Sink or Swim

Unless something goes horribly wrong, this is the last semester of my undergraduate career, and my stint of eight year (yes that's right, eight horribly long years) "super senior" will be drawing to a close. I guess at that point I will have to find some other subject matter to blog about. I feel as though I am incessantly talking about school. But hey aside from school, work and Aaron I don't have much of a life or time for anything else. That is except for of course, my other true love, Costco, but you already know my feelings on that subject matter.

I am excited to be done, but I am also kinda scared. School has been my shelter, my excuse, and a big part of my life for nearly the last decade. While I am definitely ready to say good bye to those obnoxious 18 year old, graduated with my little brother, I babysat you when you were little, freshmen (mostly they just make me feel like an old married lady) I am slightly scared to step from the shelter of college and enter "the real world".

I realize that rationally this makes no sense at all. However life's questions such as working at a job I'm not that interested in and don't love and our apparent lack of children, cannot simply be answered with the excuse of school. This is by no means an announcement (one would be a fool to take it as such) I am merely using those two things to illustrate my point. Which simply put is this: I feel like I have to grow up now and face reality. I'm scared to death because I have been happy in the land of denial and graduation feels like a swift kick in the.... out of the land of denial and ejecting me into the ocean (I hate the ocean, it makes me very uneasy) of accountability.

We'll I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog anymore, heck lets face it I don't read this blog anymore, however given that it has been nearly six months since our last post, for which I can't even take credit for, I decided to give it a whirl again.

I would say that it is one of my New Years resolutions to blog more, but I have resolved to only make resolutions that I have a least a shot at keeping... thus blogging is definitely NOT on the list. I do wish to keep in touch with people more and since I personally would rather stalk them electronically (thank you blogs and Facebook) rather than actually call people and talk to them in person, I decided  that I would try to afford those of you who still have some waning interest in our lives the same luxury. Kudos to those of you who are phenomenal and frequent bloggers. I envy you for being able to capture your lives in the written form. I enjoy reading and be a part of your lives through it. I hope to one day be as diligent as you. At the moment however life is busy enough and so I choose to leave out the part where I beat myself up for not being better about recording it (it really does free up quite a bit of time). In short I may, or may not possibly be back into the blogging world on a more frequent basis. I make no promises or guarantees. 

To those of you stalwart bloggers out there, keep on keepin on. You know who you are, I may not comment, but I am always reading you and I am grateful to you for sharing your lives with us.

More Ghana photos!!!!!

That amazing Girl in Africa

Greetings from Ghana! Thank you all so much for you love and support. I hear that Aaron has been very well taken care of and I thank you immensely for it! (he will probably be sad to see me return in this regard. :) I thought I would take a second to fill you in on some of the happenings these last couple of days….

this was the sunset on the first night of our arrival (Saturday) it was absolutely amazing!

On Sunday we went to a Ghanaian ward. I loved it. The stake president was up at the pulpit speaking and his cell phone went off. Not only did he look at it, but stopped mid scripture to read an incoming text. It was awesome.

The next picture is our first day in the village. We are required to go and meet the king of the Barekuma region and present our mission statement to him and other community leaders for their approval (even though they already knew we were coming and what we were doing). This is a picture of me with the king……

It is also custom for them to present us with a refreshment or gift. Usually it is “malta” basically drinking a whopper sans chocolate, but because our numbers are so large this year we bought the drinks for them and we ended up with coke and Fanta.

These are pictures of the kids. They just swarmed our bus when we pulled in. they love having their picture taken and even started posing. When they figured out that the picture appeared immediately they were thrilled to see themselves on the screen. Even the adults would bring their kids up and ask us to take pictures of them.

The kids remembered the song that we had taught them last year after we had built the bathroom for the school. When they saw us they started singing it and doing the actions.

These two are pictures of the first few elderly people

we interviewed and my Ghanaian counterparts. Philip is in the red and Collins is wearing the button down shirt and drew pants. These were both taken on the second day.

All in all it has been an interesting couple of days. We have definitely had our struggles…. Fire in the hotel, plane delays, no hot water, sickness, and skype not working to name a few. We are tired and hungry most of the time, but most of all we are happy.

Ghana and Africa are much different than I pictured. The weather is not that hot here, 85 degrees at the hottest, the mosquitos are not giant and man eating (In fact I have yet to see one, but I do know that they exist because I have some bites) it is not dry and deserty looking to name a few things.

Here are a few thing that I love about this place:

Fresh Pineapple, mango (normally don’t like these) and bananas YUM!

Things are SO cheap here

Sunsets

Humidity

Thunder Storms

The people

Not really know what day or time it is, and not really caring either.

Singing/ dancing

My group

But most of all I am amazed at how happy these people are. They have nothing and yet they are one of the most joyful people I have ever met. Several of the questions on our survey ask about quality of life and if they are happy/ like themselves. The answer we get the most frequently is of course! Why wouldn’t I like myself? Why wouldn’t I be? “Nyame Tease” (Ney- ame Tey- ah-say) God is Alive.

Thanks muchly to all of you for your love and support and feeding of husbandage. I love you all.

Love,

Hal