Shan In Ghana: July 2011

Oh my goodness only one more week I have here in Ghana, Africa! It seems like I have been here for months, but at the same time, time has flown by! Crazy! I'm so excited to head home and see my family again, but I am sad to leave all the wonderful people I have met here! I cannot wait to give my mom a Big hug!! I'm so grateful for all that she does and has done for me! I have the most AMAZING mom ever!!

Today we went to church for the last time. We had some pretty intense lessons. All of sacrament meeting, sunday school, and relief society/priesthood combined lessons were on doing family history work. It was very interesting to hear what they have to do here in Africa to get family names. To find family names, the people here actually have to travel out to villages and different tribes to find their relatives and ask them questions to find out about their family history. How easy is it for us back home to search names, whereas the people here actually have to travel miles to villages to talk to relatives to find out information about their family.
Another cool thing that happened today... So one of our receptionist here at the Pink Hostel came to church with us today. He had never been to our church and agreed that he would come. It was just cool seeing him sit through all the meetings, actually listening, and singing the hymns. He said he loved the hymns!

After enjoying a fun lesson at church, some of our group headed over to the Teshie Orphange. I was so excited to go! And oh my goodness how much fun it was! The kids there were so sweet, fun, and well behaved! I wish I could just take them all home! No one at the moment is even looking at adopting them. I wish it was easy to adopt, because if it was, I would seriously bring them all home! I love them!

Yesterday (Saturday) we had a free day and could day whatever we wanted. Most of our group went to the big Art's Center Market. I did not like that market! You have to understand that the market is like the size of costco with rows behind rows of shops. People would literally grab me and pull me into their shop.
"Buy something from my shop" they would say. I would walk out and I would literally walk 2 feet and five people would say, "Sister, come to my shop.. I make you good price!"
Good price my butt. For something that should be 20 cedis they wanted 80 cedis!
All of the pressure was stressing me out... and out of rows beyond rows of stuff, nothing stood out to me!
I was so happy when we finally left that place!
Lynley, Ashlee, Hilary, and I went to Palm Beach Hotel and swam and layed out all day! Needless to say I was worried about burning so I put on lots of sun screen. I barely even got a tan haha. We joke that instead of being 10 pounds lighter and tanner when we come home we will all be 10 pounds heavier and whiter haha.
Anyways, I had a great time at the pool! We all enjoyed a diet coke and had some really good talks. Lynley is such an amazing woman and amazing example to me! I'm so grateful for all that she has done for our group on this trip!

Tomorrow we are headed to Mole (You pronounce it like Molae) at 5:30 am! A 10 hour bus ride! Wahoo! Right now we are at the bottom of Ghana and will be traveling all the way to the tip top of Ghana. We are going to be staying in the middle of the jungle with elephants, monkeys, and lions for three days! I'm super excited! I keep thinking that I've had enough culture shock, but everyday something new happens that astonishes me!

I know this is a quick post, but I at least wanted to share some pictures of my experiences today and yesterday!

My last day at church in Accra, Ghana Africa!

Lynley handed out pearl necklaces to all of the relief society ladies! They loved them!

This is me and Evangellica. She was baptized yesterday and this is her baptism dress. So Cute! :)

These are the Elders in Accra, Ghana. Elder Lindsay who is from Orem, Utah and Elder Mlilo, I believe from Nigeria.

Yes I realize I look like a dork with my shirt tucked in. I will make sure I make mental notes next time haha.

"I need me a strong black african man.." Everytime we get in a taxi this song comes on! We laugh every time! I don't need one because I have my own white strong man! :)

This is Laurance. He is 19 and wanting to go to law school. We encouraged him to go on a mission first! :)

The Teshie Orphanage

Blowing up punch balls.

They had a blast with them!

This is me and Nadie. So dang fun and cute!

Playing with the Parachute.

They loved to be under the parachute. They thought it was the coolest thing. Thanks for letting me borrow it mom lol.

A ball accidently hit a light and broke glass all over the ground. This is their brooms. They make them from sticks or bamboo leaves.

This is me and Annita.

This is me and Felix. He was very outgoing, had lots of energy, and fun to play with. I love it when they smile! :)

They made balloon people out of these balloon things I brought haha.

This is me and Blessing. The most beautiful one year old I have ever seen! My heart melted instantly for her! I wish I could bring her home!

Oh my goodness she is too dang Cute!!

Don't worry, after the picture I took the balloon away so she wouldn't choke.

Mindy made a bunch of folder games and was showing the older girls how to use them so they could teach the younger kids.

This is Grace and I. Such a sweet girl!

Janessa and Nadie. I think this picture is funny.

Group Picture!

We went to Paloma Hotel for dinner and had pizza. Hilary, me, Lacey, and Heather... Hanging out all with our braided hair :)

A Ghanaian Dish... Tasted like Playdoe. I about threw up a little!

Hilary, Me, and Lacey

We Love Ghana, Africa!

Saturday July 30th, 2011

We started Saturday morning off with a wonderful breakfast at Frankies. Best breakfast I have had in a month!

Ashlee, Hilary, and I at the Palm Beach Hotel

A wonderful clean pool to swim at! We had a great time!

A view from where we layed out in the sun... very much needed!

I had to have my diet coke! Totally made my day!

Ashlee and I laying out in the sun.

Hilary and I shared a Pasta bowl that night for dinner at the Paloma Hotel.

These past couple of days have been very interesting, but I have loved it!
Thursday was our last day at Gray Memorial School and playing with the kids. We had a field day for a couple of hours, and the kids had a blast. There were about 300-400 students that we played games with. We did three legged races, jump rope, balloon toss, ultimate frisbee, parachute, and of course their favorite Football (which is actually Soccer in the U.S.).
My station was the parachute and beach ball. The parachute lasted for about 45 minutes and then the kids just wanted to play with the beach balls. It's interesting to see that a simple beach ball could entertain them for hours! I had about 5 beach balls and within seconds of blowing them up, they were all gone out in the field being kicked around and thrown up in the air! It was fun to see how much fun they could have with a simple beach ball!
After playing at Gray Memorial School, we went back to our hostel and finally had some free time to relax. It felt wonderful! lol We made some glitter toe girl talk time! haha

Today we woke up early and got ready to head over to the Ga tribe! This is a school for both boys and girls. We had already taught the girls about anemia, and today we went back to teach our AIDS program. Our first group we taught was a men's group who were not very well educated. They are at this school to learn how to fix phones and computers so they can learn new skills to get a job.

One of our AIDS lessons is on women and how women have rights and she be respected. Janessa and Brayden in our group teach this lesson and asked the mens group this question, "Would you respect my opinion or Brayden's opinion more if we both had an opinion on something. Be honest, we want to know what you guys think."
One guy stood up plainly and clearly said, "I would respect his opinion more because he is a man!"
It kind of shocked us all! It's so hard to hear a man say it the way he said it... to not respect women or their opinions because they are women not men!

After teaching the men's group, we walked over to the women's group. They were so excited to see us! We finished our AIDS program and research with them. I also handed the last of my flower hair clips. I thought it would be fun to give to them because they were going to school to learn how to do hair. They went nuts over them! I love the girl's comments today and I loved how they listened and seemed so eager to learn what we had to say.

HIV/AIDS is scary scary virus! And I think it is so important that each man, women, boy, and girl know what it is, how the virus works, what it does to your immune system, how it can affect your family, how you can get it, and most importantly how you can protect yourself from the virus! AIDS is a slow and aweful virus that will ruin the rest of your life, and possibly generations after you! If at all we could teach these men and women how to protect themselves, and how to educate their friends and family about the disease, I would be happy to know they can save their own life and generations to come after them! I feel like I know the disease HIV/AIDS inside and out! Ask me any question! haha

After teaching all day with the Ga tribe, we came back home and had us some great dinner that I thought I might vomit back up. My body is really starting to have a rough time with all the carbohydrates we eat. I thought I would lose 10 pounds on this trip, but I'm pretty sure I have gained 10 pounds because our diet is so unhealthy... fries, rice, noodles, chicken, fries, rice, bread, fries, rice, bread, boiled egg, fries, rice, bread! Bahahahaha! I cannot wait to eat a spinach salad! In fact, today we also had class and we talked about patterns that affect child and maternal mortality rates. We talked about how it's important to make sure you eat breakfast and eat all day. The worst diet you can have is skip breakfast, don't eat all day, and then eat a big meal for dinner. When Lynley said this we all kind of laughed and Lacey said, "Um.. Sounds like our diet here in Africa!" It was hilarious! Here we are all health majors and we have the worst diet in a third world country! Love it!

These past couple of days I have watched the environment I am in, the people I'm with, and the people around me. I have realized a lot about myself! Everyone is different and everyone has their own problems! Gifty may have struggles with making enough food to help feed her family, Ezekial may be struggling to support his family giving them food, clean water, and shelter. Everyone has their own problems.
Tonight I talked with one of girls in my group here. I'm not much of a talker but more of a listener. She talked for probably about an hour to me about her life and some struggles and frustrating things she was facing with. Before she told me all this, I knew who she was and what some of her frustrations or struggles were, but I never fully understood her or why she did some of things she did or said until I fully completely listened to her and understood her situation tonight! Even though I had the worst headache and felt like I wanted to throw up, I learned a lot from this girl in my group tonight!
It's so important that we don't judge people by how they look, or what they do. Until you are in their shoes and fully understand their situation, no one can judge or tell that person what to do! I feel like it is so important to love and support friends and family with the decisions they make! They know what's for themselves in their given situation and you just have to love them and give them the support they need to get through those struggles or frustrating moments they are going through!

After class yesterday, Lynley smiled and gave us some advice. She said, "I am so thankful you are here! You all have really done amazing things here and you all are amazing! The people here in Africa have a very low opportunity of getting an education and moving out of poverty. Most of the kids here have no chance. You are here from school. You are getting an education and have so many opportunities opened to you. Take them all! Nothing is impossible! I believe if you put your mind to something, you can do anything! You can achieve anything! Keep going and take all the opportunites you can get, and achieve whatever you put your mind too!"
I felt like this was a booster talk... straight to me! I have grown a love for Lynley! She is an amazing women! It is going to be hard to go back to school in the fall and be one of her students, and see her as a professor. I see her as a great friend! She always asks how we are feeling and wants to know details if we are sick... which mean we need to tell her if we have diarreah. Needless to say, Lynley and our group have grown close and have a special bond I guess you could say lol. After dinner tonight, I walked up to our room and Lynley was doing some of the girl's make up in our group. I feel like we are all family here and I love it!
One last thing I wanted to share. Lynley gave us a quote that she used all the time to get her through graduate school. It says:
"You are the only person who can change the life you have created!"

I love this quote! Being here in Ghana, I have learned so much about myself and how lucky and blessed I am in my life! I am the one who has created the life I have and I am the only one who can change my life If I choose too. I love my life and the way I have created it! I don't regret anything and I am grateful for the good and rough times I have and am going through! They only give me new experience and make me stronger! I know what I want out of life and I will achieve what I put my mind too! The only person that makes this possbile for me to get through this crazy, but wonderful life is my Heavely Father and my savior Jesus Christ!

Thursday July 28, 2011