Village of Hope!

This weekend we got to travel to the Village of Hope, finally!!  VOH is the orphanage that I spent 2 weeks at last summer and while there I met some of the coolest kids in the world.  We had school off on friday so we left in the morning and got there around 5 that evening.  Most of the kids, if not all, were not aware that I would be coming so they were very surprised.  It was incredible to get out of the taxi and have all these kids come running up to greet me, all so excited.  I was at least as excited to see them too.  It was incredible to see how they have grown the past year and some of them were twice as big as before! Being here in Ghana has been awesome, for the entire time that I've been here, but I gotta say the highlight was getting to see all the kids at the orphanage again.  The joy that I felt upon seeing them was enormous and they were so happy to see me too.  Needless to say, I had an awesome weekend.  Friday night was spent hanging out with the kids and going around greeting them.  I didn't see everyone Friday evening so I also got to greet more kids throughout Saturday.  In the morning I went over to where they prepare their food for lunch and hung out with all the kids while they were cooking.  All day, I was asked to beat box for them, probably 30 times within each hour.  I guess that really impressed them last time...  Throughout the day Saturday I got to spend time with amazing kids and I also was able to meet a few more kids.  In the afternoon I played basketball with a bunch of the younger guys and that was a lot of fun.  I also took some pictures while there so I will upload them to facebook.  Saturday evening I hung out with some of the girls and boys in a house called Prestoncrest, and I was there until they went to sleep.  Sunday morning I went to church there and it was an awesome service.  The songs they sing are so fun to sing and the kids all sing as loud as they can.  It is awesome how the kids there are raised, with incredible faith and devotion to God.  Throughout the weekend as I would be talking with different kids they were always saying things like, "I pray that God will bless you and give you a good job so you can come visit us every year!"  And this would be coming from a 9 or 10 year boy or girl.  It is mind blowing how much these kids believe in the Power of the Almighty.  Sunday we had to leave pretty soon after church so we would get back into Kumasi at a reasonable hour.  The visit was a little shorter than I would have liked(actually I could have stayed there until May...) but it was an incredible weekend and I had such a great time.  It looks like the next time we'll get to go back is mid-October, but that time it should be for about a week. 

So it has been quite awhile since my last post so I'll also give an update on how teaching is going.  Teaching has been going pretty well the past two weeks.  Because I am just the assistant, I haven't really had to make lesson plans, which is nice.  But I have been helping with other things.  This past week I made some powerpoint pressentations to show the kids with pictures of the different themes they're working on, for example I made one of still life, portraits, and also the artwork  of Keith Haring.  It's fun to have some pictures to show the whole class because they haven't had that past years.  The kindergarten and 1st grade classes are consistantly noisy and very difficult to control...  But it's still a lot of fun.  All the classes are very different and so it keeps the week interesting and it never really gets boring.  I'm still teaching a number of classes on my own, while the main art teacher helps.  Its been really cool, she will teach the first few classes of the week and then when we have that grade again I'll get to teach them.  Im really enjoying teaching and it is such a great experience.  I have learned a lot and I am still learning everyday. 

I hope everyone, everywhere is doing well!  I miss everyone back in the states and I'm praying for you all!  Thanks for showing interest in what I'm doing over here, I hope the updates on here have been at least somewhat interesting :)

Love you all!

Kwaku