(Start here if you're just now checking in on the Ghana trip recaps.)
No pictures with this one, just a story worth telling. I'll finish the series out with a final post by this weekend. Thanks for reading along!
I'm bouncing around in a bus full of excited children as we search road after road for the temporary overnight shelter, where we will stop for the evening before making the long drive south the next morning. In true Ghanaian fashion, no one seems to know where the shelter is, and it is nightfall when we finally discover the unmarked building hidden inside a high wall behind several abandoned buildings. It is hidden for a reason, and we are actually grateful for the secrecy of the location, grateful knowing the children will be safe here for the night. It's down-pouring rain as we traverse the muddy road that we likely will never get back down, and then the power goes out in the entire village. Darkness redefined.
It continues to pour and thunder and lightning, and we have one flashlight (or "torch", as the Ghanaians like to call it) between the 24 kids and the 10 of us, which has been taken on ahead. We cannot drive up to the shelter and so must brave the storm for a bit. As the kids stumble off the bus, I snatch up little Jacob – piggy-back style – and start running through the mud and rain and dark, slipping and sliding and trying to see and follow the child in front of me. Impossible, except when lightning lights up the path. We are instantly soaked through and through. Having a new found "healthy fear" of lightning, I am on edge, but the kids are laughing and having a grand adventure like it's another typical day. They are used to being outside in the elements, used to the darkness.
After navigating a maze of rocky, muddy ground, we huddle in a cramped office space, and the guys take the "torch" to set out sleeping mats for the children in another room. I stay behind with the only other light we have – a 2" video camera screen that happened to still be in my pocket – so that the kids will not be afraid. I hold the dim light over my head (which happens to shut off every 30 seconds!) and see rows of smiling white teeth gleaming back at me; the 24 are talking and giggling excitedly, far from being scared. As we get ready to leave for the night, they are dry and safe and jumping around on their sleeping mats, settling in for one massive sleepover – the first like this in their lives. They put my own anxiety and doubts to rest and teach me so much in that moment about letting go of unfounded fear.
We arrive back at the shelter the next morning to begin the long drive. The children are running around playing, drawing up water from a courtyard well, and bathing. It's another day in the life for them, and I am amazed at their instant adaptation. No American child would behave like this. They care for each other – the oldest making sure the youngest bathe and are ready for the day. As we wait for a travel permit and to give the children breakfast, there is so much dancing and laughter, I can hardly believe my eyes. In less than 24 hours, they are already being transformed; their longing to simply "be a child" is realized, and they are soaking it up drop for drop.
So am I.
Post a Comment