Thursday June 21, 2012  Africa:  Day 11

            Today we went to the camp to help with some psychosocial groups that the NGO runs.  The women’s group got cancelled, so we just had a group at one of the schools.  There is another group of interns from a university in Canada that have been working in the NGO's office.  They ended up running the group on human rights and abuse. Those of us from DU sat on the wooden benches with the kids and watched the presentation.  The interns were doing their best, but having to watch this from a teacher’s perspective was kind of painful.  It wasn’t easy because there were probably close to one hundred kids in one room ranging in age from three to twelve.  There are three classrooms at the school, but they combined everyone into one room for this presentation.  It was noisy, hot, and there are plenty of distractions coming from outside.  The presentation itself didn’t exactly lend itself to improving the situation.  The vocabulary  was not age-appropriate, and the information was presented lecture-style where the kids were expected to sit and listen for more than an hour.

            I couldn’t, however, get over the fact that I was getting the opportunity to see a school like this in person.  I felt like I was walking into a scene from a movie.  I stood at the front of the room and looked out into a sea of beautiful children in their school uniforms, sitting on hard wooden benches in front of simple wooden desks with “UNHCR” printed on the front.  The chalkboard was made of a big piece of slate, and the rough cement walls were completely bare except for the big windows in the side and the open doorways on either side.  Children who can’t afford to go to school ran around outside.  There was the occasional chicken or goat that roamed through the courtyard.  A woman who was introduced as a member of PTA stood in the back waving a big stick around menacingly in order to keep the kids quiet (but it didn’t seem to have much affect).

            After the presentation we all went outside with the kids to take pictures.  I noticed that some of the kids were playing the same hand-clapping games that the kids at my school in Vegas had taught me.  It was fun to be able to play these games with kids again, just on a different continent. 

            Because the women’s group was cancelled, we returned to Accra earlier than we had anticipated.  The girls and I decided to quickly pack up our things and leave for the weekend earlier than we had originally planned.  We boarded a bus and headed to Cape Coast. 

            Getting a bus is chaotic, to say the least.  The taxi dropped us off at the main terminal that goes from Accra to the different towns along the coast.  As soon as the car stopped, men were opening our doors, yelling for us to get in their bus, and pushing each other out of the way so that they could walk us to their bus.  In the meantime, vendors are also swarming us with various types of food, snacks, and random items like flashlights.  There are three different types of “buses”.  We have been warned by just about everyone not to ride in the “Fords”.  These are small vans that get you to your destination the fastest, but you are apparently taking your life into your own hands when you ride in one because the drivers are crazy (which is saying a lot for the drivers here, in general).  The medium buses are 15-passenger vans which everyone has told us is probably the preferred mode of bus transportation.  There are also larger charter buses, but they often take longer to get to your destination, and take longer to leave.  Bus drivers don’t leave the station until all their seats are filled.  If you are taking a smaller mini-van then the bus can leave a lot sooner than if you are waiting for a bigger charter bus to fill up.

            I began to feel very unsettled about taking the smaller bus, and there happened to be a smaller charter bus nearby.  When we got on that one, my anxious feelings immediately left.  I definitely feel like Heavenly Father was protecting us from something that might have happened if we had gone on the other bus.  Just as we are pulling away from the station, a preacher stands up on the bus and spends the first twenty minutes of the trip preaching, praying, and quoting scripture.  He expected everyone on the bus to chime in with “hallelujah” and “amen” as he discussed the importance of being obedient in order to be successful in life.  He then passed out a CD he had made about the secrets to becoming successful.  Because I didn’t give him any money at the end, he took the CD out of my hand and walked back up to the front of the bus.  Right after that, he said a final prayer and hopped off at the next exit.  It was a little bizarre, and I think his constant prayers of safety that the bus would not crash and people would not die made me more anxious that if he hadn’t kept going on about these possibilities.

            I was looking forward to a nice peaceful ride once he got off, but then the driver turned on some Nigerian movie and apparently thought that everyone on the bus must be deaf because I’m not sure the volume could have been turned up any louder.  I did manage to read a little and sleep most of the way.

            We got to Cape Coast and took a taxi to The Mighty Victory Hotel which is a pretty nice little hotel right up the road from the castle and shopping area.  I couldn’t wait to get up the next morning to enjoy a warm shower.  It’s only been 11 days and I seem to have forgotten what warm showers even feel like.