I have a disease. And the only cure is more Vuvuzela.
It feels weird, but my time in Ghana is almost up. As I write this, I have only a couple more days and then- I’m home! Its odd. I don’t know what I’ve been expecting, maybe to not want to go home? But I definitely DO want to go home. Ghana isn’t bad. I liked it. I will miss it. But there comes a point on anybody’s trip where we all want to pull out our ruby red slippers and head for Kansas. Or Georgia. Same thing really.
O.I.A.
So its my last weekend in Ghana and what did I do? Go shopping of course!
Ha. So Mama Ester has been dieing to take Keegan and I to her home village and let us see what its like. It also so happens that her home village is the source of pretty much all bead jewelry made in Ghana. It was crazy. It took us like two hours to get to the place and when we alighted (got off) it just felt like a small very normal open air market. We’re walking down the street just casually looking at things when suddenly Mama Ester disappears in between two vendors. She literally just vanished. So Keegan and I awkwardly make our way in between the vendors only to stumble upon bead heaven. I mean it. There where beads everywhere. You couldn’t see anything except beads in all directions. It was a bit amazing. Keegan had to stop me after more than three hours just going around and buying beads and stuff. I’m sorry for being such a girl- but it was so cool!! and fun! *sigh* It was one of the best afternoons ever in Ghana. After we came home from the bead Village, Keegan and I went over to Cam’s house to hang out with Libby and David. They left on their flight this morning so it was our last weekend to spend together. We all caught each other up on what all had happened to us since the beach. Cam also made us homemade pizza. So good! And then we all played this National Geographic game from the 1980s and even though keegan totally stinks at history he beat me by two points to win the game. I’m not bitter about it. not bitter at all… Oh and we also watched Sahara with Matthew McConaughey in it. I’m not quite sure how i had never seen this movie before because i loved it. It reminded me a bit of Fool’s Gold and National Treasure. and at this point I think Keegan and I have both become a bit obsessed with National Treasure. Its the only movie that Aaron owns that we both like. So if we ever find ourselves bored we watch that movie and sit and laugh at all the historic jokes like nerds. Also, today at the hospital was probably one of the most eventful days of the summer. First off, I made the mistake of not buying a water to drink on my way to work. Simple mistake you might think. especially because there is a Canteen (cafeteria) at the Hospital. I made it like an hour into work and its just so hot that I just HAVE to go get water. So I leave Keegan and the other students to go get hydrated. Bad idea. First off, this guy was rather interesting as a case. He had a lump in his breast and he claimed that water had come out of it. Yeah. odd. He also said his father and his brother both had lumps too. Even more odd. He also was apparently an epileptic who hadn’t taken his medicine in more than a year because it was too expensive. Probably the most odd case we’ve seen yet. Generally the cases we see at the hospital are either hernias (in men), Breast Cancer (in women), Thyriod Disease and Hemorrhages. Thats about it really for the surgery department. I think we see at least one of those cases a day, if not more. anyway, I leave for like ten minutes to go and drink some water. I come back- and apparently while i was gone the patient had gone into a seizure, Keegan had to hold him down from hurting himself, and the entire ward was completely disrupted. And I missed it all. Also, as we’re leaving the hospital, a man starts having a heart attack and Keegan and i go to run over to help him get to a doctor. They say he needs to go to the Emergency ward… across campus. We try to find him a wheelchair, but there is none to be found. so this other guy gives the man a piggy back ride all the way to the ER. only in Africa.
Reece’s. Its the little things you least expect.
So this post will not be a long one. Its really deserves to be in the one before about all of my adventures with Kevin at Cape Coast and at Nzulezo, but I figured that one had gotten a bit too long, so I’d start another one. This post doesn’t really have a point, its more of a confession really.
A Village on the Water
This past weekend I went to Cape Coast to hang out with my friend Kevin. Now the odds of me making a friend in a month and a half of being in a foreign country and then going to spend a weekend with him- are very very slim. So why do I have a friend in another town of Ghana you might ask? Well I’m just that cool. Ok, actually I’m not but finding out that my friend Kevin, who is actually from Georgia Tech, was also in Ghana at the same time I was- was pretty crazy
NOTES
What’s in a ring?
So one of my favorite parts of getting to be in the bigger hospital is getting to have all sorts of conversations with the med school students. Both Prince and Sadat have been to the U.S. to intern for a bit in a hospital in Michigan, so we talk a lot about what each other thought of medicine in each other’s country. Prince says that US medicine is very dependent on machinery. He said that besides our machines, our doctors would be very lost. And they we don’t really know how to do anything until we’ve received lab work, or tests back. Which kind of stings, but is probably true. On the converse side, both Keegan and I find their approach to treating patients really slow. I mean you can work all day and still only see a few patients, because the doctor will take that long to examine a patient. Its kind of ridiculous.
I don’t ask why patients lie, I just assume they all do
So after four weeks at the small clinic in Nungua, we finally got in at a bigger hospital in Accra. It actually was just a stroke of luck on our part. Our contact person, Albert didn’t actually find our way into a hospital, it just so happened that one of the doctors at the clinic was actually a surgeon and who just happens to volunteer at the clinic every Thursday. The rest of the time he works as a general surgeon at the 37 Military Hospital. So once we heard that Keegan and I where like ummm hey… can we come with you? And after a long draw out process of getting official letters written and such, we where finally able to go to the hospital this morning.
We came. We saw. We Safaried.
So This past weekend Keegan and I made our journey up to north Ghana to go on a Safari. Now keep in mind that Ghana is about the size of Georgia, so you know we thought we could make it up there in one afternoon with no problem. Our trip up there took 12 hours. It was terrible. Ok not terrible. It was just painful to stay put that long.
Living on a Prayer
This blog is not going to be what you think its going to be about. Ok. well it might be. As long as you read the title and immediately thought “ohhh we’re half way there. oh OH! Living on a prayer. take my hand. We’ll make it I swear.” If that was your first thought from reading the title then this blog is going to be exactly what you think its going to be about. I think.
Message in a Bottle
At some point when I was at the beach right after school got out I thought about sending myself a message in a bottle. I mean we where on the edge of the Atlantic. Specifically we where at Cocoa Beach (that’s where Ches lives) but I looked at a map- and it wasn’t too bad of a shot. A little help from the Gulf Stream and I thought my bottle could make it within the two months I would be in Ghana. I didn’t try it out though because I felt like something terrible would really happen instead. Like some rare species of bottle eating dolphins would see my bottle and try to eat it and puncture thier stomachs and die. And I would be responsible for killing the last of the really rare bottle eating dolphins and the international extinction protection police would find me and deport me from Ghana. Actually I think porpoises are more rare than dolphins- so I might have been ok. Or maybe dolphins and porpoises are the same thing, I can’t remember.
Let them eat cake
This past Monday happened to be Mama Ester’s birthday. I forget how old she was turning- I think in part because each time she told us, it was a different age. Which was confusing because I’ve never even gotten the whole “never ask a woman her age” thing anyway. Why are only women allowed to lie about their age? Is it because we have longer life expectancies and we don’t want to make the men feel bad about it? I dunno I just never got that- and its not like we where hounding Mama Ester for her age either. I don’t think I ever asked her once, there where just multiple ages thrown around so much that I had absolutely no concept of time once we where done, just that I knew it was her birthday.
Church: Take Two
Last Sunday (the 4th) was the first Sunday I had free to go and attend the church that Mr. Decker was involved with in Ghana. Its called Asbury-Dunwell Church. I’m not really sure why its called that at all. Nothing I’ve ever heard of in Ghana is called Asbury. Its all more African sounding names. Like Nungua, or Teshie, or Tema. They’re very fond of one syllable names here; I think because its easier to say really fast when they are announcing the cities on the trotros. Which still doesn’t explain why they chose a four syllable word. Maybe its a Methodist thing?
About childbearing. And Hips. (A post for John McCaskey)
So I’ve received a special request from Mr.McCaskey that I detail my medical adventures a bit more and share what I’ve been doing at work everyday. I’ll be the very first to admit that most of it is boring and the other half of it is rather graphic. And I’ve decided to tell it exactly how I think it is. So if you have a problem with people going into detail about certain things- I suggest you not read this. Just a disclaimer. This post is not meant to offend anyone. And my candid tone is not meant to be disrespectful either. This just happens to be an awefully long post so I attempted to fuse in some humor.
Once upon a time, in a castle far far away…
Ok so, Saturday morning Keegan, Libby, David, the Gongwers and I traveled to Cape Coast, mostly to be at the beach, but the four students of the group decided to go to the castle too. Now, I’m sorry, but when you say “castle” I think Cinderella’s big hunk of sweet awesome stone turrets and towers and draw bridges. I’m a child of the 90s- its not my fault. In comparison to this idealistic standard- the Cape Coast Castle is really not a castle. I’d personally call it a fort. Especially because it has a ton of really grim history, what with the whole slave trade and tribal wars and such. Castles are not supposed to have very sad histories. Prince and Princesses live happily ever after in castles. But the people of Ghana did not ask my opinion when they named the Cape Coast Castle. It does however, have lots of dungeons so I suppose that is one redeeming factor to the whole Castle factor- its just not a really pleasant one.
NOTES
Weekend with the Gongwers
This past weekend we spent with some missionaries, the Gongwers. When I think of Ghana, I think of Mr. Frank and Ms. Vickie- because well, they like lived in Ghana for years as missionaries themselves. And when I finally decided to go to Ghana, one of the things that encouraged me the most was that I knew them- and they connected me with a family they still knew in Accra. I had been emailing Cam and Anne Gongwer for months before my trip and it was really neat to finally get to meet them.
Give me that old time Religion..
So I thought I’d update all you church folks on my experiences here in ghana thus far. I’ve have a grand total of three. Which might not seem like a lo but I shall tell you about them any way.
First exposure to Christianity in ghana was through a conversation I had with Aaron’s friends, Alfred. He asked if I was a christian so we got to talking about the bible and stuff. What was interesting was that the conversation took a turn towards baptism (possibly because I told him I was baptist which he had never heard of). He asked how many times i had been baptized.. and I was like “well once did the trick for me… why would you get baptized more than once?” Apparently it is common to get baptized yourself, once you believe in Christ- and THEN you can get baptized for all of your loved ones who died before hearing the gospel. Alfred and I got into a bit of an argument about this because I told him that salvation is a very personal thing. Only you can accept Christ, someone else can’t do i for you. But He was so upset. Apparently the people from his village had never heard about Christ until a few years ago. He was like “so are you telling me jsut because we didn’t know about god before then- that all of my family is in hell?” It was a very hard question- and I didn’t really have the answer. So first experience of Christianity in ghana didn’t go so well.
Second conversation happened this past Saturday. Aaron was convincing Keegan and i to come to his church ( we ended up going with Albert) but his main selling point was that the service we would be going to would be all in English, the later ones where in the local language. We told him that he really didn’t have to go to the early service just for us- but he insisted he always goes to the English only one. Why? Because the one in the local language is for the “lower class” Those are his words exactly. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that even in a church that they would have services that would try to separate the educated from those who didn’t have as much schooling. It sounds so terrible and barbaric. Like in the old days when they only wrote the Bible in Latin so that commoners couldn’t read it. It just makes me so mad that people will use any excuse to set themselves higher than others- when we’re all supposed to be equal in Christ. Not cool.
Third experience with Christianity happened yesterday morning at Ailbert’s church. It was quite different to say the least. I’m mildly certain the church was a Methodist one, but I’m no positive. We started out with this man up front just praying nonstop. everyone else was supposed to be praying too- but the guy was so loud i couldn’t pray my own prayers. After he gave like a 30 minute long prayer session, the worship team came up. It consisted of a keyboardist, a guy some sort of African drums and an electric bass player. Now at first I thought that the electric bass was a bit out of place- I mean come on there wasn’t even another guitar. But man that guy killed it. I think he might have given the best bass performance I’ve ever witnessed yesterday morning at church. He was really really good. Ironically he was also bald- so maybe he and Brad Dillard are onto something good as far as bass players go :) After the songs ( of which I only knew one) the preacher got up and said “God is Good All the Time” and the congregation said “All the Tim God is Good” which reminded me of Mr. Dan and made me happy. All of his notes where on a laptop- which I also found odd. Also, there was a disco ball hanging from under the pulpit (which I was secretly hoping we where going to use- but we never did). Othere than that- it was kind of similar to any church service that you would go to in the States. The message was about father’s day so it made me sad o be away from my Dad. Bu don’t worry I called him and said hi later :)
And those are my experiences as far as the church goes so far. I’m meeting up with the Decker’s friends this Friday to spend the weekend with them. I am SO excited. I’ve only talked to Mrs. Anne on he phone but she is pretty much the sweetest person ever! I’ll let you know how it goes…
