Day 27 - Reflections Thus Far

Thursday, April 7 - Day 27

[Note from the future: This entry includes description of an injury and wound care.]

The nurses at the hospital chose to cut off Justice’s semi-attached toenail entirely rather than suture it. He’ll grow a new one, they said. They did not use even a local anesthetic; he did not cry and only hissed quietly in pain when they were dressing the wound. These kids are tougher than nails.

The nurses gave Justice a prescription for three medicines, all of which he was able to get there: paracetemol for pain, amoxycilin for infection, and ascorbic acid. He also has a wound-cleaning liquid for changing the dressing. They said we should return this morning (e.g., at 10 AM break in school) for would re-dressing; Bismark said (to me only) that we’d do it at home. I had asked about returning after school, but apparently the woman who does dressings is only there in the morning. Thus, once again, thank you Red Cross training.

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Thoughts (with 10 days left):

• Ghana is beautiful, resplendent with banana trees and mango trees, goats and roosters
• It is also litter-strewn and often unpleasantly aromatic (most trash is “removed” by bonfire)
• The children are friendly, enthusiastic, and eager
• Many of them lie and steal on a regular basis, some after a childhood of selling things off their heads or living in the bush
• The education culture has the potential to be so much better
• Football (soccer) is huge
• Fruits and vegetables are not (dairy is almost non-existent)
• Rice, bread, and other cheaply filling foods (e.g., traditional fufu and banku) are central staples
• Electricity is sporadic in small towns, cut without warning for hours or days
• Access to sufficient clean water is a privilege secured by money, not a right (we buy the kids water every day, but I think many of them live in a state of constant borderline dehydration)
• Reading skills are often limited
• Courage and strength (internal & external) are not

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Okay, so what’s the toughest part about Ghanaian orphanage work? It’s not the pre-dawn alarm clock or the 95-degree days, nor the half-mile walk home at 9 at night or dealing with the newest wave of illnesses. By far, it’s the children.

To much of suburban America, a rough childhood is one in which food is limited or a child is beaten. [Note from the future: Those do both constitute rough childhoods in my opinion. I offer them for comparison with the Ghanaian experience of childhood of the children for whom we cared.] Here, that rough childhood is taken to the next level. Most of the kids were handed over by family members no longer able to care for them. The five “true orphans” had it much worse: most of them were found in a bush somewhere; one was connected to WORCSA after spending his childhood years selling goods off his head and stealing to survive. His behavior is especially difficult. He acts as a negative ringleader, having in the last two weeks alone bullied other boys into stealing fish, beaten another boy rather than share bread with him, formed a posse of a couple of WoF kids angry at us for making them walk to school after missing the bus without reason, had that posse give us the silent treatment, and insulted a volunteer quite strongly in Twi. To his credit, this kid does know the system, including how to lie and cheat with a friendly smile. It’s so frustrating at times because he’s intelligent and “just a kid” at age 15, but also manipulative and way past most sheltered suburban youth in age-by-life-experience.

The little ones are much simpler. Many of the older ones lie (about anything), steal (from each other, regularly), and try to extort whatever is possible from volunteers. The young ones behave like small children worldwide. When angry or upset, they hurl a tiny fist or two at the offender and throw a tantrum. Twenty minutes later, the offense is forgotten. They never sulk for two days like the older ones do and they don’t lie about being sick or ask for a new pencil so they can sell it in class. Last I checked, kids in America and Europe weren’t selling hoarded pencils and erasers to classmates for spending money. That said, they also weren’t being beaten for not bringing a broom to class last I checked and that happened this week too. This is Ghana.