Remainder of Week Five, Trip to Ada, and Week Six

The weeks are just flying by, I still feel like I got here a week or two ago!
Last week was fairly low key until the weekend. Friday night we had a few friends over for a dance party. It was a lot of fun and Sonny was happily the DJ for us!
Saturday morning my roommates and I went to the town of Ada. The taxi and trotro rides felt long, brutal, a little confusing, and when we got into town I was a little sketched out by where we were and was not in the best mood. Luckily before too long we were on a boat on our way to the beach resort.
The beach resort was absolutely beautiful. It is located very close to where the gigantic river meets the ocean, so there was water on all sides of us. We spent the night in little huts. The huts had only sand as flooring and grass as roofing, but luckily it didn’t rain and the huts did the job.
I enjoyed a few water side walks with my roommates. I liked walking down on the river side until it meet the ocean and walking back on the ocean side. We had fun collecting seashells, there were tons of really beautiful ones on the beach. There was a dead whale washed up on the beach that we were told was killed by the local fishermen because it was eating the fish. It was sad and it smelled bad, but in a way it was cool to see. There were also lots of dead jellyfish and other fish on the beach, we don’t know why there were so many. If there wasn’t so many dead things and trash washed up, the beach would have been a perfect and absolutely gorgeous tropical paradise. It was still pretty darn nice!
On one of our beach walks we meet a rastifarian guy. He lives on the beach close to the resort. He was a really funny guy. After we had dinner he came and joined our table and sang some Bob Marley songs for us. After he was done singing he taught me the basics on how to play a drum. I’ve wanted to learn how to play one for a long time, it was really fun! He wanted us to buy some of the jewelry that he made. I would have if I had brought enough money with me, he had some really cool stuff.
Sunday I was starting to feel a little under the weather, but the trotro rides went pretty quickly and we were back in Accra soon enough.
Tuesday was a national holiday celebrating Kwame Nkrumah's 100th birthday, so most people didn’t have work or school. I traveled by myself out of town via trotro for the first time, to meet my family friend’s friend. I was scared that I would get lost but luckily I made it there safely without any problems. I got to John and Martha’s home a little less than two hours. They are very kind people and were very happy to have me over for the day. Martha made fufu in a light soup for an early dinner. Fufu, along with gari and banku, is made from casava flour which is a main staple here in Ghana. I only stayed for a few hours because I don’t feel comfortable traveling alone at night.
On my way home I started to feel a little sick. I’ve had flu like symptoms since then, which are the same symptoms for malaria, which made me worry a lot. Even though I have been taking my malaria medication it is still possible to get a type that the medication doesn’t protect against. I have been sleeping about 15 hours a day the last couple days, which was very much necessary. Thank goodness I am feeling much better today which means I probably don’t have to worry that it is malaria!
It has been a while since my last post because of my sickness and because the internet hasn’t been working lately. Today I will go to lecture and buy some food on my way home. I don’t have plans for the rest of the week yet apart from starting to write my essays and going to my internships.
I have been going to the orphanage a couple times a week for three hour shifts. When I go there I usually just play with the babies and help out the orphanage mom when she needs help. The kids are always very excited to see me. It is mostly fun to go, but sometimes they can be quite the handful. It is hard to see children with out parents. I can hardly imagine what it would be like growing up in their shoes, it makes me so grateful that I have such a good family. I am happy that I have the opportunity to make a little difference in these children's lives.
My other internship started last week. It is for an NGO called FightAIDS Ghana. On Tuesday I meet William who the person that I will be interning. He showed me the office and introduced me to the other NGO staff. They are in need of more computers, so if you have a used one that you would like to donate please let me know, shipping is free. Last Thursday he took me and the two other american interns to the school that his step father runs. We went in each of the classrooms and meet the children that we will be teaching. The children range from first grade to twleth grade. I was suppost to start teaching today but I didn’t go because I don’t want to get all the kids sick, so it will have to happen another time. I think that it will hard for me to go into the classrooms alone and teach them about HIV, wish me luck!
I hope all is well with you!
~Lauren