Monday. Day 4

This morning we were all very tired. I think that the time change is finally starting to get to us. Breakfast is from 7-9 or 10 depending on if they run out of food or not. A couple of us went down to bfast at around 8 and there wasnt much left. So I have a couple of pieces of butter bread and some beans. Then they brought out some more fried eggs so I had one of those.
At 10am we got in some taxi's and headed to a school called Grey Memorial Basic to meet with the headmistress about our teaching. We were just walking around and the kids were so excited to see us. They were waving from their classrooms and standing up. Then we got to the kindergarten classrooms and they stood and sang us a song that said they welcome us and they are happy to see and meet us. It was so sweet. The teacher had a switch in her hand and she used it in the table to get the little ones attention. They minded! Once one person got their camera out and took a picture, all the kids came running because they like to have their picture taken and get attention from us. They were swarming us! It was crazy.. kids everywhere goofing off and posing. But it was so fun and Im not afraid to teach anymore, Im excited. So my partner and I teach the 6th graders and we all start tomorrow at 7:30am!
After we left the school we went to a mall that had a grocery attached to it. The mall was very nice and so was the store. I got water and apples and candy for my class.
At 3:00 We piled in taxi's to go to the Teshe Orphanage just to play with the kids. I was in a taxi with 2 other girls. Traffic is usually bad but we hit some open road by the beach and our driver was doing about 90.. then we heard something pop and our car started wobbling! His tire had blown out. We pulled to the side of the road and waited for another taxi to stop or for him to fix his tire, which he was working on. Another taxi pulled up so we hopped in. He said he had to get gas first and made sure it was okay with us. We said sure. We thought it was close but we ended up on some backroad where they were pumping gas out of a truck. Taxi's were lined up waiting to get gas. He left us in the car and went to wait for our turn. We locked the doors and rolled up the windows. haha We were there waiting for like 15 minutes! Finally we were on our way but traffic was stopped. By the time we got through traffic it was an hour and a half later. There are no left hand turns in Accra. You have to go up and make a U-turn in the middle of the road and go back. Its hard to explain. There are only 2 sided roads and round abouts and places to make a u-turn. We finally got to this city where we thought the orphanage was but the driver dropped us off and we had to walk. This city was the worst one I have seen so far here in Ghana. It was dirty with trash everywhere and people were living either on the street or in tiny beat up wet shacks. You would have to see it.. ive never seen anything like it. So we go up to the police station and ask where the orphanage is and he tells us we have gone too far and that it was the city before that one. So we had to hop in another taxi who knew where he was going. Anyway, we finally made it! We were there for like 10 minutes and then we had to leave to make it back for dinner. So we missed playing with the kids but we finally made it to our group. Quite an experience :)
Dinner was huge fried chicken and fries and fruit. It was all very good but I think we were all starving so we went to town on our dinner. haha
Since then we have been working on our lessons for the school kids for tomorrow and also our HIV/AIDS lessons for tomorrow. We are traveling about an hour away to teach adults about hiv. We are really nervous but Lynley says we should be fine so I think we will get the hang of it.
It has been a long day and it is going to be an early morning tomorrow! So I should go to bed. :)
Goodnight