Well, the past week has been a mixture of homesickness, physical sickness, and fun! At least fun was in there. Things that I am missing from home: my mom's homemade pizza, cheese, cranberry juice, and the NYC subway. And of course, hugs from my family and friends. It's weird being here now. A lot of the glamour has worn off and it's sort of setting in that this is our home. It's also weird because we're almost half way through our trip! People said the time would fly and it really is...
Last week, we went out a couple of nights and ran into some kids from Semester at Sea. Semester at Sea is a program that I think is run by UVA and that involves basically taking a cruise ship around the world for the semester. It sounds amazing. The program was stopped in Accra for five days or so, and the students had asked some locals for good places to go out. We noticed the random surge in young obrunis, and they mistook us for part of their program. It was a funny experience, meeting students who had just arrived in Accra. They looked like we did 7 weeks ago--bright eyed, talking only to each other, paying wayyy too much for everything. It was weird though, feeling like we had been here long enough to see who knew at least a bit of what was going on, and who was pretty clueless. Not trying to judge--like I said, we were there before. It's amazing how much 7 weeks will teach you.
Last Monday we went to the festival for the 100th birthday of Kwame Nkrumah (1st president of Ghana). We were old that it was going to be hugeeee and we had to be there at 8:30. So, on our day off of school, we all left our dorm at 8 and took cabs to the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum. We got there before 8:30, walked in, and saw that there were still chairs open! We grabbed some sweet seats in the shade, because it was already getting hot, and settled down to wait for the start.
Well, we waited for about 2 hours, before being told that we were sitting in the chairs of the Ashanti Chiefs and should probably move. We switched over to some sunny chairs where a whole group of kids was sitting with their school. We asked if we could sit with them and they said yes. After sitting quietly behind us for about 30 seconds, they started asking us questions. The initial questions of "Where are you from?" led to a host of conversations, about school, life, and games. The girls taught us some hand games, similar to "Ms. Mary Mac" and started speaking to me in French. It was hard to understand their French, partially because I haven't spoken it in quite a while, but also because they were speaking with a completely different accent. They thought we were really funny and LOVED it when we took pictures of them. One of them wanted my phone number, but I wasn't so sure about having an 12 year old friend to call up. Instead, we took more pictures!
Around noon, the parade (which apparently did start at 8, but not at the Mausoleum) started to arrive. The parade included the entrance of chiefs from various tribes from around the country. The chiefs would walk in in gorgeous outfits, with huge beautiful umbrellas being held over their heads and a party surrounding them. There were also roller skating troops, drummers, and about a zillion guys dressed in bright colors and walking on stilts. We decided to find some shade to watch the parade entrance from (4 hours of African sun can be pretty intense). While we were watching and taking pictures, we noticed a strange thing: people around us were taking pictures of US. It was very weird, because in Ghana it's considered rude to take people's pictures without asking their permission. This rule doesn't seem to apply to pictures of foreigners though. We were pretty tired and hungry, so we tried to turn away from some of the pictures. Our fans would simply shamelessly walk around so they could see our faces again, and take more pictures. When I told one guy who insisted on taking my picture that I didn't want him to, he informed me that "it's nice to be nice!" It was rather annoying, but I guess they don't seen obrunis every day.
After hours of listening to amazing drum performances, watching dancers, talking to guys on stilts, and being taught games by children, we got to see President John Atta Mills speak! He gave a quick little speech, but everyone was freaking out at being able to see him.
So that was one cool cultural experience I got to have recently!
Other things that have been fun:
Beacon House! Beacon House is an orphanage nearby that Whitney and I have started volunteering at. I'm still going to City of Refuge, but the orphanage is a lot closer, so I can go more often. I've only gone one time, because this week I was sick, but it was amazing. The kids there are in some way special needs kids because they have all been abused physically, psychologically, or sexually. One of the directors, who is probably the nicest person alive, was telling us a story about a little girl they found as an infant in an abandoned bag by a river. They apparently thought she would be blind because when they found her maggots were eating her eyes. Luckily, she has made a full recovery and is now healthy. That's just one of the many stories, some of which are that bad and some of which are not.
Whit and I got to basically just play with the kids for hours. They range from about a year to maybe 12 or 14 and there are over 30 of them there. They live in a big house with a group of Aunties who take care of them. There is a school room in the house where the older ones go to school each day. They have a trampoline in the back yard and a little sandy play area. They also have a cabinet full of board games and a bunch of books.
The funny part about all of that is that the kids didn't really want to play with us--they just wanted to be held. The younger kids especially never wanted to be put down (which is hard when there are about 10 of them who want you to pick them up constantly. We would compromise and sit with three of the kids on our laps (we made a rule that only three kids at a time) and the rest kind of just holding on to our arms. We got to read a few books and talk to some of the older girls, who loved to play with our hair. I got to hold a baby named Mary for a long long time. I thought she would be getting bored because I was just holding her, but every time I tried to put her down, she would wrap her legs and arms around me like a monkey and hold on with all of her little might.
Ah, it's making me want to cry just writing about it. The kids are so beautiful and so adorable and they just love to be with people. Conclusions from my first visit there:
1. If anyone is interested in adopting a Ghanian child, I have the spot for you.
2. Everyone should give my parents new baby clothes for Christmas, because their presents from might be in the form of African children!
Me and my new friends, the school children.
Hugeeee drum at the festival.
Beautiful women. Not sure what their dress signifies.
Men on stilts!
Chief under umbrella.
Bring me a baby please. Love and Miss you.
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