The Clinic

At the clinic I am the assistant to one of the nurses. The hospital is very different than the hospitals in the US. Every morning the staff arrives at 7am and the clinic starts at 8. I work in the section of the hospital that deals with babies, new mothers, and pregnant women. This part of the hospital consists of a big main room filled with chairs facing the front of the room. Before anything medical related happens, scripture is read from the bible like it’s a church or something. Not everyone that goes to the hospital is christian, but they tolerate it anyway. After that, one of the nurses gives a lecture on family planning or something of that nature (I can’t understand anything up to this point because it is all in their native dialect, Twi). Then clinic will start. People wait their turn to receive standard injections and then babies will be weighed. Next they will come into a side room where I am. My duties are record keeping and figuring out if there are any problems with the babies or mothers that need further attention. I assigned these tasks before I really knew what was going on or how the system even worked. I have much more responsibility than I would be given in a hospital at home, considering my lack of training. Usually I don’t have many problems performing my duties, but sometimes I have trouble communicating with patients or I am unsure of how to handle a medical problem and all the nurses are too busy to ask, which is frustrating. I have noticed that the hospital lacks sanitation, organization and proper training. The wait times are long and the diagnosis and treatments of patients are often wrong. Unfortunately, I don't see things changing for the better until Ghana becomes more industrialized and the hospital has more resources, both financial and personnel-wise. I do what I can to help out when I am there and I hope that what I learn from my experience there will help advance me towards my goal of perusing a medical profession. All in all, I am happy to be working there and so far I have found it to be a very interesting experience.

Update on My Life in Ghana

I have too much that I'd like to write about for the amount of time I have, but I will try my best.
Time has passed very quickly. My fourth month here has already started. I love Ghana and the experience of being here is wonderful, but the different culture is still tiring and I miss the things from home that I had taken for granted my entire life. It is a little embarrassing to say this, but I miss the US.
There is no way that anyone will ever be able to experience Ghana without being here. I have been trying to explain my experience, but the truth is that I have failed. Everything is different here; there is no way to truly capture it all in words or even in pictures. The differences between here and the states are numerous: the manner in which people greet each other, the food and how it is eaten, the weather, gender roles, sewer systems, laws, politics, the way people drive, the way they talk, their clothing, beliefs, traditions... EVERYTHING.
I am sitting on the couch at the orphanage right now with a one year old boy named Issac sitting next to me. The poor little guy is going to have a rough start in life. His father ran out on him, and his mother is too poor to support him, which is why he is here. He is not adoptable so he will grow up here until he is kicked out at age 13 or 14. Because this is a nice orphanage he should be moderately well educated and healthy by that point, and hopefully he will be able to carve out a decent life for himself.
The glaring poverty here makes me so sad. Compared to other African countries, Ghana is actually pretty well off. There are lots of big houses and wealthy families; but unfortunately a large percent of the population is quite poor. It makes me want to give away everything I can, but I know that even that won't make much difference. It is not just here that the poverty is bad, it is all over Africa and so many other places. I can do everything I can to try to help people here, but would it really even make a difference? I will do what I can to help, but I know it will never be enough.
The main reason that I miss the states is that I just miss blending in. I am tired of being a spectacle and of being hassled because of the color of my skin. I love Ghana and I know that I will miss it when I return home, but right now I miss home. I think that my roommates are feeling the same as I do at this point. Luckily, we only have three weeks left here, which is just enough time to see all the things that I haven't seen yet.
Yesterday I went to Aburi with Molly Ada and Emily. It was refreshing to walk around the gardens and enjoy the different trees and plants from around the world. The weather up there is much cooler than in Accra and I enjoyed feeling a little chill for the first time in over three months. It was great that we could travel just 30 minutes out of the city and feel like we were in the jungle.
Walking through the gardens, we heard some singing and drumming and decided to follow the beat. We had to exit the gardens and then we came to a building where the music was. There were little kids waving at us from a window telling us to come. We were hesitant, but finally went to the entrance. A woman greeted us and welcomed us inside. It was a Sunday afternoon, so they were having church in the small building. I had not been to a Ghanaian church so it was an interesting experience. I am very glad to have seen a piece of Ghanaian culture that is so important and so prevalent in Ghanaian society.
After walking all around the gardens, pangs of hunger overcame us. Ada had already been to Aburi before and told us that we had to have lunch at Peter's Pizza, a small restaurant owned by a Rasta named Peter who used to be a chef on a military ship. He makes the most delicious spring rolls from scratch! Then we indulged in a delicious veggie pizza. After three months of living in Ghana we have had pizza a few times. It has been okay, but this pizza was different. There were so many delicious vegetables and so much melted cheese....this pizza was amazing. I don't know if it's just because I do not have access to very much pizza, but this was the best.


We enjoyed every last bite of our lunch and joked about ordering more. We decided to head home before the sun went down, as it's much more difficult to travel by trotro at night. It didn't take long to catch a ride for all four of us, so we were on our way back to the hustle, bustle and heat of Accra. I think I might have to head back to the peaceful sanctuary of the botanical gardens and the delicious treat of Peter's Pizza before the end of my Ghana journey.
We have all our spare time planned out for the remainder of our time here. Next weekend my friend will be taking me to the small village that he grew up in, which I am very excited about. Then on Sunday we will go to a loud christian gospel church which should be quite the experience, and then we'll head off to experience a soccer game, Ghana-style. The weekend after that, the NGO that I work for which is called FightAIDS Ghana will be having a large event on Saturday for the purpose of securing donations. Sunday I will attend a wedding. That will be the last week of class. After we are done with school we will do some traveling around. We plan on going to Togo, the country east of Ghana, and then taking a boat trip on the Volta River up north towards Tamale. I am super excited for all the things we will be doing!
I hope all is well with you, where ever you might be.
Love,
Lauren

Volta Region

This last weekend our program took the Fab Five (my roommates and myself) on an excursion to the Volta Region. It was a three or four hour comfortable drive east from Accra. I didn’t know what to expect the Volta Region to be like, but I instantly liked what I saw. It has lots of “mountains” (known to Pacific Northwesters as large hills) and is draped in greenery. It was breathtaking! We arrived early in the afternoon in Wli where we hiked down a path to a big waterfall. It was wonderful to hike around in the forest for the first time since I arrived in Africa, I had missed hiking a lot.
The hike was beautiful. Our guide pointed out pineapple, cocoa, and coffee plants to us, none of which look like I had expected them to. There were some shacks with really cool carvings on the way. It was so peaceful walking through the tropical forest, listening to all the exotic birds and insects make their noises. When we arrived at the waterfall it was pouring down the cliff at full force. It was so powerful that we could feel the mist from really far away. I went swimming with Emily and Molly and though we got really close to the waterfall, it was too powerful to go under it. It was lots of fun and a nice get away from city life.
On our way back to the bus we bought some things from the villagers and observed their pet ostriches which are possibly the strangest looking animals that I have ever come across.

Our next stop was a small village that is home to a monkey sanctuary. A local took us into the forest and called the monkeys. They jumped over to the tree we were standing near and climbed down so that we could feed them bananas. I held out my banana and they ate it right out of my hand! One little monkey jumped onto Gina’s arm to get her banana. As we where standing around listening to our guide, Molly got the pleasure of having the monkey sitting in the tree directly above her start peeing. It was truly hilarious.

As the sun began to set we realized how tired we were, so we made our way back to the hotel. After a long dinner at the hotel we finally went to sleep. It was a really nice hotel and I wish that I could have taken my bed back with me.
On Sunday we relaxed all morning and afternoon at the hotel’s pool, it was wonderful. We then got into the bus and made our way home. It was a great weekend, and I only wish that we could have spent a little more time there.