A short, frustrating story....I was in a taxi yesterday stopped at a stoplight. The driver suddenly told me to look at the motorbike passing us. There was a man and a woman both wearing helmets. But the woman had a baby wrapped on her back with no helmet (obviously). The driver looked at me and said, "If they crash, that baby is going to die." Now I know that here no one follows the traffic laws, and the police don't enforce them. But I decided to ask the driver anyways so I said, "If the police see that, will they stop them." And he said, "Well, he could stop and arrest them because it is illegal, but the police won't pay them any attention. They don't care." 

These are the things that can be really frustrating when you are in a different culture. There are bad things in the US obviously, but when you enter a new culture, it is easy to see the flaws that make no sense and are completely ridiculous. But this is the process of learning to respect a new culture and also seeing where major improvements need to be made.

An update on me...Work is going well. I went around to all 10 schools yesterday to pick up posters the kids drew for the anti-stigma poster competition we are doing. I was overwhelmed with the response of the kids. We got so many posters and it was so encouraging to look through them and see how they think HIV stigma can be stopped in Ghana. I'm excited for the Kid's Fair that will be the beginning of August to celebrate anti-stigma and give the winner a $500 school scholarship.

I'm also about to start doing home visits to the orphans that WAAF supports. Most of the kids were orphaned because their parents died of HIV. Some of them also have the virus as their mothers passed it to them. I am sure this will be a very interesting learning experience.

I can't believe I've been here almost 7 weeks now. It's going so fast and I'm still loving it.