January 15, 2011 Entry

So yesterday was our first day of volunteering! We were so busy yesterday that I didn’t even get a chance to write in my journal so I’ll start from the beginning. So, we woke up pretty early, ate breakfast and loaded the bus. Since there was so much traffic we got to the church where we had orientation a little late, but it was okay. Prince, the guy in charge of our volunteering, took us to a room where we brought all of our donations and sorted it into 3 categories: school, orphanage and church. Now this is where it gets shady. Prince took so much of our supplies and we didn’t even realize it until we laid out all of the things for the orphanage and the school. He took alllll of the pencils, paper, basically all of the school supplies and gave them to the church, where we aren’t even volunteering and it is obvious that they really don’t need it as much as the school does. So we were all kind of pissed off about that. But we first went to the orphanage. As soon as the door opened, a little boy named Isaac ran and literally jumped into my arms. I picked him up and we all piled into the small room with about 12 little kids. They were learning about words and shapes. It was adorable! But they all sang the Ghanaian national anthem and said their pledge of allegiance. So for them, we sang our national anthem and said the pledge. We all introduced ourselves and so did the kids. After that we all picked one kid up and just cuddled a little bit with them! I got a little girl named Emmanuela who was probably only 2 or 3. I couldn’t tell she was a girl at first, but we figured it out. She wouldn’t talk to me at all so I thought she didn’t like me, so I went to put her down but she wouldn’t have that. She reached right back up to be held, so I did. About 10 minutes later, the older kids who live at the orphanage came back from school for lunch time. They did dances and sang for us. It was so awesome! We loved it. Ernest even got up and danced with them at one point. Then he broke the chair he was sitting in. It was hilarious. But while sitting on the floor and watching the dancing, there were bugs crawling around. It was sad to think that they have to live somewhere with bugs crawling on them. Most of the kids didn’t have shoes, the little kids at least. They walked around barefoot. There were around 5 or 6 women who live/work there that they call “aunties.” They are pretty much their mothers, since their own mothers abandoned them and pretty much left them to die. There are babies there. How could a mother leave her child to die? I will never understand it. The kids are pretty dirty, but so cute. We felt gross after it. We played soccer with them, hand games, and just talked to them. Emmanuela finally started talking to me a little bit when she got more comfortable. She was nuzzling her head in my neck! When we presented them our donation, they prayed for us, and made a speech about how they are still privileged even though people don’t think they are and they will use the things we gave them to learn and better themselves. I got teary eyed during that. We had to leave after about 2 hours of being there. I had to put down Emmanuela, and she kept lifting her legs up so I wouldn’t put her down, but I had to. She just slumped down and kept her head down when I tried saying goodbye so I lifted her chin up and there were just tears rolling down. I got so upset when I saw that. I started crying because she was crying. I reassured her I would be back but it was just so sad. I gave her away to one of the aunties but I didn’t want to leave her! I want to take her home! After the orphanage, we went to the school. All of the kids swarmed out of their classrooms when we arrived. It is a private school so they all have uniforms and are so adorable. They were so excited that we were there!! We got a tour of the school and the different classrooms and grades. I was starting to get bored when we were just standing in the office not interacting with kids and a guy who works for Prince saw that and took me downstairs to kids who are probably in 2nd grade and I got to sit with them and teach them subtracting! It was awesome. I was the only one in there with all of these kids. I loved it. But after the school, we walked back to the church, to see the start of a funeral. It was interesting. Just a bunch of tents. They were preparing for the body later on that night. But they celebrate funerals for 4 days with food and drink. It’s a celebration of their life, not a sad thing. So after that, we got lunch at Southern Fried Chicken and at that point, noone was feeling too hot. We finally got home, took naps and then got in the shower to get ready for the night! We got a cab and planned on going to a restaurant called Monsoon.We got pulled over by the guards and I guess the driver didn’t have his license so he told us he had to slip him money to let us pass! Well after we spent a while trying to find Monsoon, we found it and it was closed! We were walking trying to find somewhere to eat, and it smelled so bad while walking down the street. Here, they have this weird sewer system where there are just these little ditches in the sidewalks and there’s water, sewage, trash, you name it in there, so it smells really bad. People will just stop walking down the street and pee right there in front of everyone. It’s nuts, but anyways we went to Frankie’s, the place we went the first night for dinner, and got some dinner. I got Hummus, which they spell Homos, and it was soooo good! We got some beers and then asked the waiter which club to go to. He recommended Boomerang, so we went. It was 10 cedis to get in, and then we go up to the bar, and beer was 5 cedis! We were not very happy about that. So noone was at the club. There was like 10 people there when we got there. So we sat and just drank and talked. Then some random guy came up to us and started talking and he was kind of creepy so we didn’t talk back. Then we got another beer and decided to hit the dance floor. WELL, we were attacked by like 4 guys and we just could not stop laughing. It was hilarious because we didn’t want to dance with them and they were just grabbing our arms and smiling. Alli got headlocked. And literally we were dying laughing. We couldn’t even stand up straight. Then we look and see the VIP room and there’s a random stripper pole in there and the bartender was cleaning a bottle very seductively and we were like alright we need to get out of here. So we finished our beers very, very, very quickly and booked it out of there. We got a cab driver named Emmanuel, which it seems everyone is named here, and we were stopped again by other cops. And the cops and the driver were talking and he finally let us pass so I asked him what that was all about. He said there was a guy who was acting as a taxi driver and would take people and pretend to drive them to where they needed to go but would just stop the car, take all of their money and leave them there! So the cops were just making sure that he wasn’t the criminal. We got home around 2 am. We all talked for a little and went our separate ways. This morning, we woke up around 9:30, we got to sleep in a little and got ready for the Aburi Botanical Gardens. It took us like 1 hour 30 minutes to get there, and the ride there was pretty to see. It was all mountains and there were some beautiful houses on the cliffs. But then there were some really poor parts too. That’s how it is here- rich living next to the poor. There is no middle class, just rich and poor. But, we arrived at the Gardens and it was beautiful. So many pretty trees and flowers and butterflies. We got to smell cinnamon leaves, bay leaves and menthol leaves from all of the different trees. There were star fruit, nutmeg and these weird cherry trees too! I wanted to steal a star fruit but I couldn’t reach them. But after out tour, we got some lunch, and there were chickens just roaming around and eating the crumbs off the floor under our feet. There were also these HUGE centipedes or millipedes, I’m not sure which one, but they were gross. We drove back to GIMPA after lunch and Julie’s sorority sister and her friend came to visit us for the night. They are volunteering 2 hours away from Accra in a hospital. Leigh works in maternity and Casey works in pediatrics. They said they see some crazy things. The doctors were doing a C-section, and realized the woman was a hermaphrodite. They hadn’t seen one since being doctors, so they made Leigh get her camera and take a picture. They also took a picture of a tumor too. But, Leigh and Casey said they have seen the most malnourished children and people. They even saw a mother who had AIDS who probably only weighed 90 pounds who had given birth to a still born. They don’t use numbing medication for spinal taps or epidurals, it’s just all done naturally. Leigh and Casey live with a family and their “Dad” is the headmaster as a school for special needs children.They sleep with mosquito nets and they have bins with clean water. They aren’t allowed to eat with the family, which is weird. The headmaster has two wives. They live with the Junior wife. He brought them to the village where his senior wife lives and introduced them and they thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. But they also told us about Cape Coast and the canopy walk they did at Kakum National Park, where we will be going. They said it is beautiful and you can see elephants. I AM SO EXCITED! :) The seamstress came today and fitted us for our dresses. They will be done next week and I can’t wait to see them! Tonight we are going out to dinner with the south africans we met at Bojo beach last week and we will be going out clubbing, I think. And tomorrow is the boat trip!