New Routine

Last night I moved into Charles' house with Amanda, Diana and Megan. He lives closer to the Asenemaso school, but still close enough to the chief's house and the internet cafe. I really like our new setup. The three other girls and I share a bright blue room with two beds. There's enough space to walk from one side of the room to the other and we were actually able to set up mosquito nets this time. The shower isn't connected to the toilet, so I already feel cleaner. There's no sink or a mirror. A sink is kind of tricky to do without but it's nice not having a mirror. It really has been refreshing not worrying about make up, drying my hair or clothes. Charles' wife is Auntie Maggie and he has one 11 year old girl Efria, 10 year old boys Jr. and Sr., and two other boys that are 5 and 2. I think they are both called Kofi, but I'm not sure. The names are hard to catch.

The family is as hospitable as the rest of the country. Charles is pretty funny, he just laughs at everything. I should start calling him Chuckles, he would love that. Auntie Maggie is friendly and obliging, but gets offended if we don't eat all her food. She made us these giant rice balls, like the size of two fists, and fish stew for dinner. Diana, who is the pickiest eater I've ever met, was about to flush her food down the toilet before we stopped her. I forced down most of the rice ball just to make Auntie Maggie happy and be culturally sensitive.

Lorna and I have been teaching for three days now. We're becoming more comfortable with the situation and we are learning the individual characteristics of some of the kids in our class. Today was a little more frustrating because our class keeps getting bigger. It's difficult too when the kids are just too shy or scared to tell us what they're thinking. We're reading the Lion King, and today was the second time reading it. It's about a second grade level book, but they are having a hard time understanding it. We just have to read very, very slowly.

The GRLP team started planning library construction yesterday. I'm on the layout committee, which means I'll help decide what type of furniture we'll want, how much and where we'll put it. There should be enough room for 6,000 books, two computers and projector and a tv/vcr. We'll start doing subcontracting next week. We also started doing tutoring in the library Mike built last year, but we sadly found out that the typical hours of operation were for a couple of hours only while kids were in school. From now on, the library will be open till 5 so kids can actually go to it after school. In a few days, planned activities like creative writing and movies will be available.

Tomorrow after class we are all going to Cape Coast, which was the original capital of Gold Coast (Ghana). There's an old slave castle to see, a beach and a national rainforest, so they'll be more to tell in a couple of days.