Our last day in Ghana

Our final day in Accra we went with an SAS group to visit a children's home. Some of the children were orphans, others had been moved out of difficult family circumstances to live at the home, which serves children 0-18 years and has a pre-school on the premises. Once the children are school-aged, they attend local schools.
Charis and Steve had purchased lots of bubbles, markers, crayons and toys in South Africa, and we all had fun playing at the orphanage. The bubbles were a huge hit! And the kids also loved taking the students' digital cameras and shooting their own photos.


We began the day by hearing from the director about the programs offered, and then we toured the facilities, playing along the way.

Barek gave the boy in the second photo the small football we had brought, and they enjoyed a game of catch.

We ended up spending a lot of time in the toddler room. They were adorable! We colored with them and joked and laughed. One little girl found Barek and just loved him! She kept coming back to him all day and wanted to be on his lap.


The teacher wanted me to feed this little guy, and I was only too happy to help. Asher did a good job mingling, and the little kids wanted to play a tickling game with Charis. You can see by Asher's sweat just how hot the day was.

We made many new friends.

A group of nurses who were studying for their advanced degree in Public Health were also visiting the center that day. I had a great conversation with one of them, and it was interesting to hear about Ghanaian health issues from her perspective. She said that one of the things they were required to do was to go stay in a remote village for three weeks to absorb the local culture and get a feel for what is needed. She talked about some of the challenges she faced during that time.


All of the SAS students did a great job hanging out with the kids. And many of the college students also scraped and painted a large wall that was in disrepair.

For something Completely Different, we headed to a local restaurant for lunch. It was strange to be at such a fancy hotel with an abundant buffet of African food.


A core group of us returned to the home after lunch, determined to play soccer! The older Ghanaian boys were thrilled, and despite the heat, they played a rousing game.



Our "son" Max (from our "extended family" on the ship), kindly gave his water bottle to a sweet girl who had hung onto him from the beginning. One of the students is an accomplished singer/guitarist and played for all of us. We stopped in to see the babies before we headed back to the ship. It had been a meaningful day for us all.

Once aboard, as we had each day in Ghana, we headed straight for a shower and fresh water to drink. Exhausted but happy we went to bed....but never went to sleep. The ship was "bunkering" that evening, meaning that a tanker had pulled up alongside us just outside of port for refueling. Unfortunately, the Atlantic did not cooperate and we rocked and rolled as we were anchored in the sea refueling. As the sailors amongst you know, when waters are rough, it is much better to be sailing than standing still. The rocking continued from 9pm until 7am the next day. With no sleep and still tired and dehydrated from Ghana, we all headed to class.

Here are two short videos of our time at the orphanage: