Welcome to Ghana. Our fresh gappers talk about meeting their families, dealing with orhpanage conditions and going to church!
As we left Accra, we all found the vegetation to be much more green and inviting. As we dropped off James and Sean, the realization that we were meeting our families kicked in. We were all a bit anxious of what was next. It was the weekend, and we all attended Church with our families. Well that was an experience we were happy to only have once! Our church service went for 5 hours, and all we understood was Amen and Hallelujah! Lilly and Phoebe probably had the best experience; the preacher making jokes about getting married and then getting drunk because the wife isn't what you thought she would be like!
Monday Seth took us to Madame Charity's orphanage, which was more than overwhelming! We were attending to the smaller children who were in the midst of moving from one orphanage to another. We were set to work cleaning beds and wooden slats, where the smell of urine smelt so bad, that we thought we'd crumble after a day! Lilly thoroughly enjoyed cleaning skiddies from the children's underwear! The standards and facilities provided here were shocking; where the children wouldn't be cared for when they needed to use the toilet or when they were sobbing. It was emotionally tiring for all of us having to attend to the children, when it was so difficult to get them to smile or laugh - we all felt a bit pointless! Although, when we were able to get a sobbing child to fall asleep in our arms, it all seemed worthwhile.
The next week we began at "Blessed Little Angels" which was such an improvement from the last orphanage and this orphanage didn't even have sponsors! The children here were much happier and it was easier being in their company. It was much cleaner, and the children actually had a uniform which implied that there was some sort of structure within the orphanage. Throughout our time there, we read to the children, asked them to read to us and we painted the orphanage Green and Blue!
We're all about to begin school now, so we'll have some exciting, interesting and conflicting stories to update you with at home.
Thanks, Alice
Great to hear from you Alice. A life changing experience already! We didn't expect you to be cleani g toilets did we. James says the weather is so hot, how are you all coping with that?
ReplyDeleteWe look forward to hearing all about your schools
in the next week or so.
Take care and look after each other.
Andrea & Ian