3/13/12

This is going to be a shorter post than many of the others have been.   We woke up this morning and Delight and I walked up to the Salon Shack and she got her hair done.  We had them put in extensions with tight braids and left them straight without curls. 

It took the ladies about three and a half hours to braid her hair and it cost me $22 Ghana Cedis.  That is only about 15 dollars US.   I did the math and after buying the hair, each girl that helped made only about one Cedi a piece. (Approximately 68cents.)  I thought about that quite a bit today.  Another thing that made me think were all the ladies on the side of the road who sell the little baggies of water.  A case (Actually a big bag containing about 25 smaller bags)   costs one Cedi and fifty pesewes.  Which is about 97 cents.  The ladies sell the individual bags on the side of the road for ten pesewes.   Which is about 6 cents.  I would watch as they run up and down the side of the road at each red light trying to get someone to hold out a dime and ask for some water.  Assuming that they can sell two entire cases in a day, their entire profit would be only about three Cedis, or two dollars.  They would have to really hustle to make that happen. 

This doesn’t really have anything to do with adoption but I was fascinated with how hard these people have to work just to eek out an existence.  True poverty isn’t always due to laziness or a lack of ambition.  It runs much deeper than that.  Sometimes there is no way out of it for many of these people.   

After Delight finished her getting her hair done we went back to the hotel and played games and just kind of relaxed all day until we went out to dinner with John and Irene, and also Anita from AAI.  We went to a new place called the Goose something. (I can’t remember the name) but it was really good.  We enjoyed out meal and also had some really good conversation with some great people.  It was a nice evening.  When we got back to the hotel at 9:40 the kids and I went to the room to start putting our things together so we can pack up in the morning.  The kids were both happy and Delight especially was in a very good mood.  She kept giggling and she wanted to call and talk to Emily or Abby.  She did and caught Abby and they talked and laughed for about twenty minutes.  It was really neat to hear them talk and get along so well.  I am really getting excited to get home and try to return to somewhat of a normal life.  I am sorry that I am rambling, but it is 1:30 am and I can’t really even stay awake so I better close for now.  We fly home tomorrow at 10:15 PM.  Gonna be an adventure. J