Notes from beyond the half-way point

It's been 1290379357098374 years since I've written an entry, and I'm sorry this one won't have visuals despite the 200+ pictures I took since you last heard from me because the other night in Accra my wallet and camera were stolen. I don't even care about the wallet, but the fact that I've lost 7 weeks of travel photos (and videos!) from 2 continents just really breaks my heart.

I've been in Ghana for 6 weeks and have 4 weeks left... but I'm not ready to leave any time soon. Flipping through my written journal, I've got 31 pages of unblogged material and I haven't even finished writing about this past weekend, when I went to the Northern Region (which is like going to another country!)

Particularly memorable moments since I've last posted (and what will remain just memories) include:

- going to the Kaneshie fabric market on the way to Accra, where I bought some fake kente cloth (traditional geometric, symbolic woven fabric in Ghana), and then I found a seamstress, where I sketched out a dress and within a week I went back to pick it up. Custom made dress for less than $5? sweet!

- Putting together a "Yaw and Echo bag" to make my life easier, complete with diapers and wipes because I was sick of using whatever piece of cloth I could find to wrap around their bottoms (seriously have used pillow cases as diapers before). But Echo has since gone home to his mother, who is apparently out of jail after stealing 600 cedis. I'm now looking after Yaw, Rosemary (close to Yaw's age, too old to be hanging out with the babies all day, needs more stimulation), and Jon-Jon, an adorable little boy with chubby cheeks (quite a handful!)

- visiting Irene in Tema for her 23rd birthday and going to her church, which went on a couple hours longer because they noticed her whispering in my ear every once in a while to explain what was going on, and they started translating from Twi to English. We knelt on the floor of her little house and cut a birthday cake with some of her close friends, and I got to talk on the phone with her mom (who recently emigrated to the US!)

- Creating a spectacle for the villagers as I walked with some other obruni girls, babies in arms, to a clinic at the edge of town so they could be weighed and given shots. We brought the chidren's health records, many of which had parental information left blank, and many had taken "Royal" (after the orphanage, Royal Seed Home) or "Amoah" (after Naomi Esi Amoah, founder of the orphanage) as their last name.

- A lot of volunteers have left and many more have come, and last week I gave a personalized tour of Accra to 5 new Canadians (no longer the only one, haha, in fact there's a whole bunch that have moved in to another orphanage nearby), and they had a great time and we never got lost! haha.

- Bringing the kids to different mother's day celebrations (the irony) where they got to perform their drumming and dancing, and I ended up on a Ghanaian radio station giving a shoutout to my mom back home, haha. There was a celebration in Kasoa (where I saw the local royal family) and one in Accra, and on the way to Accra we got stuck in a traffic jam but then realised it was because there was a car crash involving 4 cars, one of which was a taxi that Naomi and some kids were in. They were fine, (Naomi got off with some whiplash) but another driver that was involved was killed. Made me realise my protective instinct over these kids, when I took one of the taxi kids on my lap for the rest of the way after they all piled into our bus with the rest. Later I realized I actually caught on tape the moment that Richard ran off the bus to see if they were ok.. buuut I have no camera now, darn.

- After discovering that the orphanage was out of food and there was no money to buy any, a volunteer meeting was called and we all pitched in to get the kids through for the next while. After contributing a rather generous amount, I discovered almost double in a tucked away place in my suitcase that I thought I had spent. Karma much?

- School is back in session after the 4 week vacation, and that means the teachers had 4 weeks of not getting to beat any kids, needless to say they got back at it full force. It gets really frustrating, especially how 5 minutes after Gizelle and I cleaned and put polysporin on a girl's cut, she came back with it bleeding saying she'd been caned. Not like I had to ask.

- Speaking of school, I was asked to teach French! They have no french teacher even though it's in the timetable. I'm by no means fluent, but after looking at their textbooks and curriculum, the material is easy enough for me to teach. I had my first 2 lessons today and caught them up on the verb etre, greetings, colours, numbers, and parts of the body.. how long before I exhaust all the french I know? haha. The classrooms are made out of sticks and today I taught class 6 and class 5, which is in the same room but divided by a chalkboard.

- Me, Amanda from the US, Chris from BC and 4 other Canadian girls left at 4:30 friday morning to make our way to the north, to Mole National Park, to safari!! Halfway there, the canadian girls got so stressed out about some bumps in the journey that they turned back. So 7 became 3 and we continued on, took a bus in air conditioned splendor to Kumasi, then a death bus from Kumasi to Tamale arriving at 4 am, bummed around the bus station for a couple of hours until it opened only to find out that every bus going our way was booked. So we took a delapidated tro-tro there, on a road that's rough going by Ghanaian standards, passing through village after village of circular mud huts with straw rooves. It was the most adventurous weekend of my life, and had a wizard-of-oz vibe with how we kept meeting new people and continued on together, ending up as a group of 7 again. The village of Larabanga was really nice to see. We were showed around by twin brothers (who are mentioned in the guidebook) and they took us to a "mystical stone," and the oldest mosque in West Africa, made out of mud and sticks. Afterwards, I hopped on the back of a motorcycle with one of them to get to Mole Park. It was amazing (on safari we saw about 15 elephants at the watering hole,and Chris got attacked by a baboon.. in the park restaurant, lol)

You bet I'm leaving a gazillion things out. but i've got 5 minutes left here!

toodles,
Erika

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Part of trip: Ghana

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