Canopy Walk

This weekend we got to go on a very cool excursion full of excitment and adventure. It was so nice to get away from the hostel for a couple of days. We loaded the bus early Friday morning and we were on our way. It was a four hour drive full of craziness. It has been raining constantly for the past couple of days and so the roads are terrible. There are pot holes everywhere and so we had quite the journey. I got sick and almost threw up it was great! Our first stop was the Canopy Walk. We hiked up to a tree house in the rain forest and then walked across eight canopy walks that were just hanging in mid air in the trees. It was so scary but fascinating at the same time. The forest was so green and pretty. I had to keep telling myself to not look down! It was so cool!!

This is me right before I started going on the first Canopy. I was a little nervous can you tell! If you look far into the distance you can see another canopy that we crossed!! Everything was so green and pretty!

This is the canopy that we walked across

Me and Car right before we started on our hike! It was pouring rain!

Me and Kate getting ready for our Hike

This is the Museum that we went through right before our hike

The Maggot

Hey! My name is Ashley and wow, what a crazy adventure Africa has been! I will tell you about my craziest adventure so far. I had two bug bites that had progressively gotten bigger, more red, and more swollen each day. After consulting a few doctors we decided to have our professor Lynley drain the puss out of the big bites. Thinking that she was pulling out a scab, the tweezers pulled out a slimy, disgusting MAGGOTT!!!! We were totally shocked!! It was gross to say the least, and to be frank...it was a little bit intriguing. We didn't think it would be possible for both bites to have a maggott in them, but sure enough, the other one had one too!!! Come to find out they were injected by the bot fly. It was crazy!!! Thanks to my awesome Professor, Lynley,and my fantastic medical team (aka my friends) for helping me get better!!!!

She had one on her back and one on her arm. We had a whole scrub team performing surgery on poor Ashley. What an exciting night!

There is the disgusting Maggott

Orphanage

I got the amazing opportunity to go and work in the orphanage. There are about 30 children in the one that we were at. There ages ranking from 5 weeks to 17 years of age. This was such a bitter sweet experience. Just knowing that these children are left alone with no mother or father breaks my heart. All they have is eachother. I can't imagine living my life without my family or somebody who loved and cared for me. It made me so grateful for my amazing family. I am so blessed. We all are so blessed. I want to let my parents know how much I truly love them. I would not be the person I am if it weren't for them. I can talk to either of them about anything. I can truly call them my very best friends. I love them more then anything in this world. They have taught me all I need to know about this life and more. I wish that these precious children of God could have what I have. I know that one day they will be blessed.

The boys at the OrphanageAll of the girls

I am in love with this boy!! Me and him were buddies!

This is Damion he is so precious!! I want to take him home with me!

So today we got to go and visit the school that we are going to be teaching at! It was such a cool experience. When we walked into the ground they all started clapping and screaming! It was like we were celebrities. I felt so famous and loved ha! They were so dang cute! We all started pulling out our camera's and they would jump infront of you and starting cheezing it and posing for the camera. They are very polite and very disciplined. It is very different then american schools. I am going to be helping out with 1st grade. There are sixty students ranging from the ages of 6-9. There are also 2 fourteen year olds which is kind of different. I am very excited to start teaching these darling little kids.

These are some of the students who swarmed us when we walked in the doors. The children in the yellow uniforms aren't from the same school that we are teaching. There is two different schools in the same complex. We are teaching the ones with brown and orange.

These cute little kids jumped right infront of the camera and just kept smiling for like five minutes and then they all come running to you wanting to see what they look like!

This little girl is so adorable. Especially her cute hair I just loved it!

This is the bishop and his wife Margaret. They came and sold us some dolls that are hand maid that are so adorable. She has serious talent. The bishop also makes scripture cases and ties. He is incredible at weaving anything!

This was right after church outside the temple grounds. This lady came up to us and asked if we would take a picture. She is one of the temple workers and also attends the ward that we are going to be attending the remainder of our stay!!

This is the LDS church that we went to!

The temple and the church are all of the same grounds. So we got to see the temple on Sunday when we went to church. It is so gorgeous. Here is a picture of all of the girls in my group who went to church on Sunday!

Another picture of the temple!! It is so pretty!

This cute little girl named Stefani ran up to me after church and gave me a huge hug. She is adorable and I just had to take a picture with her! She kept feeling me hair! They aren't really used to seeing blonde hair!

So we went to the beach today and I didn't think to put sunscreen on because it was overcast and I needed to get some color. Well I got burned I am sure that you are all surpirsed. This is mine and Anne Marie's nice Sun Tan marks. I am on the left and Anne Marie is on the right!!
This is us girls at dinner. We at a place called Paloma. It actually was pretty good. I got Chicken Nuggets and Fries! I am still sticking with the American Food.

This is me and my new boyfriend Kofi. Isn't he a babe? He would not leave me alone. We met on the beach and he wanted me to run away with him but I told him I should probably stay on the with my group. He told me I could trust him, but I decided to just stay I don't really care for Aids or to get pregnant. He liked me so much that he gave me an African name it is "Ajewa"

Here is another picture of Kofi. Our hands mean Unity!!

Here is a picture of the beach! It is called Labodi beach. It was so beautiful. Although the beach was really fun it was kind of an overwhelming experience. Everybody attacked us and kept trying to sell us anything and everything. They didn't get what the word NO meant. I had to learn to be nice and firm with them!