First Impressions of the childrens Village

Trip Start Jun 30, 2004
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Trip End Sep 15, 2004


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Wednesday, July 7, 2004

So I had many preconceptions of what Id be doing here, and me and Isabel had spent a while planning how it would all work out but like all good plans the reality is totally different. The first time I walked in the village (which is in the capital (Lome), about 10 bungalows which hold about 8 children and a "mother" each, the mother is responsible for the day to day life of the kids and is meant to be well a real mother to them. Anyway I was amazed when I walked in as they where all staring at me, like proper staring, when I went back yesterday and today there amazing; very curious what my white skin feels like, and my hair which is apparently "beautiful" (and getting more blond by the day); The thing is I'm not really sure whether its good to let them sort of pull me apart and get used to white skin because what if they learn its ok to do this and then when they leave the village start doing it to all white people.
Anyway for now the staff think the kids will stop stroking my head and arms and sometimes legs soon, so I should let them (I feel like a cat)
I'm getting on a tangent, as this is Africa and even though they have known I'm coming for ages the village hasn't planned anything for ,e to do so they told me to go and get to know the kids, so yesterday I played all day with them, today when I went back in the morning about 8ish it was amazing when they saw me they ran over and where grabbing my hands and I walked around with two on each hand, some grabbing my t-shirt I counted eight at one point!! the best bit was when this little guy about 3or4 I think saw me, yesterday we played a game where he ran to me and I picked him up swirled him around and then he sat on my hip, so he ran at me expecting to pick him up etcc...thing is when you've got four kids trying to hold your hand you cant really pick another one up....so he ran straight at me....Four year olds heads are at a very unfortunate height....Wasn't too amused by that one, had to sit under a tree for a while and recover!!

Anyway life here is good will talk more about what my actual life is like another day but my social life is cool, everyone wants to take me out, to begin with it was mostly guards of the other houses who I've got to know, but now as I'm getting to be known as the white guy who walks around, I'm getting all sorts of random invites to house parties etccc...

Let me know how you are all doing at home, sorry for bad spelling I'm on a French keyboard
Johnny
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