Ghana Day Three- April 13th

This was Helen’s 21st birthday! She already wrote a long, passionate blog about our experience at the Cafacayo Children’s Home, so in the interest of time, I’m going to leave that one up to her. This is not, however, the end of Cafacayo for me.

There are 35 kids at that orphanage and Helen and I are going to get them sponsored (aka into private school and eating regularly). I don’t think that $50/month for 35 kids is too big of a goal for us to accomplish. We’re going to start some sort of a student org or non-profit to get this orphanage and these kids sponsored.

They deserve a real education. They deserve to eat regularly. They deserve mosquito nets and a enough beds so no one has to sleep on the floor. We’re going to figure out a way to get this organization the money it needs to properly support these amazing kids. I can’t wait to share my pictures/stories with everyone at home.

We spent most of the day at Cafacayo and then went out to a small local bar to have a couple drinks for Helen’s birthday. A good time was had by all.


Ghana Day Four- April 14

The next morning I had a trip to the OSU Children’s home in Accra. We left at 8AM in a bus packed with SASers. Within thirty seconds of stepping out of the bus at OSU, I made a friend. Her named was Victoria, she was five and she wanted nothing more than to be carried and hugged. I carried her until I truly couldn’t lift her any longer; it was the only time I can remember ever wishing lifted weights and I had stronger arms.

OSU was fun and I’m glad we got a chance to play with the kids, but it is sponsored and structured and truly contrasted with our Cafacayo experience the day before. All orphanages deserve our time and support, but at the end of the day, the OSU kids get three meals a day and a bed, not to mention a decent education. My visit to the OSU Home made me even more motivated to support Cafacayo.

One of the other differences, however, was that the OSU Home has babies. The youngest Cafacayo kids weren’t any younger than five or six. OSU had three-month-olds. They had an entire building for infants and children under 18 months. We got to hold the babies and some people even got to feed them.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love babies. I remember being jealous of the girls who got to hold and feed the youngest babies, but then I noticed a little boy sitting on the blanket all alone. He was surrounded by people, but they were all holding other kids or talking. I don’t know his name or how old he was, but he was tiny and he didn’t make a sound when I picked him up. He weighed next to nothing and promptly grabbed one of my earrings, didn’t pull it, but just hung on to it.

I pushed the thought of feeding newborns out of my mind decided that I was meant to hold that little boy for as long as he needed it. I walked around and held him for a long time, singing him songs that my mom used to sing to me when I was little because I didn’t know what else to do. The only time he made a sound was when I tried to put him down and he started to cry; the second it stopped trying to put him down, he stopped crying and just quietly hung on to my earring. Eventually, the caretakers came to put all the kids down for their afternoon nap and I had to let him go. I’m going to remember that little boy forever.

After spending the day at OSU, we drove to lunch, then back to the ship. We had to be onboard at 6PM to leave for Brazil by 8.

End of Ghana.


Love,

Molly