i spent the first part of this week getting used to my new home, host family and the babies home in mampong. i am loving it. my host family is very sweet and they have a nice house, althoughmy room is a littlwe prison cell like as it is a bit bare. The family is very sweet, it consists of mother- mavis, father- richard, and 2 year old daughter- Rejoice- (i know quite the name!). My "Parents" are very nice, richard is currently studying computer science and engineering and i think he wants to open a company. Mavis is heavily pregnant, expecting child any moment and so has lots of help around the house, from both her brother and a youg girl of about 15 who apparently is from richards family although seems to be treated as a servant, as far as i can tell this young girl does most things in the house, and is constantly ordered about. She is also at school though.

I have settled into a daily routine at the babies home as well. There are currently 6 volunteers i believe, 3 from germany who are leaving soon but seem quite nice though 2 of them came together and the other one has been with them for 5 months so they seem to have their little group. There is also a girl from denmark who has also been here a while and a girl from canada (montreal) who just arrived on wednesday but has been working in an orphanage in kumasi for a month. We start work at 8 O'clock and first take the babies out of bed and place them on a mat in the middle of the floor while the older children are fed. After changing their nappies (diapers) which are the reusable kind made of a cotton sheet and plastic liner (quite gros really! im very glad i am not the one who has to wash them!). We then feed the children Poridge- the youngest ones, which seem to be considered anyone whop cannot walk are fed from a bottle while the older ones are given a cup which as you can imagine is very messy!! The ones who can walk are then sent to the potty where they can sit for up to an hour! im not really sure why but at the moment i am following the allready set out routine! we then wait while one of the ghanaean sisters washes the children, one by one in the sink. We then oil them and powder them before re-dressing them and putting them back to sleep. We then do the same with the older children who are generally allowed to play for about half an hour before they to go to sleep. The children seem to sleep a lot and are only fed porridge which to me does not seem too healthy but again i dont want to mess with the routine just yet as it seems to work for them. By this time it is about 11 and we are sent home. We have a very long break in the middle of the day as we are not expected back at work until 3 30 or 4. I have yet to work out what i am supposed to do in the middle of the day and this week i slept, read, watched movies or went into town, hopefully i will be able to find something slightly more exciting to do- otherwise i may ask if i can continue working later or come back earlier. In the afternoon we work from 4 until 6, we usually take the children outside and play with them for about an hour which they really enjoy. the oldest ones are quite boistrous and are always splashing in the water buckets leftin the yard or trying to escape. At about 5 O'clock the children are fed- porridge again! and then we repeat the routine of changing them and putting them back to bed again. After which i am exhausted and head home. The work is exhausting as the children are constanly looking for attention and wanting to play but it is very rewarding and the children are so cute. My favourite is currently a little girl about 10months i think, whose name is emanuela. She is very cute and usually happy, she is just starting to teathe as well! im thinking of bringing her home!! lol I like the babies home a lot more than working in the school as i feel like im making more of a difference to these children. Unlike most orphanages however, the babies in the home all have familys, the majority of their mothers either died in childbirth or suffer from mental or physical handicaps and cannot take care of them. The children are kept at the home until they are 4 when their fathers or other family members come to collect them. I think this is the most unatural process as when the children are returned home they do not know their families and im sure they find it very strange, apparently though, the majority of orphanages in this country are like that.

Thursday was ghanaen independence day! finally the marching that the children have been ractising for so long was show cased. i went back to besease to watch as i had promised i would. The marching took place in a local towns sports fields. all of the surrounding schools where represented, about 30 in total as well as other local clubs and organisations such as the market sellers union, the local keep fit clubs and the ejisu billionairwes club. it was actually very cool to watch them all march around the field, all the local kinds and the chiefs of all the villages were there to and of course as a white lady i was once again instructd to shake hands with all of them while i was continuously filmed and photographed! it is actually getting very annoying now, everytime some man tells me he loves me i want to hit him! i know i cant though as it is part of their local culture. its annoying though that they think they love me simply because i am white! The marching was cool especially as the schoiol uniforms are such varied and bright colours unlike in england where the coulours are all dark, most of the children wore yellow, purple pink or blue. It was however a very very long morning and by the end we were very hot an anxious to go home. all in all it was quite enjoyable however.

Yesterday Mary, Imke and i took all of the besease children to a local lake to go swimming. the lake was beautiful, it didnt look african at all, in fact apart from the warmth of the water it could have been in canada. The children had so much fun and it was great to see them so happy, splashing around in a very odd assortment of bathing suits, some looked like something out of the 60's while others were leotrards or shorts and t-shirts. the younger children were naked of course. it was fun to swim with them although i ffelt a little uncomfortable as they all kept grabbing my legs or arms or even my bum. They seemed to have a great time though which is fantastic, as they don't get to leave the village to much.

im going back to mampong tommorow after sending the weekend here in kumasi. for my first full week in mampong- i will let you know how it goes but im sure it will be more of the same! Ihave now officialy been here for a month and i am heading home a month today! i guess im half way through! still not sure if it's going fast or slow though.