Keep on trying nonoboy

Just got back from happy kids. Juliana and I went and did some painting in their classroom
and although I'm no Picasso it looks a lot nicer than the dirt pink/brown colour (i think i
used to be pink and after some undetermined amount of time and lots of dirt it's morphed into a brown colour. The kids as usual are great even if Doreen decided to sit on my lap after she had wet herself. I think by the time I leave Ghana every single item of my clothing will have been in contact with pee. That's pretty impressive!

So there is a couple of kids I've decided to kidnap, the law is pretty lax here in Ghana so
I think I'll get away with it. First of all Trouble AKA Cynthia. She's actually been pretty
good lately but I think she's been a bit sick which is why she's kept here pinching to a minimum. She did pee and poo over the classroom (outside on the dirt floor) the other day which was a
great experience and then was walking around with shit all down her leg since the teacher didn't
think she needed to clean her up ... so I took her to the teacher and explained that she needed to
wash it off since there were flies all over her and it wasn't good for her or the other children ...
Here even the concept of common sense is foreign. It doesn't help that there is no such thing as nappies over here so these kids are pretty little and should be in nappies but no. I was also thinking about kidnapping anyonam BUT turns out she has a Mum which was so weird finding out since we thought she lived at Happy kids, even weirder is how much they look alike =) So third on my list is little Caleb. He is the most adorable little boy ever. He is such a good kid so calm and chilled, constantly giving my hugs and kisses until it kills me. So that's why I need trouble and Caleb they will balance each other out. Although one of the other volunteers
who didn't work at happy kids came one afternoon and saw Caleb and after 10 minutes was in the corner crying clutching the poor kid to her and enquiring about adopting him. Kinda crazy and poor Caleb but he is just that cute BUT unfortunately he has a Grandmother. I say unfortunately since he only sees her everyone once in a while and therefore has to live at happy kids but can't be adopted which sucks. Well can't be adopted as far as I'm aware. But the girl had emailed Juliana to see if any thing had changed and she could adopt him, but since I'm here I've got first dibs.

I'll give you a quick run down of a couple of the kids. There is Peter and Paul. They're identical twins or the Hernia twins as I was introduced to them as. They both have hernia's which means they have REALLY big belly buttons and Julianna was saying something like it's when the intestines push through or something anyway apparently it's genetic and I've seen quite a few kids with the same thing.

Then there is Blewsi. He's about 9ish and one of the oldest kids that lives at happy kids actually he's the second oldest. He's really good always hugging us, loves stealing the camera to take a thousand pictures but sometimes he just gets really quite and subdued and Juliana has told me that a few times he's just burst into tears. We're not exactly sure why suffice to say he hasn't had a very easy life and he doesn't have a family and I think Juliana was saying he's seen some pretty awful stuff but not entirely sure what.

Then there is Hannah. She is the oldest about 16. She is meant to go to school at the other site for the older kids but most the time she is made to stay back and look after all the kids which is stupid espcially when we're there and quite capable. She like a older sister/mum to all the kids.

There is one kid called Junior who has a lot of trouble staying on his feet for some reason or another. The other week he fell flat on his face and grazed his nose. Not sure why he didn't think to put his hands out especially since he's so used to falling.

Mavis ... she just stands and smiles at you constantly with her gappy smile. Another one we thought didn't have a mum until a couple of days ago.

Elikplim. He is a terror but oh so entertaining. First of all he looks like a vampire since his front teeth and the teeth on either side have rotted out since apparently his parents don't know what a toothbrush is but then has these little fangs, actually I though he reminded me of Golum from Lord of the rings. So there is this toothless little terror vampire running around who also I'm pretty sure has ADHD. Very entertaining but also extremely exhausting.

There is Harriet and Princilla, sisters. They are very cute and Princilla is constantly carrying her sister around Ghana style with the bit of material. Princilla is about 7 and her sister about 4. Anyway Harriet has come a couple times to school minus Princilla and has cried the whole time for her. She often has to find a surrogate sister. The other day a little boy called Prince became here surrogate (he is also about 4) which was so cute to watch. If she was crying she would go to him and he would roll his eyes and give her a hug and try to calm her down.

Then you got the older girl crew with Moda, Melodie (who was wearing a bandanna with the hemp leaf today), Essinam and Sandra. They're pretty chilled and will come and give hugs and tickles and show you how they know there colours (well try at least) they're about 6 to 8.

The reason for the whole guessing of ages is that no one seems to know how old they are. So one will say 6 and so will another when it's pretty obvious there not the same age. But I wont bore you anymore in this post about how absolutely adorable the children are.

So this weekend Juliana and I went to lake Volta which is about 2 hours away. It was really nice and relaxing. We had air con, a swimming pool and TV that was playing the Football and I got to see Man Utd kick spurs ass. So luxury basically. They also had a weird kinda zoo there. There were monkeys, crocodiles, a turkey in the same pen as a little dear kinda thing, peacocks, ducks, turtles, snakes and raccoon kinda things ... Did i mention it was random? It was so pathetic since Julianna and I spent most the time talking about all the kids at happy kids and all their little quirks and how much we miss them. I'm going to be one of those annoying parents that can't do anything but talk about how cute their kids are, but luckily there were two of us talking about it so it was great !

After we finished painting today (did I mention I got paint ALL over myself which is really surprising but still really annoying since it's oil base and therefore I've doused myself in turpentine to get it off) we went to visit Prince which is a joint patient of Juliana and Kristina who left a couple of weeks ago. They both worked at the hospital before they were fired but this little boy came in (he's about 8) with a really bad leg after a bunch of bricks fell on top of his leg. Basically the bricks took a big chunk out of his bone but nothing was fractured. So the hospital's solution was to put a flimsy cast around his knee and leg but cut out a chunk of the cast where his injury was. So basically this kid has a whole bunch of bone fragments all in his leg and a cast which basically does nothing. And then the hospital sent him on his way with a big infection and no useful treatment. So the girls have been going to his house to clean the wound and in the last couple of days his body has been pushing out the bone fragments from the wounds. Thank goodness for the wonders of the human body because if people around here had to rely on the hospital there would be a lot more dead people and there are plenty here already let me assure you. So much so that right next to the hospital there is the coffin makers, pretty steady flow of business for them, I wonder if there in cahoots with the hospital?

Not too much else is going on. Amber has left so now were only down to 4 volunteers. It's really quite and a little weird but then in a few weeks time 14 people are coming and it will be as equally weird to have a house brimming full of complete strangers.

Pictures will follow it's just freezing every time I try to post them. Oh Ghana!

Try again, Jesus is my saviour.

Blog weeks 2/3

The title for this blog comes compliments from a shop in town.. i'm not sure what there selling since it's never open but the sign never fails to amuse me.

So not too much to report on but I'm hoping the simple act of typing will give me some ideas.
I'm currently sitting at the kitchen table sipping my cup of tea in the sweltering heat. Someone
told me once that tea cools you down ... I'm not entirely convinced.

Today we went to the monkey sanctuary about 30 minutes out of town which was cool. The forest is full of Mona monkeys. The locals believe that the monkeys are their ancestors so they take very good care of them and apparently if you take a monkey out of the forest it will disappear... this came up after we decided we wanted a monkey at the home base and were brainstorming ideas on how to get one.

So last week we went to placement as usual. The kids are still on Easter break so there is only a few about 15 that are there ranging from ages 2 - 13. So of course mayhem ensues trying to keep everyone entertained and having as few fights as possible. There is one little girl called Cynthia who I have nicknamed 'Trouble'. Our first encounter with each other was when she was 'drawing' and her crayon had a bite mark in it, in which time I enquired if she had in fact eaten the crayon? Her response was a shake of her head and a devilish smile. I should have known she was lying the moment I saw purple crayon flecks on her chin. I then proceeded to look inside her mouth where low and behold teeth full of purple crayon. TROUBLE. (She's about 2). She also likes to hit but does it with a smile which I think, she thinks is OK. The problem with most the kids especially the younger one's is that they don't speak/understand English, even though
it's the official language of Ghana, so they come running up to you talking and you stand there trying to understand what their saying in Ewe (their local dialect) so needless to say I'm becoming an excellent mind reader/charades genius.

Cynthia AKA Trouble.

We went to the Likpe caves on Tuesday which was nice. We had to hike a bit which was actually pretty hard but good because the only exercise I'm getting here is the occasional walk into town and playing with the kids in the park until I can't stand the heat anymore. There are about 6 caves that were used by the tribes hundreds of years ago when they were fighting with other
tribes. One cave was a meeting place, one was a lookout that they could see people but people couldn't see them, one was the throne cave, one a prison and some others i can't remember what for. But in one of the caves there was a whole bunch of bats which was kinda cool they were
quite small and pretty calm.

On Friday Amber, Becky and I headed into Accra which is about 4 hours away. We hitched a ride with Kristina, a volunteer that was leaving which was nice because it meant we didn't have to catch a tro tro. So got into Accra after a bit of drama which included switching drivers,
getting a little lost and ending up at a pretty shitty hotel. We managed to find some pizza (where we saw a whole bunch of other white people, no local food for us!) and pretty much called it a day. The next day we walked to the super fast Internet cafe which was heaven, it was also air conditioned and had proper toilets so I didn't want to leave. Ok here is a quick note on toilets in Ghana. A lot of places especially bars, restaurants (the cheap ones) etc have 'urinals' which is pretty much a trough on the floor with a hole at one end, needless to say
everyone tries really hard not to have to go to the toilet outside of the home base which is kinda hard since your constantly having to drink water as to not become dehydrated. Anyway then we went to the cultural market where they sell a lot of fabric, carvings, drums, jewellery etc.
We lasted about 20 minutes there until we gave up since everyone was constantly yelling and it was wayyy too hot to be yelled at, although this was after a rasta made me go see his shop because 'it's nice to be nice' and I didn't want to be the bitchy white girl. Then he proceeded to tell me he had an Australian girlfriend and he plans to go to Australia so maybe he'll see me there on the street ... yeah sure, rasta.

So after we gave up we went to the beach. We had to pay 4 cedi to get in ($4) but since it was a clean beach with actual bins we obliged. (Ghana is really dirty and your hard pressed to find garbage bins anywhere people just throw things in the gutter, the gutter in which people also

urinate in, in the middle of town) So we pretty much stayed on the beach all afternoon from about 1 to 5. They had all chairs and umbrella's set up and everything. The morning we also changed hotels because Amber couldn't stand the other one, she apologised profusely but having lived with Mum's hotel demands all my life I think it might of felt strange not to change hotels ;)
Amber and I at the beach.

Last week we also had a guest speaker on family systems in Ghana. Basically she said that Ghana is very family orientated and the extended family is very important. Then she went on about how many people who travel,have a low income, want to get higher education or are having trouble disciplining their children will put their kids in orphanages ... Now obviously i've left out a good portion of the talk but this topic got me so mad and depressed.
People here don't seem to have any idea how emotionally and psychologically traumatic it is for a child to be taken away from their family and forced to live with people they don't know. That in itself is hard enough put on top of that the environment the child is forced to live in, in a place like Ghana. Sleeping on concrete floor, being looked after by people who really for lack of a better word don't give a shit and to receive a half assed education that won't help them achieve anything in life. In which time she proceeds to tell us that if your a woman and don't have children your looked down upon. So you have a child you can't afford or don't want but it's fine because then you can drop them off at an orphanage but people will know you had a kid ... After hearing all this I seriously wanted to tear my hair out. This women talking to us was 'educated' she taught at school and knew the main exports of Australia, she just had no clue as to how
that kind of treatment effects people let alone children. The one thing that is so overwhelmingly obvious here is how key education is here.(thank you Mum and Dad, I really do appreciate my education even if I hated every last test/ oral/ assignment.)
But if your educated you go to Accra or abroad. For a people who pride themselves on community spirit, it's something that is seriously lacking. So any chance on improving your community is left to the way side in order to gain material possessions and notoriety.
There is no form of empathy for your fellow man, only if that person is close to you. That is the most difficult part about being here and I'm not sure if I said it in my last post but their is such a sense of apathy it's sometimes suffocating. Especially when the whole hospital debacle
came up but everyone just throws their hands up and says 'what can we do? 'Step 1. Start to learn to give and shit and from there actions will follow.

Anyway that's my little bitch for the day. I'm am really enjoying myself here so no one worry. Although it sucks about certain things I don't feel completely helpless since I'm here and I have the opportunity to do something about it, even if it's only a tiny little thing. As they
say the ocean started with a tiny drop. (or something profound like that) In the next couple of weeks I want to try and incorporate a syllabus into our 'school'. Hopefully Elizabeth the headmistress will be ok with that, I just have to figure out how to do it in a classroom with
30 kids of different learning abilities and no learning materials. Also I want to do a bit of research about the orphanage laws/standards here if there are any, it sucks that the internet is so slow. I don't think there are any standards, but I'm thinking of writing a letter (white girls anyone?
I think that's what its called the heat has fried my brains) to the government and maybe the U.N.just to draw some attention to the issue or at least try. Seems a little pointless but I have a lot of free time and it's much better to do something then throw your hands up and wait for a
revolution which a lot of people here do or say it's fine the way it is without having any idea that in order for their country to improve they must work with the children since they are the future, they are the hope.

So pretty much been chilling this week. Went to market yesterday and bought heaps of fabrics so i'm having a dress, a couple of skirts and a hoodie made. Photos will follow =) I already have one dress which I love in a batik fabric. Yes Mum, your prediction is right I'll be coming

home more of a hippy. Actually i'm not sure hippy is the word although my arm is full of beaded bracelets as I speak. So that's about it for now think were going to head to the Gedould which is the 'hotel' down the 'road' (entirely dirt of course) for a fanta. It's our local ;)
View from homebase.

LOL (lots of love, right Mum?)
Love Jamie xoxo

High speed internet is my friend

So I'm in Accra at a high speed internet cafe and it's bliss ! Had to walk for about 45 mins maybe to get here but well worth it and some good exercise since I never seem to get any. Not too much to update on but going to download some photos so here you go ...

This is our 'city' of 50,000 people apparently ... i'm not convinced.

The markets when it decided to piss down. This is our classroom.


Nap time on the concrete floor.

Kids at happy kids.

Chocolate time, 2 minutes after this photo we were both covered in chocolate.

Anonam ... we thought she didn't know her name since we thought she was saying she didn't have a name but apparently that's her name.

Richmond and I.

View from hike to the likpe caves.

The hospital were the volunteers were fired from.How we all dealt with it ... the little plastic packets hanging out of the bottles are actually individual shots of gin. Juliana, Amber, Cooper
Amber, Rik

Kristina, Amber, Juliana, ME

Wli waterfallsAda Foah

Ada Foah housing, there was a bed with sandy floor =)

Ada Foah

So there you go my 2 weeks here in photos. That was a massive effort so you all better apperciate it! Anyway off to the cultural centre which is a massive market and then onto the beach !!

Love Jamie xoxo

Oh Ghana!

This is a common phrase which is spoken at least a half a dozen times a day. It's more of an explanation as to why something that is quite ridiculous and the furthest idea of common sense there is ... oh Ghana !

Been having a good time. For some reason haven't had that oh my God moment I'm in Africa that's usually reserved for sitting in a boat in the pouring rain after spending the long weekend at the beach or the10 or so baboons running across the road on the way to the home base after said long weekend but let me start at the beginning.

Arrived at the airport phone not working ... typical but whatever I'm in Africa. So go pick up Amber the other volunteer from the hotel she was staying at and on our way onto Hohoe (pronounced Howay which is probably why the immigration officer pissed himself when he asked me where I was staying and I replied so proudly 'HOHOE" in my best santa claus impression to date)

So it takes about 4 hours to get from the Capital Accra to our home here in Hohoe. So the first couple of days seemed like torture since we didn't have placement until Tuesday but arrived on Saturday. With not much to do except read and twiddle our thumbs. We both kind of looked at each other and thought 'what the hell are we doing here? Africa, alone, really?

It also sucked since most the other volunteers were away so we only had our own impressions on what this trip was going to turn out like. Thankfully it's great and I love it, tough couple of days at the beginning but that's to be expected.

So my placement is at a orphanage called happy kids. I and Amber both are there and one of the other volunteers goes there a couple times a week too. So the first day was great since Julianna the volunteer who goes there a couple times a week came as did her mum and brother who were visiting for the week. So we got to sit back a bit relax and see how it's done. The kids are great there not all orphans, actually most aren't I think but I'm still trying to figure out who is and who isn't it's kinda hard to tell. And some who do stay there actually have families but they can't afford to have them stay.

In our class there's about 20-30 kids depending who bothers turning up.The ages range from 3 to 9ish. It's really hard keeping kids entertained for so long (3 hours seems like forever) especially since there all at differing academic levels and they have no books or learning aids expect a blackboard which is only got one leg so the other side is propped up on a rock. Did I mention our classroom is under some grapes vines, dirt floor, and a bunch of rickety
wooden benches with barely enough room for everyone to sit on. Also the headmistress/Madame of the orphanages is one of the meanest people ever. Not sure that running an orphanage is something you should do if you don't like
kids which I have a strong suspicion, she doesn't. There is also a guy who teaches the nursery and walks around with a cain in his hands which he hits the kids with if they've been naughty even the little ones when they don't know the answer to things like 2+2 ... I'm not sure if he's aware of the fact that kids who are 18 months old and can barely talk don't know
how to do maths. The kids are great though just got to teach them that's its not ok to hit, kick, push etc although since they get cained I'm not too sure if that hypocrisy is already ingrained in their little heads. But again they're great, I love them. Every time you come they all rush to the gate to great you and hug you and all want to hold your hand as you go to the park and
call you teacher with wide eyes or youvu (spelling isn't right) but which pretty much means white person. Everyone calls you that here walking down the street kids calling to you waving as if youvu is your name ... love it. Especially since I'm already accustomed to my family calling me the white one for so long.


We went to the waterfalls, the biggest in Ghana or West Africa or something to that effect, mid week which was really nice and refreshing since I've been hanging out for a swim for a while. Contemplating getting someone to send me over a paddling pool ... any takers?

A couple of the volunteers are working at the hospital, well were, they were asked to not come back yesterday but let me explain. There are 2 kids at the hospital there about 2 and 9 i think. They came in with severe burns from a chemical fire. They came in on
Saturday (when the volunteers weren't there) and weren't seen until Monday, nothing. So they are basically torturing these kids. They are only on paracetamol and when the volunteers wanted to give them something stronger they were told to give them a fanta and they'll
be fine because Africans have a higher tolerance for pain ... they are 2 and 9. Anyway the volunteers were trying to get them transferred because the nurses and doctors and this hospital and clearly inept (when they change there dressing they do it when it's dry so they rip
half their skin off at the same time) but there is no room at any other hospital in the burns unit so miraculously they managed to get in touch with a charity in the USA that deals with burn victims exclusively and they were willing to come and get them and transfer them
to Boston at their top notch hospital only catch is they needed the doctors to sign a form, that's it. Of course the doctors won't sign the
form and their total lack of empathy and compassion has led to the volunteer's being kicked out and told that they should never work with children which makes complete sense ... Oh Ghana.

So this weekend we ended up going to Ada Foah for the long Easter weekend which was great or awesome as my American friends would say. It's a beach about 4 and a half hours away. We jumped on a tro-tro (mini van with as many people packed in and possible
operating like a bus but there is no time table it just leaves when it's full). So off Amber and I trooped with 3 of the other volunteers meeting up with us the next night. Was really nice and relaxing although on Sunday I had to sleep off a little bit of a hangover in
a hammock since the night before we decided it would be a good idea to drink 50% Gin for the cheap price of about $3...nice. Although the spiritual did perform for us so all in all a good day. So on our way home we had to wait for our bill to be calculated which took a good 45 minutes in which time a storm decided to hit. This would of been
fine expect the only way to get the tro tro station from where we were was via boat. So we waited a bit till the rain eased and jumped in the boat and which time it decided to piss down. So 15 minutes later and completely soaked we got on a tro tro which looked like it was about to
fall apart. Had to change tro tro's a couple of times finally jumped on the last one which was meant to take about 2.5 hrs. Well our driver decided to take the 'scenic way' which included him stopping at his house to pick up his reading glasses and his dinner ...
Oh Ghana. So off we went then our FULL tro tro decided to stop and pick up 5 more people ... this bus was full already. So on my row meant for 3 MAYBE 4 people there were 7 people squished in totally ridiculous ... Oh Ghana. All in all a great weekend.

I'm sorry but no photos this time I'm at a really slow Internet place and it would take forever but hopefully this weekend I'll go into Accra and upload them there.

Love Jamie xoxo