Flying by

Life in Ghana seems to be going by pretty quickly these days. Just when it seems it can't get any hotter - it does! Unfortunately the power has been going out more frequently which makes me extremely unhappy. When the power goes out, the fans shut off and when the fans shut off, the air stops moving and the sweat keeps dripping. I know for all of you who are stuck in cold temperatures and lots of snow think that sounds appealing but trust me, it sounds better than it actually is!

There has been a wonderful volunteer here from Maine for the past 2.5 weeks, and she has been living at the house with us. It's been great to have another person to hang out with certainly, and she was also able to raise quite a bit of money for the orphanage so we have been having lots of fun buying things for this new babies home. We have bought lots of toys, diapers, baby formula, tables, toy boxes, and shelves so far, and there is still more! We were even able to buy a play structure for our front yard!

We have yet to actually buy the van, but we are getting closer. The money is in Canada, but we can't get it transferred until Deb (the Canadian director) goes back home to transfer the money to Ghana. So we should have the van by the end of next week. We'll also be able to get the rest of the donated funds in our hands so we can put it to good use - school supplies, more toys and activities for the children, maybe even a small motorcycle for the directors to get around faster when they have errands to do (traffic in Ghana is horrible!!!).

Unfortunately, our time hasn't all be fun here. This past week was certainly a hard one. It started off with me getting sick - yet another ear infection. I have just finished my antibiotics and it now seems to be getting better, but it's just not fun to be sick here! Then on Wednesday morning, one of our little babies passed away rather suddenly. She had been sick for about 1 week and was in and out of the hospital, but was never even admitted to the hospital. They did blood work, x-rays, and other tests but we never did hear a diagnoses. Some have said they thought it was malaria, because that is one of the things she was being treated for. Early Wednesday morning she was rushed to the hospital and passed away shortly after arriving.

This little 7 month old was just about ready to go home to her waiting family in the US and as you can imagine, they are absolutely crushed. The staff are all also pretty devastated but are trying to trust that everything was done that could have been and that for some reason, this little one was too sick. She was, however, certainly loved and well cared for her entire little life.

Oh a more positive note, we were able to take 15 of the older kids (9-14 year olds) bowling last night and they loved it! We started off by buying everyone pizza for dinner, not realizing that most of the kids had never eaten pizza before. Most of them liked it, although some made funny faces when they first tried it. Some had never even heard of pizza before - so that was fun! Then came the bowling. None of them had been bowling and most (if not all) had never heard of bowling before. I think the highest score was maybe 35 or something, but you couldn't tell by the fun they were having. Each time someone knocked over a pin, all 15 of them started jumping up and down and dancing to the music. Then after playing one game, they all just started dancing and continued for the next hour or so. I have never seen kids dance so long and so well - I have a few things to learn from them for sure.