Now to the fun stuff!

After my last "heavy" post I just feel the need to share something GOOD with all of you! I talked to Lois (agency director) last night and she said that the attorney in Ghana had indicated that all five of the children referred so far are at Osu Childre's Home in Accra!!!!** This is great news for many reasons!

1. If Kendi and Caynan are in the same orphanage they may very well know each other and have a relationship already!

2. Osu Children's Home is not new to adoption, although I think that most adoptions they do are domestic Ghana adoptions. This (hopefully) indicates that they will allow us to really spend some good time with the children when we are there next week! The home is very used to volunteers and such and I've seen pictures showing the volunteers very involved with the children.

3. Osu Children's Home is a great orphanage (by orphanage standards). They seem to be well supported by several charities. The children all look well dressed and well fed in the pictures I've seen. Also, they have running water and electricity!

Here is a link to see 47 photos taken at Osu Children's Home less than a year ago (November 2005). I scoured the photos for Kendi Juliet and Caynan Emmanuel, but I don't see them. I'm not sure if I would recongize them anyway (especially Kendi). http://www.catointl.org/gallery/osu01/index.html

Although it's possible that the children know each other, it's also possible that they don't. The orphanage is split up into a baby house, and 3 "family units." The baby house is for children 0-2 and the 3 family units are made up of children 3 to 12 years old. I don't know how much time all of the family units are together. Maybe all of the kids are together most of the time but go to their family units to sleep and eat? Or maybe each unit is completely seperate from the other the great majority of the time? One thing is for sure--I can't wait to get answers to these questions! =-)

Anita
**I want to make it clear that Lois is double-checking with the attorney to make sure all of the referred kids are at Osu. So this isn't an absolute yet--just a probably. =-)