Blogs from Greater Accra, Ghana, Africa - page 3

September 3, 2014 I have met so many people from all over the world. Currently there are people from Austria to Australia in the house. We even have a volunteer from Israel. Every one of us falls in love with the children at the orphanage. Many of them go back and fundraise for Dream Africa. Right now I’ve been staying in touch with Maria Ennamorati (a fellow American from Maine) who immediately started collecting donations from friends and family. She has been posting her progress on Facebook and has filled 10 boxes of things to send over as well as almost $300. Yesterday I picked up the first box, which had clothes (mostly underwear, which is essential), a few school supplies, bandages, sanitary pads, and most exciting of all was the special gift from Maria. She ... read more

August 25, 2014 I spent an interesting afternoon at the orphanage. When I got there I found most of the children behind the orphanage cracking palm nuts. I found out that they have two different uses for them. The first is cooking them to make palm nut soup and the second is to get the oil to add to salve which they use after they bathe. I then asked if I could help them with the nuts. I stayed outside with them for about an hour and a half crack and shelling palm nuts. Of course my little Ema wouldn’t leave my side and eventually fell asleep on my lap while I was working. It felt like a very African experience. When I brought the big basket inside with the harvested palm nuts on my head. ... read more

August 20, 2014 I’ve been in Ghana for over 10 weeks now. I’ve seen so many people come and go, and I’ve made friends from all around the world. There have been so many different languages spoken in the house. Most recently the house has been filled with Spanish since there have been so many volunteers from Spain. Even when it’s just English being spoken the accents tell the representation of the different nationalities. The Americans especially like to tease the British about the different terms for things. One of the strangest terms for me is that they call their evening meal tea. However, because of hearing all of those terms I’ve started to use terms like cutlery instead of silverware or half three instead of three thirty. Most importantly though is that I call soccer ... read more

July 28, 2014 Yesterday was a crazy day. Some of the volunteers took the kids from the new orphanage to a beach. We cooked food for about 6 hours and then we packed it all up in 2 taxis and met the kids at Sango Beach. We cooked them spaghetti (with extra vegetables) and fried chicken. We also cut up a ton of fruit. In all we served food to 44 people. Despite all the work that went into the crazy morning and early afternoon seeing the children enjoying the food was so worth it. They don’t always get complete meals like that, so whenever we cook them food we try to have protein, carbs, and lots of nutrient filled fruits and vegetables. The kids had a blast at the beach! Some of them got covered ... read more

July 21, 2014 I know it’s been a couple weeks since my last entry. These last couple weeks have been insane at the house with people constantly coming and going. The house is literally overflowing with people. Currently there are 33 volunteers with Dream Africa. Jamal finally moved out of the house to his own apartment where he finally has some privacy. That gave us another room with beds and another room was just finished outside, but even with those two rooms (eight more beds) we’re still struggling to find enough beds for people. There are so many nationalities represented. There are 4 Americans right now, quite a few English, a group of Northern Irish, 6 Spanish, French, Japanese, Swedish, Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, Austrian, Swiss, Italian, and even a Nigerian. Most people aren’t staying very long ... read more

June 26, 2014 During my class at Faith the other day there was a distraction in the back of the class. Apparently the bench had broken and the two boys were trying to use their shoes to hammer it back together. These schools have very basic supplies and furnishings, but those still break and need to be replaced. It’s important for the children to have a working classroom. Dream Africa has quite a few projects and Jamal works so hard to keep them going. I may have only been here for 2 and half weeks, but I’ve fallen in love with these children and want to do everything that I can to help them succeed. I’ve already talked to Jamal about some ideas I’ve had that could help with fundraising. Currently on the DACF website there’s ... read more