I thought I should write a bit of an update on what’s happening with my friends in Ghana so y’all can keep informed. Right now everything is more or less on pause because it’s the end of the month and we’re all broke so everyone is just trying to hang on. But a few things have been happening and we have some plans for next month to get things done.
Favour, the girl in the photo, is a seventeen year old Nigerian girl living in Accra in Ghana. When she became pregnant her boyfriend ran away and left her on her own. She gave birth a few months ago, now, and we have been helping her as we can.
Favour is what John calls a hard woman- tough, streetwise and aggressive. This is not always to her advantage. We arranged for a lady to help care for the child but Favour got in an argument with her and they came to blows. In the struggle the baby fell and afterward seemed quiet and passive.
We managed to get medical attention for the baby and apparently he is okay but it was scary. You can see Favour’s eye in the photo, she had already had an eye infection of some sort and the woman she fought with her hit the eye, making it worse.
I wanted to use this photo because of the socks. You can see that the little boy is wearing only one sock. Favour just doesn’t have two socks for him so this is the best she can do.
This reminded me so much of the first photos of Anabel. Anabel is a little girl who was abandoned by her mother when she was three years old. She is now staying in a childcare center and is going to school there.
In the first photos of Anabel she was wearing mismatched shoes. And now the little boy has only one sock. Just kind of sad and a little heartbreaking. The below is one of the first photos I have of Anabel, note the shoes.
One of John’s worries is that Favour has very few clothes for the little boy and the temps get cold on the beach where they live at night. And he is at that stage where babies outgrow everything anyway. So that is one thing on the do-do list, to get the poor kid some clothes. He has been in poor health from the day he was born and I’m very concerned about him.
John has said that he would like to get the little boy into the place where Anabel is staying when he is older but I think he’s too young for that right now. Favour is a poor mother but I don’t really like the idea of institutionalizing the boy. Though it is basically a boarding school and he wouldn’t be the only child staying there who has parents.
Anyway for now the goal is just to keep him alive.
On a more positive note, John has started helping the kids on the beach gather scrap to sell. Accra’s streets are thick with litter and garbage and many people collect it to sell at recycling centers. It gives them a small amount of cash and it helps clean up the streets a bit, which they certainly need. John has been organizing to help physically get the scrap to the places that buy them, which of course many people cannot do. Right now this is a small thing but it is helping the kids who need it.
To be a bit personal, when John found it was my birthday he recorded a song he wrote for me for my birthday. (John is a musician working to promote young musical artists as he can.) He said it has had more downloads than any of his previous songs, which was nice. (I will not post it here, or links to it, for privacy reasons.) As my roommate said, that is a blessing.
Well, a bit of an update, John just sent me a message that Anabel isn’t feeling well. She has a rash and a fever. Hopefully she will be okay for a day or so till the first of the month. I will add more if he sends me more information.
God bless. Hope everyone is doing well this end of February day.