Ghanaian children are beautiful. They holler at you wherever you go, be it to giggle at the silly white person, touch your milky skin or just so you'll wave back. Last week I was swarmed by a dozen children who desperately wanted their photo taken. Upon showing them the playback, they squealed and laughed and wanted more and more taken but they refused to stand far enough from the camera to get a decent picture.
The children at my orphanage are wonderful and intelligent. They read so well and are so eager to learn. One day, seven year old Judith was reading a book to me and stumbled on the word 'horse'. To help her, I pointed at the picture for a visual aid. I said, "what's that Judith?" to which she replied enthusiastically, "zebra!" It was such a tiny moment but perfectly illustrated the cultural differences between children here and children back home. I have no doubt that had an Australian child been trying to decipher the word, 'zebra' they would have labelled a zebra as a 'horse'.
Full of passion, energy and spirit, the children all have ambitions to be actors, doctors, teachers... and they are probably the most clever and self-sufficient kids I've ever seen. They cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, hand wash their own clothes, sweep, everything... and they barely ever complain about it.
The orphanage is often filled with the joyous sound of gospel singing. They sing everywhere and will burst into song at the strangest moments. Yesterday we went on an excursion to the coastal tv station and crammed 30 children and seven adults into a Tro-Tro (a small van with a capacity of 15). The children sang all the way there and were amused whenever the tro tackled a gaping pot-hole. At the Tv station, we organised for the kids to be in a mock filming. They sang sweetly on camera and one of the older girls, Selina, recited a poem about the importance of education for African women. It was so incredible and so poignant that I really had to pull myself together.
Next week I'm planning to take them to the dentist (because they've never been) and have organised free treatment for the children. I only have to buy the equipment. A carpenter has made me a medicine cabinet which I will fill with medical supplies. The hospital care is quite average here. I spent four hours at the hospital yesterday to take one of the girls who'd sufffered a bite. We waited in four separate queues, she was tested for Typhoid and Malaria but the Doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong. Four hours later, we left with some anti-histamines and vitamin c tablets...
We had a party today because it was Hannah's 10th birthday. We did face painting, played limbo and made her a huge card which all the children signed. Hannah is more shy than some of the others so it was nice for the spotlight to be on her for a while.
The hardest time of the day is when we say goodbye and the children look up at us with the curliest eye-lashes I've ever seen dotted across their big innocent eyes and say, "Are you leaving? Will you be back tomorrow?"
