bad by current standards - spaghetti with a bean and vegetable sauce. Mavis is a great cook, I am just not too keen on rice....luckily I picked up a jar of Nutella at the mall, so Mavis is very nice and sometimes makes me toast so I can have Nutella and toast!

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