Day Four - Wednesday, September 26

We learned today that the sunrise/sunset schedule in Ghana is not what we expected. I wouldn't say that I've ever had a firm grasp on the implications of the earth's rotation but for some reason I thought there would be more hours of daylight when we were so near the equator. I was wrong...it was almost exactly 12 hours of sun up. The sun rose around 6 a.m., set at about 6 p.m., and when it went down, it got dark fast. It seemed like the middle of the night at about 6:30.

We woke up this morning to the sounds of loud shouting and whistling coming from outside just after sunrise. We never figured out what it was but we guessed it was some sort of exercise group or fitness event. Thankfully, Hugo slept right through it. In fact, he slept all night despite dirtying his diaper in the middle of the night. I'm guessing that he's not used to having his diaper changed immediately and so he's just gotten used to sleeping through it. There was only one bed in the room so he slept between us and the scent was just lovely to wake up to.

When he woke up, we decided he was in serious need of a shower. The bathroom has a shower with a detachable hose so I set him in the shower stall and started hosing him off. He HATED it...screamed like a crazy man. I'm sure our neighbors were less than pleased with us. They no doubt heard the exercise class - which had now mercifully ended - and now we sounded like we were filming a horror movie in the next room. It was a quick wash but we both ended up soaking wet.

Breakfast was a buffet served in an outdoor restaurant. The place we were staying is called Coconut Grove. It's a resort on the ocean and we felt a little guilty traveling to a country that has so little, then staying at a vacation destination. We had other options but ultimately decided to spend the extra dollars to be at a place where we could focus on getting to know Hugo and not have to be concerned about much else.


The setting was lovely: a beautiful white building with a clay roof surrounded by tall coconut trees and just a few steps from the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean was not really for swimming in since there were plenty of rocks over which the waves crashed, but was nonetheless magnificent to watch. We stayed in a room that was separated from the main building - like a little private house on the resort property.  The restaurant, not far from our room, was about 30 yards from the beach and was open to the breezes.

We saw again at breakfast just how strong Hugo's attachment to food is. Like the hotel in Accra, breakfast was a buffet and he could easily see all the food spread out in the serving line. He ate more than we ever thought a boy of his size could fit in his belly. And since there was more on the buffet, he wanted more. It didn't matter that he eventually became full and was not eating, he still wanted food on his plate. We sat at the table for a long time and eventually asked if we could just take the plate with us back to the room. We managed to get him out of the restaurant that way but when he saw that we put the leftovers in the room's refrigerator, he frequently wanted to get it out to snack or just to make sure it was still there.


After Hugo had a late morning nap, we decided to go for a walk around the grounds and take a closer look at the resort. We found that the main part of the resort is lovely but if you look behind the scenes or at some of the peripheral stuff, there are some peculiarities. For example, there is a stable full of horses for guests to ride but on further investigation we found the horses to be very underfed. I didn't have the heart to ask one of them to carry me. There is a golf course that is really just a large, flat, rectangular field with greens dotted here and there. While it looked as if it hadn't been mowed in months, the golf course did boast a donkey grazing on hole 10, numerous eagles hunting for lizards, and large pit that was home to about ten crocodiles.

Hugo's morning nap was pretty short so when we got back to the room, he fell asleep again and Rebekah seized the opportunity to get some shut eye herself. They slept through what would have been lunch so we just decided to skip it and have an early dinner. Hugo ate like a horse again. I decided to try a local dish called Waakye (pronounced wa-a-CHEE). It was rice and red beans with chicken and vegetable and a spicy red sauce on the side. The rice and beans, when eaten alone, tasted EXACTLY like wet hay. I've never eaten wet hay but when I asked Rebekah to confirm my description, she wholeheartedly concurred and then laughed like crazy. However, when mixed together with the sides, the dish was quite delicious.

We spent most of the rest of the day playing with Hugo. We brought a soccer ball and he loves it. When we played outside, he learned that he could throw it over the short wall that separated the grass from the beach and I would chase after it like a dog playing fetch. When it got too dark to play outside, we went back to the room where we continued to kick the ball around and it became clear that he has done this before. We couldn't stop thinking how much Henry would love playing with him. Hugo seems to love physical play and Henry lives for it.

Boat visited us before bed time to make sure we were well and to prepare us for the next day. Thursday would be the day we went to court and made the adoption official. We agreed to meet at 7:30 at the main house and get a taxi to Cape Coast. Our plan was to get to the court early and have the adoption taken care of before the court started on the rest of the day's business.

Looking back, this was a really good day. For sure, we were still amazed that the Lord had brought us to Africa and that we were looking at the Atlantic from the other side. But we got to do today exactly what we had planned to do - spend hours getting to know the little boy who tomorrow would legally become our fifth child and second son.