(Notice that this blog post is directly from the diary that I wrote in Ghana. All of my feelings and thoughts is how I felt during my journey.)
Last night, I slept my last night in Ghana, Africa. I had some trouble falling asleep but it was not as bad as yesterday. I woke up at two and went to the toilet. Then I fell asleep again until 6 in the morning. I had to rush to the toilet again. Same thing as every morning. I’m starting to get used to this now… I took some medication for my stomach and hoped that it would help.
I have 46 Cedi left so I took some of it to have money in my phone and also to buy something at the airport when I’m waiting for my flight tonight. I gave Anna and Madeleine 10 Cedi each since I don’t see any point in changing it back in Sweden. They could use it better here.
My bags are packed so I don’t need to think about that today. At this time tomorrow I’ll put my feet on Swedish soil again and it feels great. Agnes said to me that Seth would come and pick me up at around twelve, instead of four as we had decided. I don’t know why and this means that I’m going to have a lot of hours at the airport to do nothing. I would rather stay here a bit longer and spend time with the children.
Today is Ghana’s Independence Day and we were going to our children’s school to see the march. But the sad thing is that I think we missed their march! So that was a pity. I thought that they would play music and have some kind of celebration all day but it is just as normal in our village. I was told today about what we saw the other day when I and Anna took a walk in the village together with Ebenezer and Naphtanel. It was a demonstration! Usually the teachers get paid for this day but for some reason they don’t get it this year. So they were protesting about it, with all rights!
I gave some of my clothes to Agnes and Faustina. It felt good to give them something that they liked. Today Anna and Madeleine discussed about rearranging the furniture in the bedrooms here. Right now almost all the children, Agnes and Faustina are sleeping at the same place on mattresses on the floor and about four children are sleeping in the other room where there is a lot of beds. It feels a bit unnecessary. So there will probably be some improvements at the orphanage after I’ve left. Hopefully this will make the children’s rashes better too since they’re not going to sleep so many of them in the same room and in different beds. They don’t have windows that go outside of the house so they can’t really ventilate the room very well.
I took a lovely picture together with Agnes today. She was really funny today! She talked a lot about when I’m arriving in Sweden tomorrow and she imitated that I and my fiancée (here in Ghana, they think that I and Niclas is engaged 
) will kiss and hug when we meet again haha. And then she said that he will lift me up on his back (as they do with their small children here in Ghana) and carry me home from the airport haha. It was really fun!
When I left the orphanage I hugged Agnes a lot of times and said goodbye to the children. I also hugged Anna and Madeleine. Seth took me to the hostel in Accra to get my passport. There a talked a bit with a new volunteer from Norway. We talked about some of my experiences and it was really nice. Then we went to the airport. Tina and Sylvia came with us because they were meeting up two new volunteers. They all gave me a big hug when they left me. They didn’t give me any information about where to go or how something works in this airport. I think they could’ve given me some information since I was there all by myself.
The airport wasn’t really like Arlanda or Schiphol. Even when leaving Ghana I must fill out a paper for the immigration office. I didn’t really understand the paper… When I checked my bags in I had to go to someone who puts some small note on the bag. He checked the bag, opened it, closed it and put on the note. For some reason everyone that works there wanted to look at my passport. After I done that I went to the place where I checked in my bags. I saw the notes they put on the bags that says “AMS” and “ARN”, so they should arrive at the right location.
Four different people wanted to see my passport… It’s very poorly signed here so it’s not so easy to know where to go. There are some people at a table where they check people’s cabin luggage. There is no sign there that says what they do there or anything like that. The lady there told me to sit and wait. They don’t have anything on them that shows that they are working there. It makes me nervous. I was feeling alone and was longing home. I saw an obroni girl and started to talk to her. She was from Holland and she had been to Ghana to attend at her friend’s wedding! A few years ago she studied her with her friend in Kumasi and her friend fell in love with a Ghanaian man. Now two years later they got married. I think it was a wonderful story.
My mother had frightened me a bit that they may not have a security thing at the airport, so I was really thrilled when I saw it! Everything went well and while we waited to board the flight I talked to the girl from Holland and another girl from Germany. Both were really nice and it was so nice to have someone to talk to. The German girl had been in Cape Coast and volunteered at a school there for three weeks.
They had giant “boarding passes” at the airport and it was super important in what order you arrived on the airplane. So the cards had different colors on them. A woman repeated several times through a megaphone which turns (based on the colors on the cards) you could board the aircraft.
On the plane I got a great location! I sat in a row on the edge near the toilet. And with my stomach’s condition it made me feel safe. I sat next to a nice Ghanaian man who lives in Germany. He moved to Germany when he was 13 years old. We talked a lot and he was very funny. He apparently didn’t like Germany and wanted to move back to Ghana.
I slept for a while during the flight to Amsterdam, so the trip went very quickly. During the flight, I had a super nice flight attendant (male). It really showed that he loved his job. Dinner was at midnight. It was not that tasty but I ate some of it anyway. We also got a small breakfast at three in the morning. It was really good. When I got off in Amsterdam, I started to freeze! It was so cold! I also noticed that when I came here everybody seemed to be so fixed up with nice clothes and makeup on. Even though it was really early in the morning. It seemed very funny to me.