hi All,
finally i got to a ‘normal’ internet cafe and there is electricity as well. 
it’s been 3 weeks that im here in Ghana – i cant even believe it. work is good – every day is pretty much the same thou. get up around 7am, have some breakfast then go to the orphanage. i started to get to know the kids so it’s nicer. unfortunately i cant remember names – they all have super long African names. Around 8am the kids have breakfast, then get ready for daycare. everything here is a process – Ghanaians never rush things – they def take their times. getting ready for school/daycare can sometimes take 45min. some of the kids still have diapers so they need to be changed and some go and sit on the potty. one of the first days i walked into the bathroom where they all go. there are little pots on the floor and they are sitting next to each other and hang out. it’s pretty funny to see like 10-15 little kids sitting on the potty talking and stuff. when some of them are done they start looking at each others and start pouring pee on the floor or on each other. it was gross. so now i try not to go in there too much only to pull the kids out of there and try to dress them. HA!
so around 9-9:30 we walk over the day care. once everyone gets there we teach them for like an hour, then play and around lunch time we feed them. feeding the kids is pretty interesting as well. we have to feed the little ones while the older ones can eat alone. i usually feed 3-4 kids at once. i get a bowl of food – whatever that day they have which is usually some kind of soup or sauce with banku or fufu. they both look like a dough but fufu is made of kasava and plantains mashed together in huge balls. banku looks the same to me but its more sour and it made of something else. So anyway, we have to feed the kids by hand. i take a small amount of fufu dip it in the sauce and put it in their mouth. they are so cute, they sit there with open mouth like little birds. sometimes the food is so hot that i can hardly put my finger in the soup. ha.
after lunch they take naps and we go home too and have a break for a couple of hours. Since its so hot outside – sometimes we dont want to move at all bc we sweat like crazy.
then we go back to the orphanage around 3-3:30, play with th kids, feed them again, and help to give them baths. we usually finish around 6pm or so then we go home.
in the evening we just have dinner, take our bucket baths and hang out at home. after dark its not too good to go out – the roads are so dark and its a dirt road so its really hard to walk around. we’ve been going to bed around 8:30-9pm almost everyday. but we get pretty tired b/c of the heat and all that sweating everyday.
so last week i started to get a cold but it was not going away. i had a slight temperature for days and i couldnt sleep at nights then on top of that my eye got all red and looked like it got some infection. So i wasnt feeling well at all. i had to get some eye drops somewhere so they sent me to the hospital. when i got to the hospital – i had to get an ‘ID’ card – which was a hand written piece of paper with my name on it and i had to pay $2 for it. then i went in a room where they sat me down by a desk on a broken chair where a nurse took my blood pressure and my temperature. while she was doing that – she was on her cell phone the whole time. then they sent me out to the waiting room where i waited for an hour to get called in. i went into the same room again with the desk but now a doctor was sitting there. i sat down on the chair again, the doctor asked me a few questions about how i feel and what my problems are – and then he gave me prescription for my cold – some antibiotics, a cough syrup and some eye drops. on the way out there was a small pharmacy where i got all these meds for $4! Haha. but i cant complain – i do feel better and my eyes arent red anymore. . I really hope thou that i wont get really sick here and i wont have to go to the hospital again.
so this weekend – bc of the Easter break we took a trip to Cape Coast – which is right on a beach a cute town with a castle and close to a national park. we actually met here with some of the other volunteers i had the orientation with on the first week and we all stayed at a same hostel. we went to the Kakum National park where we had to walk thru a canopy that was about 200 feet high above the forest. it was fun but pretty scary. then we went to see the caste – which was actually a slave castle back then. it was pretty sad to see and hear the slavery stories and what happened in this caslte back in the days. then for the rest of the weekend we hung out on the beach and had good food in restaurants. this is def a tourist town – we met many white people here and there is a cool resort/restaurant right on the beach that’s full of tourists. i’m actually still here in cape coast – this is where i found this amazing ‘fast’ internet.
we are planning on traveling on some the weekends if we can – since there is a lot to see in Ghana and everything is relatively cheap. the hostel we’ve been staying is super cheap but the bus rides and the food can get exp.
unfortunately i still couldn’t get any pictures uploaded to the internet – the connections are very slow here as well as the computers. but i’ve been taking pictures and i will show them when i get home.
hope all is well. i miss everything and everyone and def miss the hot showers and fresh vegetables and different food. all we are eating still is rice and fish stews – maybe some yam – oh and bread. so all carbs. im def not going to lose weight in ghana. I’ll try to go running this week in the mornings and see how i’ll do in this heat.
write me!
talk soon,
