Depleting supply of malaria pills

With only 6 weeks left until our tanned bodies board our final flights back to snowy Canada, we are realizing how short this internship really is. It seems like just yesterday that we were climbing onto our first trotro and trying to get our bearings in this town in the Eastern Region. We have done so much, seen so much, cried a few times, laughed often, shouted (for both discipline and joy) and walked over small dirt paths as well as main, capital city roads.

We have come to know all of the children's habits, issues and loves, though I can remember meeting them that first day and coming up with little tricks to keep their names separate. It seems as though the literacy classes have just begun and yet the midterm tests will be conducted next week (which reminds me that I still need to draw that up). We have battled the elements of the African rainy season and we are now surviving the dry season with the aid of multiple bottles of water, whose contents we just sweat out. We have gone without running water for two weeks now and the power likes to flicker on and off and go out for 24 hours periods from time to time. We have scrubbed our clothes with our hands for hours and treated our raw and bleeding fingers after hanging the wet articles to dry. We have drawn water from a well, eaten spicy, Ghanaian food and danced azunto (a type of dance that every Ghanaian knows). We have visited various schools and churches and shops of our literacy women and have stood before both young children and grown women (some twice our age,) to teach them our native language. We have learned the Ghanaian national anthem (the children sing it in assembly every morning) and we have taught them a bit more about our country that is completed foreign to them. They often think when we have been away for a day or two that we went back to Canada, when really we have been traveling around their own country and seeing the different way of living of these welcoming people and what their beautiful country has to offer. We have been completely lost in Twi conversations that constantly take place around us and we have learned that smiling is a universal language. We have carried babies on our backs, carried heavy loads on our heads and carried children who come running to us for a hug, to play, to read or to take pictures with our cameras. We have eaten soup with our fingers and almost entirely neglected our left hands in order to remain culturally correct by using our right hands for everything. We have learned how precious of a commodity the internet is and we have be reminded of how little you actually need to live. We have seen how to enjoy taking our time, especially in preparing food and in paying visits and we have seen the positive and negative aspects of both Western and African culture. We have eaten more fried food than we should for our entire lifetime and we have drunk hot chocolate in plus 40 degree temperatures.

And we have taken so many malaria pills that have made us unafraid of the incredibly itchy mosquito bites that dot our arms, legs and feet. As I swallow a pill each evening with supper, the remaining pills count down how many days we have left, and the amount of malaria pills seems to deplete at an astonishing speed.

There is still so much that we want to see and experience here and we have made a list of all the things that we have yet to accomplish, though we have already seen enough to give our minds thoughts and memories to sort through for eons. We need to focus on what ought to be accomplished for today and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. We can't sit back today in order to save energy for what is to come. God, in His grace, continues to grant us the strength necessary for each new day, each hour, each lesson, each step, each breath and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we could not have made it thus far without His power surging through us and urging us on. It is in Him that we can face each challenge and each new situation with determination, patience, wisdom and a smile.