Mission Accomplished!

Today (Monday) I carried a baby on my back in a wrap… a small girl clung on like I was her mother and I wrapped her in a 2 yard piece of fabric on my first attempt! It was a funny sight to see but it still didn’t feel very secure. The little girl on my back was quite comfortable and relaxed though, I think she could have fallen asleep. I got a video of Rachel learning how to do hers; she got a picture of me after the fact. Fortunately it was not raining and we were able go to the park and play soccer and play on the broken down playground they seem to love. I am always more scared than happy while I watch them play on the rusted and broken metal slide they jump and hang all over. I took the funniest picture of four boys that were circling us on ONE bike… it was funny to me and Rachel but the kids weren’t fazed by it... FOUR KIDS- ONE BIKE!

I saved a bird too! Well I shouldn’t say saved, I should say I moved the poor thing to a safer more comfortable place to die. It was a baby bird that fell out of the sky and landed on the bench next to me with a broken foot. It was pitifully squeaking and my heart was breaking so before the children could get anywhere near it I picked it up and placed it in a comfy area in the woods across the street from the orphanage… I don’t know if it made it but at least it as comfortable (I nearly cried up leaving the poor thing there). I was thinking last night that I want to ask the woman Elizabeth who owns the orphanage we see on a regular basis who the children are at the orphanage who have non one; some kids have family nearby that visits or they go home for the weekend or for school vacation but others must have no one and I wish I knew who… I would love to be able to be there for them even when I leave… send them something or write to them. I don’t know if that is a weird or rude question to ask though.

The difference in knowledge of the kids in my class is getting to be more difficult every time I introduce a new concept or try to master an old one. I was working one-on-one with Chantal for the first time today (Monday) and I asked her to first right her name on the paper she and I were going to practice skills on and she picked up the pencil and continued to write “STAFBIK” WTF! This girl doesn’t even know how to spell her name! I was like “Chantal what is your name? How do you spell it” she then said “Two? L?”… I had to leave the room and go to Pat (the teacher of my class) and ask her what this girls name was and how to spell it…Chantal. Clearly we have a lot to work on.

Today (Tuesday) I woke up to a huge thunderstorm; heavy rain, thunder, lightning, no power. We had a not so yummy breakfast and headed to school, my classroom is OUTSIDE! I don’t know if I have said this before. When we reached the school no one was to be found, we called Emanuel and he said “oh, we are coming just were waiting for the rain to stop” I was told only the two older classes were coming to school so I had to report to the orphanage down the street to teach my children there… outside on a porch with no material and no work books for the kids to write on. It was just me, a chalkboard that was broken in half, and 10 impatient kids sitting on the ground of a porch in the rain freezing for 4 hours. It was clear nothing of any true substance was going to be learned today. It was pretty lax, to entertain me, and them, I had them all do exercises and I taught them what a jumping jack was. One of the older boys, Wisdom, stayed home from school and was helping watch the younger kids… I watched him sneak a stray cat some food and rescue it into a storage closet away from the rain; very cute. He looked at me smiled like he was caught raised his finger to his mouth and said “Shh” then shrugged his shoulders; I just smiled and returned the shrug.        

This afternoon we brought over a piece to fix the sewing machine so they have two working machines now and fabric so we could start making the pillow cases. The kids were ecstatic that they were able to make their own pillow cases and I can’t wait for tomorrow when we fill them with ash foam we found at a local depot store. Mawuli one of the older boys (13) blew me away with his mechanic skills; the machine broke twice during all of them using it and he came right over took the whole thing apart like he has done it for years and fixed it in less than 5 minutes. He also has great accuracy when he is sewing; perfect straight lines with only one hand on the fabric and the other one spinning the machine; he is shy but I could tell he was happy to hear me say he was so talented.

Dinner was horrible tonight! I ordered a chicken stew I had gotten here before that was good and came with rice but when the meal was brought to me it was a red spicy soup with two large pieces of goat floating in it…. I just had the rice.

Tomorrow we will have worship in the morning, teach until 12, walk through town, and then fill the pillows with the children later in the afternoon. We are leaving on Friday morning for Cape Coast but I will put a little blog up on Thursday night before we depart.

<3 Jessie