Volunteering in Ghana - Day 9

Day 9 


This morning the children have decided to play up all day. I began to feel bad - maybe I hadn't realised they were deaf orphans - oh wait they're not, they just like us to repeat ourselves again and again. Just in case you didn't know one of my pet peeves is to repeat myself. Even if the most unbelievable thing happened to me, like I don't know - I managed to eat the Big Ernie burger challenge in under 40 minutes meaning a free meal and my picture on the hall of fame - actually who am I kidding, I would tell everyone. The morale of the story is I don't like to repeat myself every 5 minutes it just gets really annoying.

Today was the last day of Sister Claire's but sadly she had left before I had managed to say goodbye. The reason she was even here in Ghana was because of the book Yes Man which changed her life and also began our first topic of conversation as I saw it sticking out of her bag. When she left she wrote everyone a little note which was really sweet. The Jist of mine is that I was entertaining so I was happy with that.

In the Classroom Silv has made great progress with Fred, he seems to be understanding and responding to a few things now, which is excellent work on her part.

The highlight of the day was catching the "Phantom Floater Leaver" as I liked to call him. Let me fill you in quickly. The toilet systems are basic so we have to fill up the system with a bucket before you can flush it through but for a few days now someone keeps leaving a dirty present which when combined with the constant piss smell it becomes quite the gag reflex tester. Anyway on this fine night, I noticed one of the boys naming no names....ahem...Cornelius...took an unusually long time to get a glass of water. All those crime films I've watched paid of as I checked the evidence - it would have been a 9.5 on ratemypoo.com - yes that is a real website and I have no idea how I know about it's existence...it's just one of those things. So I made him flush it. Go me! That was the end of the Phantom floater leaver!

In the evening a few of us went to the local bar which is pretty well hidden in the village. It's like a shack that wouldn't look out of place on a Caribbean island it had such a cool feel about it. They sell bottles of beer and satchets of Captain Gin through a mesh cage. The prices are the best bit, so cheap.

Glenn and I had to go back for urination duty. When we opened the room door, Glenn could only see four shadows " I think we lost one" I turned around and cracked up laughing. Was it the beer? Was it the fear? Or was it our incompetence for looking after children that made us laugh. What would the others say? Turning on the light confirmed we were a child down...It was Nunana. After 10 seconds of looking we found him in the lounge asleep curled up in an armchair - how we didn't see him on the way in, I have no idea. During his duty he was still asleep and fell backwards luckily I managed to catch him. Yau walked across Courage's cross fire and decided to go in the middle of the compound he was so confused that he continued to walk in the wrong direction after so we had to run and get him. All in all an eventful d

Volunteering in Ghana - Day 8

Day 8


August 11th. My Birthday, Which as everybody knows is you can do what ever you want and get away with it day. Except maybe today. Instead of getting lots of free drinks and gifts, I was treated to being a human trampoline by the orphans.

I mentioned before that it was impossible to tell the days apart, but that's not strictly true. You know it's a new day if smells of musky piss are reaching new levels than were previously known to you or mankind. Now I could sit in a festival portaloo all day without gagging. My tolerance has reached new heights. Whether this is something to be proud of or to brag about I'm still not sure.

Generally after dinner the kids are sent for a afternoon nap, which without fail comes with complaints and crying fits (They still think it's Oscar season but frankly I have seen better acting in a cheap porno). I may be speaking with hindsight here but I would bloody love it if every time I had dinner I was sent for a nap. These orphans don't know how lucky they have it. Seriously, I think that every self respecting restaurant should come with a nap corner facility for diner's to lay their heads down after feasting.

In school today, Cat brought letters written from her students in England and our class wrote replies to them which turned out to be pretty difficult because some of the local kids must have gotten in the classroom at night and taken lots of papers and pens. Adolph, who I thought would bust a cap or at least swing a cane or something, didn't have my back. I think he's annoyed that I haven't been on a walk for a while.

At dinner we had some Thai curry, it was great to have a break from the rice and stew. We have pretty much lived as vegetarians the entire time. It's not too bad actually. After dinner there was balloons and streamers and the kids and volunteers sang happy birthday to me which was lovely and then they sing "How old are you now?" to which I had to sing a reply. It was a good day but crashed out early as school and urnination duty is really taking its toll.