Never a Dull Moment...

Today was one of those days that turned out way differently than expected...it was a "normal" day in the fact that I didn't have any special plans...so here's what one "normal" day looks like:

I slept in until 7:20, which is super late for me here...half the day is pretty much gone by that time! :) We had no water last night or this morning as all of our generators are broken. Thankfully, we were able to rent one for the day today, so we were able to pump some water again!

Then, I started tying some Christmas goodie bags that Carolyn and I had put together last night. Then, since our school doesn't have a copy machine, we pretty much do without, but occasionally I make a few. Well, it turns out today I wanted to make LOTS for next week and some clubs I have planned for Christmas vacation, so I decided to run to Medie quick to make some copies...and there began adventure #1! Medie is just less than 2 miles down the road, so while I knew it would take awhile to run the copies, I wasn't expecting to have to go to 5 copy stores to get 1/2 of them done! :) The one in Medie had a paper jam that they couldn't fix, so that was out of business. So, I hopped into the van and drove to Nsawam (about 10 minutes away). The first place made a few copies, but then it stopped working, so they sent me to another place (shop #3). They wanted to charge me twice what I pay in Medie, so I decided to only make a few. Then, as I was bargaining with him, he said that next time I came back he'd give them to me for the price I wanted. So, I said, "So, if I walk out to the road and come back, will you give them to me for 5 pesewas?" "Yes, yes, madam...whatever you want." I started laughing and then finally persuaded him that that was ridiculous and that he should give me them for that price right now. So, that was a deal...and the power went out! :) On to shop #4 which was down the road only to find out they were out of toner! To give up or not give up? That was the question...Oh, I was close, but figured I'd have to go through the same thing another day if I came again, so why not keep on keepin' on?! 5th time's a charm, I guess! This shop was a good find...everything went smoothly, it just took a couple of hours to make all the copies...and it wasn't THAT many (maybe 500 in all). Three hours later, I was finished...well, actually I gave up halfway, because I was tired of waiting and it was getting a little pricy! Yikes....I'm pretty sure I'll never complain about making copies at a future school!!!

When I got back, I had a little bit of downtime as the kids were in siesta. I had fun stenciling some Christmas cards! Then, the kids really wanted to go for a walk, so we did that and they had fun splashing around in the water again, as you can see in the picture! This time the was a bit too shallow and smelly for me! :) As we were walking through the village on the way home, one of the kids said, "Miss Dana, look there's your name!" I didn't believe it, but sure enough someone had carved my name into their home...the "Boys Ghetto"...no less! haha...that was a surprise and kind of interesting...I must really be working my way into their village with my reading at night. :) That continues to be a highlight of my day to go read to them and then just walk around in the village for a little bit....there's sooo many kids!

Well, we weren't back for long, when one of the village kids came running in Mama Carolyn's apartment crying that her father had dropped something on his eye and couldn't see. Her father is a guard at the home and sent her over for help. We weren't really sure what had happened, but just then Jim had gotten home in the van, so we all piled in and drove over to their home. We found Prince (her father) lying on the floor in his home in severe pain. It turns out that he didn't really drop something ON his eye, but something got IN his eye. He was cutting down a tree in his yard, and some sap from a tree apparently squirted into his eye. We tried to flush it out but that didn't seem to be working....it was hard to feel so powerless when he was in such pain, but we did about all we could and then headed home.

It was store time! We opened the store for the kids to buy whatever goodies they wanted, and by the time that was finished I was so ready to be in my apartment by myself! It was a crazy, full, adventuresome day!