Lack of water, litter and Obama

Since my last post, a few interesting developments have occurred.

Firstly, this is officially day four of having no running water in the dorm. Until two days ago, the other International Students Hostel had water, but that ran out. I will spare the gritty details of what the bathrooms are like here, but let's say I have been doing everything possible to avoid them. I've never been in a situation where something as basic (or at least what we consider basic) as water has been in jeopardy. Lacking running water makes even simple tasks very difficult. To take a shower, we have to lug huge buckets of water across a parking lot and sponge bathe. Let's just say that if I had no access to running water, I would never have long hair. I never realized just how much water I need to shampoo and condition my hair. The officials of the dorm have promised us that the water would be turned on every day that it's been out. One thing I have noticed in Ghana is that you hardly ever get a straight answer about when something will be done. Most of the time it is an estimate that is inevitably always too short.

Saturday, we traveled to Accra Mall to replenish our supply of groceries. So far, I have been to the Accra Mall three times. Every time I go, there is a group of beggar children, who look Indian?, ranging in ages from 3-14. These children ALWAYS run up to us, throw their arms around us and cling to us until we either throw them off, or they get bored and realize we're not going to give them money. What's super aggravating to me is that we can always see the parents lying underneath a shady tree, doing nothing and yelling at their children to get money from shoppers. So, this particular day, I decided to buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store to give to the children. I at first was going to buy them candy or chips, but then decided I should probably buy them something more nutritious (Mommy, this is your influence!). When I handed the loaf to the 10 year old beggar boy, his face lit up and he gave me a huge, bright smile when he said "Thank you". I felt great about having given this child a meal until I saw him hand the bread over to one of the parents, and the parent shove the bread into a backpack and yell at the boy to go beg again. I feel terrible for these children and it's always shocking how many young children (some looking as young as 6) I see working, begging or selling things on the side of the road.

Yesterday, many of the students in my program and I traveled to Cocoa Beach, which is supposed to be nicer and less tourist-y than the other beach we've been going to. We went to the beach entrance, where the people standing in front asked us to pay 2 cd each to enter. We watched as literally ten Ghanaians passed through the entrance without being charged. We asked the men why we had to pay and the others didn't, and they asked us where we were from. When we answered that we were Americans, they told us that when Obama had visited Ghana, he hadn't given Ghanaians any money to clean the beaches, so we had to pay. Aggravated, I tried to explain that America does NOT have extra money to give Ghana to clean beaches, and that we need it for our own national debt! We all were tired of being ripped off and decided to go instead to a pool with beach access. The pool was very nice and we went down to the beach to walk along the shore. When we got down to the shore, we saw that the beach was literally covered in litter. We saw everything from empty water bottles to shoes to TV remotes. It also smelled like sewage and we quickly returned to the pool. The black rock that lead up to the water and the sand were so beautiful, but it was hard to see past all of the nasty trash everywhere. This experience made me very appreciative of the cleanliness of America.