stop and think

Day two of no running water here in my hotel room. I had a good day at school. I am becoming more comfortable in my abilities to teach and in my abilities to control a class. One thing that I will take away from this is first hand knowledge that teaching is both a very important and difficult job. I gave class six a bonus question on their homework. I told them that if they wished, they could attempt to find the capital of Oregon. I assured that I would have something to give them as a prize if they were successful. I think that once I get my phone, next week Moses and I will go out some time, maybe the beach or a bar somewhere.
Many of the older children (class 4, 5 and 6) are starting to get use to having a white guy around. The local word for white man is Obruni (Oh-Brew-Nee). I hear this wherever I go. As I walk down a road I will go no more than three paces before I hear a little kid yell out “OBRUNI!” and then wave at me. The little kids at school still call out obruni from time to time, but I can always expect them all to wave frantically at me as I pass by them. Many of them simply stare at me, others walk up very slowly and touch my skin or gently grab on to my hand. They are all very curious.
Today is a good day. I was able to make a call back to Portland.
Charles and I did some planning this evening about donations for the orphanage as well as the school project. He showed me all of his records of what has been spent and on what. He is very serious about accountability. To save money, he has cut corners like hiring prisoners to work, demanding lower prices for supplies, getting equipment donated for the day, convincing road construction workers to dump off their excess materials at the school site and so forth.
We had okra soup and corn/cassava mash for dinner. We ate it in traditional style with our right hand and ate from the same bowls. Again we ate the same kind of meats that I ate the previous night with Humphrey. When I stop eating Charles says “Seth, I know you are not full. Keep eating” and I really am full so I eat a little more and then stop and he tells me the same again, and after a few rounds of that he finally lets me stop eating.
Tomorrow I am meeting Charles at his house at 8am. I must find my way there on my own for the first time. We will then head to Accra to go to the bank to take out money for the food we will donate to the orphanage (including an extra ¢500,000 for water supply), a cell phone, hotel payments, shoes for church and other various things. I think the total that I will be withdrawing will be close to ¢4,000,000. it is going to be quite a wad in my bag.
Sometimes I stop and think about where I am and what I am doing and I wonder how I got here. Some times it is hard to believe. So far I am dealing very well with everything and fitting into Ghanaian life but the one thing that I am still a bit uncomfortable with is the bathroom situation outside of my hotel room. They are truly disgusting, but I am sure I will get use to it after a while.
I want to teach the kids at school about environmental awareness. Many Ghanaians simply throw their garbage on the ground so for the most part there is trash littered everywhere. They also have no problem with dumping old motor oil on the ground. I know that Ghana has many things to worry about and the environment is probably not on the top of their list. But because the environment is close to my heart I tend to take it seriously. Without a stable and healthy environment the quality of living will go down for these people. They are killing off the fish that they eat with polluting the waters and contaminating the ground with oil and chemicals that inhibit their ability to use ground water as a source for drinking H2O. But that is enough ranting for tonight. I will now head to bed so that I can wake up early to meet up with Charles.