God Bless the Rain Down in Africa...

May 30th
Waking up at 5 am, I sat and read for an hour then help Patience, one of the boarding girls who helps around the house, with the morning sweeping. After we finished with the sweeping I headed into my room to do my early morning work out. At about 7 am I headed out to the table for breakfast with the othre volunteers before they headed in different directions, some had already left for Cape Coast the others heading to Accra for the day. I chose to stay back for the day feeling I just needed the alone time, a break to do what I wanted. I spent the first part of my morning cleaning, my room and myself (shaving and ensuring my feet were actually a natural shade of tan rather than just dirty). I had originally planned to spend the whole day at the boarding house with the children playing and having a good time but instead the morning was washed away... literally.
The rain started at about 10 am out of nowhere. The morning was beautiful, a little cloudy, but beautiful. I was sitting at the table writing in my journal when a little, very light, gust of wind blew though the windom. Usually when you get these little gusts you can tell the rain is right behind but today was different. Suddenly the wind got VERY strong, I honestly thought the tin roof was going to blow off. It just kept blowing at this strength until, *TING TING TING TING TING* It started to down pour. The sky was literally falling upon the village. The sky started to grumble loud, the thunder almost sounding sharp as it cracked in the sky. It wasn't until Sir Godwin and I were racing around to shut all the shudders in the house that we realizd the sky was flashing, quite frequently then what I'm use to too. Little Alown, 3 years old who is probably my favourite child ever(I know I shouldn't have favourites but he's so adorable) was curled up in a ball by the kitchen on the floor covering his ears because all the sounds were all too much for him.
The tin roof clinking, thunder rumbling, lightning cracking and Godwin and I yelling to each other, "Close the other windows too the wind is changing directions!!!" in hopes of getting all the windows covered before the room were soaked.
This excitement lasted for about two and a half hours, definitely the worst storm since I've arrived. Alown and I sat drawing pictures, singing "Rain, rain, go away, all the children want to play" and eating lots of snacks. By the end of the two and half hours the rain had calmd, hadn't stopped but calmed and Alown had wanted to head up to the school to see the other boarding children. So we suited up in our matching white rain jackets and took off to the boarding house in the rain. The thing about this was remember in a previous blog I talked about the difficulty of describing the land, redish soil with sand and shells on top. Well when it rains the mixture turns into a quicksand type ground unless your lucky and find spots in the pathway that is hard like rock. So Alown and I hipped and hopped our way to the school hoping our foot wouldn't get sucked under by the mud and water.
When we arrived at the school the rain had pretty much ended and the boarding children were excited for company. I ended up staying the whole afternoon with them as I had planned, talking, playing the drums and doing wash. The drumming was probably my favourite part. The children were playing, singing , others dancing while the rest just watched and listened enjoying the entertainment. We sat drumming for over an hour then I wandered over to the girls to to help with washing and hang out some.
By 5 o'clock, Alown was tired and we headed back to the house. It was nice when we returned because Bwakey had supper all ready for me and Alown joined me at the table (the boarding children don't eat with us at the table and when we offer food they act as if they'll get in trouble if they take it). So clearly this was a nice surprise for me and I reall enjoyed the company. It was just shortly after that the other volunteers arrived back tired and ready for bed after their own long day so we all hit the hay.