Gotta love fixer-upers!

While I was in Africa, Danny was left with the wonderful task of moving. Fun task, especially by your self. What a great guy! Well, the first apartment that we were going to move into, fell through after he had moved most of our stuff in. So, poor guy, he was left to find us a new place, and move us all over again. After much strife and help from my brother's girlfriend, Megan, he found us a place in south Orem, in a very old house. It is really good sized, but needed some serious repairs. We painted, fixed holes in the walls, cleaned up the yard as best we could, and sanded the wood floors. These pictures don't even do justice to what the house looked like when I first saw it.

Notice the painted bow on the closet door....cut eh? I know you all wish you could have baby blue toliet, sink, and tub. It is so in style!

With many thanks to Dan, I now proudly present our significantly improved apartment!

Not much I could really do about the blue bathroom, but the rest of the house looks pretty good. And poor Dan, after spending 4 hours trying to repair the outlet for the dryer and repiping the drain for the washer, we both thought that it would be the last of the repairs that we would have to do for this great fixer-uper, however, we were wrong. As I went to do the laundry today, the washer worked just fine, but the dryer quit working after about 15 minutes. Gotta love it!

Well, we have no drying racks, so we had to make do with what we do have, and this is how it turned out.

Ahhh, the joys of renting.................

Oh, and for all of you who still want to see picts of the orphanage, I just posted them! Yay!

3 years

Well, as you could probably tell, I am home from Africa. I am so grateful to be back in the States!

Our thrid anniversary!!!!

On Wednesday, August 19, Dan and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. Since this summer has been full of so many vacations, and a whole 5 weeks off of work, I couldn't take more time off work to go somewhere fun. It was a bummer, but we had a great time any way. We celebrated at Tucanos, a Brazillian restaurant. We loved all the meat that came endlessly, until we were about ready to burst! I can't believe we have been married for 3 years already, but it has been a wonderful adventure, and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Orphanage

Today was a beautiful day. One of the guys in our group knows a family that is adopting a couple little kids from an orphanage not too far from Accra, so a few of us went there today to see all the little ones. They were so cute. As soon as we arrived, the kids ran up to the van and started singing, "Welcome, welcome...." it was so cute. We were greeted with about 50 kids hugging us as we stepped off the bus. They were all ages. A few still in diapers and not walking, a few toddlers, a few kids, and a few teenagers. They were all so excited to see us and to hold our hands and play with us.
Sarah and I had our nails painted, and one of the little girls saw them and wanted to have hers done so badly. Luckily, Sarah had brought with her a bag of nail polish that she was planning on giving to the orphanage. The kids were freaking out. We painted ALL of their finger nails, and toe nails, no matter what gender they were. Even the 16 year old boys wanted their finger nails painted. It was hilarious. At any given time, I would have at least 10 kids around me putting their hands in my face for me to start painting. When all the hands were painted, they kept saying, "my leg, my leg" and pointed to their toe nails. So we started painting those as well. They would stick their cute little dirty feet on my lap and I would paint away, and they would gasp and giggle at the color. It was so fun.
After nail painting, we pulled out the face paints and painted all the kids hands, faces, and whatever else they wanted. They were LOVING it! Then we played with sidewalk chalk, and jump ropes, and soccer balls. They all wanted to be touching us, sitting on us, hugging us, anything to feel our love. It was precious. So sad though. The little ones were so tiny, and you could tell just by looking at them that they are malnourished and lonely. I am so glad thatI got the opportunity to go though. The kids loved having us there, and I could tell that they needed some affection and love. It was heartbreaking to know that most of these kids will never be adopted, and that they will end up on the street in a few years. I wanted to take all of them home with me. I wish there was more I could do, but I know that love can leap mountains. I am just glad that I could do something.

Field Day

Pictures won't post today...:( So sad. I will get them up as soon as I can.

Today was our last day in school. It was so sad, but we all planned a bunch of games for the kids, kind of like a field day. It was absolute chaos. We had a few different stations: water balloon toss, jump rope, relay races, soccer, drawing a mural, and dancing. There was about 600 ish kids there. It was a mess. There was no order to the madness which made it worse. Jordyn and I were in charge of the water balloon toss, and it was really good for about 3 minutes. Once we started passing out the balloon it turned into one huge mess. I was throwing kids away from the buckets right and left and yelling, "NO, NO, NO! Stop!" It was crazy. Finally, we just gave up and decided to let them have at it until they were gone. So, needless to say, balloon toss lasted for a total of about 10 minutes. At least they loved it!
After that, I went to join another group, but couldn't find one that needed help, so I just started playing with a soccer ball. Soon enough, there were kids everywhere and we were playing a little game of soccer with eachother. It was so much fun. The kids were loving just being out and playing with us. I was constantly being crowded with little ones grabbing my hands, my arms, my waist, anything. It was so cute. I loved it.
After we had finished our portion of field day, they had a little performance for us. They brought out beautiful African dresses that they had made for each of us, and dancd and drummed and chanted as only they can do. It was amazing. Even the kindergarteners performed a little dance. It was too cute. They performed for us for about an hour and then it was time to say our goodbye's. It was so sad, and my heart was full of emotion as I was saying goodbye. I wanted to say, "See you later" but I know that I will not see them later. I know that that will probably be the last time I will ever see them again. They were so sweet, and all of them gave me a hug goodbye. They all asked when we would come back, and it was so hard to tell them that we wouldn't be back. It seemed to me that they also got a little emotional once they realized that we wouldn't be back to see them, that this was the last time they would ever see us. It was a bit rough, but hopefully something we taught them will stick and they will be able to grow and become something some day.
We also finished up with the girl guides and boy scouts today. They are such a bright bunch of kids that we finished up all the AIDS lessons on Monday, so today we just taught some general health classes. The kids are so great. They loved the lessons we taught, and it was so fun to teach them. After we were donetheir leader came up to Lynley and said that next time we should coordinate better so that we can train them to be teachers of the AIDS lessons like she had taught him. She kinda took a step back and was wondering what he was taking about and then he told her that 5 years ago when she came she trained him how to be a peer educator in the community about AIDS and HIV. It was so cool to hear, because he has taught this group of girls and boys so well. When she complimented him on it, he said, "thank you, I have had to work very hard to get to where I am." It was a great inspiration to all of us, because it just goes to show how far one person can go. These kids will be able to teach and influence many people, just because of this one man. It gave me hope.
I can't believe that I am so close to coming home. All the rest of our days here are free days and I know they will fly by, and soon enough I will be back in America. Looking forward to seeing all of you!

Monkey Sanctuary

Hey! Sorry I haven’t been able to post for a few days; the internet here has been down for a while, so I am resorting to internet café. Wahoo! Well, this last weekend we went up to the Volta region to a little village called the Monkey Sanctuary. It was so cool. The monkeys were jumping around from tree to tree right in front of us. We got to feed the monkeys and they loved it. But I have to admit, so did I! Look how excited I am in this picture...ok, it's not all excitment, I am was pretty nervous too! They would come right up to us and take the banana out of our hands, peel it and eat it all in about 5 seconds. After we saw and fed the monkeys, we went on a very beautiful hike to one of the tallest waterfalls in Ghana, called Wli Waterfall. It was one of the tallest I have ever seen. It was beautiful. The hike was through the rainforest, and we saw beautiful plants and even some pineapple growing along the side of the trail. The water was so warm beneath the falls that we all got in and swam. It was a little creepy though, the entire wall next to and behind the waterfall was lined with bats. Right before we left, we all screamed as loud as we could to see if we could make the bats fly around. We could only make them stir and flap their wings a little, but the native who was with us grabed an old fallen down tree and started beating it on a rock to make a really loud bang, and it worked! The bats started flying everywhere, it was pretty cool, and the waterfall was wonderful! We stayed the night there with the villagers, sleeping under mosquito nets. It was a very interesting experience. Most of the kids were running around in next to nothing, just dirty and cute. It was a true African experience. For our entertainment, all the villagers got together and prepared a little show for us. The village story teller told us a few stories that were passed down from generation to generation. There is only allowed to be one story teller at a time and the story teller that told our stories had been the teller for about 30 years. He was blind and had to have a translator for us to understand the stories. It was very cool.

I love this picture. She has her underwear on backwards, and is wearing flip flops that are about 3 sizes too big. Too cute.

Then, they brought out the drums and started giving us some true African entertainment. The lit a little fire right in the middle of the circle and drummed. Little kids got up and did a little song and dance around the fire, and then when they were done, others got up and danced around in a circle. It was exactly how you imagine Africa, with the drums, the dancing, the singing and the tribal chanting. It was such a cool experience. Once I can get the video to post, I will most definitely do it so you all can hear!

The next morning we were supposed to get up and go on a hike up a really tall mountain, one of the tallest in Ghana, but it started pouring rain. I am talking torrential down pour. I was all decked out in my poncho ready to go, but Lynley said that we would all probably slip right off the mountain if we tried. Too bad. I was so lucky to find the poncho. It was just in the luggage that I borrowed from my mom and dad. Thanks guys; at least it kept me dry walking from my room to the bus. Most everyone else was completely soaked once they got to the bus.

Today we were back in the schools, thank heavens! It was so good to see the kids again, and the kids were so excited to see us too. They greeted us with the usual, “Good morning madams” and we loved it. Our lessons went great today. We taught on storms and on light and energy. The storms lead right into my lesson on light and energy. After we taught them a little about light, we let them make bracelets with solar beads that change color when you get into the sun. Thanks to my great friend Becky, I was able to get 1000 beads and each of the kids was able to make a full bracelet of solar beads. They absolutely LOVED it! After we made all the bracelets, we took them outside to test them out. Even though it was a cloudy day, the beads changed colors and the kids were so excited to see them changing. They kept coming up to me saying, “Look Carlie, they are changing. Look at all the colors!” It was so sweet. Today we also taught our AIDS lessons. We went to a little school called The Happy Kids School. We were teaching a group of boy scouts and girl guides. Most of them were pretty young, but they knew so much and understood so much about AIDS. They were so smart. They gave great input and asked a ton of questions. When I taught my lesson on how HIV relates to women, they were all very attentive. In this lesson, we talk about rape and how to say no. They were all interested in what we had to say, and I saw one little girl taking notes, and in her notes it said, “Women should be treated with respect. It is ok to say no to sex.” I was so excited to see them so eager to learn. It was so great to work with these younger kids because they are the future. They are the ones who are going to change the future of Africa. If we can reach these kids, we have accomplished something great. I was so excited to see their enthusiasm in learning. I almost teared up at that moment, because she has so much potential to change her culture.
I can’t believe that this is my last week here. It has flown by so fast. I am looking forward to coming home, but at the same time am torn. There is still so much that I want to see, and want to learn, and want to teach the kids. I will miss them so much when we leave. Hope all is going well with all of you! I miss you all and love you!