The second I stepped off the plane I knew I was in Africa, there is a smell that is specific to Ghana (and maybe Africa in general). The best way to describe the smell is like a mixture of humidity, toilet and garbage (luckily that's just in the cities, and Egyam is rural so it doesn't smell...or maybe I've just gotten used to it). It took almost a full 24 hours for me to get to Egyam, Ghana. I spent about 16 hours on planes, then an hour in a taxi, 5 hours on a bus, then spent 20 mins waiting for the security guard to pick Leo (the social worker at the orphanage) and I up from the bus stop at 2am (not the number one place I wanted to be at 2am, being a white female in Africa) and finally take me to the orphanage. The next morning I woke up and opened my door to find 20 orphans staring at me curiously.
The shower is basically a waist high faucet that has a small stream of water that runs out, no where near the equivalent of my shower at home, or even my kitchen sink! My room is actually pretty nice, 2 bunkbeds with some plastic chairs and a table with a TV on it, though it gets one fuzzy, sometimes black and white channel that just plays Ghanaian soap operas. My kitchen is a room with a small table, chair and sink; and I bought a small gas burner for cooking (I definitely regret not bringing a knife or dish soap). I eat either rice or noodles for every meal. One of Leo's friends, a police officer, I guess really liked me and bought me a bunch of fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately I let Leo put it in what I thought was a fridge but turned out to be a freezer...let's just say fruits and veggies don't last very long when they get semi-frozen. The electricity tends to go out for about an hour at a time, and the water has gone off once or twice; I have definitely learned that I need to keep a supply of water that could last me a couple days.
For 2 weeks, all but about a dozen children, went to visit their extended families (since one day they won't be living in the orphanage and will want to live in their home villages). The dozen kids that didn't have families to visit and stayed at the orphanage, I got to know them pretty well. Liky and Denis, both about 8 years old, are my little buddies. They like to spend one on one time with me. The rest of the boys want me to be goal keeper when they play football/soccer. And the girls just want to braid my hair.
Liky has very good English, I think because he is so outgoing and loves to talk to people. The kids all understand and speak a good amount of English, but there is still a language barrier and they generally talk to each other in Fanti. It has been hard trying to talk to the kids and people who work here, mainly because they don't talk to each other in English so there is no way for me to be part of any conversation unless they actually speak to me. The kids are better than the adults (except Leo, he speaks very good English and will translate for me), the kids love to teach me words in Fanti. I now know that when people yell blauflay at me it means white person, they told me to say bebelee which means black person.
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