Giving by doing – Gabriella goes to Ghana

(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 really well! Even though it’s not so soundproof and I hear the children all the time. But I have never had difficulties falling asleep when there are sounds around me. My room is right next to one of the children’s bedrooms.

Today we plan to go down to the beach here in Senya, with all the children. It will be fun! I really miss Helping Hand and the children over there. I can’t stop thinking about them. So I have a hard time letting the children at Mums care into my heart (I feel awful about that). I haven’t been able to socialize as much as I wanted with the children since I mourn about leaving Helping Hand.

Hygiene at this place hasn’t been good and if I compare with my previous homes here, the hygiene is not so good. This has resulted in that many of the children have scabies. That’s the rashes I talked about in a post here some days ago.

Today I bought a big bag of water bags for my last week here. A boy from the orphanage named Emanuell came with me and helped me. He is 13 years old. He carried the bag with water home, on his head! Like it was nothing. He didn’t even hold it up with his hands. It’s so fascinating! I asked him a thousand times if it went well and he just looked at me smiled and said “yes”. It was really nice of him to help me with that since those bags are really heavy.

It’s great that there are two rooms for the volunteers here. Then you don’t have to live many people in a small area. I sleep in one of the rooms while Anna and Madeleine share the other room. There is a door between the rooms that we always have open. So we are never alone. I’m really not a person who likes to be alone, it’s really not my thing. I miss Niclas more and more, I long to come home and just hug my family! In the beginning I was meant to live all three weeks at Helping hand (with no electricity and no running water). I have tried to live without running water but during my stay here in Ghana I have always had electricity, except for a few days when the electricity disappeared. I don’t think I could live without electricity it’s a convenience that I don’t want to be without. Without the electricity I had not been able to charge my camera and take all these lovely photographs of the children. I have charged my camera several times already. I’m not so fond of the toilet and the shower here (I think I’ve been spoiled with nice showers at my previous host families). It’s quite interesting because if someone would introduce me to this shower in Sweden, I had refused to step into it. But here in Ghana, it’s just part of life. And I’m so happy to be able to take a shower (bucket bath) every day here. My skin would not be so happy if I couldn’t do that.

There is a lot more mosquitoes here, than it was at the other places I’ve been to here in Ghana. I can probably expect more mosquito bites now. Anna and Madeleine are two really nice girls! I really like them and I’m enjoying working with them. We never went to the beach since Anna became sick. She had 39 degree fever. It was a bit sad. I hope she gets better soon and that it isn’t anything more than fever. Agnes gave us really good lunch today. Some sort of plantain pancakes and also watermelon. Good!

I have many thoughts on what happens when I get home again. Am I going to feel changed? Am I going to freeze a lot? Am I going to feel strange that I have changed when everything at home is as usual? Will I act differently? Am I going to appreciate everything I have more? For how long will I do that? How is it going to feel when I get back to school? Am I going to appreciate the food at school now that I’ve seen what the children eat here? Will I always remember the children and wonder how their lives turned out? Am I going to change my ways and act differently now when I have such a clear perspective on life? I have an incredible amount of thoughts in my head around that, right now. It feels so unreal to think that I am home, in my own room, with my things, my cat and all the luxurious things that we don’t appreciate enough, about one week. There are two completely different worlds, different realities, completely opposite to each other, but in the same world. I feel fortunate of all the things and my family that I have at home. Feelings and thoughts are really up and down all the time here.

We had good dinner tonight and I ate two portions! Agnes was really happy about that! I think I’m a person who prefers to eat together with friends, at least some company. So that was really nice. Agnes is a woman who works here. She is petite but pretty tough and strong. I have a feeling that she’s had a hard life. She jokes a lot with us and the children while she has manners on them. When I live here she is my host mother. I like her a lot.

Since Anna didn’t feel good today we haven’t been doing so much. I’ve been resting a lot and read a little bit in my book. My mark from the tuberculosis vaccination hasn’t looked so good for a few days, but it hasn’t been any danger. I’ve got a lot of small wounds from my band-aid and those have been more difficult to handle than the big one. Tonight when I changed my band-aid (I change every morning and evening), I was cleaning it and it started to bleed. I hope it looks better tomorrow.

Tonight my mother called me and it was so nice to hear her voice again! I really miss her. I talked a bit with Niclas too and it was so nice. I had forgotten what his laugh sounded like so it felt really great to hear it. We decided that they should call me on Tuesday again. Now I’ll say goodnight to all of my thoughts, read my book for a while and then sleep for the night. I really like my mosquito net here, it feels like sleeping in a cosy little hut.

(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.)

This morning I said goodbye to Louise, Elin and Pontus since they are travelling back to Sweden tonight. It felt both good and sad. Today I had planned to hang out with Anna and Madeleine, in the city of Accra. But I didn’t do that because then I couldn’t move out to the new children’s home until tomorrow. Seth, Tina and a man who works at a volunteer company in Germany named Martin was going to Swedru to be at a funeral. After the funeral they would go to Senya Beraku to pick up two of the volunteers there that also was going to travel back to Sweden tonight. So Seth thought I might as well come along to the funeral. I thought it was a great idea since it really would be an experience to see what a Ghanaian funeral is like. So I decided to go with them!

Martin borrowed Ghanaian clothing (from Seth) to wear and it was appreciated by the locals. A funeral here is really quite different from those we have in Sweden. Here they celebrate the dead person, while we mourn in Sweden. It was a lot of people there, probably around 200 people or something like that. They played music and sang when we arrived and it felt overwhelming! (I felt happiness inside of me). Then there were some people who made speeches and it was very intense voice with a microphone and speakers. The funeral kept house in some form of big local and outside there was a lot of tents in red and black colors. There were a lot of people both inside the local and in the tents. They raised money and of course I gave some. They sang and danced all the time (I can’t describe the feeling I had, it was so amazing!). I and Seth walked inside to see what was going on, all the people where looking at me and I danced a bit. The dead man was lying in the front of the local but I didn’t see him. I think that my unconscious told me not to look. When we came out again Seth asked me “Did you see the dead man?” I said “No” and then Seth sounded really surprised “You didn’t see the dead man?!!”. After that they carried away the coffin and the family walked away along with it, this was the only time I saw someone cry. All people disappeared when the coffin was carried away.

We sat in the car and went off to the reception that kept house in a beautiful garden. We ate some food there and talked for a while. Here in Ghana a funeral lasts for several days so I was just having a small part of it all. It was really interesting and amazing.

After that we went out to Senya which is very close to the sea. We arrived at Mums Care Children’s Home, and everything felt good. We’ve had 40 degrees today which is crazy! Madeleine and Anna were not home when I arrived and it felt a bit lonely without Swedish company. The orphanage is quite different from Helping Hand. There are about as many children here but they are much more irritating against each other. They tease and fight with each other and the two women who works here seem not to care. I tried to make the children stop the fighting but they didn’t listen to me. They fight pretty hard too, and sometimes with sharp objects, which feels a bit dangerous. It doesn’t feel so good that the children are violent against each other. I really don’t like that.

One of the children looks like he has Down’s syndrome. One of his eyes doesn’t work properly and he drools a lot. He looks really special. I feel sorry for him but at the same time I am happy because it doesn’t feel like he is set out in any way. He is one of them all and they don’t bully him because he is different. The orphans here have some kind of spots on the skin, like a rash or something. I really wonder what it is… It seems to be itchy.

I will be staying at the orphanage this last week. We have electricity here but no running water. The toilet is the same as it was at my host families, but this is not able to flush since there isn’t any running water in the house. You have to add water yourself all the time. My host mother this last week is Agnes (which is one of the women that works here). I have a small bed and my mosquito net is for a large bed but it was really great for this one to. I have a feeling that this last week will be more intense.

The evening was not so fun since I had a bad headache. I felt alone and I missed my lovely host family. I couldn’t eat so much for dinner because of my headache. Anna and Madeleine came home really late. They had a hard time finding a trotro home. So it took a lot more time than they thought.

(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 really, really bad! This is the first time in this host family that I’ve slept bad. I’ve had stomach cramps all night and been to the bathroom several times. So I didn’t sleep so much. Today we had plans to visit Kokrobite beach and I was really looking forward to that! We was suppose to meet Pontus at around eight or half nine at the trotro station. But since this was the last time we were meeting our host family we wanted to take pictures with them first and also have time to say goodbye to them. Our host family took extremely long time to make themselves pretty for the pictures. So we had to wait for a long time. After taking pictures with them we gave them all a lot of hugs goodbye. I felt sad that it was the last time I saw them for this time.

Me, Louise and Elin came to the trotro station about quarter to nine so Pontus had been waiting for us for nearly an hour! Poor him! His host family had been giving him a gift. It was a shirt (African style) and today he worn it. He looked handsome in it! The funny thing was that he was about to buy such a shirt when we were in Cape Coast. It was fortunate that he didn’t do it because he got one as a gift now.

We took a trotro to Accra and then we changed to a taxi that took us to Kokrobite. Despite the notorious risk of theft in Kokrobite, I brought my camera. I really wanted to have pictures from the beach. Everything went just fine and the camera is still with me. I went swimming in the ocean which I haven’t done for a long time. I’ve never been bathing in the Atlantic ocean before so this was my first time and it was just so wonderful! Kokrobite looks like a paradise.  The ocean and the palm trees are so beautiful and the water temperature is just perfect.

Elin and Louise wanted to look at the things on the small market here in Kokrobite beach and Elin didn’t bring her money with her so I thought that they would be back soon. I agreed to watch their things on the beach while they were gone. I was so wrong. They were gone for over an hour and I was stuck on the beach in the hot sun with all the things. This resulted in that I burned myself totally in the spots I missed with the sun lotion. I even got burnt on spots that I had my sun lotion on (SPF 50). I burnt my back, arms and my feet. Not so nice to get sun burnt. Now I have learned not to agree to look after other people’s stuff on the beach.

When I and Pontus where watching the other girls things on the beach this old lady came to us and started talking. She was originally from California but has been living in Ghana for ten years now. She was really nice and she wanted to sell earrings, bracelets and so on, to us. I actually bought a couple of earrings with shells on and also an ankle strap with Ghana’s colors.

When they came back they had already bought the things they wanted so they didn’t want to go on the market one more time with me. So I had to go by myself. We decided to eat at Big Millys since we had heard from other volunteers that it would be tasteful and good food there. Monika (a Norwegian super nice volunteer) had tipped me on a plate with yogurt and a lot of fresh fruit, which would be good. I thought it sounded really good so I ordered it but it was a big disappointment! It didn’t taste good at all and the yogurt looked old. Luckily the freshly squeezed orange juice that I ordered was really good and I felt like I was in heaven (been longing for orange juice for a long time). Since the yoghurt didn’t taste good I ordered new food. Actually I ordered “Swedish meatballs” haha. It tasted good but was a bit spicy!

After the lunch I went shopping at the small market. I bought two lovely bowls, one for my mother and one for my father. I bought two nice things with pearls that are supposed to be around the hips but I plan to wear it as bracelets. The girl that was selling them also gave me one for free, so cute of her! I bought a couple of really nice pants and two floral dresses for myself. In a small shop I also bought three small key rings with elephants in made in wood that I plan to give to my friends. I really bought a lot today but it was nice things and it’s nice to have gifts for my family and friends when I’m back at home.

After the visit at Kokrobite we visited an internet café because Pontus, Elin and Louise wanted to check in since they are flying home tomorrow. So I took the opportunity and baught half an hour internet time and checked my mail and I also updated on my facebook. Then it became dark and we walked home to the hostel. I took a shower to get rid of all the sand that was stuck on my body and it was great. Dinner was good but I didn’t feel social. The other volunteers were going out to take a drink or to drink some beer but I decided to stay home alone in the room. I didn’t feel to go out (not really my thing) and I was so thankful for that later since it started to pour down a lot of rain and it was a lot of thunder! I have never in my life heard such a thunder before. It was the most powerful sound I’ve ever experienced in my life!

It feels booth sad and nice in some strange way that Pontus, Elin and Louise is going home tomorrow. Now a new chapter of this journey starts and I think it will make me even stronger! When the other volunteers came home around eleven at night it was still raining a lot and I had fallen asleep and been sleeping for a while. They were screaming and laughing really loudly when they came home. It was not so polite. I think you can show a little more consideration when sharing room with someone else that sleeps. It made me a little annoyed.

(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.)

I slept really well tonight but when I woke up I felt like I needed to sleep for a few days. Today me and my boyfriend have a celebration so I really miss him a lot. I feel that the missing part isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I thought it would feel a lot worse than it does. But I think it’s because we talk on the phone pretty often.

Today is the last day at the orphanage Helping Hand. It feels a bit strange to leave the children now that is has become my daily life. Even though it’s hard sometimes I think I really have adjusted quickly. I heard that there are around minus 25 centigrades at home today, and now I really don’t long for my home haha. I like the heat here in Ghana so I’m glad I’ll stay here for another week, hope it gets a little warmer in Sweden until I go home.

The time at the orphanage has gone quickly today and it feels unreal that I’ve been here for two weeks soon. It’s so hard to leave Mercy with all the children here when I know that there are no new volunteers for another two weeks. So she’s all alone with all the children for two weeks. It hurts inside of me to know. It is fortunate that some of the big kids help with the small children sometimes.

This morning we finished the painting of the wall.  It was great! Now we have all the children’s hand prints (besides the older children who was in school) and even our own, and Mercys on the wall! Even Staffans tiny handprint decorates the wall! The result is just fantastic! Otherwise the day was as usual with all procedures. After “resting time” I gave the children a PimPim box and a MAX balloon. They were really happy!

Today when we were leaving the orphanage the children said, as usual “See you tomorrow!”. It really broke my heart to know that I couldn’t answer yes to that. I couldn’t say goodbye to them since I didn’t want to leave sad children with Mercy. I have been hugging them a lot today! I never know if I will ever meet these children again, and I do not know how their lives will be. All I know is that they left a big imprint in my heart <3

After the orphanage today I and Louise went to the internet café. Elin wanted to go home to put some skin cream on since she got sun burnt today. I bought half an hour internet time and I managed to chat a bit with Niclas and some friends. It was very nice. Then we walked home, left our big bags and met Elin. After that we took the taxi to the market. On Mondays and Thursdays it’s apparently larger markets here in Swedru.

Today I bought some things! I bought two bracelets for my sister and two for myself, or maybe I’ll give one to my best friend if I don’t find something better for her. I also bought a thing with pearls on that all women (and some girls) here have around their hips. If I understood it right they give it to girls when they are small and it’s some kind of blessing so she will get good hips when she grows. Women with big hips are able to give birth to more children (so it’s said). I think the pearls around the hips are really pretty! Unfortunately I have not found any postcards so I probably will not be able to send some home to Sweden at all.

I actually think I got some color now! But if I compare to everyone else, I’m still really white. But if I think of it the other volunteers have been burned by the sun so they are mostly red and not brown. After we had been on the market, we went home to our family and there we tried to carry things on our heads. It was not easy! Today we also discovered how intimate some can be in this country. People grab your arm and say ”obroni” come and buy my stuff. Some man tried to flirt with me today, so I had to leave the store since I felt really uncomfortable. Some other guy touched Louises thigh today. Not so nice.

Tonight I packed all of my things into my bags since we are going to Kokrobite tomorrow. We are sleeping at the hostel (that we slept on the first night here in Ghana) tomorrow. Seth will come by and pick up our bags and drive them to the hostel. I’m really looking forward going to the new orphanage on Saturday.

(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.)

Tonight there was a thunderstorm! I woke up several times because of it. Besides that I had a good night’s sleep. I was so tired this morning, felt that I really just wanted continue sleeping. This morning when we woke up there was no electricity, probably because of the thunder. I hope it will come back during the day. My stomach is still not good, but it’s manageable during the day as long as I take medicine. This morning when I was going to the bathroom, I encountered a cockroach! It was not small, I can promise! I did not know what else to do so I just stood there and stared at it with my headlamp haha

We took a taxi to the trotro station as usual this morning. It was an angry man in a taxi next to ours that was hitting on our taxi.  After that we took a trotro to the orphanage, as usual, and even there it was someone who seemed angry. I don’t know why.  Today was the first time I was there when the children brushed their teeth. Most of them ate the toothpaste but some of them actually brushed very well.

Today when we were supposed to have lessons with the older children we got a sudden visit. It was Seth, Tina, and also Stefan from Volontärresor in Sweden. It was really fun and the children appreciated the visit very much. Stefan had brought a large SLR and took a few pictures. When they were visiting, we took up my soccer sweaters from Vaksala SK that I had with me and gave to the children. Then we took lots of nice photos of the lovely children! They were so proud of their new sweaters. The hard part was that the sweaters were not enough for all the children. Which made some of the children without and they were so sad  Some children were so small that they almost drowned in the sweaters haha ​​but it looked so incredibly cute! The pictures were gorgeous! Vaksala SK will be so happy when they get the pictures of the children with the sweaters on! Before Stefan left us he gave us a small bag of “got och blandat” to share. It tasted so good! I really miss Swedish candy.

I also took out one of the globes that Roliga Prylar donated to the orphanage. We could finally show the children the world and also show them where Sweden is. Some of the older children already knew where Ghana was located and it really impressed me! When we were finished looking at the globe we started to play ball with it. I took a lot of pictures today and I also made some videos.

Today was the first time I saw the children get something else than porridge for lunch. They got beans, some powder and oil with something red in it. It looked at least tastier than the porridge they always get. Today at the orphanage, we continued to paint the wall and tomorrow we will fix all the children’s handprints on it. It will probably be both beautiful and fun!

When I’m here I really miss my life in Sweden sometimes, but I think I will miss this life a lot once I’m home again. I’m really going to miss the children. I have such an incredible desire to adopt some of the children. It is my, Elin, Louise and Pontus last day here tomorrow. We have decided to spend Friday at Kokrobite as Louise, Elin and Pontus travels back to Sweden on Saturday.

I’m going to a new orphanage on Saturday where I will spend my last week. It’s the solution me and Seth came up to since I don’t know if I can manage to stay by myself and be the only volunteer here at Helping Hand.  So I’m going to an orphanage located in a village called Senya Beraku. I think the orphanage named Mum’s Care and there are two other Swedish volunteers there named Madeleine and Anna. I think it is Madeleine who I chatted with on facebook before I left. I hope it is. If I understand correctly I will live with them and we will stay at the orphanage. I’ve heard that they have electricity there.

Today after the orphanage we went to Swedru to go on the market. We also went to the obronimeeting. It was nice! I bought three pairs of earrings for myself and a simple bag. In Kokrobite I’m going to try to find some clothes for myself, bracelets and also something for my family and friends. It’s really difficult to find something to give me family and friends.

We have heard that it’s a large market day here in Swedru tomorrow. So we have plans to visit it. I hope I can find something nice to buy there, maybe some fabric. All young children (even older children and adults sometimes) always shouts “obroni, how are you?” as soon as they see me. It is as if it were some kind of reflex they have, to say the words as soon as they see a white person. But I really don’t mind. I think it’s nice that everyone says hello and talks to me

(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.)

I slept really bad last night because of my stomach pain. My stomach was as bad as these past days even this morning. I felt so sad this morning because it was so sad to miss the orphanage yesterday. So I took some medication for my stomach and decided to go to the orphanage. Really didn’t want miss one more day with the children! Oh, it was so nice to see the children again! They had missed me and they showed me that very clearly

I was told by My that my former host family had a conversation with My and Johanna, when I moved. Mummy and daddy had apparently not been happy and everything was my fault (according to My). The family had taken everything personally and it had damaged their reputation. I chose not to listen to that because when I talked to mummy and daddy and told them everything I was really careful to tell them that I had no problems with the family. I told them that I felt like an outsider and that it didn’t work together with My. They told me that they understood and they even gave me own examples. So I don’t care what My said to me today. I think she just wants me to feel guilt.

Today we took a group picture with all the children (except those who are in school). It will be nice to have later when I am back in Sweden again. I’m starting to really fall for some children and it will seem tough to leave them. I will miss them so much! A favorite of mine calls me Amella, it’s so sweet!

I think it works well with most things here at the orphanage, but something that really does not work is “resting time”. I think it is just awful to be honest. All the small children are forced into their rooms (the girls share one room and the boys share another room) then the door will be closed. All the children are crying and there’s no one that is resting. Sometimes it can even be a fight in one of the rooms. The meaning ‘resting time’ does not exist because no one rests, and everyone is sad and upset. I also feel that some of the children are too big to rest and I don’t feel good locking the children inside their rooms. Their rooms are very messy and do not create a calm atmosphere. I wish I had the time to buy wardrobes or shelves for the children where they can store their clothes. It would make their rooms less messy. Since all their clothes is stored in bags or lying on their beds now. It would be so good for the children if we could find another way to perform the “resting time”. Because this doesn’t work and some of them really needs to rest. I feel that I’m at the orphanage for too short of time to do something about this. I can’t think of a new solution and have the time to get it to work, I wish I had more time

Another problem we have here is that some of the children do not eat their food and prefer to share it out to their friends. It’s not good since they really need the small amount of nourishment there is in the food that they receive. They only eat various forms of porridge here (for breakfast and lunch, I haven’t stayed at the orphanage for dinner so I don’t know what they eat then). Sometimes they get rice, but very rarely. The porridge really doesn’t look tasty. Today for lunch they got some kind of powder with water. What kind of food is that? What is the nutrition in it? Do they ever feel full? It makes me so sad to know that some live like this. It’s so unfair. I feel powerless. The quote “think of the children in Africa” has taken on a new meaning for me after these experiences.

Todays lunch...

Today I had an English lesson with the older children. The children are really good but I feel that they should practice more on the alphabet before they learn how to spell different words. Some of them can’t discern the different letters and then it’s not so easy for them to put together a word out of the letters. It was very interesting to be a part of this lesson. Today I was told that Isaac (one of our oldest children) is too stupid to start school. Who says a thing like that? I thought that we had schools to learn things? This really made me feel angry and sad. He is a very intelligent young boy! It’s a different world here.

I, Louise and Elin had plans to go on the market today but when we sat in the trotro on the way home from the orphanage the sky was very dark. It was heavy rain clouds! Elin and Louise bought ice cream and a pie and then we took a taxi home. The taxi from the trotro station in Agona Swedru back to the house we live in costs 40 pasewas per person, which is about 2 Swedish kronor. When we got out of the taxi the pouring rain started! We ran about 20 meters from the taxi to our doorstep and all three of us were dripping wet. We felt that this day wasn’t the day to spend on the market.

Yesterday when I was home Pontus, My and Johanna started to paint an exterior wall of Mercy’s small house. It has been unpainted for several weeks. They intend to paint flowers on the wall and also put all the children’s hand prints on it. So today they began to paint one of the flowers. It’s going to be interesting to see the result when it’s finished.

On an orphanage in Ghana there’s a lot of laundry to make. Helping Hand children’s home doesn’t have any electricity and no running water, which means that there is no washing machine. (I’ve only seen one washing machine here and it was with my first host family, it was new and they had not even begun to use it). All of the clothes and sheets have to be washed by hand in the rain water that they collect. My, Elin and Louise began to wash half of the children’s clothing today. Then I, Pontus and Johanna continued with the rest of it. They had left all denim clothes for us and it is probably the material that is the hardest to wash by hand when it is stiff and gets very heavy when it’s wet. When washing by hand you use three bowls of water. In two of them we have detergent and we are also using ordinary soap. The third bowl is for rinsing and there we only have fresh water. The water in all three bowls is not that clean after a while. It’s very tiring to wash by hand and it takes time (at least when you’re not used to do it). You have to scrub some clothes very hard for it to be clean.

My stomach has been kind today and I hope it remains that way. I guess I’ll know tonight after visiting the bathroom. Today when it rained I felt cold and it was a really strange feeling here. I’ve been freezing before here in Ghana but it’s been because of a fan or AC. Now it was really cold outside. The air felt so fresh to breathe after the rain. It was really nice. It is always very humid here. I miss the fresh air in Sweden sometimes.

(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 great. I slept without a mosquito net last night because we have not had time to fix a large mosquito net to the other bed. I don’t see so many mosquitos here, I see a lot more in Sweden during the summer there! (Luckily we don’t have malaria mosquitoes in Sweden!). I have only seen four mosquitoes so far on my journey. Since I slept without a mosquito net I lubricated myself with insect repellent (MyggA). When I woke up this morning I had the same stomach pains as yesterday so I had to run to the toilet but it was busy! Panic, I had to wait. I thought that my stomach was fine now, but I was obviously completely wrong. I decided to stay home today, it feels a little boring but I can’t be at the orphanage with this bad stomach.

Since I decided to stay home today I went back to bed after the breakfast. I woke up a bit later when my father called me from Sweden! We talked for a while and it was really nice. After some resting and some medication for the stomach I felt much better. I took a shower (bucket bath) and sat outside in the sun for a little while. Out here I have talked a lot with my host sister Claudia. I showed her pictures of my family and we talked about her family as well. She had an older sibling before which apparently died when it was 9 years old. Here in the house, I have three host sisters named Peggy, Bridget and Claudia. Peggy is younger than Claudia and Bridget is a sister from church who lives with them. Apparently Claudia and Peggy also have one more sister and a brother. But they do not live here. The other sister lives in London with her husband and she is also the mother of the two children living in this house. She is going to try to get her children to London some day, but you never know when. My host mothers name is Margaret (Peggy and Claudia’s mother) and she is a wonderful woman!

After that I went back to bed and slept for several hours. It felt great to sleep, I think my body needed it. I spent some time outdoors in the afternoon. All of a sudden I got five mosquito bites! I didn’t see a single mosquito! Now I am worried about malaria, I hope that my preemptive medication works. The funny thing is that I talked about mosquitoes with Claudia today and I said that they have so few mosquitoes here. I think I have done well since I’ve been here for 9 days now and I got my first mosquito bite today.

I was longing for Elin and Louise to come home, since I started to feel alone. My stomach has been nice all day but now in the afternoon it has begun to hurt again and I have been rushing to the toilet. Not fun. We had plans to go to the church today together with Bridget but since my stomach wasn’t feeling good I couldn’t come along. Apparently I didn’t miss anything fun. According to Louise and Elin it was horrible. It was someone who spoke into a microphone and the speakers were probably broken. The sound was extremely loud which made everything sound really bad. While they were at church I went to bed and read my book for a while. But I fell asleep. I woke up when they came home about half past nine. We got the second big mosquito net today but putting it up wasn’t as easy as it was with the first one. There were no nails to put it up on and we didn’t have any rope either.

Today I have had a lot of time to think and I have been thinking of the sounds here in Ghana. I have realized that there are a lot of different sounds here compared to Sweden. When it gets dark the crickets begin to play. Then there are always lots of other animal sounds. Tropical sounds, and I like it. Good night.

Bridget and Peggy making dinner

(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.)

I slept great here at the hotel last night. Unfortunately it was not as great when I woke up. I had to run to the toilet and my stomach was not feeling good. I had to run to the toilet about ten times this morning. I was longing to our home in Swedru but wasn’t so happy about the trotro ride back to Swedru that takes about two hours that I had ahead of me.

When we finally were on our way back home to Swedru it turned out that we had to take a trotro to Accra and then change there to a new one that would take us to Swedru. It felt like a big detour and it really didn’t feel so fun with a stomach that cramps and having to run to the toilet all the time. But we had no choice so we jumped in anyway and on the way they told us to jump off and switch trotro so the trip wasn’t so long anyway. Luckily! My stomach was thankfully nice on the trip and it seemed to feel better when we got home. I took some medication for the stomach that I had brought with me so it probably helped!

When we were back in Swedru again the sun was shining, it was very strong today! We rested for a while inside our room, and we listened to Astrid Lindgren reading The Brothers Lionheart haha! It was actually very nice! I think everyone fell asleep a little while and we woke up to a knock on the door. It was Seth who came to visit us! He wanted to ask Elin and Louise if they would buy food for the orphanage tomorrow. They received a contribution of 2 000 SEK from the Alliance Church in Bottnaryd. They decided that he would pick them up at the orphanage tomorrow about one o’clock.

After that we decided to go to the internet café (it’s really close to where we live). I had plans to post some pictures in the blog and on facebook. But the computer was not cooperating, unfortunately. When I finally managed to get up one of the pictures on the blog I discovered that George didn’t have any pants on that picture. I didn’t want to put that picture on the internet. I’ll try again another day, but then I will probably decide which pictures I want to post before and even buy some more time on the internet. I managed to chat a lot with my best friend Melli which made me realize how much I want to tell my friends and family when I am home again. I miss her a lot and did not have time to say goodbye to her since my time on the computer took a sudden end. I’m happy that we have an internet cafe close to where we live so we don’t have to walk into town.

After our visit at the internet café we walked down to town and we had planned to go to the market today. We discovered pretty quickly that there was much that was closed. It was probably because it’s Sunday and a lot of people go to church. So we went home again.

Now in the evening I and Elin sat outside the house and wrote in our diaries, suddenly Bridget (our host sister) began to dance and sing and it was so wonderful! I really enjoyed her singing After that she wanted to try my sunglasses and wished me to take pictures of her with them on. So I did. She is a wonderful person!

In the evening I started to feel strange in my body again. I was freezing so I checked my temperature, it turned out that I had some fever. I’m going to sleep in my own bed tonight because I didn’t feel so good. (We take turns on sleeping on our own since we are three persons and we only have two double beds). I had no problems with my stomach this evening and I ate well. I talked on the phone with Niclas tonight and I really could hear just how much he misses me, he felt very low. He said it’s getting hard now. It was really hard for me to hear. Now I miss him even more, and longs to embrace him. Goodnight.

(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.)

We had plans to visit the Cape Coast Castle so I had to borrow money from Elin to be able to do that. Really nice of her! It cost just 5 cedi so it was not that bad. The tour guide was interesting but the guide spoke unfortunately very low so it was really hard to hear what he said. This was sad because I was really interested in what he was saying. I love the castle, it’s so historically beautiful in some way. The bit of the tour that was most uncomfortable was when we stood in a very small cell in which they suddenly turned out the light in!

Something else that also has been a bit tough today is that many people have been very intrusive. For example outside Cape Coast Castle, it was a lot of guys who were a little too close, they asked if they could have our facebook, phone numbers and such things. They also foisted things on us that they tried to sell us.

After the tour, we talked a little with the guide Victor and he told us about the Swedes’ influence on the castle. It was interesting and it seemed that the Swedes had not done anything bad, which felt good. It was difficult to understand everything he said, so I didn’t understand everything he said to be honest. After that Victor wanted to take pictures with us girls and held his arms around us, which felt a little uncomfortable. I do not like when people are too nosy. Besides that he was a really nice person. Later that day he proposed to Louise.

Today we also went to an internet café and the internet was a bit slow but still, it worked! I bought half an hour in time which costs 50 pasewas (about 2,50 SEK). I spent several minutes trying to understand the keyboard (it was a bit different than the one I am used to) so I had to buy another half an hour. I updated on my blog about how things are going for me on this journey and I also updated on my facebook.

We had plans to eat dinner at the Oasis (the hotel which we didn’t get a place to stay) but we didn’t do that because some of the guys outside Cape Coast Castle that I felt uncomfortable around was going to be there. So we ate as usual on the roof at Sammo guest house. I ate Jollof rice.