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Asantiwa

Asantiwa is a girl who comes from Ho Dome that we started sponsoring in October 2008. She was living on the streets with her mother who has some developmental disabilities as well as having some undiagnosed mental illness. Because of the conditions she was living in we have no official records on Asantiwa, we were told that she is two and a half. However she judging by physical appearance she looks to be around 3 to 4 years of age. When she first arrived she would only speak a few phrases in Ewe, those being ‘I want water’, ‘Give me bread’ and ‘Give me food’. Now she speaks more Ewe and the other children have taught her how to count to 5 in English. We were told that Asantiwa had some developmental problems because she would not speak and engaged in self harm, hitting her head against the ground or biting herself. However after allowing Asantiwa to be in an environment where she socializes with other children and receives affection and praise she is coming out of her shell. Amazingly she very rarely engages in self harm anymore and many of the behaviors that made people think she has some developmental problems have either lessened or gone away.  At first because she was not used to good hygiene she hated to be bathed and have her teeth brushed, crying and throwing temper tantrums. Now bath time is her favorite time of the day and she laughs and shouts with glee when she is put in the tub. Asantiwa is quite the charmer. She loves to sing and dance. Her favorite thing to do is mimic the aunties, trying to repeat the words they said. She loves picking up the phone and saying ‘hello’, but she does get very shocked if someone is on the line and answers back to her. She has taken a special liking to baby Christopher and likes to play ball and run around with him. She also thinks is it very funny to say ‘A pounge’ which means ‘I farted’ in Ewe that cracks her up like nothing else.