I Love Kids

Little kids are so cute! Especially little Ghanian kids.

Our little cottage that we are staying in, is right around the corner from a nursery/preschool. The kids that go there are 1-3 year olds.

A couple days ago I went to the school to play with the kids. When I walked in, all the kids started yelling, "Obrunee!" - which means "white person". They were all so cute!

We got there around lunchtime, so they were having their lunch. Some of them needed help eating. I fed this one guy named, Franklin; I was feeding him porridge. While I was feeding him, he pointed to the bathroom. So I walked over to the teacher and told her that he needed to go to the bathroom. She she told Franklin, "Franklin, go wee and come back and eat your porridge!"

I tried so hard not to laugh at that!

Then, it was singing time (I will tell you this: This would never happen in a preschool in the US.). One of the teachers had a hanger in her hand and was slapping in really hard on the table to the rhythm of the song. It was so loud I could hear it 20-30 feet away when I was outside! They do things so differently here!

The next day, when I went back, I was in for another adventure. About 20 minutes after I got there, a teacher called me over while holding a kid belly-first over her knee. She said to me, while whacking the kid's bum, "In Ghana, we beat! Do you beat in America?" Once again I tried so hard to keep from laughing. I told her, "No, we just tell them to stop or give them a timeout." She replied, very suspiciously, "Timeout...hmmmm?" (I learned afterwards that she said the same thing to Rockwell. She really wanted to make her point!)

Things are so different and sometimes weird here in Ghana, but the kids are so, so cute!

Weird Water

How do we drink water in the states? : We drink it out of the faucet or the fridge. Here in Africa it's different.

Most people here drink water out of a faucet but not us Americans. We buy water in bottles most of the time. When people - including us - are out and about water bags and coconuts are easiest to get to. "Water bags!? And coconuts!?," you ask?

Water bags are almost like a Ziplock baggie with out the ziplock. They are completely sealed plastic bags full of water. To drink it, you bite off a corner and squeeze the water into your cake hole. Then you throw the empty sachet on the ground without guilt. 

Coconuts are coconuts...but here they cut them open with a machete, drink the juice, hand it back to the coconut guy, he cuts it all the way open, and cuts off a coconut wedge to use as a spoon to scrape out the meat.

Yummm!
 

Tid-bits from Orientation

Today was my school orientation. It was really different. Here are a few really weird ones:

• We all have to have 2 hankies in our right pocket and a toilet paper roll in the left pocket "AT ALL TIMES!"
• If we make "Disrupting noises" we have to clean the toilets.
•  If we cross the Berlin Wall our punishment is Provision of 1 bag of cement.
• The funniest one was when he asked all the boys to stand and say,"I will never ever, say to a girl, I love you." Then he asked all the girls to stand and say the same thing but to a boy.
• And school starts at 7:00 a.m.!!!

 Here are a few gems: