Karoline's Ghanaian Adventure

I have less than two weeks left in Ghana. WOW! Time has gone by so fast. And I am really sorry that I haven't updated my blog for about three weeks. It's usually what happens with my blogs, I am eager in the beginning, then later when I get online, I just do everything else except writing here!

Since my last blog, I have been on two trips - Cape Coast and the Northern region (Tamale/Mole). In Cape Coast we went to a beach resort one of the days and just relaxed at the beach and by the pool, that was wonderful! Although I got a really bad sunburn after it. The other days we also really just relaxed - we stayed at a hotel called Hans Cottage Botel two nights and they had crocodiles in the waters around where we could eat and stuff, it was really cool, and they had a nice pool that I also spent a lot of time at. One day we went to Kakum National Park and did the canopy walk which was a really cool experience. You walk so high above the ground and it's not for those who are afraid of heights, for sure!

And this week I went to Mole National Park. On friday on the way up, we went to Boabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary which was amazing, you got really close to the mona monkeys and we also saw the colobus monkeys, and if you had a banana in your hand, the mona monkeys would come really close and take it from you! I got a lot of nice pictures there. The day after, saturday, we got to Tamale. Here we waited for four or five hours for the bus to Mole NP. It finally came and we spent about six hours on the bus and came to the Mole motel really late. The next day we had a safari at 7 AM. We saw antilopes, waterbucks and some other similar species, and ELEPHANTS! We were really lucky because not everyone gets to see them. But we saw two of them, up close. Yes I got a lot of pictures! The rest of the time we just spent by the pool and then we went the whoooole long way home on monday.

We have one new baby at the babies home, his name is Jehosafatt or something. No idea how you spell it! He's a bit bigger than Adjoa and they really look alike.

In other news, I have been making dresses! Well, I have bought fabrics and taken them to a dressmaker and told him how I want it and HE's making them. I hope they will turn out good, I have ordered four and I just hope I get them before I leave too! If they're good then I don't have to spend money for dresses for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve..

Other than that, not much is new! I only have a little over a week left at the babies home and it will be sad to leave them but now I am also just ready to get home and see my friends and family again! I am thinking this might be my last blog before I get home.. So good-bye! Thanks for reading!

I am sorry for not updating the blog more often! I have been travelling, and the internet in Mampong has not been working that much lately. It could be because of some of the storms we've been having lately, we've also been without electricity some evenings.

Two weeks ago, I went to Volta, which was a lot of fun, it's nice to see other surrondings than Mampong and Kumasi! And then we're heading to Cape Coast tomorrow. Which will be a lot of fun! We'll see the castle, stay at some really nice (but not expensive!) hotels, go to the beach and swim, oh, and the national park not far from there, Kakum, where we'll go on their famous canopy walk.

In other news, we have a new baby girl at the orphanage, and she's really tiny! She's about 40-50 days old, but she looks like a newborn, or worse, she must have been born really early. But I love her, she's so cute. Her name is Adjoa and hopefully she'll grow a lot before I leave.

I have less than five weeks left, which is kinda scary actually! After the Cape Coast trip, it'll be only one month left, and a month goes by really, really fast! I am getting so close to the babies now so it'll be really hard to leave them. I am just hoping I'll see Rafi and Yaa walk before I have to go back to Norway!

When it comes to pictures, I decided to just post them on Facebook since more people will see them there and comment on them. So now I have a couple of albums full of baby pictures! Mom and dad, ask Henrik if he can show them to you.

That's it for now! Hope you're all doing wonderful in your cold home countries

I went to church in Ghana today, for four hours! Yes, I know, that's a long time, even for me! But it actually didn't feel like that long. And it was really interesting. It would've been even better if I actually understood what they said! You see, the whole service was in Twi.

It was in a big Catholic church, and it was all filled up, I am guessing at least 400-500 people, and one "obruni" -- me! There was a lot of dancing and singing and clapping and standing up. Everyone in the church got up and went up to the front and around the pews in a circle several times, dancing around. I came with mama Theresa who's around 70 and she was moving around, singing loudly and having the time of her life! It was fun watching her.

In the beginning they actually had some kind of auction, I think! They were at least holding up different kind of things and yelling "5 cedi! 7 cedi! 10 cedi!" and stuff like that. And the offering was something else than in my churches in the US and Norway as well! There was a huge basket and people were literally throwing themselves over it, putting a ton of money in! Which was super cool to witness. Mama Theresa even gave me one cedi and we danced up to the front and put it in, and then danced back down. It was great!

There are now two more girls here, Nat and Jessica, from Canada. They are living with Sunniva, the other Norwegian. Nat was supposed to live with me and Silje but plans were changed, but that's okay, because we'll still all work together! And yesterday the three of them, plus Melanie from Germany and Lou from Denmark were at my house and we watched a movie! Just like back home, so that was fun.

I am halfway in a week! Which might make some of you think "only halfway?" but for me it's like crazy, "ALREADY halfway?" Time has gone by so fast and it'll be weird to think that I have less time left than what I've spent here! I am super excited to come back to Norway (and the US in January) and see all you guys again, but at the same time, leaving those amazing babies will probably be the hardest thing I have ever done.

I am ready for another week at the orphanage. Next weekend a group of us might go travelling to the west of Volta, so I am excited about that!

http://karoghana.blogspot.com

I finally uploaded a lot of pictures of the babies! Go look and comment, everyone can comment on that blog. :D

So it has been raining a lot lately, which is weird because it's Ghana, and I think the rain season is just done, or starting in November, or something. Anyway, the past nights we have been waking up to pouring rain, and on our thin (and sometimes leaking) roofs, you hear it pretty well! We took the taxi to the orphanage yesterday but just on the twenty second sprint from the gate to the orphanage doors, we got absolutely soaked! That's Ghana for you - definitely unpredictable!

In other news, we have another Norwegian volunteer at the babies home, her name is Sunniva and she is from Asker, and she's staying for three months as well. So we're a great group of volunteers there now and I like spending time with them, like going to the Simple Store and getting "fried rice, vegetables, chicken" for 2.50 cedi ($2.50, 12.50 NOK). And most of them are staying longer than us (6 months, 10 months) so they'll be here the whole time we're here!

I guess I was lucky the first three weeks here, not getting sick, because now it's all starting to show up, after sunbathing on Sunday I got a really bad burn, with blisters and everything, which I can not recall ever getting before, so yeah, it's pretty bad! But nothing that the Aloe Vera can cure, right? And last night I woke up at 3 and felt really nauseous, and today I don't really have any appetite or energy, and that's very much unlike me, isn't it? :O

It's really cool to think that I have been here for almost a month already. But it seems like much longer! But it's nice to know that I am one third of the way there. Not that it's horrible in Ghana, I love it here! I am just also excited about coming home.

We have another girl in our room now. Erin, an American from the introduction week moved in with us after she's been having trouble with her host family. So she's staying here for three weeks or so. It'll be fun, but interesting with three girls in one room!

I am also putting up pictures right now, I took some in lower quality at the orphanage today, hopefully you like them! http://karoghana.blogspot.com is the address if you don't remember.

I would love for you guys to comment more on the blog, or let me know what you think, send me a Facebook message or something. Because now I am getting like no response, and what's the use of having a blog then? I'll just think no one is reading it!