Update from a few days ago-love that Ghanaian internet :)

Well I wrote this e-mail days ago but it wouldn't send until today. Here is an update:

So I had started writing an update and then the internet shut off. I will try again.

I am sorry that I haven't written and I don't know why I haven't felt like writing. I think maybe it is just that I don't know what to write to express myself and this might be the first time that has ever happened to me. I am so happy and so frustrated. I have my moments when I am really down but I try and stay positive. I am finding it hard that my time here is so short. I already have a know in my stomach about leaving. I know that some of you are thinking but you will get to be back there in January and it is only six months but these kids are a part of me. They are like another limb that I can't function without. I have found my passion and they are it. Thinking of spending six months away from them is really difficult.

Last week they boys finally started to talk about Victor's death with me. Up until then they hadn't wanted to talk about it but all of a sudden they just couldn't stop talking about it. They were telling me about how two days before his death he randomly decided to make tea and bread for his closest friends and they stayed up talking until late in the night. They said that he had wanted to go to church the Sunday before he died but he wasn't feeling well. That would have been the first time going to church in years. They said that his death was so unexpeceted, he hadn't even been feeling that sick and then one day they came home from school and he was dead. They told me about how they couldn't sleep in the house for over a week after he died and how none of them wanted to eat. I told them about how I couldn't get out of bed for days after I heard about it and how I couldn't eat either. It was good to talk to them about him but it was hard. I find myself missing him more and more each day I am here without him.

Last night the power went off and I went the whole night without a fan. I woke up this morning and I had sweat completely through my clothes.

I love that sometimes I am eating things I don't know. There is this place where I get rice with this orange chinese sauce and it has meat in it but I have no idea what the meat is. I know that rat and cat is very popular in Ghana and so I just don't check to see what it is.

I have been eating Mangos everyday and loving it!! I go back by the boys house and knock one of the tree to eat.

The boys have been cooking me meals occasionally and I LOVE WHEN THE COOK FOR ME. They are amazing cooks.

No one tells their real age in Ghana, they all say that they are 4 years younger than they actually are.

Mawuli Apeme-Foster Home

Sorry I haven't e-mailed in awhile. I don't like to spend very much time in the internet cafe because I know that I will be on the internet a lot once I am home. I mostly just come in to check my e-mail and make sure there are no important messages each day.

So the past few days have just been a lot of figuring things out. I guess I should probably start talking about the foster home.

The foster home so far is going great. The house is huge, it has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and then a garage type room. Then in the backyard they have a big open space where they can play football and mess around. I have taken a video with my flip video camera that I can show you all when I am back. The foster home is in a place called Adenta and it takes about 2 1/2 hours to get there in traffic.

One of my main goals for when I am here is to get them some furniture. They don't have beds yet and they should have a couch and a table to eat at etc. The house is still in the middle of being redone. There are some walls that need a little repairing and the lights and fans need to be finished being hooked up. Right now there is a house father who is 27. His name is Samuel and he checks up on the boys daily by phone and 3 times a week in person.

They have already started to cook on their own and are learning new things everyday. They are happy with the home and I think they will be even happier once I get the furniture situation straightened out.

I am not sure what questions you all have about the home but it will be easier to talk about if you ask questions.

As for my day to day life here I have been enjoying every minute of it. I have started waking up at 6am so that I can go and watch early training sessions at Cantonments Football club (where David worked) before I head to the orphanage.

I am not really in the mood to write anymore today but I just thought I would at least say hello and let you know that I am doing great. Things are good, I am good. I love Ghana and that is one thing that will never change.

Oh by the way. I am close to becoming fluent in Twi.

I love the Smell of Ghana

I love the smell of Ghana. But having said that, there is a certain way to smell Ghana. When you are walking and can feel a hot air under your nose you generally do not want to take a breath because the chances are that you will be smelling either trash, burning trash, dead fish, sewage, or human crap. BUT if you inhale when you feel a cool air under your nose, that is when you smell the real Ghana. You can smell the ocean, the palm trees, the hot pepper being cooked, the soap they use to do their laundry, and the sweat off the crazed football fans. That is what Ghana smells like. I love it.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to doing my laundry this weekend. I love washing my clothes by hand and most of all I love the soap that I get to use! It gets really foamy. I also want to say how refreshing bucket showers are. Maybe I love them because I am so dirty by the time I get to shower that any water feels great. A couple days ago I took the morning off to go to a pool so that I could get a shower. The water isn't running in my Host House and so there hasn't been water for me to shower.

Ok a lot of you have been asking about where I am staying and maybe I didn't do a very good job of explaining it before so I will try again. My first night in Ghana I stayed in the Foster Home that I set up for the boys. The trouble with that was it took 2 1/2 hours to get to the orphanage from there in traffic and so we decided I needed to move closer. The second night I stayed at a guest house about a 10 minute drive away from the orphanage while I waited for a host family to fall into place. Now I am staying in a Host Family. The foster home I set up for the boys has a housefather that checks in on them daily. I am living with the housefather's parents and his 5 sisters. I walk about 10 minutes to a tro tro stop and then take a five minute tro tro ride to the orphanage every morning. At night the boys get a taxi for me and get me a very cheap price and wait for my call of when I get home. I am very grateful that Samuel (age 27, the housefather) and his family are letting me stay in their house. It is not ideal conditions but that is ok. My room is about 95 degrees every night while I try and sleep and then I get woken up at 5am when the girls get up to get ready for school. The toilet doesn't have running water and as I said before I haven't really had showering water. I have told the host family that I do not need them to cook for me because then it would make it more difficult to get back from the orphanage for dinner. I am still doing my own thing and getting my own food where I like it and am comfortable with it.

I know a lot of you are wondering about the Foster Home and how my fundraising is working out. So far it is going great! I am so happy with the progress I am seeing here already. There are a few kinks I need to work out here and there but it is going well. I will talk about that more in the next e-mail.

I have been going to Cantonments Football Club every afternoon with a couple of my boys that train there. It is really nice that I am getting to spend so much time there because I know all of the other boys so well. For those of you who don't remember, this is where my friend David coached for over a year and I was there everyday with him at some point and got to know his players very well. It is good to be back with them.

I am starting to think that more people in Ghana know me than I know. People are constantly saying "Hello Claire" and I have no idea who they are. It is a great feeling. I am back in the community I left a year ago and I fit right back in where I did before.

I sometimes forget how much sadness is here in Ghana. I love it so much that I forget how difficult it can be to get through the day without wanting to go home and just sleep. Francis has been having a really difficult time with Victor's death. He was telling me that Victor was the only person who made him happy and now he is gone. Ishmael- one of David's footballers told me that the reason he dropped out of school was because his mother died 5 years ago and he had to drop out to take care of everything, his father disowned him. The girl who was living at the orphanage who was blind died while I was away. I am not sure what she died of but I know that one volunteer tried to give her blood and she died anyway. The kids cry and the scream and they fight and they are hurting and I want to be able to fix it all and I sometimes feel helpless.

I love it here. I am happy here. Even with all the sadness you find a way to work through it and keep going, because it is when people say that nothing can be done or that Africa is a lost cause that the worst happens. So I will continue to get out of bed and hug those crying children and find a way to make their lives a little bit easier. I know this was a really long update.....sorry for that. Let me know if you have any questions, I would love to hear from people back home.

GHANA TAKE 2

So I am not sure who is interested in getting these e-mails and who doesn't want to receive them anymore. If you do not wish to receive them feel free to let me know and I will take you off the list.

So Ghana take 2.....wow

Let me start off with say that there was no greater feeling than seeing those kids again. I can not even explain how it felt to walk through those gates and have those kids run towards me. That was the pure feeling of joy, and for those of you who have experienced joy (not happiness but a deep within you joy) you know the ecstacy that comes along with it.

They remember me. They remember my name. They remember my likes and dislikes and my fears. They know that I don't take (eat) fish. And they know that my middle name is Renee. They know that I have two older brothers named Scott and Craig. They know that the number of freckles I have will increase the longer I stay in the sun. They know me. Everything about me, and 11 months didn't change it.

They have all grown. A few of the boys like Moses and Emmanuel who were once shorter than me are now taller. Some of the babies are now moved to the toddler house and are speaking. Those who were not in school last year are back attending school. There have been so many changes yet something remains constant when I am with them. It is a steadfast feeling.

Most of the babies have been adopted. All of the children with HIV/AIDS have been moved to a new location where they are being treated. A few children have had their parents come back for them, this is both happy and sad. It is happy if the parents were short of money before but sad if it is the father that was once abusing his child.

I am back with my children again. Yesterday one of the older boys was joking around with me and he turned to me and said, "Claire you have a new baby, he is your last born" What he meant by this was there is a new child in the little boys house that just arrived yesterday. He then continued to tell me that Kwame Mensah (age 22) was my first born.

It was hard coming here knowing that Victor (21) had died since I left. I still find myself wondering what he is doing or thinking I see him out of the corner of my eye. There is a place that we used to sit outside at night and talk and since his death no one will sit there. I miss him and it is difficult but it helps to be with the people who were his life. His sister is not the same. She no longer jokes and barely speaks.

As for my living situation: the first night I went out and stayed in a place called Adenta. It is not far out of the city but it took 2 1/2 hours to get there because of traffic. This is where the new foster home for the boys is. The 6 boys living there just moved in two weeks ago. They are still getting adjusted and there are a lot of things that need to be fixed. Some of the lights do not work and the fans are not hooked up yet. A few walls still need to be painted and we need to buy beds for the boys. Right now they are sleeping on mattress pads on the ground.

The house is huge. There are enough rooms where only two of the boys would have to share a room. However, they are all sleeping in the same room as of right now because they are not ready to learn how to sleep in a room on their own. They are scared. So my first night I slept in a room with no fan on a mattress pad. I had a bathroom without running water and no light in it. I was burning alive.

Since then they moved me into a host house of a friend and the conditions are worse. No running water, I share a room with 5 other girls. The room is 12 by 16 feet. We are all bunked and two of the beds are used for two people. I sleep on a 2 inch foam mattress, so esentially I am sleeping on a wooden board. There is a dog that barks right outside my window and make it very hard for me to sleep.

My feet are sunburnt and have been bitten by some ground bugs. They are swollen up and are so hot I feel like someone is holding a match to my toes. I have not showered since I got here and I am not used to the heat yet. But none of this is compared to the joy I feel of being here. I can handle all of these conditions as long as I am with my kids. I am so happy. I hope that this update was sufficient.

Being Back Home--the end...for now

So I figure I should write one last e-mail.

I know I have been home for a week and I haven't written yet. Part of me just doesn't know what to write. I am doing ok. Some days are better than others and I find that the time I spend keeping busy is easier than the time I am sitting doing nothing. I miss the kids. I know that was expected but still that doesn't make the lump in my throat or this empty feeling go away. I'm not saying that I am not happy to be home with family and friends but it is something so much bigger than that.

I spent the last four months of my life spending every waking minute with these children and building myself a life on a different continent; A DIFFERENT CONTINENT; A place where they don't know starbucks. Fresh air doesn't exist because the stench of sewers fills the air, but somehow that fades into the background of the beauty of the country. A country where nearly 75% of the population wakes up at 4:30am. A place where the sun is so hot you can feel your skin sizzle a little bit when you leave the shade. A place where walking fast and rushing through life doesn't exist. A place where you can suck ice cream out of a plastic sachet.

Now I am back here. A bank on every corner. McDonalds just around the corner. Air conditioning that makes your fingers go numb while you are working. Suits and skirts are a must for work (with the exception of slacks). Sprinklers automatically water flowers at a certain time each day and washing machines wash clothes that can probably be worn a few more times. And its not that I don't like this or that I am criticizing the way we live but I am just expressing how different it is.

People keep asking me how I am adjusting and is it different to be home? To answer the questions it is HARD to adjust but I am doing it. There are times when I just cry and a lot of times it comes out of no where. I struggle every day with the differences of being home but I try my hardest to stay positive. I keep smiling and laughing because I know that is the only way to live your life. I am broken but growing in that. I am not afraid to feel sad and I am not afraid to scream and cry. But I won't let this control my life. I get up every morning at 5:30 take the 7am train to the city where I work hard to make money to go to school so that I can change the world. I make it back home at 6pm, eat dinner hang with a couple friends and go to sleep. Life goes on. I couldn't change leaving and I can't change being home so I might as well enjoy it.

I hope that by me writing these e-mails I have given you something that you didn't have before. Whether it is discomfort you have never felt before or a satisfaction that someone else feels the way you do. I will probably e-mail one more time about the fundraising I am going to be doing but it might not be for a little while.

My Last Week

I know that I haven't written since my last very upsetting e-mail so I thought that I would send out a happier one. This week has been hard, there is no doubt about it. I have watched my friends wrestle with what the witnessed on Saturday night and I have sat with some of them for hours without them talking. The counseling session that was held for the volunteers turned into people blaming people on who was to blame. There was a service held last night with all the volunteers but I couldn't bring myself to go. It took me four days to get it off of my mind and I just couldn't revisit it again. Anyway I promised you a happy e-mail so I am going to move away from this topic.

It is my last week in Ghana and I have been soaking up every minute of it. I don't sleep much because I want to spend my remaining hours awake so that the time will go slower. I have been running errands of things that I put off for the past four months and working on finalizing things with the older boys.

Leaving here might possibly be the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. The boys aren't making it very easy either. Every time I see Kwesi he tells me that time is running and it makes me cringe. A couple of the boys called my mom and told her that I wasn't coming home and that I was staying here and that they were sorry but she couldn't have me back.

One of the boys told me that he couldn't say goodbye to me on Monday because he didn't want to cry. I tell them that we can't worry about me leaving until Monday but they still seem to bring it up. Okos told me that I did something here that no other volunteer has ever done before. I find it hard to believe but if it is true than that is a good feeling.

I know that I am not talking about anything important but this has been what my last few days has been like. I have helped one of my boys sell phone credit at the roadside. I have helped pack up a roadside stand and push a cart down the road to storage at 11pm. I have stayed outside everynight until at least 1am just looking at the stars and enjoying my last days.

My dinners are all planned out for the next four days as they were before I came to Ghana. Every day my twi becomes improved and more developed. I bought a shirt that said 100% Ghanaian. I had a conversation in twi with a taxi driver. Then he let me direct him to Labone Junction from the market on my own. That is a twenty-minute drive and I could show him the way by myself and so he told me that I was a black American and that I belonged in Ghana.

I took my fabric to the dress maker and I will pick up my dresses on Sunday. I am spending a lot of time with my friend David because right now he is the only one left that was here when I first arrived and one of few that was here when I moved into the orphanage. I'm trying to get in some last minute sun so that I can prove to you people that I was in Africa for 4 months and got a decent tan... haha.

This afternoon one of the boys is going to teach me how to carry things on my head.

I think this should be said as well: I am not terrified of coming home. I am terrified of leaving the children. I am so excited to come home and see my family and friends. So excited to go to Chipotle and Noodles and sleep in my hammock. I know that some of you are worried that I will hate home when I get there but the truth is I am not going to. Yes, it will be a hard adjustment but that is natural. I have never been good at change. Sometimes I will feel heartbroken and missing the kids. Sometimes I will be angry looking at the wealth in Glen Ellyn but that is something I have been preparing myself for since I arrived. I can't wait to drive my car with the windows down and the music turned up. I know that I will be back here. Maybe not for another year or so but I have complete confidence that this is not my last time to Ghana. Not to mention all the other adventures that I am going to be going on.

So I will say this to you. I get home on Tuesday afternoon around 4:00 (that is when I should be at my house). So stop by and say hello to me because that is what is going to get me through. Seeing my friends and family will make coming home worth it.

Tragic Story

This is not a good e-mail but I wanted to tell you before the media shares with you all.

Every month Projects Abroad holds a monthly party where all volunteers from all over Ghana come to Accra to eat food and have a good time. Every other month the party is held at the beach. Last night we had one of our monthly parties at the beach. I had decided not to attend the party and go to watch football matches instead. However, I received a phone call last night being informed that one of the volunteers drowned in the ocean. She was wading in the water at dusk with one of the male volunteers and the rip tide took her under. The boy then jumped in after her to try and save her but couldn't get to her. After making it to shore he informed everyone that there was someone with him and he was rushed to the hospital to get treatment. After searching for this girl an hour and a half she washed up on shore. She was rushed to the hospital but I think she was already dead when she washed up on shore. She was a volunteer from Kumasi (7 hours north of Accra) so I did not know her personally. She was 24 and had only been here one week.

As things stand I am sure the media is going to get swamped with this story in the next couple days and I did not want anyone to worry.

Everyone that was at the beach party is emotionally destroyed right now and our Projects Abroad staff are really struggling. I am doing ok, shocked, but ok. Thankfully I was not there and did not have to witness such an awful event but I am still shaken up a bit. Counselors are flying in from Britain tonight to talk to volunteers and staff and make sure that everyone is ok.

I just needed to tell you before the media did.