Life in Ghana-The Start of Mawuli Apeme: I think I might be learning to like bananas...

So I started writing this blog on Monday but while I was typing it our Internet went out. Helena has to find people every month to pay for the Internet for the entire building of Department of Social Welfare. You would think that the government would pay since these are government jobs but instead Helena has to ask friends to sponsor her 300 cedi (aprox. $230) a month. She had all of 2009 paid for by an NGO and then found a friend to pay for January and February this year but she has run out of sponsors which means that we are without internet until we can find someone to pay the bill. Despite the fact that about 150 people benefit from the internet, no one else is helping Helena to find a way of paying for the internet. BUT!! The benefit of being in Ghana is that sometimes good things randomly happen too; so today the internet went back on by a fluke…I am sure it will be off again tomorrow.

My malaria meds are starting to get really bad again so I am so thankful that Ali will be here next week with my new stuff.

I find that I dream about important people in my life that have died. Every single night I dream about them. I dream about my Grandma, my Grammy, Victor, and even Preston Hirten (a volunteer I knew from Ghana that died this past August). But not only do these people come to me in my dreams but I dream about close friends and family dying too. The dreams are so realistic that I wake up and find it difficult to calm myself down and go back to sleep.

But Francis, one of the boys in the group home, told me that when you dream about someone dying you are actually blessing them and adding years to their life. I am not sure how that works but it is somehow comforting. But for those I dream about that are already dead it just brings back painful memories.

Dealing with emotions in Ghana is 100% different than dealing with emotions at home.

I think that it has to do with the weight of the emotion I am carrying around with me but I have no other option to express how I am feeling here. At home I am capable of hiding if I am angry or sad but if I attempt to keep it inside me here it will destroy me. The other difference about dealing with emotion in Ghana is that I am never alone.

But because I am forced to express how I am feeling in front of these people they are there to help me carry some of the weight. After an upsetting conversation Sat. night I was on the verge of tears going into the evening church service but coach Kofi sat next to me squeezing my shoulder every now and then and telling me to calm down. At the close of the church service Malik (an U12 player) and Charles (an U14 player) each took one of my hands and walked me to the road to get a taxi home. When I wasn't able to hold some of my tears in they wiped them out of my eyes. I am so lucky to have relationships like these in Ghana.

These past couple weeks there have been two sisters here from Utah who are getting Helena’s help with adoption. One of the sisters adopted from Ghana last year and the other sister is adopting a 15-year-old boy this year (hence the reason for their time in Ghana). This boy is extremely lucky since once you reach 16 years you can no longer be adopted in Ghana.

Anyway-the name of this boy is Francis (not my Francis, a different Francis) and he has been coming into the Dept. of Social Welfare office while Helena helps his new mom with the paperwork to take him home. As you can probably guess, I instantly got along with Francis and so one day we were talking about Ghanaian music and how much we both love it and how he is going to miss it a lot. So I decided to burn all my Ghanaian music onto CDs for him to take back to Utah.

I have put some links below so that you can hear some Ghanaian music that can bring a smile to my face even when I am in the crappiest of moods. (Actually the links won't let you click on them so just copy and paste them)

Simple by: Bradez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg-vXA2KhW8

Swagger by: Ruff-N-Smooth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frjtg2PGMTI

Baby by: Sarkodie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2ExSTauot4

Work is going well and I have been working on organizing the administration side of Mawuli Apeme since while I was at school I wasn’t able to record exact grant transfers etc. Sometimes the organization aspect seems tedious and meaningless but I know that it is key in running an efficient and effective program over here. I have been learning a lot about Excel spreadsheets and coming up with your own templates for budgets and donations is more difficult than you would imagine.

Ali gets here on Sunday morning and I can’t wait to show her my life in Ghana.

I am doing really good out here. I know that some of you were worried that I was having a difficult first two weeks but I am doing so great. Here are a couple pictures from this past weekend.

Malik (left) and Van der Vaart (right) before their U12 match: