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!