Hello!

Hello!
My name is Autumn Buzzell and I live and work in Ghana, West Africa with City of Refuge Ministries. Here, I run our school, Faith Roots International Academy, and get to be a part in rescuing and the healing of children who have been trafficked into the fishing trade, orphaned, abandoned, and those who just need a little extra loving. What an amazing gift this life is!

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Friday, September 14, 2012

Whew...

Yesterday was one of those days...

I came in to the school office after three solid days of registration, registration, registration...and I finally had a little peace and quiet. 

That meant that it was time for me to catch up on my emails that I haven't been able to get answered in weeks.  So, as I sat down to get some emailing done, I dealt with the craziness that is slow internet access.

I tried to attach documents to emails only to have my email bring up an error message, my entire email erased. 

So, I tried to figure out another way to do it.

On top of that, different behavior problems came in and out of the office.  We're seeing who our problem kids are going to be this year. 

Lots of sick kids coming to sleep in the office.

Quite a few coming through to purchase books.

By the end of the day, I still hadn't had a chance to leave the office, hadn't gotten all my emailing completed, and since our bus driver wasn't back yet from taking Lucy to the market, I needed to go and take all the kids home in our school bus. 

So, I trekked over to the house for the keys, only to find an enormous Omorefe boys fight happening which I needed to deal with before I headed out to the bus.  After putting a few problem solving skills to use, and giving the boys jobs that needed to be done before I returned, I was out the door to drop off the students.

Our school bus is a pretty big bus and I am always a little more nervous while driving that bus than any other vehicle.  But, it wasn't too bad yesterday.  The students guided me to the places that I needed to go and I actually had this strange experience...feeling like this was such a normal thing for me...a white woman driving a school bus full of children in Ghana.  It wasn't until I got strange looks and some "obruni"'s called out that I realized that my life here...well, it's just not the norm.

In any case, I made it back an hour later and then had to rush back to the school to finish up a few things there...sorting through the feeding fees, transport fees, and stationary monies that came in for the day.

Afterwards, it was back to the house for dinner and then getting the kid's homework finished, chores completed, baths taken, and storytime before bed.  By the time all that was done, I was exhausted, and it was only 8:00 pm.

I turned on some worship music, hit the shower, and then was in bed and asleep before my clock turned 9.

It was just one of those days...busy and sometimes frustrating, exhausting, and altogether...I was happy to finally close my eyes and declare that day finished.

One super sweet moment though was our storytime before bed.  All the Omorefe boys gathered on pillows to hear a story, count the raindrops, look at the colors.  That was definitely a sweet way to end the day.  And they all went down to sleep without so much as a peep.  That is one good thing about having school again...they're all exhausted!

Here's to finishing out the week strong...and hopefully a little brighter than yesterday's frustrations...

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