http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=188784
I never got to talk about going to Mole so I will start off with that. We left for Mole Thursday Aug 12th at 5:00 pm. We took a tro tro to Accra (4 hours), then a tro tro to Kumasi (7 hours), then a bus to Tamale (7 hours), and last a taxi to Mole (4 hours). Overall with waiting time a driving it took us 25 hours to get to Mole! It went pretty smoothly for the most part. The bus to Tamale got pretty crowded though. Since all the seats are taken people had to sit on buckets in the aisle the whole way! I really have no idea how they did it. Then on our way to Mole in the taxi was the bumpiest ride ever! The road was just full of holes everywhere, and our taxi kept bottoming out. Also the doors kept flying open as well. Then there are cows in the road and one cow didn't want to move. So the taxi didn't want to swerve either and he ran straight into the cow. He hit its head soo hard that it hit the front of the car and then the window on the passenger side. I was in a lot of shock then cried haha. At Mole we did a jeep safari which also included walking around the park and tracking down elephants.
We got to be up close and see tons of antelope, lots of elephants, baboons, warthogs (which were all over the hotel grounds), water bucks, velvet monkey, crocodile, and bush buck. It was so awesome being up close to all the animals especially elephants... definitely worth the travel. On the way back we went through Bimbilla instead. Our bus there was two seats on each side then fold down seats, called jump seats, down the aisle which we were all stuck in. One time we hit a bump and I flew out of my seat into the guys lap next to me. On top of the bus they like to stack it full with yams, refrigerators, other random things, and goats.
PLACEMENT
After a while when I would get to placement at the preschool all the kids would hear me coming or wait outside for me. They would start yelling "You are welcome Madam", and then I would have a kid hanging off each finger and several hanging off my arms. Then some kids would be hanging onto my legs. It was a very difficult process in getting into the door. Then once I was leaving they would walk me out to the car. The teacher that was teaching the older kids was finally fired due to always being drunk and not showing up to class. Those poor kids now have no one to teach them. I did try my best to teach them while he was gone but it was just chaos since the headmaster just combined my class and that class. That was very difficult to teach them since the little ones don't really know much, while the older ones know so much. I would try to stick with things that they both could learn from or I thought would help. I did read them several books since they seemed to like those a lot. I found out the kids would want to do a lot more if I gave them stickers when they gave me the correct answer. They loved those stickers sooooo much it was quite cute. I taught the kids two more songs before I left, and they loved them!! One song was Bom Bom Balicka and in this song you stand in the middle of the circle while turning and pointing to everyone. Once you get to the last word of the song "friend" they have to shakey shakey shake their body. And the kids always would land on me to shakey!! They found this so hilarious! My last day was a really sad day there. My class didn't understand or know that I was leaving since they are so young. I did get to take a picture of the whole school which was pretty successful. I did cry my eyes when I had to leave Franky and Francesca. That was seriously the hardest thing to leave those kids. I am already missing them so much. It is difficult being back here.
The thing I loved about Ghana was the people and the town. The people were all so very nice and helpful. They loved talking to us and getting to know us. Some though did ask us for money, and would ask us to marry them. haha I got a few marriage proposals. Whenever we were traveling they would help us out so much by taking us to the right bus and getting us on there. They always made sure we were getting to the right place, calling taxis for us, and giving us advice. I loved how in the town no one really rushed around. It was a nice change, and we were able to get to know people and hang out with them. We made some friends in town as well. We would always go to their shop to play games and hang around. I also loved how simple everything was around there. The kids would play these games they made up with one another and would play with whatever they had. No kids really had toys around there, but they still seemed so happy. I loved how people were so happy with what they had even if it wasn't much. Its a whole different experience since people believe money makes them happy here, and there it was the opposite. If people in their family were happy and healthy then they were happy. Ah I loved it so much.
These are some of the guys we were friends with. From left to right: Eric, Enoch, Courage, and Koffie.
On my last day I got to hold a baby on my back!! They put their babies on their backs that held up with just a cloth. It was pretty comfy though.
No comments:
Post a Comment