Shoes

I figured I would take a break from all my traveling pictures and talk about something else. Shoes.

I've had these shoes for a good long while now. I bought them my senior year of high school for a formal dance I went to. They went wonderfully with my black and white dress. After that day, these shoes became my best friend.

They have been everywhere with me. They have been all over Utah and lots of Arizona. They have walked the streets of Ghana and seen the sights of London. They have been my temple buddies.

They are wearing out. Florence bought the same shoes on the same day. She threw hers away long ago, but I can't bring myself to do it. I love them too much. They have holes and scratches and are literally falling apart. If my house lit on fire tonight, I would grab these dirty old shoes first.

I have gone back to the store to see if I could get the same shoes again. They don't have them anymore. They have them in brown and they have them in white, but just not black.
Water leaks in this hole:

I have hoards of shoes, but for some reason, these shoes won me over. They are comfortable, [used to be] nice looking, basic black, flats, casual, and dressy. What more could I want in a shoe? So as of now, I have not thrown them away. Who knows? They may stay with me forever...

Safari

While in Ghana, we decided a safari was in order. This was our safari guide:

The baboons were very personal....this was at the pool.

Our view of the watering hole from the pool where we could see elephants and such drink:

This is the swamp we had to jump from rock to rock across:

Muddy shoes after the swamp:

The Utah 5

A warty-wart-warthog

I literally ran into this baboon. We collided. It was awkward.

The view from our hotel room: (reminds me of Lion King)

Aisha

This is Aisha. When we first arrived at the orphanage, she never looked at us, played with us or other children, and rarely ate. After a couple weeks, we took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with malaria. After a week of giving her medication, she became the happy 5 year old she ought to be. Here are the pictures to prove it:

Kids

These are just some of the kids. These pictures barely scratch the surface, but it would take forever to find and name every child so...here are just a few.
Frida:

Stevie: (he's an amazing dancer)

Elijah:

Prince:

Bright:

Tatus: (said ta-toose)

Augustine is the little black boy holding hands with the Andy the white man. See how the corners of Augustine's mouth are white? They always were like that because he brushed his teeth and never rinsed his mouth.

Edith on the left, Catherine on the right. How can I tell the difference you ask? They have tribal scars on opposing cheeks, so Edith's is on her left cheek, Catherine's is on her right.

This is Nelson. When we first got there, he never talked, smiled, or laughed. When we left, he was always talking and laughing with us and the other kids. it was great!

Week 1:

Week 4:

This is Mary:

Porscha:

Anita the ever-present drama queen:

Tina:

Somewhere: (I don't think his parents had a complete grasp of the English language)

Peace:

Peace's brother Noah: and their baby sister:

Akumaya:

Evelyn: (said Ave-lean)

Dakua:

Gloria in the purple closest to the camera: Christy in the blue:

And last but certainly not least, Madelyn:

Daily Routine

While in Ghana, we volunteered in God's Eye Orphanage in a small town called Nkwanta 7 hours north of the capital city Accra. Each morning we woke up around 6 and walked over to the orphanage. When we got there, the kids would be brushing their teeth (with toothbrushes and toothpaste that we brought).

After brushing teeth, it was bath time via bucket bath. Here is how that works: Buckets of water were brought up from the river. The kids would all get naked and gather around the buckets and then one at a time the white people would pour water on them, scrub them down from head to toe, rinse them, and send them to......

Drying and moisturizing! We dried them off and lathered them up with cocoa butter.

While kids were being dried and lathered, they would also be looked at by said dryer/lather-er for sores and other injuries. If someone was spotted with an injury, they were sent to medical. Here is matt fixing a foot sore:

Here i am cleaning a lower back/upper buttocks wound. Lovely.

This is Eugenia. She HATED medical. Hated, hated, hated. So...everyday after we treated her nose/forehead duo on display below, she did...

THIS:

For a good 20 minutes. Every. Morning.
After Eugenia got out her feelings, they all lined up for breakfast. For some reason, no matter how many spoons we bought, there were never enough. Weird, I know.

After breakfast, we sent them to school where they stayed until 3:00. Around 3:30 we went back over to the orphanage and played all afternoon. On this particular day we taught them Duck Duck Goose.

This was a bubble day where we blew bubbles and watched the kids run after them. I don't think they had ever seen bubbles like that and it was crazy fun!

We usually stayed until 6 pm-ish. After that we went to the community center for a drink or just back to the house. More to come ya'll