"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

Sunday, February 28, 2010

I don't think people who hate children should work at an orphanage. There's a man here who works at the orphanage. I don't know exactly what is job is (someone told me he's the "caretaker") and the only thing he seems to do is yell and order the children around. I really dislike him and find him very offensive. He shows no love, empathy or respect for the orphans. He constantly describes them as "thieves, dishonest, dangerous, untrustworthy." Not only is he rude to the children, but I feel that he has been rude to me as well. He likes to find fault in everything I do; I eat with the wrong hand, I don't sweep the right way, I don't eat enough, etc. He's also always laughing at me, and not in a friendly sort of way, but in a condescending way. The volunteers and I just don't understand him. He doesn't seem to understand that they are just children. When we try to help them with chores, he yells at them. If they come over to us while we're eating at lunchtime, he yells at them. When one of the volunteers tried to give them a mirror, he refused to let them keep it because it "would be a bad influence." And the physical abuse is the worst part. What can I do? I know that if I tried to stop it, if I gave the children another punishment, as soon as I leave, they would still be hit. Last night, one of the orphans, Godsway, was being hit during dinner. The sound of the strikes to his arm and his cries was just horrifying.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Meet the Orphans

When I first arrived here, I had so many questions about the orphans: Who are they? How old are they? How do they live? What is their story? After a month of living here, I still feel as if I hardly know them. There are about thirty orphans in all (including David's children, who live just as the orphans do). I had originally thought that being an orphan meant that both your parents were deceased. But that is not the case for many of the orphans here. Many of their parents are still alive. For some, their parents are divorced and one or both of the parents have remarried. And their new spouse(s) don't want a child from a previous marriage, so they rather pay to keep the child in an orphanage. This doesn't make any sense to me. The youngest child is four years old (Peace). The next youngest is ten (Delight) and the rest are older. There are only about five girls and the rest are all boys. And most of the them are teenagers and some are even eighteen and older but still going to high school. My goal right now is to interact more with all the orphans. So far, I've been spending the most time with Peace, Delight, Sophia (13), and Mawunyo (12). The other orphans are still warming up to me and I've been finding it really difficult to a build relationship with the others, for many reasons. 1.) there's the language difficulty, sometimes they don't understand my American accent and they often prefer to speak Ewe (pronounced Eh-Way), 2.) they are used to volunteers coming and going and it's probably really difficult to get close to new volunteers knowing that they are just going leave them behind soon, and 3.) I'm not used to dealing with/hanging out with teenage boys. Last night, we tried to have dinner all together with the orphans. But it didn't work. Some of them didn't know and already ate, and they all got their food at different times and all the children were finished eating before we (the volunteers) got our food. Also, the children mostly spoke Ewe and the other volunteers (Debbie, Monique, and Janina) mostly spoke German. Tonight we try again.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The times they are a-changin'

I think things are starting to change. Four of us volunteers had meeting with David yesterday and we shared our ideas about things we could do here. He told us that we can do anything we wanted, but we have to put it into action, which is not as easy as it sounds. This whole time we've been waiting around for David to instruct us and tell us what he wants us to do, and we had no idea that we could take charge. So now we have plans to do many things. We want to paint the school, organize the office and the "library," update the website, create a schedule for the orphans, help the orphans with homework, organize games with the kids, and eat dinner together with them. Normally, the volunteers all eat together, and the children just seem to alone and it's a bit strange. I've also begun to teach, if you can call it that. I originally thought that I wanted to teach the Kindergarten kids because I'm used to being around younger kids. It wasn't extremely difficult. I was supposed to be helping the Kindergarten teachers teach Creative Arts, but all I did was pass out colored pencils and draw some things on the board for the kids to copy. They barely understood me and I barely understood them because they don't know English that well. I also don't like the curriculum. They could only have one colored pencil because there are not enough and they would just color in a coloring book with that one color. When I was asked to draw an object on the board, they had to copy it and write the word underneath it, and then color it in with their one colored pencil. These "lessons" didn't really allow them to be creative at all. Also, I had a big problem when the teacher left the room. The kids became very rowdy and loud and I couldn't control them. I hate yelling, and I certainly don't hit the children like the other teachers. Teachers (and other adults) hitting the children is something I will never get used to here. I hate it. Yesterday, in class I watched as the teacher slap a student three times on the arm because she was taking too long drawing a cat. So I've decided that I will try teaching English to the older kids. I haven't started yet, but I think it will be better, but still very difficult. I had sat in on a couple of the English classes of another volunteer here, Debbie. She had a very hard time getting the kids quiet down as well and often they didn't understand her instructions, but she says she likes it anyway. I'm hoping for the best.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

"There is no mistake so great as the mistake of not going on"

One of the things I miss the most is the food. I constantly dream about food. I think I might be losing weight because I don't eat as much food here. Everyday for breakfast I have bread and tea. For lunch and dinner, we usually get rice. But we also get potatoes sometimes with either an egg or fish sauce. Another dish they serve is called Akplah and it is cassava mixed with corn (I think) and it looks like dough. They dip it into a fish sauce (that looks like goo). They also have a bunch of fruits here: oranges, mangoes, pineapple, watermelon, and coconut. The sauce or stew they serve here is always spicy and they use so much pepper. This weekend when I went to the Dreamland Beach Resort in Ada, I had tuna, salad, pasta, crepes (without maple syrup though) and it was so delicious. This upcoming weekend I may go to Accra, where they have things like peanut butter and even a mall (I really didn't think there were any malls in Africa).

Monday, February 8, 2010

The sun's not yellow, it's chicken

This weekend I went to Ada with the other volunteers. We stayed at a beach resort and it was a bit surreal eating pasta, drinking wine, and listening to country music in Africa. I even met some other Americans who were studying in Accra. One of them went to UVM and was from Maine. Sunday was just a ridiculous day. First the toilet caught on fire. Then, on our way back, three of us ended up in a very crammed tro-tro. We sat in the front and I had to sit on Robert's lap. Behind us, someone had a basket full of chickens. When it was time for everyone to pay, this was a huge argument. The passengers thought they were only paying 1 cedi, but the driver was asking for 1.50. He had to stop the tro-tro and everyone was yelling and arguing about the money situation and this lasted for at least a half hour, if not more. Finally, we got back to the orphanage. I spent the whole weekend lying or sitting around doing nothing. And I was really restless and tired of always hanging out and doing nothing. I know that it's how they live here, but I really need to feel more useful. I talked to the director of my organization and told her about my concerns and she said that she can move me to another orphanage 25 minutes away. I haven't decided yet if I will move because I might be able to start teaching soon and that will be so much better then doing office work.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

left is wrong

I can't help but feel that I'm at a disadvantage here. Here are the reasons: 1.) I can't speak German. There are now FIVE volunteers from Germany. 2.) I've recently learned that being left-handed is unfortunate. You can write with your left hand, but apparently eating and taking/giving something with your left hand is offensive 3.) My camera is broken. 4.) My nose ring fell out and I lost it. I didn't bring another one, so my hole will probably close up. 5.) I forgot my bathing suit at home.

Monday, February 1, 2010

silence

Yesterday, five of us went to the beach. We ran into a guy that Robert and I met the last time we went to the beach. He was really friendly and interested in European and American culture. He even walked with us to the tro-tro station. This time, he was again really friendly and we talked about the differences between African culture and western culture. We talked about religion, roles of women, and marriage. It was all very fascinating. Then we saw a boy with no hands and one foot. The guy pointed to the small child and said: "Look at that creature! I can't even look at it." It was such a horrible thing to say. I wanted to defend the child and yell at him for calling him a creature, as if he wasn't a human being, a child. I was so angry inside. But I said nothing. And I'm really ashamed of that. I won't let that happen again.

 
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