September 13, 2007- Elikplim’s Birthday

I woke up to the sound of the hand-broom swishing against the floor in the Hall and on my way to the bathroom I paused to watch Elikplim.  The birthday boy was singing a Ghanian pop song to himself and sweeping with a huge smile on his face.

Elikplim- The Birthday Boy

After we ate our eggs (ugh, eggs) and the throng ate their sour smelling porridge, John, Mauwli, and I went to the early morning market to get bananas and pineapple for the party.  Mauwli even helped us procure a bottle of Hershy’s chocolate syrup.  When we returned, all the kids had gone to school, except Elikplim (his test results come in tomorrow), so he spent the day re-arranging chairs, putting finishing touches on the chalkboard sign, and making sure the paper chain decorations stayed up.  He also swept the Hall at least two more times.

We cut up the bananas while the kids trickled home and ate their lunches.  When everyone was finished, we poured chocolate syrup on the desserts- let the party begin!  

 

Gabriel and Emma were covered in chocolate from head to toe within a blink of an eye, but their bowls were licked completely clean.  John pulled out some Mardi Gras masks, beads, and noisemakers that he brought from home for just such an occasion.  There was even a yellow blowup crown for the birthday boy.  A few kids ran off and returned seconds later, filling Elikplim’s arms with handmade birthday cards.  Justice turned over a plastic tub and started drumming.  The older kids had changed, and now had traditional fabrics tied around their waists and chests.  The chalk from the chalkboard became face paint and pretty soon we were in the middle of a full-blown Ghanaian rave dance party.

 

 When things settled down a little and everyone had changed back into their regular clothes, we headed to the sports stadium: the icing on the cake of Elikplim’s perfect day.  Well, almost perfect.  Upon our return, Elikplim found his crown, popped and in a sad little pile in the corner of The Hall.  Through his tears, he tried to mend it with Elmers glue and paper.  Ah, the first post-house-meeting lesson in taking care of your belongings!

After dinner we went for Sonjelle’s “goodbye party” at Maxi Spot- her favorite bar – but unfortunately no one we knew was out, except for Obey and his “really good friend,” who are always out, so she didn’t get to say many goodbyes.  Edem did stop by, if only to remind us that we should not drink alcohol and that he would certainly not allow us to try the homemade kind.  We got her good and drunk while they played Celine Dion, then went home to bed.

September 12, 2007, Evening- House Meeting

 

I wish I could say that it was just the excitement of the party planning and Gabriel’s first bath, but frankly it’s just a free-for-all every night.  The matrons stay in the kitchen with whichever older kids are helping to cook and we volunteers try to wrangle the groups we put together to tutor while helping individual kids work on their homework, but about half of the kids are inevitably roaming the compound making mischief and leaving trails of destruction behind them. Somehow they all know when dinner is ready, drop everything, grab their bowls, line up to collect, and then eat.  There’s one table; a picnic table on the porch which the older kids monopolize.  The rest of the kids inhale their meal strewn about the compound.  The matrons eat in the kitchen, and the three of us eat every meal at the small desk-table in the office.  It’s not much of a haven from the chaos, as before every meal we have to clean off the desk and pick up the whole room.  Actually, almost every time we walk in to the office we have to clean it.  We clean and organize, then go to the bathroom, and by the time we return someone has destroyed everything.  No one ever knows who did it.

Their bedrooms suffer similar fates, as well as The Hall.  And the compound itself is often littered with lonely flip flops, wrinkled and sad articles of clothing, and bits of broken toys.  Any child with a favorite toy must either keep it in their clutches at all times, or find a really, really good secret hiding place.  If they don’t, their toy is as good as dead.  Justice has had to repair his beloved tape player twice this week alone. 

When Edem materialized during dinner, he found a pile of newly donated books shredded in a pile in the Hall.  He was ripshit. 

Emergency House Meeting.

I was impressed with how he handled it.  He started off by telling everyone what a good job they’ve been doing at not hitting or insulting each other lately.  Then he launched into it.  He’s upset.  Very disappointed.  He paced in front of the lot of penitent children who hung their heads.  People work hard and spend their own money to buy toys and books and school supplies and look at what happens.  School pencils lost.  Toys destroyed.  The office is a mess.  Edem stopped, turned to face them and crossed his arms.  He’s not a tall man, but right then it felt like he was seven feet.  He asked them to think about this problem and come up with things they can do to take better care of their toys and what the punishments should be for those who do not care for things.   

After he left the kids worked on decorations, a little more solemnly than before, and trickled off to bed.

September 12, 2007- Celebrity Fieldtrip

 

Slept pretty well, considering how fast my brain was spinning last night.

The kids disappeared down the footpath, off to school for their placement tests. Edem showed up when we finished our egg sandwiches and asked John, Mauwli, and me if we wanted to go with him to see the school.  Leave the compound?  In the middle of the day?!  Yes please!

Gabi Primary School

We made our way down the footpath, down a small dirt road, and onto the main paved road.  I had no idea the school was less than a 3 minute walk away, which is a testament to how little I’ve left the compound to explore.  Sitting practically a block away from the home is the cluster of peach and brown painted cement buildings surrounding a yard with a big old tree and a cute little playground.  The Gabi Primary School.  John and I smiled as we crossed the main road, watching all the children in their peach and brown school uniforms play in the yard.  By the time we made it half way across there were dozens of children gaping back at us.  Like bees to honey.  We tried our best to follow Edem through the ever growing swarm.  The little darlings followed us, some daring to reach out and touch our hands. 

Gabi Primary School student

One exceptionally brave little girl ran up, placed her little fingers on my arm as high as she could reach, and slid her hand down to my wrist before running away.  If she didn’t actually run away shrieking “I touched one!  I touched one!,” she might as well have.  This ogling and touching wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t so self-conscious about my skin these days.  The tropical heat had caused the eczema on my hands to turn from its’ usual dry, flaky patches into spots of weird honeycombs of clear liquid puss deep under my skin.  It’s not like my entire hand and fingers are covered, but there are enough patches of it that it didn’t go unnoticed.  One girl spotted a bumpy bit and pointed at it, looking at me inquisitively.  I grabbed my disgusting, puss bubble covered finger, and shook my head.  I’m not sure what she wanted me to say, but I certainly couldn’t explain to her that the climate was affecting my dry skin in a weird way and that no, not all yavo’s have skin bits that look like they’re cooking at a low simmer.

Just then Edem disappeared into a room and some of the kids started to sing at us; “Yavo yavo, Bon Soir! Yavo yavo, Bon Soir!”  The connotation of the word and the song is still unclear to me, so the singing, not to mention the swarming, made me a little agitated.  The touching and the singing.  Singing and touching.  Giggling and singing and stolen touches.  Looks of awe.  Looks of skepticism.  Looks of skepticism and singing and touching.  John and I exchanged overwhelmed looks, and Edem appeared again.

He had stopped in to see the principal for the placement test results and he was NOT happy with our kids’ performance.  Only Minua passed into the next grade- she’ll be in class 6 now.  The two oldest boys, Justice and Elikplim, took their tests for JSS5 (Junior High), and what will happen next is a little unclear.  I think we know Justice passed, but we wait until Friday to hear about Elikplim.  They’ll go to school on Monday, whichever grade that turns out to be, but for now they come back to the home with us.  Edem wisked us away from the throngs as expertly as a bodyguard at an Elvis concert and we made our way back to the home. 

After lunch John and I took Minua, Juliet, and Ernestina to the market.  Ernestina’s plastic flip-flops had worn completely through at her heel on both pairs.  When we found a flip-flop vendor I let her choose her own.  Shyly, she picked a red pair and put them on.  She looked so adorably pleased with herself the rest of the day.  Best $0.50 I’ve ever spent.  John got a light bulb, some phone credits for Sonjelle’s phone, and tried to get a cell phone charger for his own, but somehow it was confusing and it got complicated so we gave up and went home. 

On the way home Minua mentioned that tomorrow is Elikplim’s birthday.  We asked what they do to celebrate birthdays, and none of them had ever celebrated a single one.  Imagine!  No birthday parties!  I mean, I guess it’s silly of me to think that everyone has a birthday party like I was used to as a child.  If you have holes in your flip-flops and you can’t always count on someone feeding you dinner every night, you probably don’t get a pool party at the YMCA with pizza and a towering pile of brightly wrapped gifts. 

John and I plotted (we could certainly spring for a few bunches of bananas and a pineapple or two), ran the idea past Sonjelle, and told the kids we’d have a small party the next day.  They were beyond psyched and spent the rest of the day making paper decorations and confetti and cleaning the common room. 

During all the commotion, just before dinner, some of the boys hollered to us to come and look at the bath house.  When we rounded the corner, there was Gabriel crouching under the faucet, which he had managed to turn on, giving himself a bath just like the big kids.  He just decided he was old enough to give himself a bath, so he did!  Standing there, next to Sonjelle and John and all the kids, all smiling and laughing, my heart tightened and floated up into my throat.  I don’t know why it affected me as much as it did.  Getting to see a “first” for Gabriel.  All of us, together.  The kids, wanting to share the moment with us, and all of us feeling proud.  Like a family.