Little House on the Compound

Compound living is not unique to Ghana, or even just Africa for that matter. I have seen and known people living in compounds on almost every continent! Let me show you a little bit of our compound!

Our compound is directly next to the school. As in, no-I'm-not-exaggerating-we share-a-wall, next to the school :) and we are known as the white compound because all our buildings are white. Here is Jason pointing to our condo.

Originally we were to live in the large house but when we arrived we quickly saw all the baby proofing that needed to happen (and yes, maybe a little 3 and 6 year old proofing too!) and decided to ask if there was anything else we could look at. The school we work for provides our housing and they so generously allowed us to switch residence with the girls' boarding dorm on the same compound.

It is common to have a walled compound with some sort of barbed wire on the wall. We also have a guard (which seemed to rotate each week until recently) who watches our front gate, opens it for any vehicles that need to enter (taxis, school vehicles), and gives high fives to the kiddos.

There is 1 other teaching family that lives on the compound with us. They both work but they have a daughter close to Oliver's age and they like to play in the same general area sometimes.

Every house has space for washing in the back. Everything is hand washed and line dried. If the items are not dry at the end of the day, we have to take them in off the lines and hang them in the laundry jail ;) Even though our walls have barbed wire, it seems like there is some concern of theft from some crafty individuals.

The boys are free to explore all over the compound. There is a big yard behind the house and a small yard at the end of the condos. The grass doesn't grow very fast. It looks different but I can't place why. There are a lot of clovers. (I am searching for the Whos in Whoville.) Right now the boys mostly play with the soccer ball outside.

(ojo in grass)

There are a lot of lizards here. There have orange tails and do push-ups. Isaac used to roar at them but one brilliant teacher told him that the lizards do push-ups so he should look for that and he is fascinated by it!

The other wildlife we sometimes see is this family of chicks. (now they are ful grown adults) The whole crew is almost always in front of the school gate in the morning and pecking around our wall the rest of the day. Sometimes the chicks get into our compound and don't know how to get out. So far this has happened twice. The noisy chick(s) stuck inside peep and peep and peep and run back and forth at the front gate, trying to remember how they got in here to begin with lol! Isaac opened the gate for 2 chicks one time. He was super proud to help them out - sweet boy!

And that's basically our compound! I have made the hashtag #littlehouseonthecompound if you want to follow us on FB or IG.