I am because we are: Sorry Yo, Sorry for you

The above is my apologies for not updating this sooner. It is also a saying frequently heard in Ghana and a lot at happy kids. If you hurt yourself people will say sorry for you as a way of comforting/asking are you OK. At happy kids though you usually see one kid push another to the floor and then when they start crying look at them and say sorry yo, sorry for you. Ummmmm I don't think that entirely appropriate if your the one that inflicted the pain onto the fallen comrade. OH HAPPY KIDS

Anyways since last update there is now a house full of people instead of the pathetic 2 that we had for a week. There all from either Canada and USA. Everyone is pretty chilled and there are two other volunteers at happy kids, Alisha and Jamee. Jamee is in charge of the older kids and Alisha and I try our best to entertain the little ones, which is harder than it seems mostly because none of them speak English and when we try to get them to sit down and be quite they never listen to us so although on the most part they're pretty good kids when they want to play up it's absolute mayhem then Elizabeth (the lady in charge of happy kids) sticks her head round the corner and says 'quiet OOOKKKKK'in which the kids reply 'OOOKKK' and some order is restored, for a minute. It also doesn't help that there's no materials so were trying to get creative. We've made fans, hats, paper planes and Jamee's class did outline's of the kids and they coloured them in which was so funny to watch them all laying down being traced around, they thought it was the best thing ever. This Friday we're having a party at happy kids coz it's Jamee's last day and we're going to bring in a cake and play pin the tale on the donkey, bob for apples and more so I can't wait to see how that goes since they have no concept of parties at all.

Last weekend we went to Lake Volta which was the second time for me but we stayed at a pretty decent hotel by Ghana standards and every morning we woke up and had our breakfast while on a boat riding around Lake Volta... from experience I can see it's one of the few ways you should ever eat breakfast. A feeling of absolute contentment. We also went to the Cedi bead factory where you can see how all the beads here are made which was really interesting to see. It take's a lot of effort and it's all hand made it's ridiculous how cheap it is to buy them, so I bought a lot !!! On the Saturday we went to a 'club' which was an experience... I wasn't feeling too great as it was and then walking into the club we became the main attraction with the novelty wearing off after... well it was never a novelty but every time you tried to dance you had people surrounding you from every angle so I was quite happiest we were only there a couple of hours.

Lake Volta

Breakfast on the boat

(Lindsay, Emma, Libby & Dana)

After the club 'experience'

(Dana, Lindsay, Jamie, Alishia, Jamee, Mary, Emma)

Then this weekend we went down to cape coast which is about 6-8hrs away depending on traffic (about 8.5 to get down there, there was a lot of sitting in traffic but we did find a garage station that sold diet coke, ice cream and proper chocolate so we were all in heaven since these are rare commodities.) So we went to the hotel we had booked for and there was no room ... apparently we told them that we wanted to stay there Saturday. Sunday, Monday ... ummm no. So we all had to traipse to another hotel after almost 9 hours of driving which I was not impressed about but also not surprised in the least bit that it happened. So the next day we went back to the original hotel and I negotiated a good deal and we snuck one extra person in so we got our own back. Although not for the first time one of the hotel staff asked me to take them back to Australia. I'm not sure why they ask and waste their breath, do they honestly think that I'll turn around say OK here's my credit card grab yourself a plane ticket and I'll meet ya there. Same goes for the countless marriage proposals, one day I want to turn around and say OK and see what happens.

Anyway so on Saturday we went to the Kakum national park where we went on a canopy walk which is a walk 40metres off the ground consisting of some wooden planks and rope. Absolutely stunning! We then we to Elmina castle which is one of the oldest if not the oldest slave castle in the world. Walking in is a little annoying because you get mobbed by people wanting to sell you shit since it's so touristy. One guy asked for Alishia what her name was and she told him. So after we got out he gave her a shell with her name on it and a little message. Then asked her to 'donate' some money for his 'soccer school' which she did just to shut him up and get him to go away. Turns out this guy has robbed tourists yanked camera's from people's necks, bashed people up and robbed them and been in jail so in retrospect it was good that some money was exchanged. Back to the castle. It was beautiful which is ludicrous for all the atrocities that happened there. When you walk into the area's where the slaves were kept you can still feel the heaviness of the energy there. There was one room which was a punishment room if the slaves were misbehaving. They put as many slaves as needed to be punished into this small room and wouldn't open the door until everyone of them had died so you could be the last one alive with 5-10 dead bodies surrounding you until you yourself gave up and died. There was also the governor's balcony were he stood and made all the female slaves come out and he would pick out which one he wanted to rape. It's crazy to think there was a time where this behaviour was ever acceptable. Finally there was the door of no return where all the slaves were lead out of onto all the slave ships, no slave that ever went through that door stayed in Africa.

Kakum national park canopy walk

Canopy Walk

Elmina Castle

Elmina Castle

Punishment Room

Coconut grove beach (2nd hotel) @ Cape Coast

So after a heavy day we went back to the hotel which was on the beach and played in the waves until after it was dark. Although the beach isn't as nice as the ones back home it still did the trick. We then went to have dinner and decided we'd just have pancake's for dinner. They were finished ... In Ghana you need to pick a top 5 things that you would like to eat because in most cases the menu isn't actually what they have just a general idea. And when they don't have something they say it's finished giving the illusion that at some stage they had it, which usually isn't the case and if it is they finished serving it several months ago. Then on Sunday we laid around the pool, got tanned, went in the ocean and generally relaxed which again was lovely. So today is Monday and we in the van about an hour and a half away from home. We stopped at a shopping centre in Accra which was the weirdest experience. It was so western, the only place i've been to where you could forget for a second that you were in Ghana. Stocked up on some diet coke, got some pancake mix and ate pizza for lunch mmmmmmmm.

So plans for this week are our big party on Friday then some new volunteers are coming again. It's so strange the time of concept here is totally off. It feels like the new volunteers only just arrived but at the same time it feels like they've always been here .... really hard to explain.
Oh on a quick note we seem to be making a little progress at happy kids. We are going to start implementing some hygiene into it. Buckets to wash their hands, designated pee area's, not just on the dirt floor where the classroom is. Although I would love to try and get some order in the schooling aspect of it (and I think I'll go in with a translator,Elizabeth barely understands English, and do a few information sessions with Elizabeth) it will take months to start implementing anything that is sustainable but hopefully we can start it and other volunteers will be able to continue on with it. It just kind of baffles me why parents send their kids their because it's in essence a private school and there are public schools in Ghana which are much better equipped. It confuses me and seems ridiculous but so does a lot of things over here so I've been resigned to the ridiculousness found in most situations from transportation to education and medical care.