Ghana - Day 4

Day 4

WARNING!!!  TODAY’S BLOG IS FULL OF RUN ON SENTENCES AND PROBABLY JUMPS AROUND A BIT, OR THE STORY IS PROBABLY TOO LONG THAT YOU MAY GET BORED AND WISH I WOULD JUST GET TO THE POINT.  THIS IS ALL DUE TO JASON TAKING THE DAY OFF FROM BLOGGING AND HAS GUILTED ME INTO TO FILLING IN FOR HIM.  SO BARE WITH ME AND HE WILL BE BACK FOR DAY 5…AND HOPEFULLY THE REST OF THE DAYS TO COME. :-)

One thing that I have noticed while being here in Ghana is that time moves much slower than it does at home.  Don’t get me wrong, we are loving it here and enjoying every minute, but the days last forever!!  I would give anything for our days at home to last longer.  I think it’s because of their way of life here.  Everything is very laid back and no one is in a hurry to get anywhere.  No rushing around. 

Today was a good day.  We woke up and had some breakfast (boiled eggs, bread with butter and Jam, pineapple, and fresh squeezed orange juice).  We caught a taxi over to the home where the kids are staying.  We are greeted the same every time we come.  M and A run to us and about tackle us to the ground!  After a bit of swinging and hanging on mom and dad and hugs, they ask, “mommy…daddy are we going to the hotel?”  They love getting us away so that they don’t have to share us with the other kids.

But today we had plans to meet with our sweet friend Muna. As we waited for Muna we played with the children and talked with our friends Monica and Kit.

Muna came after a bit and we headed out with M and A to go to deliver a Welcome Bag, and a letter to other children in other homes.  As we were on our way to the first home where E lived we traveled down dirt roads about 20 minutes.  These dirt roads were very washed out from all the rains they have had over the past months.  We felt a lot like we were riding somewhere up on a mountain four-wheeler road back at home.  Bouncing around in the back seat and praying that his car would make it to the homes we were heading to.  The scenery was something I will never forget.  The homes, the children playing, the clothing hung to dry on the clothes lines from a hard days work of loving moms.  Women and children walking the streets with MASS amounts of items upon their heads selling, or bringing home items from market.  We saw goats and chickens roaming and garbage being burned on the streets or in the courtyards of their homes.  The people here are happy and hard working.  The children are busy with chores or making their own fun in the yard, no toys to be found other than the ones that they have made out of sticks and leaves, or old tires.   It’s something we wish we’d see more of at our home.  It’s obvious many times in America we put too much emphasis on ‘things’ rather than ‘time’.

As we reached the foster home of E we were greeted by the woman who was taking care of the children there.  The children stood in the back watching as we entered the home.  It was a very nice home, well kept and clean.  The children didn’t run to us but watched us cautiously.  As E came into the room we greeted him with a BIG hug and told him we had a letter from his Mommy and Daddy. (E appears to be about 5 or 6 years old).   His eyes lit up and the biggest smile came across his face.  You could tell that he was more than excited to get things started even though he remained still.  As we knelt down beside him at the table I read him his sweet letter as his eyes were fixed on the pictures of his family.  As I pointed to the pictures and asked him who these people were her smiled and said “my family, my sister, my brothers, and my mommy and my daddy”.   It was a sweet moment for me as I could feel the love that this boy had for his family and how anxious he was to see them.  Next he showed us his room.  He was proud of his room (as many kids are in Ghana, I have noticed that with M and A that they want to see their beds whenever they can).  E went to his dresser and in the pile of neatly folded laundry he pulled out his pillowcase and laid it perfectly at the top of his mattress.  This took him time because he wanted it to be perfectly straight for the picture.  When he finished, he gave a huge smile for what he had done.  It was such a nice visit.

Next we were off to visit Paul’s home to deliver a Welcome Bag to Paul for one of his other homes in another region way to the north. 

We were warmly greeted by Paul and were immediately life long friends.  As we entered, the children were eating at the table just outside the house.  They all watched us and said hello, but everyone stayed at the table to finish their meal.  We sat and talked with Paul and told him about our good friends who have adopted children from his home.  We conveyed how grateful they are for him and how well the kids are doing.  He was happy to hear about it.  The children soon gathered at our feet with coloring pages and colored pencils.  As we talked they quietly colored on the floor.  Paul talked of how blessed they have been and how sweet his children are.  Talked about the schooling and the needs of the children.  They have so little but they are always taken care of and their needs are always met because of their faith the God is watching over them and loves them.  This home was so full of love and you could definitely feel the Spirit here.  Paul is another great man with a BIG heart for the things that matter most to our Father in Heaven.  This seems to be a common theme for the orphanages we’ve visited.

By the time we left M and A (and daddy) were starving!!!  We’ve noticed they become very quiet and say nothing when they are hungry.  We had brought snacks for them until we could stop for some food.  M and been telling us since the day we arrived she would love to have some Kankee (fish with pepper sauce and a ball of dough made from Maize) so we stopped at one of the street vendors and got the kids some Kankee.  They instantly livened up!!!  We took it back to the hotel and had lunch in the courtyard.  They devoured it. ……head and all!!  They would take a small amount of dough and dip it into the pepper sauce and then a piece of the fish with it and eat.  Jason had tried some of this pepper sauce and his eyes began to water, nose running and sweat pouring from his head!!!  IT WAS HOT!!!  M and A didn’t even think anything of it and ate it as if it were as hot as whip cream.  AMAZING!!!  The hotter the better for them!  Jalapeños are tasteless compared!!

 

We decided that we would head over to the home and take the sock puppets to the children that we had made.  (If you remember from a previous blog, some dear friends and their families came over on a Monday night and we made over 80 sock puppets for all of the kids).  M and A were able to call all of the children out into the courtyard to come and see what we had brought for them.  M and A showed them what they were and began to hand them out to their friends as Jason was pretending to talk to the children with his sock puppet (and yes, McCall – He did ask them if they would like a ‘hotdog’).  They all giggled.  Pretty soon they were all talking n their puppet voices, however they soon decided that they would also be fun to put on their feet and dance around!!  LOVED IT!!  M had her sock puppets pulled all the way to the top of her legs like tights and A had 2 on his hands and 2 on his feet. 

There were enough puppet for all of them to have two.  How A ended up with four????  I think his Daddy had something to do with that.  Thank you to all of our friends and the kids who made these, they loved them and played with them for hours.  I took lots of pictures and video for you to all see when we get home.    

We got back to the hotel and just relaxed, they had their bath (so funny to watch them splash around) and read books to them, looked at videos and pictures of the kids at home playing in the snow at the cabin, swimming, sledding, etc, and colored.   

I am loving spending this time with them and getting to know them.  It has been a blessing to be here and to watch them, study their every movement 

and hear the sound of their little voices.  To watch them interact with the other kids and each other.  To be with them and see them experience things they have never experienced as their eyes light up with excitement.  To hug them when they get hurt and hold them when they are crying.  It has been an amazing four days!!  I have missed my children at home so much my heart aches but my heart also aches at the thought of leaving the children I have here in Ghana as well.  The tug of war, I am sure, will continue until the day we bring them home.

We are continuing to pray that our court day will come soon.  The lady that is suppose to be signing our documents is back home and could possibly sign today (fingers crossed) and we could go to court, if she doesn’t sign to day then we will have to wait until Thursday or Friday for her to sign due to a holiday.

OK, I’m back (Jason).  Thank you Brandie for helping out.  I was super tired last night and had a bit of writer’s cramp – actually, I just didn’t want to write.  =-)

Some observations I’m starting to see about our kids here:

1. 1.   Neither one of them like to share mommy or daddy.  Today we had a huge pouting session with A because Luke came over and sat on my lap.  A immediately went limp, stuck out his bottom lip, and looked at the ground.  He wouldn’t talk to, look at, or even respond to anyone.  I finally started to figure out what he was upset about so I picked him up and walked to a quite part of the courtyard.  I told him that HE was the one we loved, HE was the one that was coming home with us, and that HE was our favorite boy there.  I told him that some of the other kids want hugs too but that doesn’t mean they’re coming home with us or that we love them more.  We’ll ALWAYS love him the most.  He slowly started to understand and come out of his pouting trance.
2. 2.     These kids have a VERY DEFINED schedule to which if we don’t follow – there will be consequenses!  It’s taken us a couple of days to figure out some of these things, but today we figured out that eating time is 8:00, noon, and 5:00 – and if we don’t have food in their bellies at that time, we’ll be in ‘recovery mode’ for a while.  Their little bodies are so used to being fed at a specific time that their energy is conserved for the entire time between meals.  They don’t have snacks between meals so they need the energy.  Today we didn’t get them lunch until nearly 3:00 because we were out with Muna.  Both of the kids started to shut down after lunch – I started to know how they felt!  I was starving just the same!!  This fat man can only have so much rice!! =-)
3. 3.     These kids are just like all other kids.  We had our first ‘blow up’ between them today.  It started because one was getting more attention from mommy than the other.  The end result was torn coloring books thrown across the room, Brandie in the middle like a MMA referee – one arm on each kid completely spread apart – while they yelled in Ewe at each other.  In the end, they both got time out and had to apologize to each other.  Brandie did an excellent job sitting both of them down independently after all the crying and drama had stopped.  She told them we were a family and we don’t act like that with each other.  It was important for them both to know that even though she’ll get after them or scold them that we’ll always still love them.  She told them even though she got after them and put them in time out, it didn’t mean she was upset with them or didn’t love them.  It was great parenting in my opinion.  Poor M just sat and bawled afterwards.  I have a feeling some of that was because she felt like she’d shown us a side of herself and was afraid we wouldn’t ‘like’ her anymore.
4. 4.     We’re making some major strides in the ‘trusting’ department.  The first three days there were several pouting sessions, which would last for several minutes (some lasted nearly an hour).  Today we only had one, which only lasted a few minutes.  It is my belief (and I’m no expert here – this is just fatherly intuition) the kids are starting to realize they don’t need to act up in order to get our attention or affection.  I believe they’re starting to understand how unconditional love feels and actually BELIEVE that we’ll always have it for them.  Whatever it is, there is definitely progress. (Anita – you’re the pro here – please tell me if you think that’s the case)
5. 5.     M and Brin are TRUE sisters.  They have all of the same qualities.  In fact, if their skin wasn’t just a few shades different I’d think they were twins!!  M loves to come to the hotel and go through all her clothes.  She puts one outfit on (complete with matching hair bows) then applies ample lip-gloss – then it’s over to the mirror to dance and prance – just to see how she looks.  Afterwards it’s back to the suitcase to change and start the whole charade all over again.  M has a TON of drama – just like Brinley.  They both have good drama (full of fun emotion, ‘yucking up’ things just to get someone to laugh, a little of the Hollywood routine with simple tasks, etc) and bad drama (you don’t like me!!, throw big fits over little things, etc).  The similarities are even more striking than what we’d thought before we came.  I’m quite sure these two girls together under one roof are going to drive me to drink!!

Some things I’ve learned about Ghana:

• 1.     Holy “hotter-than-Hell” Batman!!  Listen, I love a good Mexican dish.  And I even can eat habanera salsa every once in a while without too much lower GI feedback.  But the stuff I ate today would peel the barnacles off a sea vessel!  Dear lord I’ve never tasted anything so hot in my life.  I ordered Banku with Tilapia (a dish where the whole fish – yes, head, guts and all – are cooked in a semi-spicy sauce and then served with Pepe – that’s the fire of death sauce – and a ball of dough made from Cassava and maize).  The dough, fish, and sauce was actually quite tasty – but that Pepe was down right punishment.  I’m sure it’ll be the ‘gift that keeps on giving’, if you know what I mean.

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• 2.     Ghanaians are some of the friendliest people in the world.  We have yet to meet one person who hasn’t greeted us with a smile and said hello.  Even some of the meanest, ugliest people we’ve seen on the street will smile and say hello, it’s amazing.  They are so kind and polite.  I’m growing to love the older boys in the home too.  Dominic and Richard have been our personal guide and driver.  We’ve spent quite a bit of time with them both at meals and in the car with them.  They are some of the most polite and nice people I’ve ever met.  They all sincerely want to better themselves (each are attending or will attend technical school to learn a vocation) this year.  Richard is studying to become an auto technician).  I can’t say enough good about these older boys.

A couple other things we saw today that were fun.  We watched the older boys set up the barbershop in the courtyard for the younger boys.  Richard, Dominic, and Job were the barbers and would go round up a little boy, one-by-one to get their hair cut.  I was especially interested in this since I’ve never seen it done before. I was fascinated how they cut the little boy’s hair.  They’d take a rat-tailed comb and then lay a strait edge razor flat on the top.  They’d quickly move the comb with short motions and cut the hair evenly as they went.  Some of the boys got the ‘Tele Sevalis” cut (completely bald) because they had lingering issues with ringworm.

The last thing was a follow up to Richard’s new flip-flops.  While we were out with Richard I had him take us to market for some new shoes.  We found some black ones just his size – they cost me a whopping 1 Cedi, 50 Pesewas (which is equivalent to about one dollar).  We took them back to the home in a black bag.  When we got back to the home I went over and sat under the mango tree to start handing out puppets.  After all the puppets were handed out I called for Richard to come over.  As he approached I handed him his new flip-flops and told him, “I’d made you a promise.  Here’s your new shoes.”  The look on that sweet boys face was something that will forever be burned into my memory.  I don’t think the shoes were the part that excited him the most – I think it was that someone had remembered something specifically just for HIM.  Oh, the things we take for granted. 

Thank you Father for these tender teaching moments!

Until tomorrow.