Confession: There was a small pity party going on the second room on the left where I was for a majority of the day. Today I was feeling a little sorry for myself. Why in the world do I do this? This attitude right here, selfishness, is why I had to make myself live in a place like this in hopes that Africa would beat out of me.
As I have mentioned before, I do not like it here in Damongo, and I want to go back to Saboba (insert pouty face). The people I am staying with are wonderful, but there’s just something about this town and the people here I don’t like very much. In Saboba, people are kind, generous and respectful. It is very much a small-town feel where everyone says hi to each other and life is simple. I have friends who genuinely care about me, and I feel very safe. The people here seem like they are always after something. Though some are kind and greet you, there are a lot who are not. Kids will come up to you and demand money or whatever you are holding, “Sister, give me your camera.” There is this adolescent crowd I have thought about drop-kicking across the street a few times. It’s like they know just enough about Western culture to be annoying but yet they are still very much in rural Africa. AND… I do appreciate being scammed on all the time! Honestly, it’s ridiculous. Yes, I can see the humor in these situations, but I really don’t like it. I cannot walk down the street without some guy asking for my number or wanting to meet me later downtown or asking me all these other personal questions about my stay in Damongo. Today alone I have acquired a husband and two requests for my phone number. Here’s the thing: It has nothing to do with Nikki Mills but everything to do with white skin. They could care less if I was some Bulgarian Bertha with a unibrow and bad teeth. They just see white skin. This is the SAME reason why I get so irritated with dumb girls who go after my brothers!! They don’t even know… they just see a handsome face.
Oh dear… I see I have ended up on my soapbox again.
Well, let me just climb right down, and I’ll tell you my way of dealing with this: I am nice, always nice. I am a very nice American. Not snotty. I say I am just here visiting for a few days (true). I am as vague as possible. I endure the awkwardly long, creepy handshake (totally different when it is from a Ghanaian who is just being hospitable). I say that my phone is dead (not true) and I just got here so I do not know my phone number (this is true and this is also why I will never memorize it so I do not have to lie). Persistent they are… so they ask for my email. Not that they have internet readily available to them, however they are very insistent about acquiring this information. I was going to give them my friend Elly’s but they would get really confused by the spelling of her last name, so I am just giving them Nicole’s. She’s holding down her first teaching job, coaching basketball, engaged and planning a wedding, so she has plenty of spare time to deal with my callersJ
Moving on from this ridiculous topic, I had to call my mom briefly today to have her help me get a better attitude. (thanks Mom) So I did. I have to make the best of it here because I am indeed stuck here and know there is a reason for this.
I took a brief nap and went back to the orphanage with Yolanda, who was bringing them a surprise dinner as it was her last day here. I was there for a while this morning, and it went much better than yesterday. They just got new uniforms, seeing all of them prance around with smiles plastered all over their faces was just adorable. The shorts for the little boys were entirely too big so they kept falling down. What I really enjoy about watching these kids is how much they help each other. The older girls, as in 6 of 7, would help each other put their dresses on, tie each other’s sashes and then make sure all the little boys were dressed and ready to go. They are completely self-sufficient at a young age and do not feel sorry for themselves. There is one little boy who is just a wild man and constantly had his shorts around his ankles today, which made him cry. I picked him up, fixed his shorts and sat down in a chair with him. Another little boy, Joe, came up to my chair, wanting to show me the animals on his shirt, so we went through and named them all. By the time we finally figured out how to say “giraffe”, little wild man was dead asleep. So, I closed my eyes too for a bit. It was quite nice.
Speed back to dinner time. Yo brought the kids kinke (kink-ay) which is smashed up corn patted into a dough ball and rewrapped in the husk. It is served with a hot pepper sauce that is actually really good. Ghanaians do not usually eat with silver wear, especially such traditional foods, and I have observed they do it all the same way. The kinke goes in a bowl, the pepper sauce goes in the bottom, and you pinch off a chunk with your first two fingers, dip it in the sauce and put it in your mouth. There are bowls of water on the tables for you to rinse your fingers off when you are done. We have done that twice now at Abraham’s. it is interestingJ
The kids FREAKED OUT when they saw what she had brought. Again, all the older ones help the little ones get situated and then they eat. Once the kids were done, mass chaos erupted.
Little wild man, who has nothing on his bottom half, starts chasing another little 2/3 year old who still has his bowl of kinke but no pants either around the entire room. They are laughing so hard and screaming… it was absolutely hilarious. The older boys (10-13) are helping clean up. There are two girls fighting over the right to a juice box. Little wild man enters the scene again and runs right in front of me, still chasing the other little boy whose laugh sounds even better than that of the laughing babies video on Youtube. The herd of girls and boys around the 16 month old twin girls (severely developmentally behind) are trying to feed them and make them laugh. The twins are not at all overwhelmed with all the attention even though they are being picked up by one arm to be hoisted into a small child’s arms. Then that kid will hand her off to another kid, which usually ends up in some disagreement because everyone, boys and girls of all ages, loves those twins and want to hold them…
And then Yo busted out the glow sticks… oh my word. This is so much better than kinke!! It is a complete mad house. 46 kids, mostly half-naked by this point, are all running around screaming, waving the glow sticks around, helping each other make them into bracelets, making necklaces for the twins. Some of the older boys get this brilliant idea to throw them up into the fan, hoping to catch a blade, and shoot across the room. Now there are glow sticks flying everywhere. Screaming. Laughing. Running around….
It’s like a Mills family Christmas.
I just had to stand there and watch. It was absolutely hilarious.
I went outside on the porch to sit with a few of them and when you sit down at this place, be prepared for 5 kids to jump on your lap or on your back. It’s just how it works. My little friend Adiatu was the reason I went out there in the first place, so we started singing again. I LOVE this so much! They all love to sing, and like to learn new songs. It was just like sitting around the campfire on a summer’s night singing with old friends. Hannah H, you are going to die- They know Shakira’s Waka Waka Africa song!! This was the theme song for the World Cup last year, and they dance to it too! Oh I loved that one. It was my favoriteJ
It was such a great night. I really love these kids, even though it is a hard thing to kids like this.
Yolanda, Abraham and I sat in the living room this evening when we got home and had the most “hopeless romantic” conversation about love and relationships and all that goes with it. It was so enjoyable, mostly because Abraham is such a softy. No surprise there though- he runs an orphanage for heaven’s sake. It was also so enjoyable to me that a Dutch girl, a Ghanaian man and the new American girl have so much to talk about. Every one of us could relate to the others because of a similar experience even though we are from three very different parts of the world.
Good times in Ghana.
Tomorrow I will be on my own in a house that is not mine in a town I do not like. Hmm. Lucy is gone, Abraham is taking Yolanda back to Tamale because she is going back to Holland and Joyce will be in school. The possibilities are endless, but I think it will go something like this: Breakfast, kids, acquire husband #2, nap, read. I think I can handle that.
I hope you all had a great day! Enjoy the cold… I am so jealous.
I nearly forgot: I taught Joyce and her brother Joseph (19) how to play spoons this afternoon. Joe is terrible, absolutely terrible because he gets so fixated on his cards rather than the spoons and never gets 4 or a kind, but INSISTED we play again, and again, and again because THIS time he was going to win!! Joyce had the giggles so bad seeing him lose so bad every time that I got the giggles. So funny.
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