Greetings from Ghana. It’s our fifth day here. Everything has been really neat so far, despite a lack of sleep, mostly thanks to our resident rooster who lives directly outside our window. The kids are really amazing and we are enjoying getting to know their different personalities and needs. The smallest one is four years old. There are 24 kids here right now. They start school next week. All but two of them will be attending school. We will be creating individual learning plans for the kids and spending time with them one on one to develop their skills.

John and I are going to start learning Twi, the most common language in Ghana. Though English is the official language, it is no one’s first language, so their accents are thick and their levels of English vary a lot. Some of the kids do not speak English at all because they have never attended school. We spend a good amount of time everyday just reading books with them. They are eager to learn and are excited about school.

Our heads are spinning with ideas and trying to absorb all the new experiences and cultural differences. We spent at least three hours at church on Sunday. If you aren’t sweating within the first five minutes, you aren’t dancing hard enough! They definitely make up for the enthusiasm lacking in many churches elsewhere. The sermon was about the church’s responsibility to raise children as a community which was very fitting for us since all of our kids here are not in traditional families.

Yesterday John and I walked down to the beach which is about a 30 minute walk. Unfortunately it was full of garbage, but we found some nice shells. We bought some fruits and vegetables from some stands on the side of the road on our way back, as they have been severely lacking in our diet since we arrived. Most of the roads in our area are dirt and the paved roads aren’t much better due to incredible amounts of potholes. In the morning we sorted through several huge boxes of books that were donated. The boxes were filled with childhood memories for us and the kids were really excited to help clean and sort the books. It was fun to find stories about Anansi the Spider, which I grew up reading, and is actually from Ghana. We also received lots of Dr. Seuss and other kids’ staples.

Our job for the time being is to learn as much as possible and help where we can. It is going to take a while to figure out all the ins and outs of the system here and where we can be most effective. The children are very dedicated to their chores and helping us with whatever we need. They cook and clean and wash their own clothes in a bucket in the backyard (read: concrete slab). They are very sweet though some are more open about their lives than others. Please pray for them. They are really neat kids and they have a lot of needs. They love to be held and love to touch our skin. They like to poke us and see how our skin changes color; easily entertained!

Thanks for all the support and encouragement sent our way, we appreciate it! We don’t have internet access at the house but we are at an internet café within walking distance. The connection is a bit slow, so unfortunately Skype is not an option. We will try to come here a couple of times a week to email and check out what is going on in the world outside of Tema.