Friday, July 3, 2009

Soccer, Rainbows, Kumasi, and Cars

Hello!

Here's the update for the past few days:
Wednesday was a holiday for the Republic of Ghana so all the kids had off of school. Unfortunately we had some car issues so we did not make it to the Cape Coast. However, we took some of the kids to a soccer tournament at a stadium down the road. It was really interesting to see the intensity of the players as well as the fans. There was a group of men running around with noise makers and one of them had a pot with flames on his head! The kids told me this is done to try and distract the goalie.

After the game we went to Adullum to play relay games with all the kids. It was really great to get everyone involved! I also learned some "ghost" stories that the kids told me. It is very interesting to hear their take on things. For example, they told me never to pick up money or handkerchiefs from the side of the road because bad people put them down and then curse you! At the end of the day Curtis came home, which we were all really excited about! All in all it was a great day and to top it off we saw a double rainbow over Adullum.

Thursday morning we woke up with the game plan of heading to Kumasi to drop off our friend Emelia at school. Unfortunately we ran into a few issues: our driver showed up 2 hours late and then decided he didn't want to drive us! Luckily we were able to find another willing volunteer and head to Kumasi. We brought about 5 of the older kids and stopped at the cultural center there. We went into the museum (and I use that term loosely) and learned a bit about the history and culture of the Ashanti region. After grabbing some fried rice at a local restaurant we headed to bring Emelia to school. We sat in traffic for a while and finally arrived around 7pm! We had to meet her headmistress and explain why she was late getting in. Then we also got a tour of the campus (the power was out so it was hard to see but what I managed to see from the moonlight was nice).

Today, Friday, Janie and I woke up and went for a quick run. We didn't get chased by too many dogs. Then we headed to the orphanage to pick up the older boys and watch Richard play at soccer game. The game ended up being at an elementary school so we got to meet some new kids as well as talk with some of the teachers there.

The days are flying by- I can't believe I'm leaving in a week! Tonight we're supposed to go to a prayer service with Pastor Nelson and tomorrow we might go to the zoo!!