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April 2009 Update by Sonjelle
Hello all,First I would like to thank the few people who have pledged to/already have sent us some protein powder. The more we can get the better it is for our children, and as I said in the last email, if we can get an excess then we can share it to our sponsored children as well, who also badly need supplemental nutrition.
Things at the home have been going well. The children are all healthy and we have had to take only a few trips to Margret Marquat Hospital this month. Easter was a fun day, with the children spending much of the day eating and celebrating (for any of you who were here for Easter time, you know how crazy the town gets at this time of year!) The children started their school break on April 15th and will return to school on May 12th. All of the children took their end of second term exams, given that we have only received a few of the grades back, I will wait until after break when all of their results are in to send them out to you all. Justice took his B.E.C.E exams (the exams to see if he will be placed in Senior High School or not) on the week of April 20th, so let us hope that he performed as well as we know he can on the test. Edem and I took a large group of children to their appointment at Ho clinic on the 24th.
Another piece of really great news is that we have accepted a new long term volunteer to take the position of country administrator when I leave. Her name is Jessy and she will be coming out in June, this way I will have a month or so to show her the ropes before I depart. I am really looking forward to meeting her, and am so relived that we will have someone in place before I leave; she has spent some time in Benin, so she is somehow familiar with West African lifestyles and pace of life.
Small Wisdom has been taken to MMCH twice in the last month, it seems about every 2 weeks he comes down with a GI infection, but thankfully it has been two weeks since his last visit and he is still healthy! He can now say simple words such as 'mama' and 'atu!' (which is what you say in ewe when you give someone a hug), he is not walking yet, but can speed crawl all over the place and can pull himself up to the standing position. He now weighs 8 kilos, about 17 pounds, which means that he has gained about 5 pounds since arriving here in the end of December. He is starting to sleep through the night again, the trick I've realized is to leave a bottle in his crib and he'll get it when he is hungry in the middle of the night, I am going to give it one more week, and if he still sleeps through the night I am going to start sleeping at my house again.
Big Emma just came down with Malaria 4 days ago and was taken to MMCH, he is now, thankfully feeling much better.
For Easter the children made a nice party, in the morning Israel, Elikplim, Kafui, Bright and I decorated the house, painting on the windows with washable window chalk, blowing up balloons and hanging them on the porch, taking out and decorating the Christmas tree, and putting tinsel on the dead orange tree. After church the children set up the tables and chairs on the porch like a restaurant, complete with napkins at every place. Minua and Rosemond were the waitresses serving all the other children. They had a yummy lunch of fried rice, salad and chicken. Afterwards we all had canned soda that Edem brought for them. For dinner it was FuFu with light soup and buffalo meat (the children had a hard time understanding just what a buffalo was, so I ended up telling them it was cow meat, they thoroughly enjoyed it regardless of what type of meat it was), and we finished off the evening watching a film about the life of Jesus that had been donated and brought by Joy on her last visit.
The children all took their exams, but currently the only results we have back are Lebene's, Rosemond and 2 results from Israel, once we get the complete results I will include them in the next update. Lebene's and Rosemond's results were ok, giving me hope that this year they will pass the entrance exam into JSS in September.
Big Wisdom, who has been spending his school break with his uncle, celebrated his 20th birthday the month.
Edem and I took Juliet, Ernestina, Kafui, Big Emma, Small Emma, Rita and Paulina and her father to their appointment in Ho. All the children, with the exception of Ernestina had really great CD4 blood work results, their numbers continuing to go up (as they should) in some cases marginally in some cases the numbers jumped almost 1000 in 6 months! The doctor thought that the machine might have malfunctioned in Ernestina's case because the numbers dropped so severely, but she is gaining not losing weight, which is what normally happens when ones numbers go down, so he sent Ernestina for another test, we will get the results at our next appointment.
It has been a quite time for volunteers, as all of our volunteers left this month, and we do not get any more until next month. Patrice and Rosemary left in the beginning of the month and Cope left in the middle of the month. Andrea, a past volunteer who has sent up her own Non-profit organization returned to Ghana for one week to work on her project. She went with Elikplim, Lebene, Rosemond, Minua and Donkor to various communities to do educational outreach. The HardtHaven kids got a chance to give back by explaining the importance of good hygiene and demonstrating proper teeth brushing etc. The children had a really great time doing this outreach and I think it is very good character building for them as well, we are hoping to continue to give our children the opportunity to do volunteer/outreach work. Andrea also worked on setting up an office and resource center for volunteers, a place that volunteers could go if they are feeling underutilized to see what work needs to be done in the community and then they can figure out a way to go do that work, this way the problem that we encountered last summer can be avoided.
As always please feel free to email me with any questions or comments
Thank you Sonjelle Shilton
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