It's a "98 Degrees, 50 Hours on a Plane" Kind of Summer

I'm halfway regretting not living my entire summer in Lee's Summit, MO. It's such a great place. Especially Longview Lake and its pelicans (I swear we saw them)!

We took a trip to Kansas City and saw EVERYTHING. I'm talking the art museum, looking at the entire city from the roof of a hotel, suffering through shopping at Urban Outfitters without any air conditioning (did I mention it was 98 degrees?), playing in the fountain, stuffing ourselves with cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, and watching this amazing sunset.

I love the birdies at the art museum!!!

Tomorrow morning I get on another plane. Luckily this one isn't a two-day experience! I'm headed to Boise, ID with my parents and brother. We're visiting family that I haven't seen in years, so I am sooo excited about catching up with them, especially because my aunt and uncle have been to Africa a couple times too.

I believe I have earned a reward for my packing skills: I fit everything into a carry-on. A hint for all you people out there that don't generally spend 50 hours of your summer on a plane: roll your jeans, expect wrinkles, and pack an optimistically small amount of socks!

The Little Children of the World

...Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world...


I'm back in St. Louis!

I feel like I've been gone for years and years, since I have experienced so much this last month; but then again, almost nothing has changed since I was gone.

I made it back with relatively little problems. The luggage-loader (I know, me and all my technical terms) broke down behind our plane in Amsterdam, so we were stranded on the runway for a couple hours. Because of this delay, we circled Chicago a while before they could find room on the landing strip for us.

US Customs had a bone or two to pick with me. I'm not sure if it was my American smile or my mysterious bright red suitcase, but they sent me through four stations of customs, including a special computer inspection of my passport and a very careful metal detector and x-ray station. They didn't quite find the marijuana they were looking for.

Now that I'm home, I'm overwhelmed at the amount of cars on the road (a traffic jam in Hohoe was 6 taxis on the same dirt strip) and the ability to wear clothes that don't cover my knees. My body is still getting used to American food. I had my family meet me at the airport with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple, which certainly brightened my mood after nearly 30 hours with no sleep...again.

I could not begin to tell you how much I have learned. I have seen that my American lifestyle is full of selfishness and greed, with complete disregard for the reality of the world.

I have seen that my happiest moments in life always revolve around children, whether they are Deaf or Hearing, American or African, two months old or twelve years old.

I have discovered that my most favorite foods in all the world are yam chips and lemon fanta.

I've discovered a new desire to be involved in the lives of children that have no parents. The smile of a child who is used to just being one in the crowd is irreplaceable, and I literally tear up thinking about it.

I'll leave you with the best moment of my entire trip.

One afternoon I visited a new orphanage. This was the most organized orphanage in Hohoe, with adults who truly cared, fairly organized football (soccer) games in the afternoon, and children who took care of each other.

After hemming up some of their clothes and putting buttons on the girl's dresses, I wandered outside to the yard where they were playing. After watching the children interacting within themselves for a moment, I soon got distracted with all the little kids who were climbing on my back and begging me to take their picture. A while later, a little girl named Rebecca who spoke very little English hopped on my back.

We snuck away from the crowd, and as we walked, I sang her songs, laughing and tickling her. I felt such elation spending time with this little girl, telling her she was special and pouring my entire heart into her. She began to sing "You are my sunshine" quietly, and I looked up into the sky to point out the sun to her, and saw that the bright blue sky was filled with a full rainbow.

I literally stopped dead in my tracks in awe. We hadn't had rain for two days. As the goosebumps on my arms grew, the children behind me started singing the only song they knew in English: a song about the colors of the rainbow.

Let me tell you, God is soooooo good. With this moment in mind, it is impossible to think otherwise.

Leaving the children this day tore my heart out. But I'm encouraged by that rainbow. I know these children will grow up taking care of each other instead of being raised by a mother and father, and that they may very well grow up to wander the town selling plantains from a basket they carry on their heads, but they will be loved and taken care of by none other than our God.

He knows their names, their faces, their laughter and tears.

And some day, I will too.

White girls can climb trees?!

2:05 pm Ghana time

My kids don't have any playground equipment at the School for the Deaf, so I decided to build them tree swings (with some major help from the other volunteer that works at the school). We put the actual swing together, then realized that we had to somehow get the swing tied to the high branch on the tree. We don't think ahead much.

So, being who I am, I just climbed up the tree myself and tied it to a branch. After a successful knot that would give the average sailor a run for their money, I looked down and one of the staff members had his cell phone out taking a picture--apparently it blew his mind that white girls can climb trees.Our rope swing!

Yesterday we checked out a local monkey sanctuary. There was 400 monkeys scurrying around in the trees, and one swung down as I held a banana, sat on the bench, and peeled it while it was still in my hand.

Now I can say, why yes, I HAVE fed a monkey.

The original teacher of my kindergarten class told me today that I am the first person who has ever been able to hold their attention for an entire lesson. That made me feel pretty good about myself.

Tomorrow's my last day at the School for the Deaf. I'm going to miss them. There is one little boy in my class who has behavior problems and can't sit at his desk, and I have seen him go from having a blank workbook when I got here to learning how to handle a pencil and draw patterns and write some numbers. I don't even care that they are all backwards and upside down.

On to my last orphanage visit. We are sewing on buttons because the kid's clothes are all button-less and don't stay on.

I didn't come here to make any drastic improvements. It's doing little things like this that make all the difference.

A Little Bit of This...A Little Bit of That...

Weekends in Ghana are like holidays. No one expects anything out of you, and I have definitely finished two books and conquered the game of Phase Ten.

I also walked/ran to another town that's about 3 miles away from our house. Aside from almost getting creamed by ten taxis and hit on by African bicyclists, it was the calmest time I've had here. I watched the sun set over the Ghanaian mountains, its colors wrapping themselves around the outlines of palm trees waving in the pre-rain breeze. Beautiful.

I can't believe I only have four more days at the School for the Deaf. I love these kids. I went to Deaf church this morning, and it was sooo different than any church I've walked into before. I sat with the older kids, and they signed typical songs and telling the story of Moses. Then the teacher/song leader/story teller person called for all the kids who needed healing to come up front. They "performed healing", holding their hands over the kids that fell on the ground in reaction. It was something I've never experienced before.

Deaf Church

I look forward to the next four days...entering the idea of double-digit addition into my kindergartener's heads, hugging more lonely orphans and dancing on graves with them at the "park", and seeing that my life is so good.

Air conditioning and PB&J

Now this is Africa.

I really like rice, bread, and fruit, don't get me wrong. But I've eaten that 36 times, and it's a liiiittle bit old :)

I've decided that Heaven will probably have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and air conditioning.

My kindergarten class understands addition!!!!!!!!!!! I brought out the most brilliant mix of popsicle sticks, permanent markers, poster board, and glue that this world has ever seen. And all my kids can now officially add numbers 1-5 to each other. So that's my achievement of the last two weeks!

My taxi driver and I have get along well--we had an African dance party at our house and he came. A couple days ago he was driving me home, pulled over in this random field, handed me the keys, and said "you're driving!"

Did I mention I've never driven a stick shift before?

And you can't even really call it a road?

It was quite the experience of a lifetime.

I've now been proposed to by three Africans, and a teenager at the Deaf school today sweetly passed me a note explaining his love for me and how he would like me to take him to America, where people drive big trucks in Texas.

The kids at the orphanage today asked me to take them to the park. I was blown away that they had a park here, and got really excited. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the "park" was an empty field and a graveyard, and the kids still had the time of their lives.

Feel free to stop reading here, but shameless plug:
Visit www.tomsshoes.org
When you buy a pair of shoes for yourself, they automatically send a pair of shoes to a child somewhere that doesn't own any.
My kids here don't own shoes. There's the occasional child that has a pair of flip-flops caked in mud that is four sizes too small, but otherwise, they walk through the trash daily in bare feet. Disease spreads so quickly, and all it would take is SHOES. It's so hard to watch, and know that kids in America own so many shoes they never use.

OK, shameless plug over.

I hope you are all doing well, and I'll be home in 8 days! Love you all!

Welcome to Africa

I conquered a mountain yesterday.

OK, half a mountain.

But it was a 4 hour hike and involved 6 caves...so give me some credit.

We hiked through the mountain and the caves at Likpe yesterday...woke up at 6...seriously? I thought it was summer???!

Otherwise, Africa is amazing. I got my dress (after an hour fight with the seamstress), I've hiked a mountain, I know 15 phrases in Ewe even though I mispronounce them every time, I officially count in cedis instead of US dollars, and I love it here. 

Now, let me tell you something to appreciate: your laundry machines. Let me tell you about doing laundry by hand.

1. Fill up a huge metal bucket with water from the spigot. 

2. Pour in some laundry soap. 

3. Add clothes. 

4. The water's automatically brown...but ignore that....and swish your clothes around, rub them against each other for five minutes...

5. Dump them in another metal bucket and rinse them...

6. Can I be doing laundry in America yet??

Time to go.......gotta get back because another one of the volunteers is craving pineapple.

Welcome to Africa.

Stop and Stare...

8:41pm Ghana time

Turns out when you stop and stare at this world...it hurts.

This morning I woke up at 5 and went to the Eugemont orphanage to help bathe the kids. The orphanage has 48 kids and two adults trying to take care of them. As soon as I got there, a girl named Sarah latched on to me (go figure--there's a million Sarahs everywhere, but at least people remember my name instead of calling me Yavo [white person] like everyone else gets, haha). Sarah took me on a tour of their small house, with at least ten kids crammed into each room.

She showed me the baby room. Shoved into the back of the house, it was a concrete floor with two adult-sized beds they lay the babies on to sleep. When I walked in, they were all awake, but the adults had no idea, because the door is kept shut at all times. A little baby named Lucas, probably 8 months, was lying on the bed and I went over to tickle and play with him. His entire face lit up into a huge smile, as if he hadn't seen love before.

The older babies had somehow managed to get off the beds and onto the concrete floor without knocking themselves out, and were running around in the mess that was all over the concrete (they can't afford diapers for the kids, and don't bother with them at all).

I had a great time bathing the kids. They all stand outside on a concrete block, and I poured a bucket of water over their heads, scrubbed them down with soap, dried them off, lotioned them, and started all over again. 48 times. But it was great, because I got to actually spend time with each of the kids. They all have names, and stories, and favorites, and need to be told they are the most beautiful child in all the world. But they don't know.

I want each child here to know they are special. That they are individual, and more than the 48th child that needs to be fed and clothed. If they like to sing, or dance, or write, I want to hear about it. They are worthy of being loved for just being who they are. Here they are taught that the only way to earn attention is to fulfill a formula...obedience + academic excellence. Nothing else matters.

I wish I could inspire them. Show them that they are a precious child of God. That when everyone else forgets them, they are still number one on His list. But it's hard to teach God's love to children that are never kissed goodnight.

It's about time to leave Hohoe...

7:15pm Ghana time

Well I've officially been in Africa for over a week...time to travel, right?!

Last Thursday I went to the Wli waterfall. It's the biggest in the country, and it was hands down amazing. The wall to the left of the waterfall was covered in thousands and thousands of bats, flying above our heads as we swam in the water. The best part? It's literally the first time I haven't been sweating since I walked off that plane a week ago...

This weekend a group of ten of us decided to go to Volta Lake. It's the world's largest man-made lake, and it has this amazing resort called Afrikiki. I didn't even feel like I was in Africa while I was there. We just enjoyed the best break after a long week of culture shock and hard work.

Can I just say that if I was making a list about things I want to change about Ghana, the roads would for sure be in the top five list. When it rains, the potholes are big enough for four-year-old children to go swimming in. The ride gives me the biggest headache in the world. The best headache, though...I mean, when was the last time I got to go spend a weekend at a resort on the waterfront? We were pretty spoiled. It was great.


Well, I've been here for 8 days now, and I officially love it. This community is SO vibrant and beautiful. There are so many other places in the world where the people are desperately searching for help and rescuing. But it's not like that here. Yes, it's poverty-stricken and impossibly poor, but these people embrace life. Half of the community is Muslim, and every day, five times a day, they stop to worship and pray. There is reverence for what is truly important: worship, family, friends, relationships, love. There's no need to rush around, or endlessly run errands. People do not spend time alone; they close up shop when the sun sets and the night life begins; their world is so hard, but so full of grace and happiness.

By being here, I have already learned so much. First of all: SLOW DOWN. Let me emphasize that one again. SLOW DOWN. Spend the time to enjoy life. It only happens this way once, and unless I stop and stare and realize that there is more to life than myself, it is impossible to truly see our world the way God wants us to see it. Second: Enjoy the little things in life. A couple days ago, a volunteer and I lost track of time while we were in town, and ended up making our way through fields in the pitch black, trying to get home. Then it started to downpour.

That was the best feeling in my life.

Third: Smile. Smile at people, smile at things, smile at memories...it just makes the world a better place.

I love you all!

Do you speak English?...Ewe?...American Sign Language?

5:20 pm Ghana time

This language thing is crazy! I have three languages spinning through my head all the time: English, Ewe (local African dialect), and American Sign Language. A lot of the teachers at the Deaf school are hearing, and I was really excited to know that--until I realized a lot of them only speak Ewe. It's not too bad, though...I'm becoming fluent in ASL faster than I ever thought possible.

Today at the Deaf school I taught the concept of family. The School for the Deaf is a boarding school, and some of the kids are orphans, so it was extremely difficult to get across the concept of parents (not to mention I was trying to do it all in sign language). I tried to explain brother and sister, but that was a complete lost cause.

To explain what each family member's sign was, I made flash cards. I have never seen the kids more excited about anything!!!! I guess it was the first time they had any school supply besides a small workbook, a pencil, or rusted bottlecaps.

The differences in my kid's learning levels are starting to come out, too. One of my kids fingerspelled the words mother and father to me, while others did not even understand the signs after an hour of the lesson. This challenge makes me SO excited for the upcoming weeks, though!! I know I have the ability to figure out where each student is at, and what they are going to need to be able to successfully learn.

The kids in my class are not malnourished by any means, because this is a government-sponsored school and they have money for food. However, they take so much advantage of everything. It's so different from the kids in the states. Their snack this morning was a bowl full of nuts, and they all downed them in less than a minute. We started to leave for a class trip to the library and one of the teachers started going through the kids' pockets. I figured out some of them were trying to save the nuts in their pockets to eat later, and it broke my heart to see them hit (they're all for corporal punishment here) just because they were trying to save some food.

The library has two wooden tables in the middle of the room, surrounded by benches for the kids, covered in yellowed newspapers, textbooks appropriate for fifth or sixth graders, atlases, and one children's book about monkeys. Let me tell you, that monkey book was the attention of the entire class. Every student took a turn looking at it, showing me what the monkeys ate and what they did--it was obviously the only book they had ever truly read.

Today I had one of the kids ask me if I ever shower. I said yes, I shower every day, and the kid had such a scared look on her face that I asked why. Turns out she thought that I had showered one day, and washed all my color off, and that was why I was white. Ha! Try explaining to a Deaf five year old girl that you were just born white!

They also kept signing "Teacher, you're a pig". I couldn't figure out why, so they took me to the pig pen to show me that the pigs have white hair over their pink skin, just like I have white arms.

The entire country of Ghana has been in a blackout for the last two days, and we only just got electricity back. Luckily my house has a generator to use at night, but the rest of the country has been pitch black. What was amazing to me is that the electricity went out during the day one day and no one even noticed. Electricity is just not essential in any way, shape, or form here.

Sorry this is so long!!! I'm not very good at the whole short blogging thing.

Miss you all!

Waezo

5:32 pm Ghana time

Waezo! Welcome!

I know you're not going to believe me, but every time I think of Ghana, I think of goats. They are everywhere. On the street, in the fields, in the houses, chasing around the chickens...they run around wild like dogs in the states.

I started work today at the Volta School for the Deaf. All the children that live in the region that are Deaf attend this school. I have a class of twenty kindergarteners, ranging in age from five to ten. I observed today, and I'll start teaching tomorrow. The school has two kindergarten classrooms, and I am in the more advanced one--they are learning to write their names, while the other kindergarten is still learning their colors.

There is another volunteer placed at the school, too, and today we brought an American football. They were AMAZED. The school does not have any athletic equipment whatsoever, and they had never seen an American football. The other volunteer and I went out to the field to teach them to play. We played five-on-five with the fifteen and sixteen year old boys during recess time, while probably 30 other kids watched.

I am amazed at the Ghanaian hospitality that I find everywhere. These are literally the most hospitable people I have ever met. Yesterday when walking back from the internet cafe, another volunteer and I got lost in some random field. We stopped at a house to ask how to get to Cross Cultural Solutions, and a lady that lived at the house walked us home. The children at the school are the exact same way. While we were playing football, the little girls held our bags for us. They always pull out chairs for us to sit in, and one teenage boy offered me his shirt to wipe off my sweaty face (you wouldn't believe how hot playing football in Africa is).

Random:

I visited the market yesterday and bought some fabric to have a woman make a dress for me.

We got a taxi for the first time today, and it only cost us two cedis (about US 2.15) for a ride into town.

We had fufu for lunch, which is basically mashed yams. And my new favorite food.

Surprisingly, the time change didn't take any time to get adjusted to. I flew through Amsterdam which was 7 hours ahead of MO time, then back to Ghana which is 5 hours ahead.

It took a little while to get used to sleeping under a mosquito net, but after I saw all the palm-sized spiders that take showers with you and the scorpions that enjoy hiding in your bag, I figured the net was a safeguard I didn't particularly mind using...

Alright, time to walk back to the home base for dinner! I'll try to write more later...but the keyboard keys are in a different order and it takes 30 minutes to load, haha.

HERE

I'm here. And I have to leave the internet cafe in 1 minute exactly...highlights.

Hot
Humid
Hot
Humid....
haha.

Beautiful people, amazing village, 43 hours between STL and Ghana. And I get air sick. Who knew!!

Well the keys are different here, and I'm already late to African dance lessons...YES!!... I'll try to write more later. Miss you all!