pee

Lydia (a little orphan girl) fell asleep in my arms today, which is not unusual, but today when she got up I noticed that my whole lap was covered in pee and a few tiny smears on poop too. That was fun. I washed my pants and they're dry now. Mostly I was just afraid of getting a disease from her. It's a little unnerving sometimes. Realizing thatthere's a pretty good chance that the kids that are orphans lost their parents to HIV or something similar. I was starting to freak out about it a bit today because I totally come in contact with a lot of body fluids, but then the thought came to my head that when Jesus came to earth he spent his time with the Lepors and in poverty, so since I'm following in his ways I'll be kept safe. It's getting easier to understand the little kids. That was pretty hard at first. I'm also getting them to call me aunty. They won't call you by your name. I've figured out that that's considered rude, so not only is it difficult for them to remember your name, but they've probably been told not to do it. So, every time they call "obroni carry me!" I tell them to say aunty please and then I'll respond. So far so good. Despite all the sanitation issues I love working there. Or at least at the end of the day I'm glad I was there.

When I was waiting for Marian to pick me up from the orphanage today I walked down the street and saw a stand of jewlery, so I went to go look at it and bought a beaded bracelet. It is so cool and cost 1 GC (around 1.15). First thing I've actually bought myself. Believe it or not kind of exciting.

I am so in love with the food here now. I am definetely going to have to learn how to cook the food, because I don't think I can bear to leave it forever. The beans (nothing like what you're picturing I can assure you), plantain, stew, rice, kenkey, garry (yes, Marian I know 1/2 this isn't spelled right), pepper. yum.

I let the little girls plait (braid) my hair today and I left it in because it always made me feel so special when I did an older girl's hair and she left it in, but now my hair is a rat's nest. I guess I'll have to wash it tonight. I'm going 2 or 3 days without washing my hair. I'm sure a few ppl just gasped seeing as that's totally not like me, but it works here.

I'm really glad Abbey is rooming with me. I can't imagine now sleeping in a room by myself. Good preparation for college I guess. It's also so nice to have someone to talk to. It's also fun because she just got baptized and has all these questions about our religion and seeing as I love nothing more than to have religous discussions this works out fantasticly for me. My favorite thing is when she's talking to me and then starts to talk in Twi and doesn't even notice till I look at her with a blank look and she starts to laugh. I understand her so well now. And Pa Kojo too (Marian's younger brother that's been staying with us). At first I had the darndest time trying to understand him.

Mom, you'll be happy to know that I've tried to be more help at home playing with the kids, helping with home work, opening the gate, etc. I'm trying to watch and learn how and what to do.

I still can't get over the lizards here. They're everywhere. Just yesterday Sedinam came to me screaming and crying saying that there were lizards in a bucket making noise. So, I went over and sure enough there were two lizards there staring at me. I cracked up and let them go. The kids are so afraid of them. If my brothers were there all they'd do all day is chase them and catch them and make them homes in boxes. I've tried to think of a way to smuggle some on the plane, but I've failed thus far. Dumb terrorists. Now I really have no chance of taking one on. I mean if you can't take a bottle of water on I imagine a lizard no matter how small is no easy feat.

Michael, I don't know if you've bothered to read this, but my mom said you called for me the other day. wow, how are ya? It's been a while. Still like tickle me pink crayons? I can't believe you're in messengers? Is Mrs.B getting desperate? j/k. I didn't know you could sing. drop me a line if you want. Ask Carrie for my email. Can't post it, I'll get a bunch of psychos hunting me down. However I think they'd really have a difficult time finding me. Glad you still remember me. :)

Pa Kojo and I went to buy some credit for my phone the other night and there were ppl selling porridge. Well, muslim porridge. I guess they eat it a lot during Ramadan (which just ended by the way). It's gray, has the consistancy of pudding that's not quite set and tastes the way the herbal section of wild oats smells. I've never tasted such a combination of spices before. It was more fascinating than anything, like nothing I've tasted before. It's made out of millet and an array of spices, the only one I was able to make out was ginger. Intersting. Whenever someone eats in front of you they said "please, you're invited". At first I was like what? I'm invited to what? Then I figured it out. I'm not really a big food sharing type especially here, but when I'm hungry and think it's safe I take a bite. Thus far I haven't gotten sick. A white lady I talked to said I need to soak all the fruits and vegetables I eat in a clorox solution, but I haven't with everything and thus far I'm not sick. I still try to avoid eating a lot of produce, but especially pineapple is just to hard for me to resist.

I'm really starting to like it here and can't believe that I'll only be here for about 2 more months. I kind of think I'd like to stay longer, but it just seems it'll be impossible w/college applications and school. We'll see. I guess everything will just figure itself out.

I knew once I got here that when I got home I'd either be totally addicted to traveling or plant my feet on the ground and vow never to leave the USA again. Well, it seems that I'll have to find some line of work that is international because I am still dying to see the rest of the world. In fact I was watching a documentary on the middle east and India (is India part of the middle east or considered part of Asia?) and now I really want to go and spend a few months there. Talk about a fascinating culture. I'm also determined to be multi lingual. English, Spanish, hopefully Twi (i'm working on it, but it sure is different), and many more. It's beginning to seem so limited speaking only one language.

My views are definetely changing and I am really learning so much. I know I've made the right choice by coming here and I'm glad that I did. It will definetely be weird going back to lone peak. I am so not looking forward to going back to the high school seen. bleh.

Hope you're all doing well. Miss ya all.

quick again

I went to the orphanage yesterday and worked for four hours. There is absolutely no structure besides sitting down to color one picture and a nap time where the kids lay on mats on the floor and 1/2 sleep and the other half bug those that aren't. It's really an awful situation there. What the kids really need is structure, love, attention and positive reinforcement. All of which are missing there. I hope to be of some help but with so many kids being kept in such a way it's hard to believe that you're really doing any of them any good. There is another "obroni" (white) there volunteering. She came from Canada for that reason. She's been there for about 2 weeks and has seemed to have gotten the hang of things, so I guess there's hope. Sanitation is really an issue too. kids share water, cups, food, runny noses-it's really pretty nasty. I have to keep myself from thinking about it ( I hold their hands that they wipe and eat with) or I freak out. It should be an intersting experience. Today I met with the administrator at Seffie's old school just a street away. Tomorrow I'll go there for two hours to have a kind of orientation and recieve some materials to read about the school. Then I'll spend two days a week there helping the 1-3 year olds starting next week. I think it'll be rewarding. The administrator was very nice and quite accomadating. I also am getting involved in the church literacy program at the church offices when I go with Marian to work after the orphanage. I'll be binding books and laminating things and putting kits together. That should be fun too. Some days here I think I'd like to stay the whole year and others I think I'd better get a ticket back real soon. I'm glad to be here though. Love you all.

sad sad sad

I visited the orphanage today that I might work at. The moment I walked all the kids ran to me and grabbed onto my legs and hands and asked me to hold them. They're all probably 2-5 years. They are so cute and are so desperate for attention. Apparently they run wild most of the time and it's total chaos there. I can't imagine not having any parents to love you and being just one among 50 kids who are so desperate for attention that anyone walks in the door and begging them for love. poor things.

a quick update

I have 9 minutes to make a post, so it'll be short.
1. Marian is scared I"m going to get malaria, so she had a guy put up a net. I like it, it's kind of like the princess bed you've always dreamed of as a kid. we'll, if you're a girl anyways...
2. The humidity is killing my face. Acne is taking over. I'm kind of freaking out. I swear when I get home I'll never complain about a few zits on my forehead again.
3. After a cold shower everyday in the morning I will never look at hot showers again the same way. At night showers aren't too bad as it's really hot, but in the morning it's still cool, which makes for one cold awakening. (u have to bathe 2x a day because of the humidity and dust)
4. unlimited "free" internet at home will seem like such a luxury.
5. It's really hot
6. The currency change here is really interesting. They changed it this past July and now what was previously 10,000 cedis is now 1 cedi, but they use both old and new currency, which is making it that much more difficult to learn how the money works.
7. The hot boy behind me at school talked to me a lot on Tuesday and said that once he knows me better he'd love to show me around so that I feel more comfortable here. I'm ok with that idea. As long as in a while from now it appears safe...
8. I have 3 minutes left. gotta hurry.
nope, now it's 2 mins. gotta go or i'll lose all of this! miss and love you all!

a quick update

complete update

so I'm totally bummed because the day before yesterday I was at the internet cafe and wrote this long post about everything here and just finished and was about to click 'post' when my time ran out and the internet turned off. bummer. so, I begin again...

school: Corpus Christi Catholic School. students are caned when they misbehave. needless to say i do all I can to be good, however it seems inevitable that I will be beaten as I tend to do everything wrong. One of my "mates" said they won't strike me-I hope she's right. My uniform is a red skirt and yellow button up shirt. Pretty ugly, but I like it. I've always wanted a uniform. Classes are becoming easier to understand, but some of the older teachers are still nearly impossible to make out. The subject matter is not too difficult in general. Students study the same subjects three years straight and so I am hopelessly behind in a few subjects. School is incredibly boring. I almost can't stand it. All you do is write what the teachers say and do homework once in a while. I enjoy the social interaction, but other than that school's a huge pain. I am hoping to work in an orphanage instead.
a) boys: wrote me notes in the beginning to "worry me" as Randa said (bother me). They now talk to me sometimes and are so funny. The boy behind me (so hot btw) said I need to talk more and make friends, so he said he's always going to talk to me and we'll be the best of friends. I'm ok with that.
b) girls: all want to touch my hair. Ask if I have a boyfriend. Saw the pic of me and Brandon and think he's so cute. (guess you need to come to Ghana Brandon). They want to know if I like being alone. I say yes for the most part. They're nice in general and everyone has helped me know where to go when.
c)noise: The class is SO loud. Even when the teachers are there sometimes. And when they laugh, my gosh, you can't hear a thing. and fifty percent of the time they're laughing at me.
d)questions: are you married? why don't you wear earings? (everyone there does). Why do you write back to front? ( I wasd making a few notes in the back of my notebook). How old are you (no one believes I'm only 17). Is President Hinckley i your ward? Do you know Britney spears or Beyonce(I cant even spell her name, let alone know her)? Why isn't their music on you ipod??
e) catholicism: because it's a catholic school there's religious classes and singing time, where we all sing out of the catholic hymnal. It's a pretty cool thing. They sing so loud and harmonize. Not always exactly on tune, but it's still really cool. We also have to say hail marys and catholic prayers, which is a new experience. On mondays there's assembly and the students all line up and say the catholic stuff, sing the national anthem and say the pledge. Patience (one of my friends) asked me if I know the national anthem. She was surprised when I said no and said she saw me singing it at assembly. Everyone thought it was hilarious when I replied that I was just pretending because I was afraid of getting caned. lol. I used the choir trick of mouthing the words "elephant, watermelon". She asked if I know the American national anthem and she and another girl asked me to sing it. So, I sang two lines and they clapped and laughed and said I have a beautiful voice that is really high. I laughed and said yes, I have a white voice. All their voices are low.

I took a tro tro home the other day. The form of public transportation. It's about the size of a mini van but with more seats and a lot more people in it. Everyone said it would be a big deal, but really it wasn't definitely interesting though. About 7 girls went on the tro tro with me, wanting to see me experience it. I took down my hair at Randa's request and all the girls ood and aaad.

Randa is a member and in my class. She's nice and shows me around and when I didn't come to school because I was so tired she came over with a few other girls to see why I didn't come. They also wanted to look at my pictures of home.


Abigail: 16 years old from the villages, hired to manage the house. Doesn't go to school as her parents cant afford to send her. it is very expensive to go to school here. She's nice and patient with em. She is SO hard to understand though. Just got baptized. She shares a room with me. You know the culture is pretty different when she changes in front of me and will sit on her bed naked talking to me. Fairly shocking at first. Good thing I"m a pretty open person.

The kids: are so cute! Sedinam is six (girl), Selassie is four (boy) and Sefakor aka Seffie is 2 (girl). They love to play with me and do my hair.

Food: is tasty, very hot due to the high content of pepper. There's rice everyday and virtually no produce. And food is in huge portions. I tell them it's too much, but they fail to give me smaller portions. oh well. Carrie, you'll laugh at this. My first lunch (they packed for me) consisted of two white bread pb&j sandwiches, a poptart, sugar packed juice box and potato chips. I ate it. and later found out that that was supposed to be a SNACK. wow. I told them that it was enough for lunch too. Needless to say I'll not be any thinner when I come back.

Church: Is much smaller than church in Alpine, smaller than church in Edgewood too, but decent sized really. There are about ten young women I think. Church is pretty much the same, there's a fan in every room, which is really nice. The bishop told me to go tell the clerk my information so they could get my records, so I did and found out the clerk is in his twenties and there were about three other men in there around the same age. They talked to me and couldn't believe I was only 17. They told me they're all return missionaries, emphasizing the point really. lol. The clerk asked for me to write my name, address, phone number, ward, and email. I don't think he really needs my email to find my records, but w/e. I looked at him skeptically when he asked me and the other guys said what are you going to write her when she leaves, and he said yes or course. They all said they'd watch out for me while I was here. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

Random facts:
1. There are 2 pineapples growing in the front yard. I never knew they grew on the ground. I tried some pineapple and papaya (called papah) here and it was so good. I wouldn't have even thought the papaya was the same fruit it was so sweet and delicious.
2. Good news, the women don't shave her. Bad news, their skin is so dark and hair short that you can hardly see the hair. So, I looked like a white, hairy freak for the past to weeks as the water is too cold and conserved to shave very comfortably. Alas, I couldn't stand it anymore today and shaved, only after taking a picture of my gorilla legs though. It took forever and the razor hardly wouldn't work anymore when I was done and had to be thrown away. I like smooth legs.
3. With the highl evel of humidity here you wouldn't think lotion would be a highly used product, but Ghanaians put lotion on their whole body after every bath (shower 2x a day). I figured I'd follow suite (is that how u spell that?) and now my skin is so soft. lovely.
4. The ice cream is called fan ice and is sold in little bags that you bite a corner off and suck out the ice cream. It tastes exactly like bettycrocker vanilla frosting and the consistency is pretty similar too. It's pretty tasty actually. Water is similar too, in the bag I mean.
5. They don't use shampoo, just "tablet" soap. actually maybe they do and I just dont see it. who knows
6. They don't wash their hair every day, they go to a salon once a week and have their hair done. often "plaited" which means braided.
7. school bathrooms are disgusting and lack toilet paper and soap.
8. Women carry babies on their backs w/fabric wrapped around them and baby. Works pretty well, or at least appears to.
9. Roads and traffic are insane! No speed limits, no street sings and pretty much just a lot of honking and chaos.
10. chickens wander on the side of the road and there's always the occasional herd of goats and skinny cows. ate goat the other day, wasn't half bad.
11. African fabric is very bright and colorful
12. I get to eat plantain all the time. (hurray!)
13. there are so many lizards, I see at least 2 if not 6 each time I go outside.
14. peanuts are called groundnuts.
15. trousers=pants, pants=underwear, washroom=bathroom, bathroom=room w/shower, biscuit=cookie, dress=girl's clothes (any), cinema=movie theater +tons more
16. They iron all clothes everyday when they are going out
17. When some one says good morning everyone around replies good morning.
18. At internet cafes you pay money to use the internet (what I'm doing now)
19. girls shave their heads for school
20. In geography class we're studying waterfalls and the teacher asked me how waterfalls form and I talked about snow melting off the tops of mountains and flowing down the sides. All the kids laughed and laughed. And the teacher told me they'd never seen snow before. All the kids seemed surprised when I said snow was really cold. ON the other hand, they all can't believe I've never swam in the ocean.

Wow this post is really long. I still have an hour and seventeen minutes. hmmm. what else can I say?

When I first got here I was sooo homesick. The first week I wanted to go home so bad I was just wishing something awful would happen so I'd have an excuse to go home. But now I'm a lot less homesick and am enjoying my self more. I still miss home, but am happy to be here experiencing things. I still think I'll come home at the end of November which is all my visa is endorsed for. If I end up working in an orphanage that really won't do for my whole senior year and school is too expensive to pay for another term and this term ends in December and it seems silly to pay and go through all the work to extend my visa for only a few extra weeks. Plus, I'm beginning to see how difficult college applications would be here. Speaking of college, I'm beginning to think I'd like to stay in Utah, just to be close to home. lol. I bet my mom's shouting hallelujahs.

In the middle of the night, last night, I was awakened by a ton of noise on the road outside my window. People were shouting, chanting, or singing or something, and clapping and it was so loud. It about gave me a heart attack and I was beginning to wonder if they were coming to terrorize the obroni (white), when the noise subsided. Another interesting experience.

Marian's brother, who's been taking me to the internet cafe, said I type very fast. I do even for American standards, but it occurred to me that most students don't have computers at school and so don't get to take a typing class, so I must type extremely fast in their eyes.

Well, I think that's all I'll write now. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all more than you'd ever believe and pray for you all the time. love you all! Annie

Ghana!

I am here in Ghana now. Finally! It is very hot and humid here, but it is ok. I slept in all morning so I haven't seen much yet, but I like what I have seen, which is pretty much the inside of the house. The children are Sadinam, Sallasie, and Seffie. They are so cute! I like them a lot. I am rooming with a girl here named Abigail. She is sixteen years old and is very nice. It can be hard to understand people here, but I am growing more used to it. I will write more later, but I am running out of time now.