A message for Kman and Cater

Email from Kman today...
Hello Mom,
we miss you alot so us part of the family here is trying not to be worried but we all are crying for a few minutes but we know that when you come home you'll have Selina. We all hope your having a great time and we just can't wait for you to come home but I just have one question, is Selina wild
Love,
us P.S. Your always in our hearts

Kman,

Thank you for the wonderful email buddy. I miss you so much too and sometimes I cry too. It is okay. We will all be together soon!

Let me tell you about our day because it was fun!

I went to the Eban House at 8:30 this morning to meet the kids for church. We all walk together to the church which is really close by It takes as long as it takes you and Cater to walk to the park by our house.

The kids all go into their own little church. It is kind of hot because there is no air conditioning but the kids don't care. The kids here in Africa love to sing their praises for God and their prayers outloud and so the kids are praying and singing with all their heart. I stayed with the kids for a few minutes but then Auntie Comfort wanted me to go with her to the adult church. Your sister fell asleep on my shoulder and so I carried her into the adult church. Here is a pictue of the children's church...



In the adult service, there are tamburines in the front of the room and people can go get one. Church was about two hours long. For the first forty minutes people sang with all their heart but they did not all sing the same song. Some were singing the same song while others were talking out loud. There were about three microphones and it was "open mike" if you wanted one, you could get it. You could talk or sing into it, whatever you wanted. So it was very loud talking and singing different things. People were walking around and dancing some together and sometimes one would do a dance move and the ladies by her would like it so they would all do the same thing. After the singing and dancing the preacher started preaching. He did this in one language while a woman stood behind him and said the same thing in a different language. Neither of these languages were English and so Auntie Comfort told me what they were saying for the entire mass in English. During all of this craziness, Selina slept! This allowed me to stay seated in my chair although I did what I like to call "chair dancing"!

After church we went back and the kids ate. After that, they were supposed to take a nap but Selina had just had a two hour nap! They gave all the kids a piece of orange. Look at your sister. Do you think she likes oranges? I decided that since was not scared when I carried her to church, we should try going to the local chop shop and I would get a drink for the two of us. I told the aunties that we were going to do this and then Selina and I left.



Look at Selina on my lap!



I was a little nervous, Kman as I did not know what your sister would do once we got out the door and she realized that she was alone with your very white mother who is now reddish tan. I thought maybe she would scream really loud! But you know what she did- she looked at the door as we closed it behind us and said "bye, bye!" to her friends at the Eban House!

So then we started walking to the chop shop which is right next to the church. A chop shop is a little stand where you can buy food. Like a very small Rio Ricos- the outdoor place that mommy gets tacos and cheesecrisps from sometimes. We got there and had a slight problem, it was closed!

So them mommy and Selina started walking towards the main road to see if we can see another place to get a drink. The whole time, Selina was kind of quiet. At the road, a nice lady told us there was a place just across the street so we started walking. It turned out her idea was not going to work either and so mommy figured the best thing to do was to get in a taxi cab. A taxi passes you at least every 15 seconds in Ghana and so we easily got a taxi with a nice driver named Augustine.

Mommy told him to take us to the nearest place where we could get a juice and coke and sit at a table. I did not know how Selina would act with me now that I got in a car alone with her. She was very quiet for the first minute but then Augustine turned on the radio. The song "Rinestone Cowboy" was playing and she started bobbing her head to the music and playing with the seat in front of her. It looked like she might enjoy our little adventure! Yea!

Augustine kept driving and we were going farther than mommy planned so I asked him if he had a good idea of where he was going and if he would share that idea with me. He decided to take us to a little place by the ocean. When we entered the parking lot mommy was a little concerned as all she say was a sign that said "The MOJO Night Club". Mommy thought that maybe Augustine got confused and thought mommy needed a margarita or something but she saw that ther was a little outdoor restaurant right behind the nightclub. You could see the ocean from there. It was really lovely.

Mommy thought it would be smart to keep Augustine around since he knew where to return us to so mommy asked him how much he wanted her to pay him if he waited 20 minutes and took us back to where we came from. He said "10 cedis" which is $10 in America too. Mommy thought it was too much money but she did not want to worry about it so she said okay. Then mommy gave him two dollars to get a drink for himself while he waited for us. This made him pretty happy.

Mommy carried Selina to the restaurant and she hung on to mom really tight. She must have been a little scared. We sat down and I got her a pineapple juice with a straw to drink from. There was one problem though- she doesn't know how to drink with a straw! She stared chewing on it! Isn't that silly?





So mommy got her a cup. She really loved the juice. Look at her drinking it...



Selina started feeling more brave and was looking around and pointing at things. She loves to point to things and have you tell her what they are. I think she will do that a lot when she comes home.

When we left, mommy wanted to see if Selina felt brave enough to walk on her own. She did! She held on to mom tightly but she walked. She has a hard time walking on steps as I don't think she has ever had to walk on steps before so we will have to help her with steps until she gets better with them!



Mommy and Selina walked to the car and met Augustine the nice taxi driver. Mommy told him that he just drove Selina on her first trip with her new mom. He said "God Bless You" because he is happy that Selina will have a good home with us. Mommy told him that Selina is kind of shy. So what does she do? She walks towards him and he puts down his hands and she lets him pick her up!! That really made mom look like a liar!

So anyway, Augustine was very nice to us and played nice music for Selina to dance to in the car. He told mom that he will drive her anywhere she wants to go and that I should get his phone number so I can call him. Mommy told him that she knows she paid him too much to take her to the restaurant so if he drives again, she is not going to pay him American prices!! He laughed and said "Okay".

So Kman, to answer your question about is Selina wild... I know we thought she might be wild because she had fun hair and made funny faces. I don't think she will be as wild as your sister Cater. Cater is the wildest girl in the family. I think Selina will be funny. She loves to make funny faces and to make people laugh. She will run and fall down on purpose and start laughing so hard. She also will open her eyes wide and shake her head really fast and start laughing. I think you will think she is funny and watch her to see what she is going to do next.. that is what mommy does! What do you think of this face?



When we got back from our drink, I got to teach the kids how to jumprope by running into the rope while it is turning. They really liked that. I also taught them another dance, the macarena. They had a good time doing it. The kids here really love to dance!

I am so glad you sent me this nice email today to tell me you missed me. That made me feel so special. I hope you have a good time this week when you and Cater start swim team. That should be fun. Hopefully mommy will get some good news this week on the paper we are waiting for and I can come home to see you in the next two weeks!

Ghana is playing a soccer game here tonight that is very important. People all get together and watch the game. They crowd around the televisions and you can see them all sitting outside as you drive down the road so you know immediately that an important soccer game is on! Right now Ghana is winning! I tell people that you are a soccer player and that you play goalie a lot. They think that is cool!

I love you and Cater so much!!

Love,
Mom

PS- I have a riddle for you Kman... If a chicken eats a fish and then you eat the chicken, are you eating chicken and fish or just chicken?
Mommy is asking because on her walk she saw some chickens and guess what they were eating? Fish heads!! Yep, fish heads. So mommy was wondering if she ate that chicken is she eating fish too? Mommy doesn't like fish, only chicken and so this is an important question. Let me know what you think....thanks.