and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!! i honestly forgot..until my mom reminded me. i hope everyone eats a lot and gets to hang out with lots of family! good luck with erics gal melissa! (even though hes MINE!)
i should have mentioned this earlier but my new name is Aduawa. thats what everyone calls me here...janet, miss vivian, the kids, mike, etc... Aduawa is the name for a girl born on a monday. everyone here has a name, and then a name for the day of the week they were born on. my moms is Ama because she was born on a saturday. Kofi is the name for a boy born on a friday. but for some reason, no one can say "helene" here..they say "helene" and i hate that name...so i just introduce myself as Aduawa now.
so today started off with my mom and i going to some lunch place so she could meet an artist and interview him. it was sooooooo hot. and she said "only 30 minutes honey" which of course is over an hour in mom time... (my prediction was correct) but i just read my depressing book "The Shack"
we went straight to the orphanage after that. we brought the school supplies...yay! though the kids we take care of dont have school time. they just run around for like 6 hours. no joke. we walked into our room (it was supposed to be nap time) and everyone was screaming and crying. EVERYONE. there were also a couple ladies there giving a few kids pills. i dont know what for though...some kids had purple marker on their fingernail and miss vivian said those get the medicine. i realized it was mostly the kids who have homes... :( i dont know what was going on today but everyone was so upset. the kids who are normally angels were crying and hitting. a couple of girls came up to me doing the signal for water (they pinch their fingers together and hold their hand to their mouth) so i gave them some water...and of course then everyone wanted water. big mistake! then about 15 kids came up to me needing to go potty. it was kiosk. kids were peeing everywhere... koby put one of the toilet buckets on his head... kids were running around naked. it was crazy!! after most of them were done, i saw emmanuela crying in the corner. she had peed everywhere, soaking her dress. i changed her into panties that were way too big (but thats all they had) and then a tiny t-shirt. she still smelled sooo bad. but she kept following me...so i finally sat down and held her until she fell asleep on my chest. oh, and then she peed again. on me. LOVELY.
meanwhile, koby decided to be a nudist today. he had on his little button down shirt but no pants. i thought, surely he has on underwear under there..haha NOPE! he lifted up his shirt every 20 seconds to reveal his jewels. the only underwear left were these little bloomers do i chased him around (literally) trying to get him to put panties on. he was giggling and flashing kids...it was pretty funny. finally i got them on but of course two seconds later they were off again..and on his head. then he came up to me trying to get me to hold him! yah right! i told him he needed underwear for that. so he just held on to my leg. great!!! oh how i love little koby. he is so precious...and naked!!
miss vivian left us. she wasnt feeling well and left two white women in room of 30 children. they knew they could misbehave when miss vivian left... and they did. kids were climbing on everything, stealing food, hitting each other, hitting us! one boy decided to pick on my addo. big mistake!! addo, for those who dont know, is the severely autistic boy. all he did today was sit and try to tie his shoe. the ENTIRE time. he got up once to get a cookie. thats it. he was so determined...it was adorable... he never did it but who cares? but this boy started to hit him and kick his back. oooooohhhhh boy i got mad. its horrible to say i got mad at an orphan, but he was laughing and hitting the defenseless kid! my mom tried to get him to stop too. these kids DONT listen. they do whatever they want. (unless miss vivian tells them otherwise) ive never been so frustrated in my life. finally my mom told me it was time to go. i really needed to leave before i blew up at a little kid... its not even the orphans that are the rude ones! its the ones who have homes! absolutely ridiculous!!!
we left and went to lunch at "frankies" i ordered a turkey and cheese sandwich but the chef refused to make it because they only had a "ham and cheese" on the menu. (i got a turkey and cheese sandwich at the same place 2 days ago) so i ended up with a cheese sandwich. haha thats all i eat here! and olives! then we walked around downtown ghana. everyone kept stopping us asking us to look at their shop or buy something...it became overwhelming quite fast. again, i got frustrated. maybe i just have no patience today. but downtown there was a political parade going on. there were lots of people...a lot of guys were playing the trombone and rihanna was playing (the song umbrella!) it was pretty interesting. everyone was dancing and singing . some girl stopped and handed me a Hepatitis B flyer.
when we got back to the hotel, we saw a guy wearing a nduom shirt. nduom is the man running for president that owns this hotel. my mom asked about t-shirts and he just gave us some! he came to our hotel last night for salsa night...he walked right by me! it was so cool. an african celebrity! he even made up a dance move that means "change" he said. (its the symbol for traveling in basketball) it was really funny!
the african soap operas here are terrible. i thought the ones in the USA were bad... but the people have no emotion here! one girl was talking to he auntie and said in a completely monotonous way "auntie, i am HIV positive" and her aunt goes "thats not good" it shouldnt be funny but it was because they are such bad actors....
tomorrow im going to Neema, a school primarily for muslim african children. there isnt a sewage system there...and we have to walk down tons of dirt paths to get there. but we are bringing them school supplies because they get absolutely nothing. then well go to the orphanage of course!
well, i smell like baby urine and something else (not sure what!) so taking a shower (which will probably be cold...) is something to be thankful for! for sure!!!
have a wonderful thanksgiving everyone! thank you so much for reading. it means so much to me!
-helene
3 comments:
I am glad to hear your trip is going well. I have read your blog everyday and it is really interesting to hear about everything that is happening there. I look forward to reading it each day so make sure to keep it coming :). Hope your trip continues to go well.
-Scott
I hope your trip tomorrow to the new school goes well, I'll be thinking of you. Also, I hope you had an awesome thanksgiving. Love, Courtney
HAHA! Wow this day was precious! I am sorry that your little one got picked on, and I think its really funny the little boys want you to hold them while they aren't wearing underwear... I can just picture you! Thanks for your good wishes with Eric's gal... even though I know he is yours! Our thanksgiving was phenomenal, I can't wait to see you again baby!
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