There once was a spider the size of a yo-yo

This is a long one!

First off, for those of you who don’t know, you can become a follower to this blog so that you can see whenever I put up a new post rather than just randomly checking it. If you look of to the right all you have to do is click follow.

So my drive to and from work is something that annoys me but at the same time relaxes me. It gives me time to think and absorb all of the things that I am trying to accomplish and all of the things I need to overcome.

Last night I had the joy of lying in my bed staring at a spider the size of a yo-yo sitting on my wall. I kept asking myself if I wanted it to still be there in the morning or if I wanted it to be gone…..but where could it go? I have no crack under my door….there are no open windows…... I woke up this morning and the spider was no where to be found…..excellent

I continue to learn new ways to make life a little easier out here: #1) Sleep in my bathing suit- I sweat a lot less and the little I do sweat is not soaking into a cotton shirt. #2 Side braid for the front part of my hair prevents the sweat from pasting it to my forehead and prevents the wind from driving in a tro-tro to turning it into a giant knot

My brain has been at capacity the past two days. I have enough work to last me the next 7 years…..and Auntie Helena again offered me a fulltime job and position on their board for her NGO…..I told her I had to finish school first : )

I had my first day at the office today and my desk consisted of Auntie Helena and I sitting across from each other sharing the same desk. I will tell you more about all this another time- for now:

Auntie Helena and I keep talking about all the plans we have and things she wants me to get done and I am excited. But with the excitement comes this overwhelming feeling. What have I gotten myself into? I am into something way bigger than me and I have the occasional doubts of whether or not I can handle it and if I am even qualified enough to do so (well-I know I am not qualified enough to do so)

Helena told me that Social Welfare is behind us, that this home is going to be a model for group homes (foster homes) all over Ghana. This is the first home of its kind and they are already making plans to continue it throughout Ghana. They want to get rid of all orphanages in Ghana but until funds are raised we are supposed to start going around Ghana training people in orphanages to improve the care of their children.

I am supposed to come up with a timeline for this home and all the steps we believe that we need to take to get to a final product. This includes the emotional transition of all of the kids that would be moved into these homes and what training I believe their house parents would need (there we go with those qualifications again). So YES I am excited but then I sit back and I think about it. $50,000 to cover one home……for 4 years……and they want thousands of homes……forever….and the government isn’t yet interested in funding…….how is this going to work?

And so despite the excitement there is the feeling that people have tried and failed throughout time trying to fix Africa and pumping aid into countries; so how is this going to be different? Yes, I believe that I will be able to make a difference in the lives of at least these 6 boys living in this foster home but I get paralyzed thinking about what is to come. I find it hard to wrap my mind around the concept of changing Ghana.

On a separate but similar note; Helena told me about some Americans who had come to give her a presentation on orphanages and that studies show that after a certain point of living in an orphanage your brain actually begins to shrink. -–Speechless—

But even through all this craziness and the thoughts and ideas that jumble my mind I remember why I started it all in the first place.

On our drive home tonight Helena and I were talking and let me tell you—she is a saint. The amount that she cares for others and the things in her life she has given up and the children she has taken as her own amazes me.

She was telling me stories about the kids at Osu Children’s Home when she was the supervisor. She used to take 100 children at a time to visit her home village just so they could know what it felt like to travel. They would share two rooms (all 100 of them). She would hold a fufu-cooking contest every New Years Day and throw them a giant party. She would take them to her mothers cocoa farm every March 6th and they would play and then sleep under the cocoa trees. And she went on and on and on. She was the supervisor of the orphanage for over 16 years; they were her own children.

And then we talked about Victor. For the first time I heard about his death. I knew that it was his liver and that he had died and I had heard bits and pieces from the kids but they didn’t know much and they wouldn’t talk about what they did know. But Helena sat and went through that day detail-by-detail explaining what had happened and I was able to sit there and just cry.

I don’t know how she does it. Victor is not the first of her children at Osu to die. He is one of many, yet she continues to give her whole heart no matter how many times it gets broken. I aspire to have her strength.

I love Ghana, I love it so much but it does not make it any easier to live here it just allows me to endure the hard things that come along with living here.

Safe and Sound

I have arrived!!!!!

What a great feeling it is to be back. I was nervous because although I had been excited and looking forward to coming back I didn't get that excited feeling deep down......but don't worry as soon as I stepped off the plane in Accra I couldn't stop smiling and was giddy.

Francis picked me up at the airport and we went straight to Osu Children's Home to see if they had my room prepared for me. As I had worried, the room was taken and they told me that I wouldn't be able to move into the orphanage until the 1st of Feb. So I spent the next 5 hours of my day figuring out where I was going to stay for the next two weeks.

I am going to be staying with Auntie Helena, who is my partner in Mawuli Apeme (my foster home). I am actually, technically speaking, working through her NGO here in Ghana called All Hands on Deck for Africa. The reason I am not going to be staying at her house the entire six months is because she lives outside of Accra in a "suburb" called Adenta (where the boys foster home is located). It take almost an hour and a half to travel there because of such horrible traffic. So after these two weeks I will move back into the orphanage where I spent the last month of my first trip to Ghana. It is much closer to the office where I will be working on the administrative part of Mawuli Apeme.

However, Auntie Helena's house is the nicest I have seen in Ghana. I have a room to myself with my own bathroom and it is very nice. However, having said that, I still had ants crawling all over me as I was trying to sleep last night.

While I was at the orphanage yesterday I was waiting outside the office to speak to the supervisor and a police car pulled up to drop off a child. This is one of the main ways that children are brought to Osu Children Home. The boy took a seat next to me and proceeded to stare at me for the next 15 minutes straight. I tried to speak to him and ask him his name in twi but I only got a faint smile with no response. When Agnus (a woman who works at the orphanage) came out to deal with him she mentioned that he was 8 years old. After she asked him his name and he didn't respond she asked the police officers if they had named him yet. I was slightly confused but continued to listen. They responded no they hadn't and so she said oh well then I need to give him a name. She told him that his new name would be Kojo because he was brought to the home on a Tuesday. How does that happen?! He is 8 years old and for 8 years of his life he has had a name and now he has lost his identity completely. I am amazed every day here.

Ghana is DEVELOPING!! I am seeing it before my eyes and it is unbelievable. Since I was here six months ago pot holes in the roads are being fixed, gutters are being covered, trash is being cleaned out of the gutters and taken off the streets. There is this place on the side of the road where it used to be piled 6 feet high with garbage and it has now been turned into a garden where I can see cabbage and other vegetables growing! As I walk down Oxford street the vendors have been moved mostly off the sides of the roads into confined areas that are more like little market places (there are still some exceptions). Chop Bars are being forced to organize themselves and Danquah has been completely re-done. Hopefully this is a sign for the future and what is to come!

I have a Herbert #2 living in my bathroom. For those of you who don't know, Herbert was my lizard that lived in my bathroom at my host family 2 years ago.

I got pretty homesick last night. I think it was the initial nerves and the act that I was overly tired but I am feeling refreshed this morning.

Auntie Helena and I spoke for a couple hours ago yesterday on all the plans we had and wanted to discuss for Mawuli Apeme. Some of these ideas include: possibly buying land to build a foster home on, creating a start to finish start a foster home plan, open up the bank accounts to the boys, and become more efficient in keeping track of where our money is going.

Seeing my children has been the most amazing part so far. They were not there when I originally got there because they were in school but I was there as they started to come back from school and as they walked through the gates and noticed me they broke out into a sprint and tackled me. Raymond my toddler remembered my name and surprised me from behind with the biggest grin on his face. It is so good to be back, and so good knowing I have so much time to make a difference in the way Mawuli Apeme will be running.

I am going to start going to Helena's office tomorrow to get to planning but for today I am continuing to see those I haven't seen yet.

Life is good.

3rd Time is a Charm?

Alright-

So I created this blog so that I wasn't pestering anyone with my constant e-mails and also it is easier for people to get to.

I have uploaded past e-mails on this blog so if you are confused about anything or just curious you can go back and read those, they are all organized in the archive.

So I am leaving tomorrow morning for my 3rd trip to Ghana and I am nervous. You would think that because I have been twice before my nerves wouldn't be acting up and it would be easy for me. But the truth is that even though I know what to expect there are the daily frustrations and challenges that I know are awaiting me.

It doesn't become easier to live in a 3rd world country just because I have done it twice before and it scares me that I have been healthy and safe up to this point in my travels to Ghana. I don't want to "push my luck", if you will.

So I feel like a robot. People continuously asking "Are you excited to go back?" and me nodding my head yes when I am secretly wishing they would ask me what I am nervous about. I know there is going to be a nostalgic feeling when I go back that will be sitting in the bottom of my stomach. My friends from 2 years ago are no longer there. Some of the older boys from the orphanage have gone off to Sr. High and are no longer around. The reality of Victor's death will be present again. And as for the toddlers, they come and go, some will have been adopted, and some will have died. And it all freaks me out.

For the most part I have avoided mentioning this to anyone but I felt like it needed to be said.

Having said all of this; I am so happy and thrilled to be going back. I am excited to commit 6 months to my foster home (Mawuli Apeme) and figure out what it means to be successful in that. For those of you who don't know what I am doing I will give you an overview: I am using my 6th month co-op through my University to go back to Ghana and work on the development of my foster home I created since returning from my original trip to Ghana. While at first this foster home was created because it seemed the 6 boys were going to be kicked out of Osu Children's Home the reasons for the creation have changed.

Legally the boys are still allowed to stay in the orphanage but the more I thought about the home and the opportunities they wouldn't receive living there the more I felt it necessary to remove them. So this foster home is acting more as a half way house between life in the orphanage and starting a life of their own. During the time the boys live in this home they will be learning how to cook, clean, and look after themselves with the safety net of me and another Ghanaian woman helping them out.

I will talk about this a little more later, but for right now I will tell you that I am going to be working in an "office" setting trying to create a business plan, finalize a budget, come up with a set of expectations for the boys living the home, look for land to possibly purchase, get a website up and running, think of ways to create this foundation into a sustainable project, etc.

So this is where I am: Prayers for change and protection are needed.

Northeastern University wrote an article about me earlier this year that will give you a good idea of what I am up to: Pursuing a Big Dream for Smaller Foster Homes

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.