Justice rides a Bike

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Fri 17/08/07



Today I woke as usual at 5am with the kids screaming & shouting but today I wake with a really bad headache. I bath the children then go back to bed. The deaf & dumb girl starts a fight every 5 minutes and I don’t have the patients or the qualifications to deal with someone with those problems. I cant even leave the orphanage for a peaceful walk on my own as everyone I meet wants to come over & say hello & chat. If I go into town I’m followed by every child I meet, this was nice at first but now I just want some peace. One good thing is that I have taught Justice, the eldest child, how to ride a bike within two days. He is 17 years old and has never been taught before. He is so happy & can’t thank me enough as he can now ride to school & also do jobs for the orphanage.


This evening I planned to have a quite night and go to bed early but I’m told we all have to go to church for some more praying! It starts at 9pm & I take the children. It is the usual chanting, singing & screaming. One woman goes round & hits all the children with a stick if the fall asleep, which makes me angry, as most of the children are around 5 or 6 years old & they normally go to bed at 7.30pm. I left after about an hour as some of the people were glaring at me & motioning for me to join in. You can’t force somebody to believe in something they don’t believe in. I have no problem in them praying or believing in what they believe in but I wish they would leave me out of it & let me get on with my work & the whole reason I came to Ghana. I still love playing with the children & making them laugh but I feel I need a break as I’m eating about once a day (usually bread & butter and some fruit) & only getting about 5 hours sleep every night. I now think if I were going to do this again, I would want to live away from the orphanage just to have some separation. I plan to do a few tourist things this weekend so I can get away from it for awhile.

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Photos

Hours of fun!
Amazing that a plank of wood & a hill keeps them entertained for hours!

Everybody says "Hello, how are you?"
Whenever I leave the orphanage I am followed by kids wherever I go. The time before this I went to the beach & about 100 children surrounded me to get a closer look!

Pushing a fishing boat into the sea.
Aboadze is mainly a fishing town. Hundreds of boats are lined up on the water's edge. This one has just been repaired.