Blogs from Ho, Volta, Ghana, Africa - page 4

Woke up and headed off to Christ with lots of games in tow. I had a "Fun Day" with my class because it was my last day teaching. We played Jenga, made oragami paper boats which they LOVED, and colored. They are really starting to understand the fact that I'm leaving and Thursday will be my last day. Esinu and Rachel begged me not to leave again which was pretty crushing. After we left placement I ran errands and got ready to go back to Christ to take the oldest and middle classes to the monkey sanctuary. While we were walking to Christ a man came up to me carrying an infant baby and stopped me. He told me that we should take his baby with us into the orphanage. I got really upset. Children here ... read more

Woke up and went to Christ Orphanage. Today we worked on penmanship and basic math. I started crying when Rachel told me I couldn't go to America because she would cry when I left. Because of my severely infected foot I have to take medication. I forgot to explain how sick it was this weekend. Imagine Fred Flintstone times seventy. My foot was huge and it got worse and worse and worse. All because of a stupid little bike accident. ... read more

Woke up and went to Christ Orphanage. Mark, a previous CCS volunteer returned and also went to Christ. He is the first volunteer to actually come back and see the progress that has been made there. Maria, Diana, Matt, Jahwill and I left Hohoe for the weekend to travel to Benin which is two countries over on the east side of Ghana, right after Togo. We left Hohoe with little time to get to Ho before the border/visa place closed. Diana was feeling really sick. When they finally approved our visas they made us pay a "processing" fee of $5.00 extra. We ran into a missionary there that urged us to take Diana to the hospital. He even gave us a ride in his truck and offered to take us to an American hospital in Togo. ... read more

Woke up and went to observe HIV Counseling at Hohoe District Hospital for placement. It was so interesting. To be tested for HIV it costs 50 pesewa (about 50 US cents) and results are read within 15 minutes. Believe me, it's a long 15 minutes. They make you sit in the room and you basically stare at the test with the nurse. I was able to sit in on three different tests and you literally sit there in silence for 15 minutes If results are read as positive, a second saliva test is given. If the second deems positive, counseling is immediately given to the patient. I was actually pretty impressed with their counseling program. I observed a girl in the clinic who couldn't have been older than 16. She tested HIV positive. It was really ... read more

Woke up at 11:00 which was super amazing! We took a two day trip to Mountail Paradise Lodge, the place where I spent Saturday of last weekend. Diana, Maria, Rebecca, Emily, Hope and I were all in desparate need of a girls weekend, one with NO drama and total relaxation. We all shared a taxi and had such a wonderful weekend. At night on the mountaintop it does get fairly cold (about 70 degrees) so it was really nice to wear sweatpants for once. Our "girls girls" weekend consisted of laying and round and talking nonstop. We ate dinner, laid around, and went to bed early which was super nice. Saturday morning Rebecca and I woke up at 7:30 planning to go on a nature hike. It's funny that back at home 7:30 is treacherous, but ... read more