Looking Back

Just two days after leaving Accra and I am back in Manchester, ready to start lectures, essays and assessments. Esiama and the kids feel so far away from this life, and it is hard to believe that just last week we were playing and laughing together. I miss them so much, and it’s hard to settle back into daily life here in England as if nothing has changed. Once again, Ghana has opened up my heart to the most amazing kids, full of love and joy and happiness. Their lives aren’t always easy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make the most of absolutely everything, and find the best in any situation. They don’t have money to spend like we do, the kids aren’t spoilt or wrapped up in cotton wool, but the results are beautiful. The children are so caring, helpful and lovely, and in just a few hours of being back in the UK, you notice the difference between our lifestyle and theirs. I think it’s fair to say which I prefer; Ghanaians are such hospitable, friendly, caring and relaxed people, it is impossible not to fall in love with them!

It is the little things that really make you smile; when a child offers to carry your bag, or when a friend brings you a fresh coconut after school to try. Not a day went by when as soon as I arrived at school a child would not run up to me and say ‘Madam, Madam, your bag!’, and at lunch time each child would offer me their bowl of rice before they even thought about starting to eat it themselves. Such little acts of love and friendliness don’t take a lot, but I think in the busy, hectic world of western life we forget how to give, how to share, and how to care for one another. You don’t need to be rich to be generous, and that is something the Ghanaians embrace beautifully. In fact it is those who have the least, the orphans and the refugees, who are most willing to give, when it is evidently clear that they have very little and in comparison we are horribly wealthy.

I had an absolutely brilliant two weeks in Ghana. It was short, and the time absolutely flew by; every day I had to pinch myself to make sure I really was there, and to make the most of every single second I had with the kids. They are such a real joy to be around, and I feel so honoured to be a part of the lives of each and every child I spent time with, especially with the Word Alive Orphanage kids. They each have a special place in my heart, and I can’t help but think about them all the time. Their little (and not so little!) personalities are gorgeous, and I really do hope I’ve been able to show them how much I really do care about them, and that even from across the continents I am always thinking about them and planning my next trip back!

Leaving, second time over.

As I wrote in my first post of this blog, leaving the kids at the Orphanage in the summer was heart breaking, and was the hardest thing I have ever done. All of the children were crying, and begging us to stay and not leave them. We had had the most brilliant day, but at the end they were all tired and emotional, and it really was a struggle to go.

Second time round though, I made all the effort I could to make leaving a much more light-hearted, happy affair, and luckily it worked out well! On our last day in Esiama, we went to school as usual, and spent the morning doing big coloured drawings with our class to stick up on the wall of the classroom, replacing those from my last trip in August. The kids loved their drawings and were so happy to have them up on the walls for everyone to see.

After lunch we headed to the refugee camp for the afternoon, and had a lovely, quiet couple of hours doing painting with the oldest junior high school class, who were impeccably behaved, and created some really lovely work with jewels and glitter glue. We left lot of the resources we had been using (paints, crayons, scissors paper, fabric and so on) with the headmistress of the school, and all the teachers seemed genuinely happy to receive what we could give them. I really hope that the kids will get continue to get to use the resources, and each have to opportunity to express themselves creatively; it is so important for a child’s development, especially in such difficult circumstances. We left our friend who had helped us with the class, with a little bag of arts and crafts things, including a paint set, some colouring pencils and some gorgeous card making paper and flowers, and she was over the moon, and so grateful for the small gift.

After leaving the children and the teachers at the refugee camp, we headed back the Orphanage to spend our last couple of hours with the children there. We gave them some more of the resources we had left, including paints, paper, crayons and beads for the girls, and spent the afternoon playing ball on the grass. The kids were laughing and playing all day, and it was great to see them happy and not down at the fact we were soon to be leaving. We all walked down the long track to the main road together, holding hands and laughing and playing. When we arrived at the road, after lots of cuddles and kisses and photos, we hailed a taxi and waved our goodbyes to the children. It was hard to leave them of course, but it was nothing like as heart wrenching as it had been in the summer. Only Lemur cried, but I quickly wiped his tears away and assured him that we had come back once already so would certainly be back again! I know it was still hard for them, but the light-hearted, fun and games of the day made it a cheerful and happy goodbye, not a departure filled with guilt and loss. The kids waved us off as the taxi pulled away, and I felt as sure as ever that it won’t be long until I am back again in Esiama!

Faith

Faith is paramount in the lives of many of the Ghanaian people and the Ivorian refugees. Christianity plays such an important role in many of their lives, and it is amazing to see how positively it guides them and encourages them in everything they do. The Word Alive Church runs both Livingstone School and the Orphanage, and plays a fundamental role in the management and day to day organisation of both facilities.

Church services are full of dancing, singing and joy, and the testimonies told are amazing. The difficulties a lot of these people face in life, due to poverty, lack of medical care and so on, only seem to make their faith stronger, generating an amazing sense of community within the Church and the village. Faith and worship doesn’t end there though. Evangelism and worship goes far beyond the Church, and the streets are full of bible study groups, ladies singing worship songs, and the radio in the taxis are more often than not playing out the beautiful sounds of gospel choirs.

At Livingstone School, each Wednesday morning is worship time, and the older classes come together to learn about the Bible and sing hymns. The kindergarten class doesn’t join in with the others, but still has the time spent worshipping. In our class Madam Hannah taught the children simple Biblical stories and their meanings for day to day life, and then we sang songs and said prayers. The children loved hearing the stories and singing the hymns and it was amazing to see how animated Madam Hannah became when teaching from the Bible. When she wasn’t teaching and we were taking the class, she spent most of her time sitting at the back of the class, reading her prayer book and her Bible. This faith is also reflected in the life of the students at the Nursing College (just next to Livingstone School), where every day you could find groups of bible study and gospel singing.

At Ampain, the Church is a vital part of the refugee community. Church services are held on a Sunday, but again the Church community goes beyond this. When things need doing in the camp, for example if new structures need to be erected, or pumps need to be fixed, the people of the Church pull their skills together and meet to arrange what can be done to resolve the problem. On Monday morning they set to work to improve the camp. Bible study and worship singing groups are found not only amongst the adults of the camp but also within the children, and frequently our arts classes were held to the beautiful sounds of girls singing in the next door classroom.

Faith in both the Ghanaian and Ivorian communities is so powerful, and provides so much for each individual involved. It is amazing to see what Christianity can provide for these people, for whom in many ways life can be quite difficult.

Being a Refugee

UNHCR Camp at Ampain is really incredible. Around 5000 people live there, having fled their homes fearing for their lives, to live in cramped, tented accommodation in a foreign country. The residents of the camp have no money of their own, being unable to access what they once had in Cote D’Ivoire, and are thus left very reliant on the UN for what it can provide for them. As I said in my previous blog, this doesn’t mean they are sitting around doing nothing, but it does add to the real list of difficulties marring their lives.

Throughout our time spent working in the camp, doing Arts and Crafts in the Child Friendly Space, one of the teachers from the school spent a lot of time helping us out; not only with organisation of letting children know about the activities but also with running the sessions and doing the activities. Every day when we arrived she had let the correct group of children know about the session, and was excited to help with the class. Her patience with the kids has been amazing, and she has been such an inspiration. She is not paid for her job, but evidently works so so hard to ensure the children of the camp are being given the best opportunity to learn possible.

One day after the session, we were heading back to the orphanage to see the children, and asked her if she would like to join us. She seemed thrilled to be invited, and came with us back to the orphanage. For her to leave the camp was such an exciting opportunity, and until this point, we hadn’t realised how restrictive being a refugee really is. This lady does not have the money even to take a taxi to town to get out of the camp. She is stuck within the confines of the camp, and although she is incredibly busy in this community, it is still clear that such confinement is really difficult for anyone. She absolutely loved our afternoon at the orphanage, and got stuck in painting and playing with the children there. Despite the language barrier, the kids loved her, and she kept telling us how happy she was to be there!

When the sun was starting to set and it was time to be heading back, we headed to the road to catch a taxi. She looked at me worriedly and said she had no money for the taxi. Of course we paid the 50p it cost for her to get back the camp, but it really was tough to see a clearly successful woman worried over the cost of a taxi. War really does pull people’s lives apart, and there are so many difficulties living as a refugee brings; trying to understand all of these from outside the situation is however, impossible.

 

Kindergarten class

We have been teaching the kindergarten class at Livingstone School. The kids are amazing, but there are an awful lot of them, and it is a real challenge to teach 40, 6 year old with so little resources! Every morning, class starts at around quarter to nine, where their ‘feeding fee’ is collected, and a prayer is said for the day, thanking God for keeping the children safe through the night, and praying for their studies, playtime and eating time throughout the day. After this, the class is handed over to us!

Trying to engage such a lot of children is hard, so we have found that the best way was through singing songs, preferably with lots of energetic actions to match the words! The first half hour or so of class then, is spent singing ‘I like the flowers’, ‘From the Tiny Ant’, and ‘I’m a Dingly Dangly Scarecrow’ amongst others! The children love the songs, and go crazy with all the actions and jumping around, especially when it comes to being a ‘big baboon’! All control and order is lost when 40 kids starting jumping around a classroom pretending to be giant monkeys though! At least they enjoy themselves, and are learning new English vocabulary through the words.

After some song singing and excitement, we settle the class down, and spend some time learning from the board. The children don’t have individual books or resources to learn from; instead everything is learnt through rote learning from the blackboard. Using this method (as we had little other option!) we taught the kids the alphabet, counting, basic maths, basic English words, and subjects such as animals, colours, shapes and the body. Everything has to be very repetitive for such little children, and because of the lack of individual attention available for the children, it is really important to try and engage each of them in the group activity.

What we have found is really difficult in this class, is that the group contains two levels: Kindergarten 1 and Kindergarten 2. The first group are learning to write the alphabet and numbers, whereas the latter can write simple sentences and do adding and some times tables. Trying to engage the whole class in the same activity is really difficult then, as some are always completely lost, whilst others are bored at the simplicity of the task. Madam Hannah, their class teacher, does a brilliant job of trying to help all the children, but it’s a challenging task for any teacher, however well qualified or experienced; the size of the class and mix of ability makes for a difficult job.

‘There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource at all’

Something we have really noticed in these past two weeks is how the children at the refugee camp differ so greatly in some ways from the children at Word Alive Orphanage, and it’s really made me think. Both of these groups of children have suffered hardships and really tough experiences in their short lives, but the immediacy of the situation that the children at Ampain UNHCR Camp find themselves in, really does show in their abilities to express themselves creatively.

For each session at the child friendly space at Ampain, we have prepared an activity for the children, and made a few samples so that they can see what we are thinking of if we struggle to explain it to them in French. The children are all keen to take part, but rely very much on the examples we give them. At the beginning of each session they are shy to start their drawings, and wait for one of us to come and show them again what it is they are to do. They follow the examples line for line, and really find it difficult to use their own creativity and imaginations to expand on the ideas we have started them off with. They enjoy the activities, and love their creations when they are finished, but each child struggles to use their own imagination and creativity to add their own little touch to the activity.

In stark contrast to this, the children at the orphanage won’t even stop to look at an example! As soon as they are given a piece of paper and some coloured pencils or paints they are away. There’s no telling them what the correct activity for the day is; within seconds they have used their creativity and imaginations to make the most lovely artistic masterpieces! The pieces on display in their main room are a tribute to this. The family structure and support they receive and give to each other, has, I believe, created this environment in which they each feel comfortable to take part in arts and crafts, and add to the activity as their imagination shows them.

The Ivorian children are, sadly, a long way from this, and are in the midst of a horrible struggle in their lives. To the bystander they may seem like normal children colouring, drawing and doing arts and crafts, but in just a few weeks of overseeing these activities with these kids, such a different picture emerges. They are struggling, deeply and emotionally affected by their experiences, and they really do need a lot of help. In two weeks we cannot even begin to being normality back to these children, but in the small things we can do I think it is eye-opening to see how much really could be being done. UNICEF is doing a brilliant job in Ampain, and the school is huge and evidently very efficient, but the sad truth is that these children need more than just the basic course of education to be returned to any kid of normality of life. Their imaginations have been crushed, and a lot of what it is for kids to be kids has been shattered for these children through the trauma of war.

Diary Days

We’ve not had internet for a few days, so I thought in this blog I would describe our day-to-day routine, and what we have been up to since the weekend!

Saturday came and went as quick as a flash! We took a tro-tro, (a little bus type thing) with the kids all piled in the back, to Axim beach, and once again as soon as we arrived we ran down to the beach and the kids were undressed and laughing and swimming in the waves. The day was brilliant just as we had hoped; the lunch was gobbled down in no time (and some packed away for later), the badminton rackets were used (briefly) for their intended use, but quickly turned into fishing implements, and the local kids working in the palm trees were hoisted out for a game of football on the beach! The waves were a little rough for playing in the sea, but the river flowing across the beach made a perfectly good alternative for swimming and playing. After a long but brilliant day, we took the tro-tro home, and left the children for the evening.

After all the excitement of Saturday, Sunday was a relaxed and peaceful day. We started the day off with the Word Alive Church Service, before taking a taxi up to Ankobra Beach, just a few kilometres up the road, where we treated ourselves to lunch. After lunch we headed back to the orphanage, and enjoyed an afternoon of skipping, colouring and playing with balloons, all to the gorgeous sounds of the Nursing School singing worship songs at their evening service.

Monday has brought a return to the weekly routine, with an early start to set off for the orphanage before school began. After a bit of playing, and the children had had their baths, cleaned the house and prepared themselves for school, we set off for class. This morning we taught our kids a new song: ‘Dingly Dangly Scarecrow’ which they enjoyed the actions to even if they didn’t quite pick up all the words! They are really good at ‘I like the Flowers’ and ‘From the Tiny Ant’ now though; just shows what a little practise can do! After learning some shapes, alphabet letters and three letter words it was time for lunch, playtime, and then our ride to the refugee camp for the child friendly space activities. These have been going really well, and the kids are so happy to be doing some fun arts and crafts activities, and are speechless when we tell them they are allowed to keep what they have made! Today we made finger puppets. After a little confusion at the start, the children soon got into the activity, and loved using the scissors to cut out all the body parts, the glue to stick them onto the fabric, and the googly eyes to finish. At the end they were all so proud of their creations and were desperate to have me take a photo of them and what they had made! The kindergarten teacher who has been helping us organise the sessions could help but make one herself, and it was I must say, a brilliant little puppet! When we leave we will try to leave her as many resources as possible so that she might continue to give these kids some more creative and fun activities to do after school.

This is Ghana life.

Just a quick thought before I start this blog. Life in Ghana is amazing, and the people have such love and compassion it is quite incredible. Yes there is poverty, but people are not starved, desperate and unhappy; quite the contrary in fact, the children are happy, excitable and energetic, and people are hard working, honest, and truly grateful for what they have. Every time I sit down to write my blog I try to convey this in what I say, but at the same time I feel that what I say doesn’t quite show things how they are. This is true of the children in the orphanage and the school most definitely, but also of those in the refugee camp. The population of the camp has witnessed horrors we could not even imagine, and we cannot understand the trauma they continue to suffer from these experiences and the continued experience of living as refugees. But they are not people sitting around, idling time away, waiting for others to help them. Instead, the camp is a bustling, lively community, and people are doing all they can, little by little, to help the situation they have found themselves in. The school is huge, and runs on a rota system in the morning and afternoons, followed by sessions in child friendly spaces for games and sport, adults attend classes such as bible study, and community members all chip in to help when something needs to be built or mended in the camp. The point I am trying to make is that we shouldn’t be sitting by and thinking what terrible, sad and hopeless situations are plaguing these people, as this is quite evidently not the case. This is normal life, day to day existence, but yet so utterly different to that we know.

Ghanaian life absolutely charms me. I love every minute of it; the culture, the friendliness and warmth of the people, and the complete love of life and buzz people have for every little thing. This past week has absolutely flown by, and I can’t believe it is the weekend already. Every day has been a treasure. The kids are gorgeous, and I could spend all day describing their funny little traits and personalities, but I will resist! Well mostly. Sabo is the littlest of all, and totters around with his funny little rucksack and cheeky smile on all day long, just begging you to swing him into your arms and tickle him to make him giggle. I’m not sure there’s anyone who could resist such a little gem! Stephen is the naughtiest, energetic kid you could find, and spends all lessons fighting with other children in the back row, and breaking pencil nibs every ten seconds so you have to sharpen them for him again. When it comes to break-time though, it’s as if the naughty switch goes off, and gorgeous smiley good-as-gold Stephen comes to life, holding your hand and cuddling and playing sweetly! He will know how to charm a lady when he is older that is for sure! And Samuel. Samuel is one of the children at the orphanage, and such a lovely little boy. Today we did painting, and his read: ‘ I love Pippa, I love Messi, Pippa loves Samuel’. I couldn’t help but smile – he got all the most important things in there!

 

So a week of school later, and three after school clubs down. We have sung about flowers, butterflies, tiny ants and big baboons a hundred times over, we have counted to twenty and read the alphabet through more times than one could imagine. I have traced letters for kids, guiding their hands along the shapes of the letters; I have explained doodling and watercolour painting (in French!), and have learnt the five types of energy and what they are used for… the list goes on! But what is most important is that the kids are having a good time, and are learning something new, and experiencing things they might never have otherwise experienced. Today, after painting in the refugee camp, the girls couldn’t believe that they were allowed to keep their paintings, that they were theirs. Little things like that make you think you can give a little something to brighten up their day. A couple of sheets of paper and some paints, but it has been months since these kids have had a normal school experience with resources and activities beyond the bare essentials, and a couple of hours painting really does make that little bit of difference.

Today we are taking the children from the orphanage to the beach; the sun is shining, and the kids are so excited they have already called me to see if we are ready to go, it looks to be a brilliant day!

Welcome to my sunny day!

So here we are, back in Esiama!! The journey went smoothly, and we arrived at the B and Q early yesterday evening. Unpacked our bags, had dinner, and sat back to enjoy the view over the bush with a cold Savanna, perfect! There wasn’t time to see the kids as it was getting dark, but we made up for that today.

This morning we got up early, and headed into Esiama on a tro tro (a little van type public transport vehicle), to the delight of the driver’s mate who said nothing but ‘White man white man’ and laughed all the way! We arrived in the village, and after picking up a few bits and pieces we had forgotten, went to Word Alive Church service. The kids from the orphanage arrived, and it was so brilliant to see them all again, looking gorgeous all dressed in their best clothes for church. Despite the service mainly being in the local dialect, we didn’t need to understand to enjoy the singing and dancing! The congregation was so lively and full of joy it was such an honour to be a part of. We introduced ourselves to the church, and it was great to see my teacher Madam Hannah, the church pastors, and some of the others we had made friends with in the summer again. The lesson of the service was about cherishing how we can walk in the super abundance of the provision of God, and Reverend Alfred joked about how we don’t need an iPad to be blessed and to have peace, health and joy. Word Alive Church, in a rural village in Western Ghana, is laughing at our silly western reliance on iPads! It makes you think, from a Christian or a secular point of view; we really do have a lot of pointless material possessions, and all we gain from these is a distraction from those things that really do matter!

After church, we popped to the village store with the children to get a new football, and boarded the rickety school bus back to the orphanage. Their mother is travelling so she wasn’t around, but the girls let us all in and made sure each child had a snack and a drink for lunch. We spent the afternoon playing with the kids; they loved the balloons and Giant Ludo we took to play with! Their cheeky claims that they hadn’t got a balloon made us laugh; as the afternoon went on and they pulled more and more balloons out of their pockets, clever kids! We showed them photos we had brought from my last trip, and they thought it was absolutely hilarious to see their own faces printed out, and wasted no opportunity to laugh at each other!

Smiles all round!

After an afternoon of games, we took a taxi back to town, and stopped for a quick drink at Monkey Hill, the bar on the beach. As soon as ‘I need an African man’ came on, I couldn’t help but smile!

So a busy first day, but it is amazing to be back, to see all the kids and their cheeky smiles, and I can’t wait for tomorrow!

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened!

This summer I spent six weeks with my sister Sophie in Ghana, a month of which was spent in Word Alive Children’s Home with The Humanity Exchange. When we left, we promised we would do everything we could to go back and visit, so in January, my mum and I are going! Sophie is planning her trip for this summer. I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never written a blog before, and I didn’t know where to start… so I thought I would begin by setting the scene, and by telling you about the most brilliant day I spent at the beach with the kids in the summer.

Word Alive Children’s Home is on a site outside of town, on a complex with a school and a nursing college. The kids go to school on the site, and hardly ever leave the grounds. Sometimes they get to go to Church on a Sunday, but as Ghana Maybe Time goes, that’s not always the way! The older ones can walk into town but it’s not as if they have any money to spend or anything. The bubble they live in is extraordinary.

Sophie and I worked at the school and the orphanage for a month, taking occasional visits to the beach and to other places around the area at weekends. Every time we came back and showed the kids all the photos and told them what we had been up to they asked if we could take them with us! To make up for the times we didn’t take them then, we planned a trip to the beach for them for our last day! No need for risk assessments or health and safety, this is Africa! We arranged for the school bus to pick us up, and for the driver to take us all for a day at the beach.

As soon as we got on the bus with all the kids I just knew it was going to be the most brilliant day! The kids (technologically advanced as kids always are) cracked up the volume on the ipod and speakers, and sang and danced to Akon’s Welcome to my sunny day on repeat for the forty minutes it took to get the beach! As I am sure you can imagine seatbelts and one child per seat is an idea unheard of by Ghanaians. There were so many little things that made me chuckle that journey. They kids had all their clothes on at once so they had layers to take off to go swimming, they brought ‘Monopoly’ with them (the classic beach game we all know and love), but best of all came when we reached the resort. These kids have never been to a restaurant before, let alone a rather nice beach hotel. As soon as the bus door was open the little ones ran out and start to go for a wee in the middle of the resort; I just didn’t know what to do but to laugh!! No one’s ever taught them that going to the toilet in the middle of a hotel entrance is not the done thing. It was brilliant. After that first fiasco though, the day went perfectly. A quick assurance to a rather disgruntled resort worker that we were in fact meant to be there, and we joined hands and ran down to the beach. It was beautiful.

In the interest of staying in the good books of the hotel and their rather confused guests, we took our gaggle of kids as far away from the loungers and bar as possible! With monopoly, hula hoops, rubber rings and footballs in tow, we found ourselves a spot on the beach and before I had a chance to think the kids were undressed and playing in the sea! So much for Ghanaians being afraid of the water – there was no stopping this lot! For hours and hours we played in the sea, splashing in the waves, throwing the hoops out and watching them come back to us, hiding footballs and sand fighting.

The hotel was brilliant all day, they organised a buffet for us all for lunch, and I don’t think the children knew what to do with themselves! The little ones went first, piling their plates high with rice, chicken legs, fish and coconut stew. They were perfectly behaved, and sat down to eat their feast. The only problem came when given a knife and fork to eat with! Ghanaians traditionally eat with their fingers, and it is safe to say the little ones looked perplexed to say the least with the cutlery in hand. They insisted on eating ‘properly’ though, and as the picture shows it was the cutest thing! I think the phrase ‘eating like they had never seen food before’ was quite appropriate! Seconds and thirds were had by all, before returning to the beach for another play.

The afternoon was filled with more swimming, sand castle building, and snail collecting from the rock pools. The kids made friends with an English girl on the beach, and without judgement or noticing their differences, played so happily together. We gave up on trying to keep the kids away from the quiet tourists, as it turned out everyone was fascinated in what we were doing and in learning about the kids and their home. Saviour, one of the older boys, entertained one old German man for hours with stories of goodness knows what! As the sun started to set though, we wrapped the children up warm, and tidied our things. I think that’s when it started to hit them that it was time to leave though, and that the day’s adventure was coming to an end. The first to show a sign of sadness was a little boy called Samuel. We went for a walk along the beach together, and as I cuddled him I realised how hard it was for him that we had come into his lives but that now we had to leave. We had had such a brilliant day, but I just felt so awful that we were going to leave these kids so sad after we had gone.

As we sat together and waited for the bus to take us home, emotions really hit home. Cecilia, an absolutely lovely young lady who had spent the afternoon collecting snails with her new friend, started to cry. It had been such a beautiful day, but to know it was over was tough. As I held her I told her a little phrase Alana had said to me a couple days before, I hoped that she would remember it, and that she would recollect not the time when we left, but the brilliant time we had had together.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened!

What made it even harder was that next to us on the beach was a big family of Ivorians, enjoying the evening together, laughing and joking. It was heartbreaking to know that our kids would never have that experience of such a loving and supportive family network. What they do have though is each other, they are their own incredibly tight-knit family, and for the most part I really do think they are happy. As the bus arrived though, the tears were flowing all round. As much as we wanted to smile and joke and laugh for our last hours together, there was no stopping this emotional rollercoaster. We piled onto the bus, exhausted from such a long day. Lemur sat on my lap the whole way home, sobbing. The lollypops we had saved for the journey were little consolation. When we arrived back the orphanage, we had just a few minutes to say goodbye. We gave each of the children a letter we had written for them, a little reminder of us for them to keep. It was so awful to leave them. The older kids especially, seeing 17 and 13 year old boys, Saviour and Bismarck, crying their eyes out that we were leaving just ripped our hearts apart. That night I promised them that I would do everything I possibly could to go back and see them as soon as possible. As long as they worked hard of course, and looked after all the others! The girls, especially Linda and Cecilia were devastated, but I just had to hope that they could be strong and continue to do the brilliant job they always have in looking after the others.

So leaving was the hardest thing. Before I went I never could have imagined quite how difficult it would be to step into the lives of these children, only to stay and have the most amazing time, then leave. We can go back into our normal, day to day lives, with our family, friends, homes and schools. But at the end of the day they are still there; and will have to deal with that for many years to come. In the last few weeks their mother has left for personal reasons, so a new lady had to be found. When our friend Owusu went to take them a letter we had written, and he said that there was nobody there to look after them. It’s hard to know exactly what is going on there, but what is definite is that, as promised, we are packing our bags and planning our trip to visit!

My mum and I have booked our flights for two weeks in January, and I absolutely can’t wait. So here’s to an amazing trip, and another amazing experience; can’t wait to see you kids!