Akwaaba (You are Welcome) – we hear this phrase in Ewe or English everywhere we go. The people in Ghana are so friendly and I have felt nothing but welcomed in this country.
My mind has been a complete whirlwind since I landed in Ghana. Part of me can’t even believe that I am actually in Africa. I feel as though I have already learned so much about the culture and people of Ghana, even after just being here for such a short time. If I told you everything that has happened even in just a few days, I’ll be on here for hours, so I guess I’ll start off with some of my top moments so far in Ghana.
1. The first time that the airplane broke through the clouds and I saw Africa for the first time is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life. The sun was just starting to come up. I saw trees, lots of them with some dirt roads and the roof tops of several small homes. Here I was in the country that I had dreamed so long of coming to, it was right before my eyes. I had never seen anything look so intriguing and I couldn’t wait to put my feet on the ground!
2. The drive to the home base was an adventure all in itself. Three other volunteers (Kat, Alexa and Paul) and I all boarded a bus driven by a CCS worker. We had to travel from Accra which was the main city in Ghana all the way to HoHoe on the other side of the country (pronounced Ho-Ho-Ay). The roads in Ghana are partially paved. It was like they tried to pave them and then it didn’t work so they stopped. Instead of having a semi-flat dirt road, there were now huge potholes of pavement everywhere. So we were constantly going up and down and all around. It took almost four hours to reach the home base. All along the way I saw people, even children selling things from bottled water to toys to sheet metal all the way to having a sign up that was selling a house and land to go along with it. At one point they came right up to the van and crowded around the windows and put their faces on the windows. It was a very uncomfortable situation as most of them were children and I would have loved to give them everything I had, except I knew that I couldn’t. Once we got past the city, I saw huts, literally huts, straw roof and all, set up in small communities of four or five together. Then about every half hour we would come to a small village where these small stores were set up just like Accra but in a smaller scale. They were shops essentially and they would stand up if a car was coming to see if they could sell something to the people in the car.
3. We had a group come to the home base that performs traditional African drumming and dancing. All members of the family participated in the performance. The children were singing and clapping and dancing right along with the women. All of the drummers were males and seemed to be the older members of the family. After we watched their beautiful drumming and dancing they pulled us up to dance with them. We danced with them around in a circle for what seemed like 20 minutes. Then we were able to try the drums. The drums were made of goat skin and actually hurt while I was attempting to make some noise!
Obviously my favorite part has been the children. Four days into the trip and they have already stolen my heart.
We attended a church service on Sunday morning. Here church goes for at least three hours. A group of us followed the music until we found a large straw hut without any sides on it. There were rows of plastic chairs set up and people sitting everywhere. When we first arrived there we a woman made all of the children get out of their chairs so that we had places to sit. Alexa and I ended up sitting next to each other and after about 5 minutes we had two children sitting on our laps. They were adorable and just sat there and kept touching our skin. They are so intrigued here by the color of our skin and we are often called white person by the children here, but not to be taken in a racial way I found out that my placement was changed. Three days ago in national news in Ghana, the owner of the orphanage was charged with allegations against child trafficking. Basically, he was selling the children in the orphanage to people who wanted to adopt them for $6000 - $7000. So needless to say I was pulled from that placement and moved to a different orphanage called Happy Kids!
Monday was my first day at Happy Kids and I loved almost every minute of it. The kids are fantastic. Clay and I are the two volunteers that are at Happy Kids. When we first got out of the van the kids opened the gate and came running at us giving us hugs. There are about 30 kids at the orphanage right now ages 2-6 and a handful of older children because school is not in session. Mama Lisbeth is the woman who runs the orphanage and she showed us the one “classroom” that they have in the school and called all the children in and then left. We quickly had to come up with things to do for the next three hours. Of course I went right into teacher mode and summer camp mode and started thinking of games and activities that we could do. We showed them our pictures from home and they were so focused on us telling them about our families and life at home. Throughout the course of the three hours we…sang a million songs like: The Wheels on the Bus, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Go Bananas, Bam Bam Bam, Barika, and many more common little kid songs. We also played games such as futbol (soccer), duck, duck, goose, what time is it Mr. Fox?, and Simon Says. We also colored and played on their “playground’ which consisted of homemade swings and a broken merry go round. It was a bit of a challenge at first but I love seeing the kids smiling faces and to hear them laugh.
I honestly could write an entire book about my trip here and it has been less than a week. I am learning about myself as I am being challenged every day to step out of my comfort zone in several different situations.
There is a motto here at the home base that they use T.I.A (This Is Africa) – Learn it, live it, love it. I am most certainly doing all three and loving it more and more every day!
Love from Africa,
Steph
A child at the orphanage :) In the one room tha they have for us to do activities with the kids...especially when it's raining and we have to stay in there all day...it is hard to occupy them for three hours.