Christmas in Ghana

The most expensive parts of sending your children to public school in Ghana are the uniform and the shoes. Private schools also have fees to be paid, and nearly all of these are mission schools (religious). At these schools, even for children whose fees are paid by scholarship, uniforms and shoes are still required. The uniforms are all different depending on the school, but the shoes for any school just have to be “nice”, clean, and not flip flops. I had received a number of inquiries from friends and blog readers about what they could do to help some of the kids and families I have mentioned in my blog. Shoes immediately came to mind. So, on returning this trip from home, I had about 25 pairs of shoes in all sizes, some new, some gently used. Thanks to all who contributed – I don’t want to try and list you all or I’ll forget someone!

Some other items like dolls, pencils, and candy were included by some of the many contributors, and I couldn’t help some goodwill clothes purchases for my special core group. In addition, one more box of school supplies from LA was waiting at my home in Meford in September, so I fit most of that into my suitcases – and two more boxes arrived in Ghana in time for the children’s party, which I held about a week after Christmas because I discovered many of the children had traveled to visit relatives over the holiday break and I wanted to wait until they were all there.

So, when I left Medford, I had two suitcases, weighing 55lbs and 50 lbs (yes, 55lbs is over the weight limit, but thank goodness medallion frequent fliers’ limit is 70lbs) – completely filled with stuff for the kids. All MY stuff had to fit into my carry-on, a rolling bag that fit in the overhead bin. It was an adventure in packing, but I had left most of my shorts and tops and sandals behind in September, so I didn’t have too much of my own stuff to take along.

Upon arrival, I sorted all the shoes by size and then with the other items, made piles of goodies for each child, labeled with a Post-It note. As Christmas was over, wrapping paper was hard to come by in Koforidua, so I settled for buying some ribbon and wrapping each child’s gifts in two pages of the New York Times (Sunday). I used the entire paper (yes, all of the Sunday Times, not including the Crossword)!

The day of the party arrived and I realized it would be more children than I could handle, so we split the group into younger (primary and below) and older. Some of the older kids helped with the younger group, many of whom were under 5. All totaled, there were 18 children under 10 and 12 children between 11 and 16, some of whom I had never seen before, either because they had been away at school or had just recently come to live with a relative in the compound. It didn’t matter - they still expected a gift and I was scrambling to try and make sure everyone got something.

Between tussles over the cookies, spilled juice boxes, and handing out gifts, I realized later as I plopped down exhausted on my bed, I forgot to take a single photo (I went to Precious' house later to take this one because I knew how excited and sad Luv's granddaughter was about sending her favorite doll to a little girl in Africa). Nevertheless, thank you to everyone who contributed to a crowd-pleasing Christmas for 30 kids in Ghana. It won’t soon be forgotten.
XO