Day 12: June 24th

(pictures coming soon!)
Today is a free day and Elizabeth, who will be staying in Ghana for an extra month, asked us if we wanted to volunteer at the AIDS orphanage she will be working at after the rest of us leave to go back to America. I first I said yes. I love kids. Then I thought about it. I imagined sick little kids with tubes in their noses lying in hospital bed looking like a “feed the children” commercial. I thought that I shouldn’t go. I won’t be able to help the kids, uplift their spirits if I’m crying. I decided to go anyway not knowing what to expect. We arrived to a small three roomed house that kept about 14 kids. The kids either had AIDS and the parents could care for them or the parents died from AIDS and the children don’t have family to take care of them. I didn’t ask. I little girl ran to the door in a blue floral print dress. Something I would have worn to Sunday school or for a family picture. She had a huge smile on her face and spread her arms as wide as she could. She wanted a hug. More kids came. Mostly shy. We asked them what they wanted to do. The bolder one asked us to help them with their homework. The other ones we colored with or read stories. Cici asked me if she could take some of the donated books that I asked to put in her bag at the airport. The kids like them. But they enjoyed our digital cameras more. They wanted to take pictures and look at them on the LCD screen. About four of five of us had cameras and they went around taking pictures of everything: feet, themselves, each other, goats, windows, whatever.
There was one girl that I was playing with but was sitting with Allyse most of the time. As we were getting ready to leave she didn’t want us to leave. She started crying. Screaming. The house mother had to come get her. I want to go back and volunteer. I want to bring Langston. I want to go to school with them for the summer. It would be a learning experience, a growing experience for him. And for me.
Tackle things that make me uncomfortable. Combat fear.
I wasn’t sure about going but I needed to be there. I’m glad I went.