My Kids

Primary 5

Sports Fans

Wow I can’t believe its almost been two months already. Depending on the day and how I’m feeling, the thought of coming home, either fills me with joy and anticipation, or over whelming sadness and heartbreak. Africa has drained my mind, body, and soul. But when ever I spend time with my students I know I can get though anything. The other volunteers and I joke about kidnapping all our kids and taking them home with us. Hehehe. Lucky for us this last week was their sports week. Like everything in Ghana, it was completely random and we had no idea it was planned. It was like the mini Olympics for all the schools in Kibi. I wanted to be there for all my kids events. They don't have their parents there to cheer them on and give them hugs whether they win or lose, like some of the other schools. So we did it for them. The main field is right next to our school so everyday it was packed with students, teachers, parents, and food vendors. Every where I went I was stared at, and people (adults included) would come up and touch my skin or hair. I felt like a goat at a petting zoo. There was also a DJ there with a huge computer and speakers. I got a headache almost everyday, cause that’s where our students liked to hang out. The bass was so strong they could feel it and we even had a dance party. It was such a blast. Anyway everyday was filled with different events. And our kids shined in every one! Because I spent most of my time at the school, I had never really seen how other hearing Ghanaians treated deaf people, until now. I was absolutely appalled. Kids and adults imitated the noises and movements of the deaf students. Rude comments and dirty looks followed them where ever they went and a few of the volunteers, myself included had a few harsh words with a group of men that were picking on and pushing our kids for no reason right in front of us. Around 8 other schools participated in the sports week. And in every event the deaf played last. Events started around 7:30 in the morning and our kids had to sit and watch the other schools compete till 2 or 3 in the afternoon when it was their turn. Other schools took turns when they would play, but no matter what our students were last. It only made it that much sweeter when our kids came out on top of almost every event. Other schools even attempted to cheat. After our older boys volleyball team dominated, we found out the other team had boys from the high school playing, when it was jr high only. I watched as our net ball girls team, ran circles around the other teams as they scored again and again. And best of all our boys’ soccer team, with no professional training or soccer cleats (3 or 4 of them couldn’t afford them and were bare foot), won the cup! I have never yelled so much in my life. I yelled words of encouragement to our players (even though they’re deaf and couldn’t hear me), angry words at the referees when our boys kept getting tackled and they never called a foul, that is unless one of our boys touched the other team. I screamed in victory when Addo (our goalie) caught the ball in the air before it went into the net and we won. I jumped up and down with all our students and ran to the school to celebrate. I got water dumped on me by one of the players and I hugged every sweaty boy on the team. I know it sounds cheesy but I felt like such a proud parent.

I can’t believe I have to leave them, but I do find comfort in knowing Heavenly Father is mindful of them and their needs. I love them so much and I am going to have to get to know the next group of volunteers that come to teach. I want to know how my kids are doing. Hehehe I am so thankful for all the people that helped me get here. My life has changed because of you! Thank you so much! And I will talk to you all soon!

20 days and counting

Hello everyone! I'm sorry the photos didn't work. I'm really disappointed, because I spent the whole time working on them. Awww well, when I get home I will post them all. Anyway I can't believe all that I have been able to experience and do while I have been here. A few weeks ago I got to watch a football/ soccer game on a old fuzzy tv screen that belonged to a family that lives on the school grounds. I had gone to visit the kids after dinner, when they all came running up to me. They all wanted to tell me that Ghana was playing Brazil for the world cup. They were so excited! Richard then grabbed my arm and lead me to the little houses that line the school grounds. As I approached I saw what seemed like every student in the school surrounding a tiny house. Older kids where sitting on the porch wall peaking through the door at the tv screen inside. The younger ones were pressing their faces up against the screen on the window and pushing through the legs of the older boys by the door. They welcomed me as I approached and some of the older boys made room for me by the door. When the family sitting inside saw me and another volunteer, George standing outside, they pulled us inside and sat us down on the couch. The score was 0 to 0, but I was much more entertained by the old man sitting in a wooden chair next to me. He yelled and screamed at every little thing. Of course I had no idea what he was saying cause it was all in Twi. I had to keep myself from laughing when he suddenly yelled "Ha Brazil! I Do Not Think So!" in broken English. I had to leave before the game was over but I did find out later that Ghana won.

These last few weeks have been a dream. Meghan has been helping me when I teach in the morning so I don't have to worry about my students not getting one-on-one help. We are moving onto Unit 2 of the math book. The kids are having the hardest time with subtraction. The concept of borrowing doesn't seem to make since. Meghan and I are trying to think up tricks and stories to try and help them. We'll see how it goes. Yesterday was their sports day, Shannon, Meghan, and I went at 7:00 in the morning to watch the boys practice soccer. Little did we know that when we got there we were expected to practice with them. Luckily the girls have their own workout to do and I got to spend some time with them. I came in 3rd place in our race on the soccer field and I only dropped the ball twice in a game of throwing it back and forth. It was pretty fun.

It's also nice to get some down time with the students. I have been helping in the kindergarten after I teach my class and found myself attached to those amazing children. A few nights ago I sat and rocked little Matthew, in my arms, as he rested his head on my shoulder. He was feeling sick (nothing serious) and tired. I rubbed his back as we just sat there like that for the longest time. I was still able to hold a conversation with one of the older kids in P 6. Isaac, told me the story of how he became deaf and that his parents died soon after. He is such an intelligent young man, and I have such hope for him. I just wish he could get the accommodations he needs so that he could go as far as he could if he were hearing. It kills me to think about leaving these kids. It is going to be so hard, I just want to take them all home with me. I want to thank everyone that helped me get here and who gave me the chance to meet these beautiful children. They have such hope and joy in life. They have taught me so much! I feel I am so selfish, I came here to teach them, and in reality I'm the one being taught. I love my students and all I have been able to experience here. I can't wait to show you all pictures of them and tell you stories about them and what they are like. I love you all and I wish you all the best life has to offer. I will post once more while I am here. Next week.

Love, Briana

Fun

Hello everyone. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to blog but we have been having problems with the Internet and I went down to Cape Coast for the weekend. I have so much to write about in so little time.
Richard is doing well. We have moved from learning 1-10 to 11-20. He is now learning 21-99. I’m really proud of his improvement and how excited he is about tutoring. Meghan is helping another girl in my class,Rurth. She is a little more advanced than Richard but she was having a hard time. They are such great kids I’m filled with so much joy when they raise their hands in class to answer a question, when before they would put their heads down.
We have a student teacher who teaches religion and citizenship after me, so I don’t have to worry about my teacher hitting the students.
Today one of the students in Primary 6 had some sort of an episode. She started screaming and grabbed her teacher by the collar. Another teacher ran in with the cane and she started hitting and kicking him until he backed away. She finally settled down and sat in her seat and finished her work. I asked around and all the teachers just said that she was mentally ill and that these episodes were normal. What a nice welcome back home from Cape Coast. Hehehe
I spent 2 days in the beautiful Cape Coast area. We stayed in the Hans Cottage Boatel. It was placed right in the middle of a swamp. So they have crocodiles everywhere. It was a fun weekend but I can’t write about it just yet. And I was very happy to come home to Kibi and my students.
I will try and post some pictures for you now, we’ll see what happens.








I hope this works. I got a video of the beach before I left and I got one of the slave castle. I wanted to get one of the kids but as it turns out we are not supposed to bring our camaras to the school until the last week we are here. Opps. Oh well I've got some good pics I will try to post.

Emmanuel Otoo

Last Sunday I was in Koforidua attending a church service at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When the meeting was over the group and I headed to the internet café a few blocks away. Koforidua is one of the bigger cities near Kibi. The market was booming and we almost got run over by a taxi. It has more people, bigger buildings, and faster internet. On our way to the café, we past homeless person after homeless person on the street, asking for money and food. We kept our heads down and kept walking, trying not to feel bad. But one person caught our eye. A little boy, who’s brown shirt and pants were falling off his tiny bony body. He didn’t ask for money or even food. He just sat there on the step of a building, slouched over with one of his frail arms laid out on his lap and his hand open. I wanted to give him money, but all I had was a 5 Cedi/ dollar bill. Natalie walked over to him and she handed him 20 Pesewas/ cents. Once I was closer I could see that one of his eyes was red and glazed over. His cheek bones were protruding out and his eyes were sunken. Once he had the Pesewa in his hand, he whispered mada es/ thank you. Natalie and I turned around and ran to catch up with our group.

The internet café was on the second floor of the apartment/ business building. Next to it was a café, with spaghetti and American food. Natalie and I decided to wait our turn on the computers and eat lunch first. I got a spaghetti dish with chicken and she had a club sandwich and fries. When we were done I realized I still had a full bowl of spaghetti. We talked about it and decided that if he was still there we would give the extra food to the little boy we saw earlier. So Natalie and I went off to the building we had seen him near. When we got there he was no where to be found. We asked around but no one knew who or where he was. Finally I recognized a security guard I had seen earlier and asked if he knew where the little boy in the brown shirt had gone. He looked at the food in my hands and the water in Natalie’s and left his post to look for him with us. We finally found him three streets over in a park. The guard ran ahead and brought him to us. Natalie and I found a little wooden bench for him to sit on and I opened the Styrofoam box with the spaghetti. He just looked at it for the longest time and then slowly put his bony fingers in the noodles and brought some up to his mouth. He ate so slowly I began to realize every movement was such a struggle for him. A crowd of passersby formed around us and they congratulated us on our Christ like work. They told us we were like the good Samaritan. Natalie got so mad, and angrily signed to me, that they all could be doing the same service we are. One woman told us that the Koforidua central hospital was close by and Natalie and I decided we would take a taxi and bring him there. Natalie ran back to the café to tell the others and to grab our bags. A women got a taxi for us and I tried to get the boy up over to it. But as soon as he stood up, his legs gave out and he came crashing to the ground at my feet. Trying to hold back emotion I picked him up and another boy helped me carry him to the taxi. Natalie and I sat on either side of him and I put the food on his lap so he could continue eating. When the car started the momentum threw the boy back into the seat. So the rest of the car ride I had my arm around his shoulders and Natalie had her hand on his back so that he could sit up and eat. Natalie burst into tears and I asked him what his name was. He didn’t understand English, but the taxi driver started to translate for me. We found out that his name is Emmanuel Otoo.

The taxi dropped us off at the hospital entrance and Natalie and I guided Emmanuel out of the car. The hospital was hell. I had heard stories about hospitals in third world countries but I never expected to be in one. Natalie sat down with Emmanuel and I ran back and forth with the nurses and orderlies. They kept giving me the run around. First I was sent to an office window, who then sent me to a group of nurses who sent me to a random doctor, who sent me to a man watching football/soccer on TV, who sent me to the office window again. Finally we got some paperwork for him and the nurses started to check his blood pressure and weight. They couldn’t fit the blood pressure cuff around his tiny arm and had to get another one. Then they asked him how old he was and he told them 16. One nurse started laughing but put 16 down as his age anyway. To me he didn’t look older than 10. But whatever his age, when he stood on the scale to be weighed my stomach dropped to the floor. He weighted 23 kilograms. Which we are guessing is around 51 pounds. While I had been running around, Natalie had an older couple translate for her. Emmanuel told her that his parents had divorced and he didn’t know where his father was. His mother remarried and his stepfather told his mother he could not take care of Emmanuel anymore and that she had to chose between him and her son. She put Emmanuel out on the street and he has lived there ever since. She asked him where he had been sleeping and he told her under taxis and cars. He also told her that he had diabetes. So when we told the nurses this they checked his blood and found he had a very high glucose level. They needed to bring that down or he would die. We followed the nurses and Emmanuel into the main building where they were going to have him wash up and give him the medication he needed. What a horror this building was, yellow lights above cast a dim glow over everything and patients sat on torn up chairs in a narrow hallway. Some were doubled over in pain others were screaming. Three beds were shoved into the corner with patients on them hooked up to IVs. The smell of urine and lime cleaner filled the air. It was just chaos. Nurses and doctors rushing by shoving people out of the way. There was Emmanuel, walking slowly down the hall to an empty chair, with only his brown pants on, tied up with a rope. His large rounded belly was sticking out slightly to the left, and his paper thin skin was stretched over his bony ribs, chest, and shoulders. I've seen kids like this on TV and in pictures, but having him right in front of me was something I don’t think I could have ever been prepared for.

When he sat down, a male nurse put an IV in his arm and hooked it to the wall behind him. Natalie and I sat on either side of him and watched as his arm immediately started to bleed and the medication started to drip out. I found out later that because he was so malnourished his veins had collapsed. We were trying to get the attention of a nurse or doctor, when Natalie gave her seat away to a very pregnant women, who was having contractions. Then on my left a man burst through the doors with a little girl in his arms. Her leg was bleeding and broken and the broken half of it was flopping around as he swung her to and fro trying to get help. A nurse put her in a wheelchair and rolled her in the busy hallway, bumping the doors and walls as they went. She then parked her wheelchair right next to me and left. So on our right we had a woman about to give birth and on our left we had a screaming bleeding child and in-between us sat Emmanuel, skin and bones and barely able to keep his head up.

Heavenly Father works in so many ways. We eventually got Emmanuel a bed and another IV. We found an orphanage near Kibi. They couldn’t take him in but they did get us connected with Ghana’s Assisted Aid. The social worker was very difficult to work with. We had to fight to get Emmanuel assistance. Everything was worth it, when the next day, Natalie and I went into the ward Emmanuel was staying in and saw him sitting up in his bed, in brand new clothes and a big smile on his face. I wasn’t sure he’d remember us considering the trance-like state he was in last time we saw him. But a teenage boy in the bed next to him told us he had been talking about us all morning and had been checking the clock constantly. The day before we had told him we would be in to see him around 3:00 when we were done with school. We gave him hugs and took pictures with him. He played with my camera a little bit and ended taking a picture of his legs. We stayed with him as long as we could, but we had to leave and be home for dinner. The teenage boy translated for us and we told him he was going to get the help he needed and he was safe now. He waved good bye with a smile on his face and Natalie and I left the hospital.

I have no idea what’s going to happen to him. But I will continue to pray for him and hope everything works out. I know I can not save everyone and I will not be naive in thinking I can do this again. But I am happy I had this opportunity to help.

I could go on forever about all the things that happened in between but I am out of time on this computer. I love you all and I know I am suppose to be here. I will blog again soon. I have so many stories to tell about my wonderful students and the improvement Richard is making in tutoring. I’m so happy to be here and I hope you all are well.

God's Hand

I've had the most amazing and crazy few days, I have ever had. I have so much to say I'm not sure where to start. Well first of all the hot plates we received broke because we didn't use converters to plug them in. Smart huh? So we went into town and bought this cooking thing we see all the Ghanaians using. Its like a metal box that is open on the top and on one side. It has four flat pieces of metal that come up from the top at an angle. In the middle of that, over the open top, is a grate. You are suppose to put the coals on the grate and rest the pot on top of them. Then use a fan made out of some kind of grass weaved together, to push oxygen up from the open box at the bottom to the hot coals. It actually worked really well once we figured out how to use it. That took a while. Anyway, we also bought some eggs and bread in town and we made French toast. Callie, our group leader, had brought some maplene, and we mixed that with boiling water and sugar, and made syrup. It was really watery, but it tasted like heaven.

Then that Sunday, myself and some other Mormons went to attend the Church of Jesus Christ church meeting in Kufordua. It was a 2 hour drive from Kibi, but it was worth it. When we arrived, we met with the bishop and the first counselor. They were so warm and inviting. We sat in the chapel and waited for the meeting to start. An electric piano played hymn music while every single member of that ward came up and introduced themselves. This ward was so much fun. When we sang songs, everyone sang as loud as they could. Half the room was off key and was singing to their own rythem, but that didn't matter. Then when the speakers gave their talks, they would shift from a thick Twi accent to just speaking Twi altogether. I would get a few words here and there but I mostly had to imagine what they were saying. Then after that the first counselor put us in the investigators class. Then we went into Relief Society where no english was spoken what so ever. It was an interesting experience and at the end everyone we passed made us promise we would come back next Sunday.

But the real amazing part of that day didn't start till we were walking through town trying to find an open internet cafe.

I'm going to have to leave that as a cliff hanger. I'm running out of time on the computer and I need to get home for dinner. I love you all and will have more time to email next week.