Lately...

So the children of this wonderful little place in Africa seem to be overtaking my mind lately. Number one reason, the classes that Emily and I teach in every day have needed some recent revamping. You see, we are teaching this amazing program calle ABC's and All of Me, where we go in, teach a song about a letter and then take half of the class outside for some sensory learning in writing the letter while the other half uses dry-erase markers on wonderfully laminated paper, that so many volunteers spent hours coloring and laminating, to write these letters. It's a wonderful program and we've loved it... until recently... the white board markers have run completely out.

It's so hard to be in a place where you have absolutely no control over something like running out of white board markers. Our exhaustive search in Accra a couple weeks ago found us only 4 write board markers at a ridiculously expensive price. We started out with 22 markers, which would have been totally fine given we could run the program as it's designed to run, but seeing as this is Africa and not run anything like the US we now teach about 200 kids a day with about 70 of them using the white board markers each and every day. With that much usage it's little wonder the markers haven't lasted the duration of our stay. But this small problem has caused myself and Emily quite a bit of stress. How do you explain to a child that if they are unlucky enough to get a marker that doesn't work that you don't have anything else to give them? Especially a child that doesn't really understand your English?

So now, with only about 6 regularly reliable markers, we have bought ourselves little exercise books and after self-writing little traceable letters on each page, the children get one page to write the letter of the day in their exercise book. This, while a little more work for us everyday, has so significantly decreased stress in the classroom, which, for me is a huge plus. But I can't help but be so sad that we can't keep using the materials that Melanie Hermann and her family spent so much time preparing. If someone else is able to come someday with the same program, I am glad now that they will have a better idea of what to expect and be able to plan for that.

I am just grateful that we were set up with this program before coming here. I don't know what I'd do without it! I have no doubt we would have found other things to do, but I sure am glad that we've gotten to know the kids and had the opportunity to teach them through this program. They absolutely love it! Emily was just saying the other day that she feels bad for any other white girls that come to this village because the kids are going to be singing the letter songs to them and the white people aren't gonna have a clue what they're singing! It makes me laugh to think about it!

Anyway, the second reason the kids have been occupying my mind lately is because they're pretty much ALWAYS around! It's actually quite funny when you're in a good mood. I mean, look at these pictures:


Do you see the white outlines in the windows?

This a very common occurrence outside the window of our living room. There are frequently children outside our windows calling to us. "Obroni give me food". "Obroni I'm thirsty" "Obroni come play" Although they have learned our names now, so often hear "Spanky!" "Joe!" "I want a football" "I need a pen" and then other random gibberish in Twi, and they won't go away until one of the Ghanaians literally chase them down the walk and tell them to go away.
While sometimes it would be nice to have some privacy, it's honestly going to be something we laugh about for the rest of our lives. I love it!

If we're not in the living room, we are outside and rarely do we ever walk anywhere without getting bombarded by the kids. My favorites are the little ones, like 4 and younger (who aren't scared of you). They just run up and jump in your arms. I love squeezing them and trying to learn their names. Emily is really good at the names, but I forget almost immediately - still working on that one!

I think the hardest thing though about being here is that there is so little that really CAN do to help these kids. Usually when they ask us for food or water or a pencil you know that they probably do need it, but our ability to supply them with all those needs is so limited. It breaks my heart.

It's so hard not to be able to help these cute little ones more!

There's one little girl in the branch, Mary, whose dad, Ben (who the guys gave a loan to) honestly wants us to take her home with us to the US. There were girls talking to Emily just last night who were telling her all the kids that she needs to take home to America otherwise they don't really have a chance here. How sad is that? I wish we really could take them all with us! But I have to keep telling myself that what little we are doing here really will help them have better lives. Hopefully the guys being able to give out the loans with what little money they have, will help the people here build better lives for themselves and their kids. Hopefully by Emily and I being in the schools and making learning more fun for the kids will make them have a desire to get as much education as they can so that they can give their own children better lives.

At least that's my prayer - who knows what'll really happen, but I have to tell myself this in order to be okay here.