Placement!

Well, today I got my placement for my trip to Ghana, Africa! I will be living in Kwamoso, Akuapem. I will be living with Rev. Fianko-Bekoe. It is a small village of about 2,000. The Rev. has about 13 relatives living in his home currently! I will finally know what it's like to live with "siblings." :) Apparently the Rev. is not to strict and is okay with volueenters going out in the evenings to eat in one of the few restraunts in town. I will be working at the Adom Day Care Center in Akropong! I am in the hills and will be about an hour from Accra the capital. There are about 120 children at the center, ranging from 8 months to 5 years old! I will be given the chance to teach theatre, music and basic lessons like math, and reading skills.
Below is whats is considered a "normal day!"

    The day begins at 08:00 where the children arrive for assembly and registration. From 09:15 to 10:45, there are three half hour sessions with activities such as number work, skills development and story-telling followed by a break of forty five minutes.

From 11:30 until 13:00, there are three further half hour sessions with activities such as drama, music and movement and outdoor play. Lunch is from 13:00 until 13:30, during which time volunteers can serve and help feed the children.
After lunch, children can change their clothes and from 14:30 until 16:00 are able to nap or play more educational games. Some of the younger children may sleep from about 14:00, and you can decide whether to stay for the afternoon or to have some free time. Your day will end by 16:30 at the latest and weekends are free.

 I will also be given the chance to take the children on little field trips into town or to the local library! I am so excited now and it seems so much more real now that I know where I will be living!

It's Official!

Well for those of you who do follow this somewhat lacking in post's blog, thanks for checking it out again! After years of working through jobs that are not always a teenagers ideal job, and years of working when all I wanted to do was sleep or hang out with friends, I finally bought my plan ticket to Ghana. I leave Denver, CO at 10:53 on July 15th and arrive in New York City at 17:02 (5:02). I will then depart from NYC at 21:30 (9:30) and arrive in Accra, Ghana at 12:30 on the 16th of July. It doesn't seem real. I never thought the day would come. So as of today I have 48 days to get my stuff together, finish paying for the trip, finishing my medication to go! Whoa. I don't really feel like I have any time left. It came so suddenly. I would not have been able to do it without the support of my friends, family, and fellow church goers. I'll come back to the USA on the 30th, actually the 31st, with the time change! I am so excited to go and take pictures, and make a difference where I can. This evening, my family and I watched a documentary (although it was poorly filmed and really, really, really, let me make this clear, REALLY repetitive) about Ghana and the castles and prisons from the slave trade days. It was interesting to see some of the festivals that happen, and how important tradition is in the Ghanaian culture. The country is beautiful, right on the equator, and green. It looks nothing like Alamosa. Things are actually alive there. It seems surreal that I will be in another country in just a short time. Yes, 48 days is six weeks which is roughly a month and a half. I applied for my passport and should get it this week. No I do not know where I will be staying. And no I do not know if I will have running water. No, I'm not scared. I'm so excited! This is something I want to do with my life. I want to give back, I want to help, I want to show people in my community that this is what the world is like right now. That this IS what we can do to help. It's important for someone to bring reality to those who do not know it, or seek it. This is what I believe God sent me to do. I am here to help, to make a difference, and to push others to do so. I understand that to some this may be stepping over a line. But I believe in saying what I feel and this is it.
  Anyways. It's almost 11:30 pm now and I have to play at graduation tomorrow. I'm going to make a promise to post everyday. (I know I said that last time, but I mean it now.) An official countdown has begun!

Can't Wait

Much like I posted last night, I hope to post often about thoughts and feelings. I literally can not wait! I'm so excited and I'm nervous and I'm anxious to leave. I talked to my madre about my plans to join the Peace Corps after I get my teaching degree, before Grad School. I want to give back. I may not have a lot, but I have more than some and giving a little is a lot to them. I hope to travel everything helping and giving back. Time to research.

A big foot print, not a little one.

I am roughly 3 1/2 months away from departing to Africa. I'm excited, nervous, anxious, and distracted all at once. My mom and I have been arguing lately over the "accompanied" flight. I personally don't want to attend this trip. I would rather go alone. This is something I have been working for and something I want to do alone. I should be given this right, right? My mom says due to the fact that I have never left the country it would be a good idea to take this flight. I'm also concerned about the number of people going. My goal for this trip is for me to make a difference. Me. Just me. That's why I'm going alone. Without family, friends, or someone from Alamosa. So to end the argument, I emailed the head of Projects Abroad to find out if I was correct about more people attending that two week trip. I received his email a day later. It said that I would be pretty much independent, but they recommend that I attend the youth trip because it's geared more towards my age. This bothered me a little, but I'll consent to that. Another thing that he mentioned was that the trip to Ghana tended to be the most populated trip, ranging between 40-60 people on average! This threw me off, because I had figured most would go to places in India, China, or Southern Africa, not tiny little Ghana. I quickly googled the sight and decided to pick another location that he had said didn't have many people. But as I was searching through each page, I realized that none of the countries drew me in like Ghana. I'm not saying they don't need help. But I feel like Ghana is where I need to go.
I have this theory. People talk about how they want to leave their foot print on this earth. Make a little difference right? But with a million little footprints, they'll get erased, no one will remember that tiny thing you did. Have you ever noticed that in history, almost no person did something alone? They always had another person or group to help them. This is where my theory comes to play. If we all band together to create one giant foot print to start and make more and more giant footprints instead of a million tiny ones, then our tracks can't be erased. The world could change. We just have to work together. (Now you must understand, it's 11:15 pm, and I had three hours of sleep last night, if this doesn't make sense, I apologize) This is where I became embarrassed and humbled.
I realized as I was looking for new places, that having more people was good. It meant that we could make a BIGGER difference! It meant that we could all work together to actually change things. So if your still reading this, you might be asking yourself, whats the point of this blog? The point is, I'm not changing countries, and I'm going to start a movement, I'm going to get people to work together, not separate. It's like the saying "there is no I in team." I or you alone cannot change things. It's not possible. But as a group, we will be noticed and people will start to change things. I've decided this is what I want to dedicate my life too. At least for now. Maybe I'll change my mind after Ghana. But I feel in my gut that this is where I should be.

Starting

So, as many of you know, or will know, I'm planning on going to Ghana this July. If your looking at this blog, I either forced you, or your curious, or maybe you clicked the wrong button and ended up here. No matter what the cause of your "stumble" your now somewhat interested because you have read this far. Right? I had come up with the idea of starting a blog, to document my trip and my progress towards it. I'm hoping I'll be able to post in Ghana, but that's months away. I'll hopefully be documenting my thoughts, and feelings towards this trip. And if this goes over well, and I continue doing projects it will become my "official" blog for my life and thoughts. If I can figure it out, I'll post pictures as well. I guess I'll leave it at that. If you even read this far, thanks for supporting me. :)