Wednesday

So this week has flown by, I should have known that it would!
We have a schedule that we are following now so its easier to know whats going on. On Monday we had school at 8:15am. I taught a lesson on water and staying hydrated. It wasnt bad, the kids were good. We teach our 3rd graders at the school for an hour and a half and we usually play games outside towards the end of our time. I love playing their games, they are so much fun. Lots of dancing and singing and clapping. I dont sign the songs..I dont know them. I try to stay with the beat of clapping but I have to really concentrate. And they just laugh at the way I dance. hahaha But its fun and Im always telling them to teach me a new game.
After school we have our own class in the hallway of our hostel about world health specifically in Ghana that Lynley teaches. I get credits to be here so we have to have some kind of class! We actually have a paper and a quiz on Monday.
About 2:30 we head to the Teshe Orphanage about 20 minutes away. We brought sidewalk chalk and bubbles and plastic necklaces to give to them after we played with them. My friend Jenny and I drew a big square and played 4 square the whole time we were there. There is this adorable little boy at the orphanage maybe 2 years old. His name is Desmond and he has dimples. All of the girls in my group just want to hold him and take pictures but he is shy. He fell while he was playing and I swear we all came running to be the one who comforted him. haha
We played for a couple of hours and Im not sure that we will go back because they dont have that many kids. If we could find another orphanage with more kids we would switch even though its hard to leave them.
Monday night for dinner we went to the Accra Mall and ate at a resturant in the food court called Rhapsody. It would be nice even in the United States, it was like luxury for us! It was a little more expensive but so worth it. We all pigged out. Then we got ice cream. haha
Tuesday morning we had class again and that time Desiree taught a lesson about stereotypes. We gave everyone a balloon that represented a stereotype and then poped it like we were poping the stereotype. They loved the balloons! We gave them a new one because they were kind of sad when we started poping their balloons. The had so much fun with them. There are two boys in my class who cant read or write. They can copy but they dont understand anything. When everybody was taking turns coming up to get the balloon poped, those two boys got skipped. They didnt write down a stereotype so the whole class thought they should be skipped. Even the teacher didnt think anything. I told them to go up and have their stereotype poped. Desiree just made one up for them. The teacher told me no at first and I told her that I wasnt going to have them left out and practically pushed the boys up front. They were so happy. I hate that they are left out and sit at the back because they will never learn anything that way exceot that they have no worth.
We had a lot of fun with that lesson even though it was crazy sometimes and we were worn out!Tuesday afternoon our big bus came to get us to go to Manya Krobo, the village that we teach AIDS in. This week we are teaching a womens group at a school that they go to to learn how to cook and sew and be good wives. They were between the ages of 12 and 25 I would say. A lot younger than what I thought they would be. I wasnt nervous about teaching them. I feel like I connect more with the girls than with a group of men. I really liked interviewing them and learning their names. They sang for us when we got there and brought us chairs and we so good. I didnt teach Tuesday because we didnt get to my lesson. Im almost excited to tell them what I know. They already know a lot which surprised me.
After we left the village we stopped at an African Market to shop. They love to see Americans because they think we have lots of money and that they can make a lot off us. They are putting things in your face the entire time. I was never looking at something without them telling me how they will "give me good deal!" We were followed and it was just crazy. I did but some things though that Im really excited about :)
Today we had school and we both taught about geography. We borrowed a world map and a United States map and a book about Utah so we could show them where we come from. They loved looking at the pictures in the Utah book. They have never been that silent in class! They just stared amazed at snow and the people. There was a black person in the book and the teacher asked if there are black people in Utah. They really have no idea what the outside world is all about. It was more relaxed today and we got to play games after so today was a good day at school. Wednesdays are our free days but we usually end up doing something all together. After school we had class with Lynley and then about 2:30 a few of us went to the Ghana LDS temple to do baptisms. On the way we got lost and our driver had to stop twice to ask for directions. I was afraid we wouldnt make it on time. They are closing the temple for 2 weeks to clean so today was my only chance to go. But we made it and it was refreshing. It was beautiful just like any other temple and everything was just the same. It was a really neat experience. It was nice to have a toilet that would flush toilet paper and even flush at all! After the temple we went to the grocery to get food for out trip this weekend and we ate at Rhapsody again :) Now we are just hanging out at the hostel reading assignments and writing in our journals that will be checked.
My room finally got the air conditioning fixed and it makes such a difference! Im not afraid that Im going to die of mold anymore and I am sleeping through the whole night. Its nice!
Days are long, I am dragging right now and ready to go to bed! Tomorrow we have shcool in the morning and then we go to Manya Krobo to finish teaching the AIDS lessons to the girls and then entering our research about what they have learned. We will be there most of the night because we wont leave until we are all done.
Oh, on our way to the mall tonight to eat traffic was really bad as always and there was 4 of us crammed into the back seat of our taxi. There were police in the road making some people pull over. Our taxi was one of them. The driver and the cop spoke in a different language so we didnt know what was going on except that he didnt have his drivers license. The cop finally told us to get out of the car because our driver was being arrested and the car impounded! The taxi's are sometimes the most exciting stories to tell because of the things that happen!
Im going to plan my lesson for tomorrow and get some sleep. Goodnight!