Its official!!!

Swearing In… (check out the photos to the right)

The morning of swearing in, I woke early and made a little sign that read, “Congratulations on making it so far, You are dynamic.” I hurried into the breakfast room before people arrived and placed it next to the jar of jam for everyone to read. I was filled with a sense of excitement mixed with gratitude and love.
We sat around drinking coffee and tea and slowly everyone drifted to their rooms to dress for the big event!
Everyone emerged around 9:30 looking spectacular in their traditional Ghanaian dress, a gift from homestay. We took so many pictures!
Then, the brass band began and we all marched into the courtyard and circled, finding our seats and waving at our homestay families.
We stood, hands over our hearts, singing the National Anthem. I’ve never felt so proud to be an American. I love my country, with all its faults and all its beauty, with its national monuments and national parks and canyons and rivers and fields of farmland, its crazy politics and big cities, its poverty and wealth and its FREEDOM!!! I’ve never loved America the way I do now. My eyes filled with tears and my arms with chills as I listened to our anthem and all of our soft voices singing. Then, they played Ghana’s anthem. Ghana, my home away from home for this chapter of my life.
Speeches were given, skits, language songs and proverbs, certificates were handed to all volunteers and all homestay families; it was a full and wondrous celebration. Then we ate lunch, took more pictures, and said farewell to the families.
That night, we swam in the pool and sang cheesy American songs at the top of our lungs, danced and laughed and cheered each other on to our new lives here in Ghana.
I came here with no intention of connecting to those in my training group and now I walk away with 42 new friends that I’ve grown so close to in this short time.
We have a bond that connects us in a way that will last a lifetime.

ET-ing…

Early termination. At this point, we’ve lost 6 of the original 48 trainees, a high number for this early stage of the game. If the trend continues in the normal pattern, we will lose 6 more in the next 6 months.
I have empathized with each person and been pretty sad for a couple of them, but honestly, I have not felt the tiniest urge to leave or doubt about being here.
Even though I don’t always love being here, there’s nothing telling me that I should be anywhere else.
I was thinking about emotions yesterday and how at any given moment, the way I feel seems how I’ve always felt and how I’ll always feel. When I’m happy, I can’t imagine being sad. When I’m full, I can’t imagine being hungry. When I’m in love, I can’t imagine being heartbroken. But it will always change, so I’m amused at how surprised I am when the change occurs and I quickly abandon the old feeling for the new, leaving the old in the dust.

Fuller Falls…

Yesterday, I sat atop a roaring water fall today and watched two dragon flies chase each other through the spray. The water rushed around my legs. The sun warmed my skin, my face, my eye lids. I noticed a rainbow rounding the water that was flowing over the edge. Amazing. Another precious moment. Another day that feels like a dream.
I followed my two friends over the rocks. We climbed in silence, one behind the other, communicating through hands and eyes because the water roared so loud, talking was impossible.
We stood behind a veil of water, the three of us amazed by the white sheets cascading over black rock. We climbed a tree growing from the edge of the rocks, to mount the final fall. It is here we sat, three in a row, legs dangling over the edge, looking down at the three water falls we’d scaled to reach this final perch.
I froze the image in my mind, a perfect memory of paradise that I hope never fades.