New Email

May 20, 2009

hey mom.. and maybe brianne... and maybe other people that my mom forwards emails to without my knowing or people who read blogs that i'm writing without ever actually writing a blog? wtf? lol? rotfl? omg? irl?

haha.. uhh.. i feel a little bit weird about it, but it's a good idea. thanks for putting it together and helping me to keep people updated and all, mom and brianne. i told a lot of people i would let them know what's going on.. but mostly i only email mom.

ummm but everything is going well. cept the tv is showing some kind of show called "road bloodbath" right now. it's just playing really intense O fortuna sounding tunes and showing car accidents with a death count on the side. aaand lately there seems to be a certain species of very huge flying insect that has taken a vendetta against my face. monday on the motorbike, one hit me right in the mouth. it was closed, but i had to use my whole hand to pull it of my lips. then tuesday, i was walking back from the orphanage and another one flew straight into my left eye. today another one got me in the left eye. james, the motorbike driver, had to pull over, he was laughing too hard. but then a little bit later, the tire blew out for the second time in a week. that was a little bit scary.

this week, one of the volunteers went to the primary school to make sure her kids from the orphanage had gone to class and she ended up teaching the class, and will be teaching for the next two weeks. the teacher just left without a replacement, and in africa i guess that's not really a big deal. so since the volunteer just happened to show up and see what was going on, one of the other teachers told her she should teach the class. haha. she's my same age, just a year out of highschool and now she's a primary teacher in africa. i've had to help her out a bit, she is french-canadian and her English is kinda rough. but the whole situation is just really funny. a good example of how things work here in africa.

ummmm i'm working on a new plan for the orphanage though.. my host father reminded me that it is "better to teach a man to fish, rather than give him a fish". so i'm still trying to figure out the details of it, but i want to see if we can get a tro-tro. a tro-tro is just a small bus that can be bought for maybe $5000, and then it will run a route from Tamale to Bolga( two major towns in Northern Ghana between which lies Wulugu) and charge riders about four dollars. they are really common here in Ghana and they are always full. This will generate a stable income for the orphanage of at least 350 GH Cedi's, or about $300 a month. This would be wayyyyy huge and, when I can get something more formal and informative, I think it would be something elementary schools and boy scouts and primary classes and things would want to help out with, yeah? I'm at one of the poorest, if not the poorest orphanage in Ghana. So helping here will set a big standard and example for surrounding orphanages and hopefully generate a lot of help.

anywho, i'm gonna go slap the kids around that are across the street yelling "soryminga!" at me. and then buy some beans. because we are running out of food in this joint. aand if anyone reads this and is really offended that i slap kids.. i don't really.

looove, drew