Lessons we’ve learned

Just a little updateL: malaria is on the mend. T still has really bad diarrea but no fever and he is starting to eat more normally so i think he is on the mend. Seth and I have finished our treatment and are feeling sapped but better. So, to the purpose of my post.

When I was in Mexico I started a page in the back of my journal listing the lessons I had learned while I was there. The page quickly increased into about 5 pages. It was empowering to see all I had learned but also frustrating to see how many lessons were repeats – things I thought I had already learned but apparently need to revisit. Here are the lessons we’ve learned, and are willing to share with the worldwide web, according to our recollection here in Ghana:

Concrete expectations make for concrete disappointment
People are fragile
Button up shirts are cooler than t-shirts
How to hand wash clothes, cloth diapers, towels and sheets!
How to play a mean game of rummy!
How to make fufu
How to bathe a family of 3 using less than three gallons of water
Malaria is really not easy!
Sometimes feeling totally naked in the figurative sense helps put things in perspective
Always, in Africa, being naked literally is way more comfortable than being clothed.
We don’t want to raise babies in a third world county
How to survive without our personal computers
How to be more willing to accept other people’s help and kindness
Canadians really aren’t that bad :)
And finally, we really like Corvallis

This is likely my last post in Ghana – so Sherry family, signing off and coming home.