I’m trying to get back to my schedule of writing updates about John and Ghana on Tuesdays but things have been in such a chaotic flux for the last couple of weeks that it’s not easy. I feel like I should wait a day or to for things to resolve themselves more. And then when that day or two has passed, wait a bit more to know better what’s going on. And then a bit more…. And ultimately the week is done and I haven’t written anything.
But you have to do it sometime if you’re going to do it at all. So I’ll try to stick with Tuesdays if I can.
For awhile now I’ve been writing here in Kos about the people I know in Ghana and my friend John who tries to help them. I know the diaries I write seem very negative and depressing. I apologize for that but it’s the nature of what we are doing, trying to help the poorest of the poor when they have emergencies.
It’s sort of like chronicling the events happening in the ER of a hospital. People don’t even go there unless something bad is happening to them. But the good thing is that the people who come for help are, indeed, helped, so ultimately they are happy endings. And it is the same with these stories. So there is that.
This month has been very chaotic, more than usual. We were fortunate to have some extra money this month, for which I am very grateful. Without that people may well have died. An among them I include my son, who is in a very difficult place in a country other than Ghana.
I am trying not to talk about him here because that is very, very personal and I cannot say anything without making myself vulnerable in a way I don’t like to do. I will just say that we were fortunate to have some extra money this month that saved his life. Literally. And that is all I will say about that.
A few weeks ago John himself had another bout of illness. While he was ill the screen on his phone went dark. He gave it to a younger friend along with some money to take it to get it repaired and the young man ran off, taking not only the phone but also all of John’s personal data that was on it. John lost his google account, his youtube account, and everything else that was stored on the phone.
Right now John is very isolated. He is just managing to get things back in order. Fortunately he still had his old, original google account that he used when we first knew each other and was able to get in touch with me through that so he is not completely cut off. He is trying to get it all straightened out.
The loss of his youtube account is especially painful. He had been posting his music there and youtube had informed him that he almost had enough followers to start receiving payments from them (I don’t know how this works and I may have the details wrong) but now that is all gone.
John is very depressed. He is not in a good place right now emotionally. As who can blame him?
Last weekend Favour, the seventeen year old mother with a five month old baby boy, came to John asking for money for food and herself and the child. By that time John didn’t even have anything for himself and he was unable to help. He was frantic and begged me for help but we are simply out of money for the rest of the month and there was nothing I could do. Right now I am just trying to keep my bank accounts from being overdrawn.
And Anabel.
Anabel is a four year old orphan girl who was abandoned by her mother when she was three. The mother has since died. We have been able to support keeping her in a care center and she has begun school there.
The problem is that they insist that she go to school as a condition of her staying there and that adds another layer of expense to her upkeep. And we have a very limited budget, of course. So if we care for her the money has to come out of what we have to help others, even if we have enough to do it.
We have been receiving help for Anabel’s upkeep for which I am very grateful. If not for that it would have been impossible to keep her in the shelter this long.
I’m not sure what her situation is right now. I know the matron who cares for her told John weeks ago that the school was going on an outing over the Easter weekend and she would need funds to pay for Anabel to go. I assume that this just won’t happen now. I feel bad about that but it is outside of our control. At this stage I am more worried that we will even be able to keep with the fees to keep her in the shelter. This is another of those things I am waiting day by day to have more information about.
So this is where things stand right now. I know it all sounds very negative this week and I apologize for that. I would wait to write until things resolve more but that may take awhile so I thought I would go ahead and post. The young man who stole the phone did us all a lot of damage and people are suffering because of it, unfortunately.
So far everyone is alive and John and I are still in contact. And my son is alive when he could well have been dead. Small miracles are still miracles and we have been through worse. In about a week we will have funds to start to maneuver again. For now we are all just hunkered down trying to survive. Which is the story of most of the people in the world, really….