On Friday I went to work at the orphanage for the first time. It is very nice as far as orphanages go. I spent most of my time with the babies (0-4 years old). As soon as I stepped into the play pin and sat down to play with one, about five others came and sat on my lab or hugged my arm. They are darling and well taken care of, but defiantly need additional one-on-one time! I played with the kids for awhile and then held the youngest while a coworker gave the rest their daily baths. Maxwell, the baby I was holding, is a tiny little baby and is extremely cute, but has medical problem that the doctor can’t figure out. He had a swollen liver, often gets fevers, and has some difficulty breathing. I feel for him and hope the doctor figures it out soon! After I held him awhile he fell asleep in my arms. I put Maxwell to bed and then went around meeting all of my coworkers.
The orphanage is owned by a lady from Italy who has been living here the last five years. She seems nice and is very grateful that I will be helping out. Issac is the gate answer and helps watch and play with the babies. He is a cool guy and I think that he will become a friend. I failed at remembering the rest of the names but hopefully I will figure them out soon. A few of the staff members are around my age which I am really happy about! All of the staff are locals except for one other foreign volunteer who I haven’t meet yet.
After my shift was over Issac walked me home so that I wouldn’t get lost and so I would be safe because it was starting to get dark. I learned that he plays football (not the American type) for the university and he invited me to his game this week. My roommates and I are excited to go see a local game. Football is veeeery popular here!
When I got home I was quite tired so I ate dinner and went straight to bed. I woke up very early to get ready for a weekend trip to Cape Coast. It is relatively close to Accra, but it takes about two hours to get there because as far as I know freeways don’t really exist here.
Our first stop when we arrived in town was Elmina Castle (picture above). It is where slaves were held before they were sent out to ships during the slave trade. I found the place both fascinating and very sad. It is ridiculous how people could do things so extremely horrible to other people. We learned that the conditions were so harsh for the slaves that from the time they captured to the time they were boarded onto ships only 40% survived, and only half of those survived the voyage on the ship. It was good to see the place, but it broke my heart to know what happened there.
Lunch was our next stop. We went to a restaurant that is located on a little swamp. While we were waiting for our meal we observed about a hundred little yellow birds making their nests, along with a few crocodiles swimming around! We went to the canopy walk in Kakum National Park next. We walked through the rainforest to a long viewing bridge that was held up by the tallest trees. It was really cool to see the rainforest from above. We couldn’t spot any animals but saw lots of pretty butterflies and way too many ants! It is similar to the rainforest that I saw in Mexico a few years ago.
There was a big festival going on in Cape Coast this weekend so it was a little crazy getting around the place. At one point we had to go to the bank, so we went downtown and had to walk through lots of people to get there. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. I love how everyone dances here! That night we went to an outdoor concert. There were tons of people there and it was a lot of fun! Most of the lyrics were in Twi but it was good music to dance to! The next day we went sight seeing a little more and went to the beach for awhile, then made our way home. It was a wonderful weekend and I found Cape Coast to be a really awesome city!
This week will be filled mostly with school and internships. Hopefully I will have time to update my blog again sometime in the near future.
Cheers,
Lauren
No comments:
Post a Comment