Yeah

Hi brothers and sisters of the sunburnt country,

Im not sure when I wrote the last post but it is now saturday so basically a week has passed since I arrived on Monday. The kids are absolute little crazy monsters but adorable at the same time. Their education levels are appalling and the school is pretty pathetic with its organisation. Being here for 2 weeks I have basically decided to only tutor in small parts of the day where the rest of the time is spent helping out with the other volunteers projects and trying to organise a schedule for classes, future volunteers and tutoring. This chick Jessie who has been here for awhile and from Melbourne is doing some amazing stuff including a jewellery project where the kids get together each day for workshops and make beaded jewellery then it will be sold locally and shipped to markets around the world then the money raised will go back into sending the children to school. A new group starting next week are children who spend all day pushing wheelbarrows. I went to the class yesterday and it was great what she is doing the kids were so good at it! a piece of string tied to their big toe as they braided at impressive speeds and they were just so diligent and happy to be there. There is no power on camp so at night the place is in complete darkness apart from little candles lighting different stalls and the help of generators in some areas (including our place) I have heard some frightening stories about people back in sierra leone and liberia and seen something disturbing/weird/shocking every day. Last night it was a man at a stall with pet eagles kept in a tiny cage! Today it was huge cooked pig hooves in a basket on a womans head. Stories of people who have seen their parents murdered before their eyes, gang rapes, impalements. fuck some terrible things went down. I have been moved into a different room now so no more noisey generator but still get celine dion each night. Took my braids out last night and had this friken awesome amazon woman afro but it was so dirty from not being washed so shampooed it out this morning :( Jessie and I came to accra today to do a few things and bought sewing machines for this bag making project that is being organised. We also went to the australia high commision to try and vote but they told us it was over! Heard on cnn radio that johnny lost and kevin is in. About time I say! Yesterday was 'sport' day at the school which was really an excuse for the teachers to not have to 'teach' and the kids were all hyper as. We were told kickball was going to be held at a field so michelle and I walked down there to check it out. We arrived at this huge dusty area of land and as soon as we arrived and were spotted herds and herds of screaming kids charged towards us at a high speed. It was the funniest scene and my first instinct was to just run in the opposite direction there were soo many of them belting towards us! ITS A STAMPEDE! hahaha they all just surrounded us grabbing onto every inch of our boddies, yelling - haha it was hilarious. There was no ball or teacher to be found so I organised a few running races with them and we did some dance moves and clapping which was fun. They were impossible to organise and kids were up on huge rubbish piles with their pants down pissing, some girls had each other in an headlock and there was constantly atleast two kids clinging onto my waist. It was chaos. fun though. We organised a very loose game of kick ball- wonky bases represted by piles of leaves, which didnt really last - then a teacher finally came with a ball and took over. It was a joke of a sport day but as I mentioned the whole school is a bit of a joke a lot of the time. We had a really productive meeting with some of the teachers and the principal and finally convinced him that tutoring was the way for volunteers and finally he started to come around with a lot of ego stroking etc. He is a pretty ignorant head-strong man but ultimately does care about the kids. Anyway that was pretty promising and I think we can do something before a lot of us leave at the end of next week which is great. Anyway Im about to go see kwasi and papa in labadi and go to sister joyces house for a visit then am supposed to be going to kokorobite beach tonight for a party but dont know how that will go. . Feeling much more at ease here now. Really want to travel so much more now. I am excited about how much possibility the world has to offer. How lucky I am. x