February 2, 2010
Yesterday at the House, the kids gave me some fresh papaya. It tastes pretty good and sweet. For today, I had another night where I woke up every hour. It was hot even with the fan, and I just couldn’t sleep. Although, last night the power was out for like 6 hours so I couldn’t get the interview done for AnnLouise that I am wanting. But I found out that she is actually leaving tomorrow. She just got her dates mixed up. So I will still be able to interview her.
So I walked over to meet the girls at Elvis’s house around 6:30 and headed out ten minutes later. Theresa came back last night safe and sound from her trip to Tamale. Once we got there, we got everyone ready for school, brushing teeth, bathing, eating, and getting dressed. Joseph has this problem with lying a lot though. He always says he brushes he teeth or that he already bathed or washed his cloths when he doesn’t. So we have to get on him, and he likes the attention. So we try and show in a loving way to get your butt in gear but not give him the attention he gets from complaining. Today, we told me that he lost a pair of socks when I gave some to him yesterday. So I asked him to show me and of course you could tell he was lying. Eventually, we got it out of him that he wanted new socks because he didn’t wash his yesterday. So we were like “Whatever” and just went on with the rest of the morning. He was mopey and wasn’t getting ready until the last minute. So, we feel bad that he might be cained at school but all we can do is do what we are doing. It is hard to always ask the children if they have done their chores or whatever, because they lie all the time, and I hate to check because I want them to know that I trust them and not have to treat them otherwise, but that is just what we have to do.
I then left for the clinic to go pick up the Anti-malaria pills because Christy started shivering and just feeling like crap. But I found out they didn’t have it. I was kind of mad about that. She said, “We have to call Auntie Mary to go buy some.” So, even though you test tons of people, you don’t have it, even though I came yesterday, and they are kids for goodness sake!!! Christy is getting worse. She won’t eat or drink a lot and sweats and has still have a fever. I just don’t want her to get to seriously ill. So I was just a little frustrated.
I then washed clothes and headed back up after grabbing a piece of bread with jam on it. There, I took vital signs again. They again wanted me to be able to just speak Fante, but I decided to try and joke with them to help them understand that how can I speak the language if I haven’t had either time or material to learn? But I might just have to deal with it. I found it interesting that I realized how much lying is excepted in areas in Ghana. Like at the Clinic, when you ask for medical history, like age, birth date, pregnancies or health insurance, they lie all the time. One example was a lady came up, 3 weeks pregnant with 5 other previous children. I asked her birth date she said “13”. I then had to have someone translate to her what I was really asking, and I found out she was trying to say she was 13, then she changed her saying so it was 14. But the whole time she had this joking atmosphere about her like she knew what she was doing but wasn’t going to give up information. So we just made up an age of 34 and made up some other history. There have been quite a few examples of that. That is something I really wish to change if I could. And with the insurance, people will bring insurance that isn’t their own. The only way we can tell is by checking the age. They have no I.D. so the one time I found out is wasn’t her insurance was when she was like 30 or 40 and the insurance was for someone under 15. It just blows my mind. Both that people lie and that medical history will just be made up. But what can I do? Any suggestions?!? ^_^
After that, I came home and did laundry and cleaned my room a little bit. I tried some dairy with sugar and Milo (milo is like chocolate powder to milk chocolate milk) but it still tastes very good, and Mrs. Incoom is gone so I don’t really know what to do about food. So I opened a can of tuna and ate that too. I also checked up on my shirt and dress that I am having Sicillia making. She will be done tomorrow she says. I hope they fit. AnnLouise had a problem with hers earlier. But I will take pictures and see if anyone is interested in something like that. The skirts and dresses are super cute here for pretty cheap. I will also take pictures of fabrics so the family can chose if they want something. I found this cute fabric at Sicillia’s that has pairs of three circles that are brown and blue with a crème background and dots around it. It would make a cute skirt.
For the second part of the day, it was just purely amazing. We went back up to the house and I learned four new games that the children play. I got a few of them on camera. One is like tic tac toe. You grab a rock and etch in the cement or ground this design
------------
| \ | / |
| \ | / |
| \ | / |
| / | \ |
| / | \ |
| / | \ |
------------
Each person has three stones. You take turns moving your rocks around until you get three in a row placing the rocks in the corner points, including the center. I played with Clement and he was pretty good. 9 to 10 and I won this one. The other game is similar except you have 4 of those designs in one big square, each person has ten rocks and you play it like checkers. Another was colors, Change Your style and Be Like That, and Blink. With colors you have everyone line up in a line, one person tells everyone a color and the lead person in front of the line will yell a color. If she yells “green” and you were told your color is green, you have to run to the safe circle before you’re caught. Change Your style is you start with hand clapping and the leader will yell something like “Change your style and you start dancing and every time they say change your style, you have to change and freeze in place. When they say Be Like That, you don’t move. If you do move your out. And Blink, Annika and Thersea taught. You pair up with a person and get the group in a circle. One person is single and that is the leader. They will blink at someone and that person needs to run to the leader before their partner catches them. If their partner doesn’t catch them, they become the leader.
After the games, the kids were washing their clothes and then starting having a throw the bubbles at each other war. I then got my video camera out, and we just got a lot of shots. I even interviewed Elvis Jr., Charity, Angelina, and Clement. We then needed to leave. I then got the Malaria pills for Christy and Margaret. I called mom to tell them that since I got here, I was hoping and praying that I would have a least one day that I could say was a good day all around. That I was happy all day. Today was a good day. Even with its difficulties, I really loved it.
We then went back up to put the kids to bed. Everything was going great until Elvis Jr. said something short and mean to Clement, and Clement got angry. Clement is always picked on and he is getting really bad anger issues. This time, he picked up a big needle or some piece of metal that was at least 4 inches long and started to climb over to Elvis to stab him. AnneLouise and I grabbed him and put him outside for about a half an hour to cool him down. I talked with Elvis but not in anger. I said “I need to talk to you like an adult.” I think he responded better than the yelling that sometimes happens but we will see. So I talked with Elvis Jr. about him being mean but I am just going to have to watch out for them. So it was a late night, and it will again be an early morning.
And also, I want to make some American dish for my host family. Do you have any ideas? I am pretty sure I can find all the ingredients but there is no oven, just pots and no cheese and soy or powered or evaporated milk. If you have a suggestion, that would be great. Love you!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment