Bonjour tout le monde! (making sure I don't forget my french out here)
The weekends here are pretty chill...especially when you're not on call. I was on call yesterday but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Nothing ordinary I say...but it's interesting to see that everything I am seeing now, on the very first few days I would be amazed and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now after almost a month, you get used to the norm around here and take it all in for what it is and do the best you can to help.
It's really amazing the kind of things you see out here....almost always these are things you have heard about, read about and when you see it, it's always in the most advanced stages...which in most cases back at home you will never see! One thing that amazed me this morning was when I went over to check up on a patient who I was following from the night before for a possible appendicitis. There was 6 or 7 women all around her giving her money. As soon as I got close to check on her, they ran off quickly. Later I found out that when people come and greet others in the hospital, they give them money as a custom here so they can buy food, pay their hospital bills, etc... We are talking about people who have no money and yet are giving money to others to help them during their moment of weakness and recovery. Another instance where you see the people of Ghana come together is when they need blood transfusions. I was amazed to hear that whenever we order for someone to get a blood transfusion...which so many people out here need them because of anemia mostly due to malaria! So they need to get someone from their family to give the blood and have to pay around 30 cedis (like 20$) and this isn't covered by insurance. Most times, they will run off to the villages to get their family and find someone who will match and give the blood. It's hard sometimes because most people are anemic out here...so the blood isn't always the best...but you do what you can.
Ok, so I meant to talk about how chill the weekends are here...but got side tracked because the hospital is always on your mind here even when your not working. However, weekends here means all the kids are off school and usually for some reason they all chill outside our houses, sit on our porches or scream for us. They will tell us their names and hope we give them something in return or play with them or they will just stare at us. On saturday, there must have been over 30 kids outside in this open field near our place and they had a ball....playing football/soccer! Man...these kids were so young and can play ball...i was amazed to see how good they were! I was too afraid to play...was in flip flops and the ground was rough...but who am i kidding...they were all playing barefoot! But I sat down like a paparazzi and took photos! They kept yelling at me "white man take my photo" lol These kids are amazing...they make do with what they got and this is why most of them are such amazing soccer players in the future!
Today we woke up to what was the first time the weather has changed in a month! It was all foggy and dusty in the air. Visibility was poor and you couldn't see that far in the distance. Supposedly this happens from time to time and its due to the "Hamartan" - red sand from the Sahara desert that gets blown over here. We later found out was that the bad thing was that planes couldn't land here...which means that we may have a problem leaving here on wednesday! This hamartan stays in the air for few days - i am hopeful that it will clear and I will be able to head to Accra to catch my flight on thursday night. If not, I may have to look forward to a 10-12 hour bus ride overnight to get to Accra! Let's hope for the best :) I wanna come home on time cause I only got 2 days back.
This afternoon, one of the doctors brought us out on a small adventure ride. We were going to another small village area - Nakpanduri and go visit this place called the escarpment...which is a natural site where there is this cliff overlooking this dry forest area. The only problem was that we weren't going to see much because of the hamartan. We got into this van and drove for about an hour or so....geez did i think quebec roads were bad?! Well for once I can say someone has beat us with bad roads....basically these roads have been made with the hamartan sand thats been pounded into the ground. Over time this is just filled with holes and rocks and whatnot....it made for a very bumpy ride, dust everywhere, some offroading, smashing into little hills last minute almost like huge speed bumps because driver didn't notice them! Finally we got there and it was beautiful! We needed to hike a bit to get to the cliff, which I didn't think much of it at first, but boy...this was practically rock climbing. At one point we had to jump from one rock to another while the space between them was a huge drop down the cliff....I was scared a bit but tried not to show it all that much. I made sure to take lots of pictures....but the sight was so beautiful...the sun was setting, we were actually so high up that the crows were flying below us. It was a shame for the foggy dusty air because it would have been that much more exciting! Honestly though, the edge of the cliff was very scary...I was thinking that somehow I would slip and fall...I know mom...I was careful!
Tomorrow is Monday...going to be a busy clinic day! It will be my last clinic day here...can't believe how fast it goes. Alright...time for some movie watching and bed time.
Thanks for reading :)
P.S. S'agapo paraskevi xox
The weekends here are pretty chill...especially when you're not on call. I was on call yesterday but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Nothing ordinary I say...but it's interesting to see that everything I am seeing now, on the very first few days I would be amazed and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Now after almost a month, you get used to the norm around here and take it all in for what it is and do the best you can to help.
It's really amazing the kind of things you see out here....almost always these are things you have heard about, read about and when you see it, it's always in the most advanced stages...which in most cases back at home you will never see! One thing that amazed me this morning was when I went over to check up on a patient who I was following from the night before for a possible appendicitis. There was 6 or 7 women all around her giving her money. As soon as I got close to check on her, they ran off quickly. Later I found out that when people come and greet others in the hospital, they give them money as a custom here so they can buy food, pay their hospital bills, etc... We are talking about people who have no money and yet are giving money to others to help them during their moment of weakness and recovery. Another instance where you see the people of Ghana come together is when they need blood transfusions. I was amazed to hear that whenever we order for someone to get a blood transfusion...which so many people out here need them because of anemia mostly due to malaria! So they need to get someone from their family to give the blood and have to pay around 30 cedis (like 20$) and this isn't covered by insurance. Most times, they will run off to the villages to get their family and find someone who will match and give the blood. It's hard sometimes because most people are anemic out here...so the blood isn't always the best...but you do what you can.
Ok, so I meant to talk about how chill the weekends are here...but got side tracked because the hospital is always on your mind here even when your not working. However, weekends here means all the kids are off school and usually for some reason they all chill outside our houses, sit on our porches or scream for us. They will tell us their names and hope we give them something in return or play with them or they will just stare at us. On saturday, there must have been over 30 kids outside in this open field near our place and they had a ball....playing football/soccer! Man...these kids were so young and can play ball...i was amazed to see how good they were! I was too afraid to play...was in flip flops and the ground was rough...but who am i kidding...they were all playing barefoot! But I sat down like a paparazzi and took photos! They kept yelling at me "white man take my photo" lol These kids are amazing...they make do with what they got and this is why most of them are such amazing soccer players in the future!
Today we woke up to what was the first time the weather has changed in a month! It was all foggy and dusty in the air. Visibility was poor and you couldn't see that far in the distance. Supposedly this happens from time to time and its due to the "Hamartan" - red sand from the Sahara desert that gets blown over here. We later found out was that the bad thing was that planes couldn't land here...which means that we may have a problem leaving here on wednesday! This hamartan stays in the air for few days - i am hopeful that it will clear and I will be able to head to Accra to catch my flight on thursday night. If not, I may have to look forward to a 10-12 hour bus ride overnight to get to Accra! Let's hope for the best :) I wanna come home on time cause I only got 2 days back.
This afternoon, one of the doctors brought us out on a small adventure ride. We were going to another small village area - Nakpanduri and go visit this place called the escarpment...which is a natural site where there is this cliff overlooking this dry forest area. The only problem was that we weren't going to see much because of the hamartan. We got into this van and drove for about an hour or so....geez did i think quebec roads were bad?! Well for once I can say someone has beat us with bad roads....basically these roads have been made with the hamartan sand thats been pounded into the ground. Over time this is just filled with holes and rocks and whatnot....it made for a very bumpy ride, dust everywhere, some offroading, smashing into little hills last minute almost like huge speed bumps because driver didn't notice them! Finally we got there and it was beautiful! We needed to hike a bit to get to the cliff, which I didn't think much of it at first, but boy...this was practically rock climbing. At one point we had to jump from one rock to another while the space between them was a huge drop down the cliff....I was scared a bit but tried not to show it all that much. I made sure to take lots of pictures....but the sight was so beautiful...the sun was setting, we were actually so high up that the crows were flying below us. It was a shame for the foggy dusty air because it would have been that much more exciting! Honestly though, the edge of the cliff was very scary...I was thinking that somehow I would slip and fall...I know mom...I was careful!
Tomorrow is Monday...going to be a busy clinic day! It will be my last clinic day here...can't believe how fast it goes. Alright...time for some movie watching and bed time.
Thanks for reading :)
P.S. S'agapo paraskevi xox
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