Titan and Imma

Our work here sort of took a different turn starting Christmas, last year. One of the girls (Imma) at the children's home at the Buduburam refugee camp was pregnant, and I got the idea that she, being alone, 15, and with no money or support, she wouldn't be able to take care of the child. So, I talked to her to find out what she thought about adoption. She liked the idea a lot because she knew that she couldn't take care of the baby and wanted to be able to go back to school. Keeping the baby would only keep her in the cycle of poverty. I told her I had a cousin that has been trying to adopt for some time, and I thought she might be interested. I told my cousin about it all, and her and her husband decided that they would be interested in adopting the baby. So, for the past month, we've been trying to figure things out. We decided the best thing for the baby would be for us to keep it in our care, to avoid having it sent to some horrible orphanage here or something. So, we had to move to a new house because the family we lived with didn't want us to have a new baby there. We bought all manner of baby supplies and started talking to a lawyer and social welfare so we would know what route we needed to take. And then we waited. She was due on the 12th of January. We didn't get a call that they were taking her to the clinic on the camp until late Saturday night, the 17th. Jana and I left and got to the camp at 1:30 Sunday morning. We were there all that night, all the next day and all Sunday night. It was pretty crazy...Imma was in labor for so long and there was no real improvement. Jana and I tried to get some small sleep here and there on hard, skinny wooden benches. Around 4am Monday morning, they decided that she needed to be transferred to a larger hospital. So Jana and I rode with her in the ambulance to a hospital about 20 minutes farther west. By 10 they decided she needed to have a c-section.

Luckily she and the baby came out of that completely fine. She had a 8.9lb baby. No wonder she had so much trouble with him...she's tiny! We left them in the hospital and a few days later we went and picked them up. She stayed with us for about a week so she could recover and eat well before going back to the camp. And Jana and I have been learning a lot trying to be moms to a newborn baby and still be productive with our other work/projects. I think we both still want to have kids, so I guess that says things aren't going too bad :) No...Titan is awesome and we love having him here. Hopefully the adoption won't take longer than 4 months, so, we'll have him until then.

Ahmed

Ahmed is the man who works at the Esiape house. That's where we used to live (we recently moved). He is from the Northern region of Ghana. He does the ironing, fixes things, washes the cars, waters the lawn, etc. He's 26, I believe. For the 60 plus hours a week he works, he gets about $80 a month. He's extremely smart and speaks and understands english really well. He also loves to read. We talk to him a lot about things and what he wants for his future. He also wants to get more education. He knows that this job he has is just a temporary thing and that he is capable of so much more. He recently began looking into computer courses and found one he really wanted to take. He has some money saved, but we also wanted to contribute a little so he'd still have some saved and be able to take the class he most wanted to take. So, we dontated 100 Ghana cedis to the cause (about $82). He should be getting registered soon and will be able to start as soon after that as he wants. Thanks again to all who have donated and made things like this possible!

Christmas in Buduburam

For Christmas last month, we got a special invite from all our friends at our children's home at the Liberian Refugee camp. They wanted to have a big party and we had no other plans, so we gladly accepted. We received some donations from people who wanted it to go to books, so we had fun looking around for some good ones. We were able to get quite a few quality books for a good price, so we were excited about that.




Christmas Eve we braided our hair so we could spice it up a little. At least try to make it feel more like a holiday. It looked and felt like any old day in August, so, we had to get a little creative.

We left early Christmas morning with our friend Ahmed. We stopped where our Nigerien Tuarag friends sit during the days and gave them some oranges and biscuits and then continued on our long and hot journey out to the camp. They were just about ready to party by the time we got there. There were women cooking chicken and rice and they started peeling the oranges we brought. Once everyone was ready, they started the program. That included some introductions, speeches, songs, scripture reciting, thank you's and then presents!


Each of the orphans got a small sack of used clothes and then we gave out all the used books. They were all very excited about all of that! Then came the feast of chicken and rice and soda's and oranges and biscuits. After we cleaned up and rested a bit, the dancing started. That was fun! Man, Africans sure know how to move! It was pretty amazing to watch and pretty funny when 10 year old Jackie was teaching me how to dance.

It sure didn't look like the white Christmases we are used to, but inside, it felt like the perfect Christmas! It was awesome to get to know the kids better and to see them having fun and relaxing and not having to worry about how they were going to eat for the day. They seemed to have a very merry Christmas themselves! Thanks to everyone who helped to make that possible for them!

Tuareg Families

 

It's kind of a long story how we got involved with working with these Tuareg families from Niger. I guess we have facebook to ultimately thank for it. A couple weeks before Christmas I was able to get in touch with a couple girls from the states who were studying for a semester at the University here. They became interested in these families who they saw begging on the streets and wanted to find out more about why they were here and a little bit about their lives. That's where I came into the picture. The Tuareg tribe actually speaks Tamashek, but becuase of trading and such in markets in Niger, most of them speak Hausa as well, which is what I learned while living in Niger. So, I was able to go with Carly and her friend McKenzie to where the Tuareg's were all staying and help translate questions and answers about their lives and situation. Apparantly, some years back there was a bad drought across Niger and Mali, and practically all the animals in those countries died. The Tuareg's main livelihood is herding animals and then selling them in markets. Since the animals died, they have been wandering around different countries, begging for money to be able to eat and save to eventually make it back to their country. It's a sad situation for them, because they are even considered outsiders in their own country. Their skin is much lighter and they are very Arab looking. Absoulutely beautiful people.
 
Because they look so different, they are treated very badly here. They are often insulted and told to go back to their own country, where, like I said, they don't get much support either. It was interesting to learn that they really are ashamed of the way they are trying to survive and they aren't happy doing it...but they have no choice. It's just a means to an end. Carly and her friend left for America a couple days after that evening, but Jana and I have seen and been able to talk with the Tuaregs on several occasions to try and discuss what we could do to help them.
 
 

 

The monday before Christmas, we were able to take Hada, the one we spoke with the most, to the eye clinic. His eyes had been really bothering him for a long time, mostly due to sun and wind and dirt, which is their lives in the dessert. I think he had been washing them with soap as well, which aggravated the whole situation. But they were red and watery and itched him very badly. The doctor gave us some drops and ointment and pills to help with all that and just said to tell him not to wash with soap, but to rinse them occasionally, and he should be fine. That was an extremely long day; we were there 5 hours; but it was neat to be able to help him and to translate a lot at the clinic, and he was so extremely grateful and that made it all worth it. He told us he wanted do us like this (with outstretched arms...aka to hug us both) many many times. It sounded a lot cooler in Hausa and with his arm motions. Ina son in yi muku haka, sau dayiwa dayiwa!! Na gode sosai sosai! What an awesome man!
 
We knew that Hada and Mohommed were planning on making their way back to Niger pretty soon, and so we talked to them seriously about what we could do to help. We ended up purchasing two foot-pedal sewing machines for Hada and Mohommed so they would have some way to earn money to start their lives again. We also gave the other 4 men in their group a small sum of money. They will stay in Ghana for a little longer before they start heading home. It was really great to take all of that to them. They were so grateful and their kids were so happy to see us. We had a nice visit with them and got directions to their home in Niger, so if we're ever in the neighborhood...