Ghanaian Families

So for the past few weeks I've been trying to figure out the way family trees work around here. In my house there is a huge assortment of relatives, some siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles, etc. But I could never figure it all out. A bunch of people from my program went out to our favorite bar, Jerry's, last night and I finally got a bit more of an answer to the way families work. I spent most of the night talking to my host brother, Alex, who just graduated from the University of Ghana and is living with us until he goes off to graduate school is the US next year. I asked him about the two little girls living at the house, Stephanie and Pookie, who I know to be sisters. The other day I found out that a woman who comes to visit almost every night, Edith, is their mom, and she lives about a 20 minute walk from our house. I asked why the girls don't live with their mom, and he explained that she works late hours, and the girls would be lonely if they lived at the house. So the mom moved them into their grandmother's house a few minutes away, and now she just goes to visit every night for a bit. That still seems a little weird to me but it's all part of their concept of extended family.
Apparently, when a child is born they are immediately placed in a network of moms, dads, aunties, uncles, and grandparents. It becomes pretty irrelevant who their biological parents are, because each older person acts as a parental figure. The way Stephanie and Pookie see it, they don't just belong to their mom, they belong to their 20 something aunties, uncles, and cousins, and it doesn't really matter that they see them more often than their actual parents.
I asked Alex about his situation, and he said he had met his mom briefly when he was 12, and saw his dad maybe once every 2 weeks. He has always lived with grandparents, and because of it has been able to lead a very stable life and graduate from the university. His parents knew that they would not be able to provide the same life for him in the village, and therefore had no qualms about sending him away to be with his wealthier grandparents (the parents we live with). I asked if he ever felt abandoned and he seemed confused, not sure how he could feel that way if he had so many people around him that loved him.
It's a different way of looking at things and it's really refreshing. I don't know that it could ever be like that in the US because of the notions of marriage and nuclear families that are so ingrained in everyone's minds, but it seems slightly more functional than a lot of the relationships I see at home.
On another note...everything here is great! We are going on our first day trip tomorrow to Aburi Gardens, taking a tour of the botanical gardens, a cocoa farm, and a wood carving factory. It should be really fun and I'm looking forward to getting out of the city for a day. Hopefully I'll figure out how to put some picture up!