I've been flying for a week, right? It feels like a week.

11:35 pm on December 15^th and I’m well on my way to London, after a few snafus at the airport. My initial flight from Minneapolis to Chicago was delayed due to overwhelming air traffic in Chicago. The flight that was supposed to begin boarding at 7pm wasn’t going to arrive at the gate until at least 7:30 and not start boarding for another great while, and since my connecting flight to London was going to leave at 9:30 pm, I didn’t think that was gonna work out so well. A lovely airline employee managed to sneak me onto the last seat on the flight to Chicago loading at the gate next to mine (which was nearly 2 hours late) and I made my connecting flight by about 20 minutes. Then, after about another 30-45 waiting on the tarmac we took flight at long last. I’m greatly anticipating meeting Sara McNamara in London in a few short hours, as I haven’t seen her since we were roomies in Ghana earlier this year! 

            After a 10-½ hour layover in London I’ll be hopping aboard a Virgin Atlantic flight to my final destination: Accra, Ghana.  I’d just like to add for the record that I find myself rather excited to fly Virgin Atlantic for the first time, I hear the food is pretty delicious.  Ghana Volunteer Corps coordinator Eddie Adeli will be picking me up at the airport and taking me to Dodowa where I’ll be arriving a few hours after the children head off the school for the day. A few more hours to recuperate and meet and greet all the other volunteers (and be reunited with Sarah Mo and Zac Hannis, two more volunteers from earlier this year) until I get to surprise the kids by showing up at school to pick them up. Though I’m not entirely sure they’ll remember or recognize me, as I’ve shaved my head from the shoulder length it was when they last saw me and because of the sheer volume of volunteers they’ve seen since I was there, I don’t really mind. I’ve been waiting months and months to see their smiling faces, if they recognize me on top of that then lucky me!

            I’m looking forward to planning the Christmas festivities with the other volunteers. I came armed with many cds of Christmas songs I hope to teach them.

            OH MAN! I just had a brilliant idea. Coming up with games to play with 70+ children to include everyone and be fun for an 18-year age range is not easy but I just thought of one! I’m going to try to get a classic Vacation Bible School game of Sardines going! For those of you that aren’t familiar, it’s essentially a game of hide-and-seek except only one person hides and everyone seeks. When an individual finds the hiding human they silently join them until that hiding spot is packed with people very much like a can of sardines, if you substitute the fish and disgusting-ness with a gaggle of adorable children. Wonder if they’ll be as excited about this idea as I am…I guess there’s only one way to find out.

            I also might try out a game of Frogger with a smaller group of kids, that game provided me such entertainment for so many years at VBS. Again, for those that don’t know, I’ll explain the game for you to my best of my ablities. As I recall, one person is chosen to be the inspector who is promptly removed from wherever the game is being played. Then, while all of the kids remaining in the circle have their heads down and eyes closed, one of the volunteers taps a child on the head silently. The aforementioned child is now the frogger and his aim is to “kill” all the flies (non-frogger children) without the inspector discovering him. As soon as the frogger is chosen, the inspector is invited back into the middle of the circle. To make a kill, the frogger must make eye contact with and quickly stick his tongue out at anyone in the circle, who then has 5 seconds to fake his own fly-like passing. The inspector gets 3 guesses after which time, if he has failed, the frog is the winner! It’s a goofy game and easy to understand, I think it could go over rather well.

            If any of you have any other ideas of games that can be played with large groups of children please feel free to share J

            Sarah will be here at Heathrow to pick me up in about 10 minutes, and then off we go adventuring! Next time I’ll be able to post won’t be until Ghana, so I’ll see you soon in warmer weather.