School starts again

It took a full 24 hours of planes, taxis and buses to get me here, but I have finally arrived at Egyam Orphanage. Leo, the social worker at the orphanage, has been wonderful. He knows alot about working with Americans, so he has been very accomodating and welcoming. It would have been tough without him!

I spend most of my time playing with the kids. I have never played so much football in my life! They also have a game (I think it's called Mancala) that they love to play, which is good because it's about the only game I think they have, and they want to play it constantly. I arrived at a very good time, the kids had a 2 week vacation to visit their extended family, if they had any. About 15 kids were left at the orphanage and I got to know them very well. I got to go with Leo to drop off and pick up the other children in their home villages and even met some of their families.

I go to the Catholic church with the kids on Sundays, which is very different from church at home. The great part is half the service is spent singing and dancing; the bad part is they speak in Fanti and the service lasts for 3 hours!

All the children are back now, and they have just started school. Last night, they received their books and I helped them put book covers on them. Their books aren't like what I am used to when they say "books". They aren't textbooks, they are pretty much just notebooks and the younger kids have books with words in them to practice writing. I believe the teachers just teach from their own notes, not textbooks. I am supposed to be helping at the school soon, so hopefully I'll be able to see firsthand how a Ghanaian classroom works.

Really the only tough part is the language barrier. Everyone speaks and understands English, but the children often tell me I speak too fast. It's also hard for me to understand them sometimes. They speak to each other in Fanti, so it's hard for me to join a conversation. But the children try hard and want me to be included in everything. The kids have taught me some words in Fanti, (I'm not sure of spelling) Kadiya: How are you? Mawkay: I'm fine. Brauflay/brauny: White person. Beebeelee: Black person. I am very glad I know how to say white person, because everywhere I go people yell Brauflay, and I know when they are talking about me.

I think they have gotten used to me being here by now. It's easy to just play with the younger kids, but it has taken longer for the older kids to come talk to me (the older ones have decided to teach me to dance to their music). My favorite time is after dinner when the kids watch TV or movies until bedtime, and I have about 4 of them who just want to snuggle up to me. They have a DVD player with a bunch of Christmas carol singalongs, Christmas movies and Jesus movies; I think we have watched it 10 times since I've been here and all they want to do is sing the Twelve Days of Christmas song! When they go to bed they always say goodnight, see you tomorrow. It's going to be really hard when the day comes that I won't be able to say "see you tomorrow".