My Week April 11th - April 15th!

Ok, so I left you all on Monday afternoon, after my Kokrobite weekend, so now I will tell you all about my week.

Monday night I didn’t do much of anything, I got pork from Grace at the pork stand down the road. She calls me Akosua because I was born on a Sunday. See in Ghana, you have a second name based on the day of the week that you were born. Here is a chart so that you too can find out your Ghana first name:

Sunday –        (male): Kwasi        (female): Akosua

Monday –       (male): Kojo          (female): Adwoa

Tuesday –       (male): Kwabena   (female): Abena

Wednesday -  (male): Kwaku       (female): Akua

Thursday –     (male): Yao            (female): Yaa

Friday –          (male): Kofi           (female): Afia

Saturday –      (male): Kwame      (female): Ama

So there you have it, Now you know what your true name should be (the key is going back on a calendar to your birth year to find out what day of the week your birthday falls on then). They use those all the time, they tell you their given name (like Melissa) only when they know you very well, but always introduce with their Ghana name! So that’s kind of fun now when I met people to tell them my name is Akosua, then they know I have been in Ghana for a long time!

But the rest of Monday night I did nothing, except play Uno with Eric, Toby, and Kamal of coarse (tradition now)!

Tuesday morning I woke up and went to the school, the kids were feeling a little better on Tuesday, but not by a lot. So they had a doctor come and give them Cholera medication. Faustina was back from the hospital, but still resting, so it was another school day of taking care of sick kids (with less vomit though)!

Tuesday afternoon I came back and took a nap at the hostel because I was worn out from looking after sick kids (it’s a lot more draining then looking after healthy kids).

Tuesday Evening I went to get some pork from Grace again and while I was down there a lady named Mercy told me I had nice breasts . . . compliment I guess haha! Also a man asked to Marry me, and when I said no he asked for my phone number, when I again said no he said “ahh adain (why) it’s nice to be nice einh?”. Now in Ghana that is THE biggest catch phrase ever! They say it when you are being nice and they say it when you are apparently being mean to encourage you to be nice! I’ll probably come back to Canada and start saying “hey, it’s nice to be nice!”! Other then that I did nothing really, I again played Uno and went to bed!

Wednesday morning I went to the school as usual, and surprisingly most everyone was cured of the Cholera! So the drugs the doctors gave must have been good! I had a normal morning with the kids, and they were doing their exams!

Wednesday afternoon I set out on a mission with the help of Nana to find Three big canvases and powder paint to mix with glue (for Thursday for the kids). Nana was convinced that we could find these things in Darkuman where we stay, so for an hour and a half we walked through the town of Darkuman asking every shop if they sold it, or knew where we could find it. After everyone (and I mean everyone) in Darkuman said they didn’t have it, I convinced Nana that we best go to the art market across town (where they sell all the souvenirs, woodwork, paintings, and such to ask them where to get it. When we got to the art market a man took us down the road to his house where he had lots of paint and glue, and his brother made blank thick canvases. So after an hour of haggling the price down I got three Canvases, 5 colors of paint, glue, and paint brushes for 40 cedi! That was a much different experience then going to a craft supply store in Canada haha! Then Nana and I came back to the hostel and I went to a bank.

Wednesday night I didn’t do anything yet again! But there were new girls that arrived here from the Netherlands and they had this great card game called set. The cards had different shapes on them and you lay twelve out on the table and have to collect sets of three (harder then it sounds, it is a logic game). So I thoroughly enjoyed that for hours then went to bed early to prepare for an early morning of painting with the kids the next day!

Thursday morning I woke up early at 7am and went to the school with Nana for 8am. When I got to the school I announced to the kids that “today we are going to messy paint”. They didn’t quite get it so I then said “We’re going to paint with our hands”, they all looked at the teachers like “are we allowed?” and the teachers knew before hand, so they encouraged the kids that it was ok haha! So Nana and I began to mix the paint colors with glue and water (this makes sure that the paint won’t crack when I roll it up to pack it) and then we bagan calling children up to get their hands painted. So we had an assembly line, myself and another teacher were putting the paint on the kids hands, then Nana and another teacher were stamping the kids hands on the canvases, then another teacher was writing the names of the children with pen underneath their handprint. This took about four hours, it was very fun though! After that the kids got back into the paint and started painting each others faces with tribal marks . . . of coarse I couldn’t get away from them without being painted up as well, so it was a fun messy paint day! I think that the kids were just excited to be allowed to be messy, because the teachers told me that they have never heard of finger painting before this! So after all was said and done I left one big Canvas for the preschool to post on their wall and I took two to post on my walls (when I get my own place) for myself! They are beautiful and I can’t wait to show them to you all! Walking down the street covered in paint with these in mid afternoon was quite funny though!

Thursday afternoon I went to run quite a few errands (after showering the paint off of coarse) and the main errand being getting my Visa for Benin! I got in a taxi and headed for the embassy. Now all the embassy’s for every country are in the same area of town, so it took the taxi driver a half an hour of driving through this area to find the Benin embassy. Every couple meters he would be like “here’s an embassy” and it would be to Egypt or Libya or something, so I had to keep telling him to keep looking! I finally got to the Benin embassy and they were closed at 2pm for Visa’s, frustrating, but they let me fill out the forms and give them my passport so that it could be done the next day. Only problem was that I needed passport pictures, so I went in a taxi down the road to get some passport photos taken. Once that was done I went back to the Benin embassy to give him those, then he said he would have my passport ready for me by 7pm tomorrow (Friday). So then off I went after all that hassle (I wanted to go to the bank to get money off my mastercard for a start at paying auntie at the hostel but I couldn’t without my passport) so my next errand was going to a VIP bus station to get a ticket for Takoradi for Saturday because I am going to dixcove to stay with Mike and Julia and the eco lodge. When I got there they said their busses only go to Kumasi . . . so then I had to go to an STC station . . . back in another taxi I got. When I got to the STC station they had closed their till at 4pm, but said that if I paid them they would write my name and attach it to a ticket and write down Takoradi bus 12:30 on it, and I could get my ticket and be guaranteed aspot if I went to the station at 11:30 on Saturday, so that is what I did. Then I went to melcom (supermarket) to get a notebook and candies for the kids for the next day. Finally after all that hassle of everything I came back to the Hostel exhausted! Frustrated and a little homesick I called Linda, who made things much better!

Thursday night I didn’t do anything (to be expected after my day). I played Uno and Set with the hostel gang and went to bed.

Friday (today) I went to the school early again at 8am because they were having their last day party before vacating for two weeks for Easter! It was very much like the “party” school days we had in elementary school for things like Halloween or Christmas. They didn’t do anything and were allowed to just do whatever, they had a DJ come in and play music so they were all dancing, they had biscuits and candy and pop for the kids and at lunch time they had roasted a whole chicken for the kids to share (special to them because they usually just have rice and sauces). So it was a day of lots of fun! The teachers even got me dancing with them to the music haha! The day lasted until 1pm when the kids were sent home with baskets full of candy, treats, work from their semester, and report cards! Faustina filled me in today that the new preschool they are building will be built while the kids are still in school at their old location, and even when the new school is built the old school will run at the same time until that group of kids are all graduated from the preschool (but they won’t be accepting new children at the old location). The new location will run at the same time recruiting new children (because it will be in a different neighborhood) and they will start to build attendance that way. So this is a project that they have wanted to move forward with for a long time, and it will take more money then what I have fundraised, but I think that we can do it (yes I will need help lol). It will be a long term project and may take up to five years before they can vacate their old location and move to their new one (while transitioning both), but it will be worth it to know that I made it possible for them to build a new school! It was sad saying goodbye to the kids for two weeks, but I am hoping to extend my trip until the 4^th instead of the 2^nd of May because they start school back on the 3^rd, this way I will have the 3^rd morning and the 4^th morning to say goodbye to the kids!

This afternoon I didn’t do much of anything, I felt kind of sickish like I had heat exhaustion from being in the sun dancing all day, so I came back and took a nap. Then I washed some Laundry to be ready for the week in Dixcove ahead. And after I finished that I started this blog! So there we are! I am going to meet the man with my Visa very soon (plans for Benin are coming together well and today the travel company did me a favor and reduced the price to no profit to them because it is such a short trip and are only giving profit to the guide . . . so it is now affordable for 4 days at 200 cedi), and then tonight I am going to go to Karaoke for a bit with some people from the hostel! I won’t be writing for awhile because I will be in Dixcove at Desert Rose Lodge with Mike and Julia from tomorrow (Saturday) until Wednesday (no internet connection in the middle of nowhere) so I will update you on how that trip went when I come back. Again thank you for reading!