About the Blog

United Hearts Children Center is located in Bawjiase, Ghana. It is currently home to 25 children, who are excited to move into their NEW home in the next few months. We are continuing fundraising to complete the project and have just started to fundraise for the United Hearts Community School. Check them out in my links!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

ARYM

A few days ago during activity time with the kids I started playing a word game with one of the girls. She was scrambling peoples' names in the sand and I had to figure out what it said. We went through some easy ones: Becca, Jonas, Raheal, Barbara. All names of the kids (and me, of course). The game became more difficult as she started writing names of people not at the orphanage. Josephine, Joyce, Kwame. Then she wrote AYRM. Either I was having trouble correctly reading the letters, too tired from all the day's activities, or not even paying attention, but I was completely unable to figure it out. She started giving me a hint, but all I could understand was that she was telling me it was someone's mother. Whose mother? After repeating it maybe four times, I realized what she was saying.

Jesus' Mother

And too many seconds later I figured it out.

Yesterday we took the kids to the site of the orphanage for activity time. There is a very large hole that was dug for sewage, and apparently it is their favorite place to play when we are there. After I recovered from my heart attack (the result of seeing these small children perched on sandy piles leaning into a twenty foot ditch), I began taking pictures. There was a small animal that clearly missed the memo that he should not jump into it. We still don't know what it is, but it was kind of chipmunk like. As anyone would do upon seeing this animal, the kids started throwing rocks at it.

Don't worry, though. After we told the children Christmas would be canceled if they threw any more rocks into the ditch, it stopped. Vlad then went down with a bucket used for drawing water from the well, trapped the animal in the bucket, and I pulled it up as if I was drawing water (And it's okay because I have my rabies vaccination).

Raheal and I walked off from the chaos of the children running circles around the hole and hitting each other with sticks:


On a completely different note, it has been absolutely incredible to walk around town and run into people from my last stay here. I stopped by to see Vivian, the woman who made my clothes last time I was here, who informed my that she will be coming with me when I go home in March, because she has "a lot of money." I also visited some of my old neighbors at market on Tuesday (people are always in the same place at market), and was surprised at how easily I managed to navigate the maze that is Bawjiase's market. I stopped by their houses to visit for a little bit, and then made my way to the house where Kobby (Kobe) lives. I met him the other day when I went with another volunteer who was visiting the family he lives with. Kobby was sitting outside studying a math book, and we started talking. He is a teacher and is studying for a math exam on January 4th. If he passes he will receive his next certification, similar to a Masters degree. I ended up helping him and have now become his teacher. I spent a few hours with him yesterday going through one of the units, but am hoping he doesn't want to study more today because a new volunteer will be here soon! I certainly didn't expect to be a math tutor here, but it will pay off because after he is finished with his test he is going to be my Twi tutor. It will be nice to have someone who is well educated helping me with Twi, because unlike many of the people in Bawjiase he is able to write the language, which is something I really want to learn.

My dear Torch Club: The Smurf coloring book was a huge hit the other day! Obviously getting the children to be in the picture was more difficult, but after only a few hours they had colored every page in the book!

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