A day in the life...

Each morning I am awakened sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 by roosters, music, yelling, thunder, my host family, or all of the above. Being the great sleeper I am, however, I usually manage to stay in bed until 7:00. Here is my room:

Froukje and I eat breakfast together then head off to the babies home. It is about a 10 minute walk on this road:
On the way home in the afternoon, we stop and buy bread and fruit for lunch (which we eat with peanut butter and jam or honey). After resting (usually waiting for the rain to stop) we walk to town, about a 25 minute walk, or a 20 cent taxi ride. We head back to the Babies home for the afternoon shift between 3:30 and 4:00 and must leave again by 6:00 to make it home by dark. And when I say dark, I mean REALLY dark. Our family provides dinner for us, and we spend the rest of the evening reading, learning Twi and watching TV (if the power is on). I am usually asleep again by 9:30.

Here is my house:

It has both electricity and running water...Sometimes. The power shuts off at least once a day, usually for hours, and sometimes doesn't come back on until the next morning. Running water is even less dependable. When it works, we have a bathroom with a sink, flushing toilet, and a working bathtub. When it doesn't, we have a bathroom with a bowl, a broken toilet, and a bucket of water to bathe. Sometimes it's just easier to shower outside.

This picture (that's Froukje with me, by the way) was taken after we had walked home and got caught in the rain, so we grabbed the soap and showered outside. I think it was the cleanest I've been in a month...

It rains a lot- usually twice a day. When it rains, it pours, and everything floods. This is the street to our house in a daily rainstorm.
Needless to say, my shoes have taken on a pretty serious mud-red tint.

One of the best things about traveling by bus in this country is that you can do all of your daily shopping out of the bus window.
It is possible to buy anything from fruit, bread, corn, and water to toilet paper, toothpaste, belts, and soap. And everything in between. It is incredible to watch these women (almost always women) carry buckets of drinks on their heads and a baby on their backs, making transactions through a window above their heads as the bus pulls away.

Some people have asked about religion in Ghana. It is primarily Christian, with a strong Muslim influence in the north. Mampong is almost entirely Christian, mostly Baptist, Presbyterian, and Charismatic (which is what my family is). I attended part of a Baptist service in Kumasi the first weekend I was here, which was conducted in Twi (so I understood none of it). I have not yet gone to church with my family because we have been traveling every weekend, but I definitely want to do that soon.

Thanks for all the comments!