I am beginning to dislike these end of the month blogs. I hate it because I don’t want to be done with it. I don’t want to move on just yet. And though month 1 was hard to leave, this one was harder yet. I am currently sitting in Nepal, but I think I left my heart in Ghana.
When I applied for the world race and chose my route, it wasn’t for the African countries. I wanted a variety, a taste of everything, but honestly, I just shrugged about Africa. Now that I have come to Nepal, I wish I could have stayed in Africa just a bit longer. Ghana felt like home.
When I encounter new situations I tend to hide away and just peak out at it until it feels safe enough to join in. In Ghana I started doing that, but in a very short time the kids began to pull us out. I actually had one girl ask me “why do you all stay inside all day?” At the time we were still trying to catch up on sleep after traveling there, and just get settled in to our rooms, but it kind of hit home. I didn’t want to be like that anymore. I wanted to get out there and love all the people right away.
We had very full schedules between 5:30am devotions, school all day, then homework help in the evenings. I think we were all exhausted by the end of each day, but it was a satisfying kind of tired.
School was so good. I got to be with KG1 (preschool). These kids stole my heart. Which is funny, because I would get so frustrated with them every day! If the teacher ever left the room and left me in charge, the kids refused to listen to anything I said. And even with the teacher it was difficult to keep them on task. But the kids were so sweet. Every one of them wanted me to sit with them or hold their hand. Every one of them wanted me to help them with their school work, they all wanted to dance with me. I loved having 2 story times a day. It was especially funny because I think the teachers were picking out books on things they didn’t know much about… I read a couple of books which involved snow. And when I read a Halloween book, they all were convinced the pumpkins were tomatoes. And even though they speak English in Ghana, it has a different accent and they use different word order sometimes, so I got a lot of blank stares when I tried to ask questions about what I just read to them.
Ok, so everyone who knows me knows I love kids. So of course you knew I would fall in love with them. But I loved all the adults too. Charity was one of the first people we met. She was on the bus to pick us up when we arrived. She is so full of contagious joy and a radiant beauty, it was just plain fun to be around her. She is the p.e. teacher, and it is definitely the right job for her! She also runs a little store/supply shop… she had ice cream. : ) Autumn was another we met on our first night, and she was definitely our go to person. Since she has been living there for several years, but also American, she knew exactly what we needed to know and the kind of questions we might not even think to ask. She helps run the school and knows every single child there. Later in the month we met Johnbull and Stacy the founders of CORM. These guys have the biggest hearts of all. It’s for good reason their titles are “Daddy Johnbull” and “Mamma Stacy”. I got to know Matthew as Geneva and I worked with him in aquaponics. My job was to water the little gardens, and Geneva got to feed the fish. Matthew used to be a teacher, but now puts a lot more focus on the gardens. He is trying to make a way to bring this system to the fishing villages so they can raise their own food and not need to sell their kids into slavery. The teachers I worked with were Miriam and Vida. Madame Miriam always has a smile to share with the kids, and knows just what to do to get them to listen. Madame Vida is very kind. She shares her snacks with the kids and is always willing to do whatever is needed of her. There are so many others too: Madame Jennifer who is in charge of Sunday school and Children’s Day, all the teachers that I didn’t work with, but who would come in to the classroom during nap time to chat. There were 13 of us American volunteers, but it seemed like these teachers took time to get to know every one of us, and even when I didn’t know who half of them were, they all seemed to know my name.
There is so much more I could say about my time there, but I think I better just end by saying this: Ghana was so amazing that I am going to have a hard time not being disappointed when other months are not like this one.
