Hey this is Paul, I’m kind of the amateur blogger in this family, but you’re just going to have to deal with it. So yeah, we got up this morning and headed to check out the place where the choir is going to be staying. It. Was. Hot. Like really hot. Like swimming in salsa hot. Like the middle of summer in Africa hot. Oh wait. That doesn’t really work :p . Anyway, it was hot.  And after checking out the guest house we went to the Agape orphanage.  We brought some soccer balls, which was possibly the best idea in the history of the universe. Starting with 3 kids outside, bringing out the soccer balls quickly grew the group to about 30 kids, who of course really enjoyed our games. I played hard for about an hour. Some of these kids were super intense. I had some serious trouble keeping up. Some kids introduced themselves, but the only one I remember is Jeff (its a lot easier to remember Jeff than Ouagadougou. But I still felt really bad that I was totally clueless). Some kids taught me the game ‘ya-so’ (which basically consisted of them pummeling me in the goal). And I learned that juggling in soccer is called ‘tatis’ (the spellings are approximate from what I heard them say, so don’t quote me on it). After an hour of craziness, Hannah whipped out the guitar and we did some songs. One kid came over and basically took the drum from me, but he was pretty good. The kids doing the crazy hand motions was pretty much priceless to watch. Way too soon it was time to go, and I can’t wait for Friday when we go back to the same orphanage. We went to get some lunch then came back to the hotel. Greeeeeeeaaaaattttt day.

-Paul

(From Emily)

Day two and we are starting to get into the rhythm of Ghana: wake up around 7:30 (or 5 on the a village visit day…. Yay! hah), take a quick, semi-cold shower that seems almost pointless as you begin to sweat just trying to get your clothes on after, eat some cereal from the smallest little tupperware bowl you’ve ever seen, be outside and ready to hop on the bus about 15 minutes after the appointed time, drive (most likely… Since I think we made about 3 unplanned stops today) to the planned destination through a maze of bumpy, muddy paths, cleanly paved roads, and plenty of traffic, step out of the van into some pretty blazing heat, only to wish we had brought more water for the day, smile until you forget about the suffocating heat as you play with the little kids, realize it is way past lunch time and start thinking about maybe getting something to eat, have some kind of dish including chicken, along with a coke, visit the mall sometime in the day.. either for groceries or a meal, do a bit of planning, prayer, and worship back at the apartments, write and post a blog, and around 12….or 1…finally head to our saggy mattresses and hard pillows (but oh how inviting they are!).

Well I hope you made it alright through that huge run-on sentence haha :]. We are excited for our first real, planned (well.. The age and number of kids is unknown, but spontaneity is our middle name ;] ) visit to help at a school tomorrow!… hopefully including a Daniel in the lion’s den story with paper plate lion masks they will make, gospel bead bracelets, plenty of songs with crazy hand motions, sharks and minnows but with lions and antelopes, and no doubt lots and lots of pictures.

-Emily

(From Pete)

One of the classrooms at the orphanage that we visited was the second grade class.  They were fantastic!  The recited this wonderfully long poem for us.  They work hard on math, and every year the best kid in the class is crowned “King Zero” for being the absolute best in math.  I asked the class who would be King Zero this year, and each one of them shot up their hands accompanied by a big smile.  It is exciting to think about the possibilities these orphans have here.  Later, on the soccer field, we caught up with last year’s King Zero, or I guess, the reigning King of 2nd grade math.  Fun!

Jim and I were shown the Computer Room.  There were 8 computers and gear, none of it plugged in, and much of it reported to not work.  They wanted to see what we could do :-)  Oh my… Windows95, WindowsXP, and IDE CDROMs that don’t work and need better drivers.  Jim and I decided some triage was required.  We matched up cables computers and tried to test every unit.  Three generations of keyboard connector was represented… old style original IBM PC (the round plug the size of your thumb), the PS/2 keyboard (round, the size of a pencil), and USB.  We scrounged through things, with the triage yielding 4 that were seriously wounded or dead.  One had a note taped to it reading “spoiled motherboard”.  We packed all the broken ones into the van and they are sitting next to me, begging for attention.  But it’s 12:15am, and we have an early start — so Paul and I will disassemble tomorrow.

-Pete