I'm baaaaaack! I'm so sorry that I've been out of touch for almost two weeks without letting anyone know why. I just spent the last two weeks in a northern city in Ghana called Kumasi, and I had heard that there was a way to access the internet there. However, there was NOT! Haha. So we were "really roughing it" in Kumasi.
Also, since tons of people have been expressing concern about my brief encounter with malaria, I believe I have made a full recovery! At this point, I don't think I'll be able to donate blood for a good number of years, but other than that, I'm back to feeling good again. There are some good malaria medications on the market nowadays, and I took something called Coartem which knocked me out while I was taking it, but then left me completely mended after taking it for three days.
This post is long overdue, so just pretend I wrote it about two weeks ago :)
My Gampa wrote me a birthday e-mail :) and in it he asked about how Barack Obama was received in Ghana when he was here on July 10-11. I had completely forgotten to write about this (although I had planned to) so thanks to Gampa for the reminder!
I'm sure that the other countries that President Obama has visited have been excited for his arrival, but in Ghana this was less of an excitement and more of a mania! From the day I arrived here, in late June, people had been talking about Barack Obama coming. In fact, on the drive from the airport, I caught my first glimpse of one of the many billboards in downtown that sports the greeting "Akwaaba" (“Welcome” in Twi) and Barack's big beautiful face. This link: http://news.myjoyonline.com/photos/news/Obama%20Mills%2009.jpg
shows a similar image that has been all over the place. The man on the left side of the photo is the democratically elected President of Ghana, John Evans Atta Mills. Also, since I've been here, I've probably been called "Barack Obama" as many times as I've been called "obrunni."
Barack Obama novelties are all over the place. So many shirts. So many sports jerseys. So many paintings. Billboards. Radio talk. Songs.
Songs. I have heard at least three different songs on the radio about Barack. And one of them is super super popular, to the point where before the President came to Ghana, I heard it about once a day on the radio. There is a big rasta scene in Ghana, which is so cool, and the most famous and popular rasta artist is Blakk Rasta. He even has his own radio show on top of having tons of well-loved songs. Well, Blakk Rasta's song, "Barack Obama" is one of the catchiest and most overplayed songs in all of Ghana, and it's great! In fact, here it is as a youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85YF0pyPH0. Fun, right? This video is also a great example of how well-dressed African women look. The gorgeous colors and varied prints are exactly what everyone wears. The men in the video are a little more colorful and rasta than most Ghanaian men, though. And the montage of adorable children at the end is also exactly what beautiful Ghanaian children look like. They are everywhere, and they are glorious.
Ghana was SO excited for Barack to be here. In fact, on the day he arrived, one of the Unite for Sight nurses was driving in a taxi to get to the clinic, and he got delayed by traffic from the President's procession. He was stuck for suuuuch a long time in traffic, but it was all worth it because he got to see Obama waving out of a limo window! He was bragging all day long about how he got to see our President and we didn't. Haha.
The funny thing is that Barack was only in the country for less than 24 hours. In that time, he gave three important speeches, one which he gave on the first day in Accra and in which he outlined what he foresees for the relationship between Ghana and the U.S. It should be easy to find the speech online if you are interested in reading it. Basically, Barack chose Ghana as the sub-Saharan African country to visit because he sees Ghana as a country that is truly helping itself. Ghana has a democratically elected leader and is one of the more developed sub-Saharan countries, and in his speech, he praised the progress that Ghana has made. It's amazing to me that this place is more developed than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa (minus South Africa) because it's hard for me to imagine how other countries could be less developed. Most of Ghana has no electricity and no running water and people live in dirt huts. Perhaps the development in cities like Accra in Kumasi is better than large cities in other sub-Saharan countries? I'm embarrassed to say I don't know for sure. Perhaps it’s also the lack of an extremely corrupt government that puts Ghana ahead of the game.
The second speech that the President gave was at Cape Coast Castle about four hours out of Accra. The castle was a major holding-place for Africans who had been captured and would be sold into slavery and shipped to the Americas and European countries back in the 1700 and 1800’s. Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle are two of the largest slave castles on the West African coast, and Barack visited one. A few of us volunteers visited the other about two weeks before Barack came. Our visit to Elmina castle will be the subject of another post, worry not. I'm just very behind. However, it was very important to many Ghanaians that Barack visit a slave castle, because some of the few locals that I've talked with about the President's visit mention that they believe his visit helped to lay the souls of many dead American slaves to rest. They think that Barack helped to return their souls to their home in Africa so that they could finally be at peace.
The President gave his final speech at the airport on his way out of the country. I didn't watch this speech on the television like I watched the two others, but I imagine he thanked Ghana for his stay and highlighted his excitement for the continued development of US-Ghana relations and for the progress of Ghana as a country.
At the end of this post, I request that you listen to the Barack Obama song at the youtube link I gave you. It'll be stuck in your head all day, I promise :)
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
So Much for Malarone
I YEARN for a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I swear than when I get home, I will never take chicken noodle soup for granted ever again. Right now, I am recovering from being sick as a dog, and all I have is granola bars and water that tastes a bit like plastic. Blech. I could walk for half a mile (if I had the strength) and try to get a bowl of fermented banku with groundnut soup, but that's a lot of effort for something that doesn't sound so great either.
On Sunday afternoon, I was feeling exhausted. Not that I had done anything to warrant being so tired. So, I took a nap. When I woke up an hour later, I started barfing my brains out. By five, my stomach was empty, my bowels were empty, and I exhausted from dehydration and dry heaving. At that point, our nurse Kartee (thank goodness he was around) called a taxi and took me to the hospital.
This was how I came to spend the night in a Ghanaian urgent care clinic. I basically had to be carried into the building because I was so weak, and I got surprisingly little help or sympathy from the nurses who admitted me. They kicked out Kartee and two of my friends who had come along to help. They also put me in the unpleasant position that if I was going to vomit, I had to call out and have them bring me a bucket. They couldn't have just left it with me? Ug, and even if I wasn't going to vomit, the smell of that bucket would have forced me to. It was half-full of the strongest-smelling detergent imaginable and I just choked on the fumes while I heaved.
Before they deserted me for the evening, the nurses put me on a rock-hard bed in the hallway and put in an IV. They alternated between antibiotics and fluids throughout most of the night, and I didn't sleep a wink so I saw every time they changed the bag. Before they kicked out my friends, though, they gave me an injection in my butt cheek that they said would stop my vomiting - and it really did! I don't know what that miracle shot was, but it was impressively effective. It didn't make me feel any better, though.
So, I spent the entire night rolling around on a rock for a bed, desperately thirsty, with an IV in my hand and the much-needed bathroom far too distant. Once when I actually got to the bathroom . . . oh, ok I was going to share gory details, but have just decided against it :) Consider yourself lucky. Needless to say, the nurses were not pleased to clean up the mess that I really couldn't help making :(
Then, at 4:45 in the morning, after the longest night of my life, they moved me upstairs into a wonderfully comfortable bed in a room full of empty comfortable beds! Why the heck had I spent the night in the hallway on a stretcher getting eaten alive by mosquitoes when this room existed?!! I was so angry, but felt like being mad at the indifferent nurses would have been useless. That room wasn't so great once they put me in it, though, because they left the horribly bright lights on and then had the two cleaning guys come in and wash the floor while they blasted hip-hop. AH! I lost so much of my dignity that evening.
Then, FINALLY, around 8, they let Jerome come to check on me. He gave them a few harsh words for not letting him stay with me for the night, and I was glad that he did. Then the nurse informed us that the doctor would be in very soon to look at me. Now do you remember what I've told you about the meaning of "soon" in Ghana? If they told me he would be there "soon" at 8, what time do you think he came? You're right! Noon. The doctor got there at noon.
The doctor seemed just as interested in me as the nurses, but he took a small sample of blood and said he'd come back with the test results. I was expecting to have gastroenteritis from all the potentially dubious street food I'd been eating. However, when he came back an hour later, I looked up at him curiously and he said, "You have malaria parasites."
What?!! Seriously! Seriously? Yale made me purchase the most expensive malaria prophylaxis on the market, and I'd been taking it religiously! And somehow I still had malaria. Oh, and gastroenteritis too. Holy cow. And just the day before, a few volunteers and I had asked one of the UFS nurses if a UFS volunteer had even gotten malaria. He had said no. I guess that means I made Unite for Sight history? Whatever. I was not thrilled.
So, I got sent home from the clinic on Monday, and I was taking a treatment for acute malaria up until Thursday night. The medication that I took was called Coartem, and I think it had more symptoms that the parasites it was killing! I pretty much spent this entire week in bed, unable to eat and miserable. Today, though, I can walk! And as I said earlier, I just want some chicken noodle soup.
I guess the moral of this story is: I got malaria, but I'm ok. I'm on the upswing, so please don't be worried :) I figured I would wait until I was through the worst of it before making this news too public. And as Aaron told me, now I have an excellent war story to tell my grandkids.
Haha. Hope you are all doing well!
On Sunday afternoon, I was feeling exhausted. Not that I had done anything to warrant being so tired. So, I took a nap. When I woke up an hour later, I started barfing my brains out. By five, my stomach was empty, my bowels were empty, and I exhausted from dehydration and dry heaving. At that point, our nurse Kartee (thank goodness he was around) called a taxi and took me to the hospital.
This was how I came to spend the night in a Ghanaian urgent care clinic. I basically had to be carried into the building because I was so weak, and I got surprisingly little help or sympathy from the nurses who admitted me. They kicked out Kartee and two of my friends who had come along to help. They also put me in the unpleasant position that if I was going to vomit, I had to call out and have them bring me a bucket. They couldn't have just left it with me? Ug, and even if I wasn't going to vomit, the smell of that bucket would have forced me to. It was half-full of the strongest-smelling detergent imaginable and I just choked on the fumes while I heaved.
Before they deserted me for the evening, the nurses put me on a rock-hard bed in the hallway and put in an IV. They alternated between antibiotics and fluids throughout most of the night, and I didn't sleep a wink so I saw every time they changed the bag. Before they kicked out my friends, though, they gave me an injection in my butt cheek that they said would stop my vomiting - and it really did! I don't know what that miracle shot was, but it was impressively effective. It didn't make me feel any better, though.
So, I spent the entire night rolling around on a rock for a bed, desperately thirsty, with an IV in my hand and the much-needed bathroom far too distant. Once when I actually got to the bathroom . . . oh, ok I was going to share gory details, but have just decided against it :) Consider yourself lucky. Needless to say, the nurses were not pleased to clean up the mess that I really couldn't help making :(
Then, at 4:45 in the morning, after the longest night of my life, they moved me upstairs into a wonderfully comfortable bed in a room full of empty comfortable beds! Why the heck had I spent the night in the hallway on a stretcher getting eaten alive by mosquitoes when this room existed?!! I was so angry, but felt like being mad at the indifferent nurses would have been useless. That room wasn't so great once they put me in it, though, because they left the horribly bright lights on and then had the two cleaning guys come in and wash the floor while they blasted hip-hop. AH! I lost so much of my dignity that evening.
Then, FINALLY, around 8, they let Jerome come to check on me. He gave them a few harsh words for not letting him stay with me for the night, and I was glad that he did. Then the nurse informed us that the doctor would be in very soon to look at me. Now do you remember what I've told you about the meaning of "soon" in Ghana? If they told me he would be there "soon" at 8, what time do you think he came? You're right! Noon. The doctor got there at noon.
The doctor seemed just as interested in me as the nurses, but he took a small sample of blood and said he'd come back with the test results. I was expecting to have gastroenteritis from all the potentially dubious street food I'd been eating. However, when he came back an hour later, I looked up at him curiously and he said, "You have malaria parasites."
What?!! Seriously! Seriously? Yale made me purchase the most expensive malaria prophylaxis on the market, and I'd been taking it religiously! And somehow I still had malaria. Oh, and gastroenteritis too. Holy cow. And just the day before, a few volunteers and I had asked one of the UFS nurses if a UFS volunteer had even gotten malaria. He had said no. I guess that means I made Unite for Sight history? Whatever. I was not thrilled.
So, I got sent home from the clinic on Monday, and I was taking a treatment for acute malaria up until Thursday night. The medication that I took was called Coartem, and I think it had more symptoms that the parasites it was killing! I pretty much spent this entire week in bed, unable to eat and miserable. Today, though, I can walk! And as I said earlier, I just want some chicken noodle soup.
I guess the moral of this story is: I got malaria, but I'm ok. I'm on the upswing, so please don't be worried :) I figured I would wait until I was through the worst of it before making this news too public. And as Aaron told me, now I have an excellent war story to tell my grandkids.
Haha. Hope you are all doing well!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Salsamania
I wrote this post in Word a while ago and waited for the internet to be working :)
I realize that I've totally forgotten to mention the amazing group of volunteers that I'm with right now. Part of the reason that I've been writing less recently is because they are so much fun to hang out with that I spend more time with them and less with my computer. There are six of us that have really clicked, Emily, Anna, Scott, Mike, Andrew, and me. The way UFS works, there is a constant influx and outflux of people, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to know anyone for long enough to make good friends. However, Anna and I are both here from June 20 - August 20, so at least I have her. And we've been sharing a bed for this last week :) The others are here for all of July, so I've got them for a long time too. Some people, however, only stay for 10 days (the minimum stay), and so people are arriving and leaving all the time. Yesterday (July 11) we had an influx of seven new people, and they all seem pretty cool. This is such a relief because I've learned that not everyone who comes to volunteer is so cool. A girl left yesterday who I could barely stand. She was whiny, culturally insensitive, and just generally unpleasant. I was very glad to see her go.
One of our drivers, Bismarck, is an amazing source of advice and knowledge about things to do in and around Accra. He claims he knows where pretty much everything in Ghana is, and although I think that's a ridiculous assertion, he never fails to impress us. Last weekend, he told the six of us who were in Accra that we should go to "Salsamania" on Wednesday night at Coconut Groove, so we decided we would try.
Almost none of us brought any nice clothes to Ghana because we figured anything nice would get filthy and be ruined, so dressing up for a night of salsa was . . . interesting. These was lots of clothes-borrowing and less-than-flattering shoe choices, but we all tried to look as cute as possible with the circumstances as they were. We caught a taxi around 7 and headed out to Coconut Groove. As I've mentioned before, it gets dark here around 6, so by 7, it really is time to start thinking about going out.
Riding in taxis is hard. Not because the drivers are crazy - in fact you have to be crazy to drive in Ghana because if you aren't crazy you won't ever be able to assert yourself enough to enter the bumper-to-bumper flow of traffic - but because most taxi drivers keep their windows open and I end up gagging on all the dust and pollution. Since most of the roads are dirt roads, cars kick up tons of dust. The only days when the dusty air is manageable are the days when it rains. Also, the exhaust from all the cars is almost unbearable. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about the fumes that I inhale on taxi rides. (My sick stomach is probably also due to a number of other factors which I'll talk about in my next post. . . sigh).
Riiiiiiiight, salsamania. Sorry for getting off topic! So we got to Coconut Groove around 8 and noticed that it was just a really nice hotel. There was a bar, a swimming pool, a goat-kabob stand, and a dance floor outside in the courtyard, and it looked like it might rain. The courtyard was gorgeous, though, and we each bought a Star (the Ghanaian beer of choice) and a goat-kabob while we waited for things to start.
I felt pretty confident about my mediocre salsa skillz because Aaron and I took a Latin dance class at school in the fall. Haha. He and I were the stars of the class, and it was super fun, so I felt like I had the basic steps down and could teach the other volunteers a little salsa. Most of them had no idea what to do. So after we munched down the goat, we stood around and I showed them the basic back and forth step and how it goes with music. Then, after about 1 minute of teaching them, a very tall Ghanaian man came over and asked me to dance. I told him, "Oh! I'm very bad!" but he insisted. So I tried. We actually danced pretty well. I certainly was nowhere near as good as he was, but I tried to follow as well as could have been expected. We danced for about 10 minutes, and then he went back over to someone who looked like she may have been his grumpy girlfriend. Haha. The other volunteers looked slightly impressed. But they all insisted that they needed to drink more if they were going to be able to try to dance.
As they got more drinks, the party got started. Some very good dancers were leading lessons for beginners and also for intermediate dancers. I went with the intermediate dancers and the other volunteers went with the beginners. Luckily, it didn't take me too long to pick up a Ghanaian partner. We learned some cool turns and the other volunteers learned the basics.
Then, a song started that all the Ghanaians recognized, and they all lined up on the patio. A lot of the music up until this point had been in Spanish, but this song was in Twi, and everyone knew the dance to it. Thank goodness the dance was very similar to the electric slide! We were able to catch on pretty quickly. Throughout the night, there were about 5 other line dances that everyone seemed to know. Of the 5 more, I was only able to catch on to about 1 of them. I'm pretty sure that the other dances were very complicated (and not that I'd just had too much to drink haha), but the truth remains unclear.
When we weren't line dancing, we were salsaing. Ghanaians, I learned, are very friendly and respectful partners who were always happy to dance with slightly-clueless obrunnis. I danced a little more than half of the time with locals, and the rest of the time with other volunteers. We had come with 4 girls and 3 guys, so I was often the volunteer who looked for partners outside our group.
As if it weren't amazing enough that we were all salsa dancing and line dancing on a gorgeous patio to amazing music, about 20 minutes into the party, it started pouring! The rain didn't let up until the party was over. Almost all of our dancing happened in the rain, and it was glorious! Tons of people hid under the balcony by the bar, but most of us (UFS volunteers) just stayed out in the downpour. We were soaked to the bone and I was so close to going swimming in the pool with my clothes on.
The only thing that we could think to ask each other the next morning was, "Did last night really happen?" Yeah. We really did salsa the night away in a downpour. It was an AMAZING night.
I realize that I've totally forgotten to mention the amazing group of volunteers that I'm with right now. Part of the reason that I've been writing less recently is because they are so much fun to hang out with that I spend more time with them and less with my computer. There are six of us that have really clicked, Emily, Anna, Scott, Mike, Andrew, and me. The way UFS works, there is a constant influx and outflux of people, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to know anyone for long enough to make good friends. However, Anna and I are both here from June 20 - August 20, so at least I have her. And we've been sharing a bed for this last week :) The others are here for all of July, so I've got them for a long time too. Some people, however, only stay for 10 days (the minimum stay), and so people are arriving and leaving all the time. Yesterday (July 11) we had an influx of seven new people, and they all seem pretty cool. This is such a relief because I've learned that not everyone who comes to volunteer is so cool. A girl left yesterday who I could barely stand. She was whiny, culturally insensitive, and just generally unpleasant. I was very glad to see her go.
One of our drivers, Bismarck, is an amazing source of advice and knowledge about things to do in and around Accra. He claims he knows where pretty much everything in Ghana is, and although I think that's a ridiculous assertion, he never fails to impress us. Last weekend, he told the six of us who were in Accra that we should go to "Salsamania" on Wednesday night at Coconut Groove, so we decided we would try.
Almost none of us brought any nice clothes to Ghana because we figured anything nice would get filthy and be ruined, so dressing up for a night of salsa was . . . interesting. These was lots of clothes-borrowing and less-than-flattering shoe choices, but we all tried to look as cute as possible with the circumstances as they were. We caught a taxi around 7 and headed out to Coconut Groove. As I've mentioned before, it gets dark here around 6, so by 7, it really is time to start thinking about going out.
Riding in taxis is hard. Not because the drivers are crazy - in fact you have to be crazy to drive in Ghana because if you aren't crazy you won't ever be able to assert yourself enough to enter the bumper-to-bumper flow of traffic - but because most taxi drivers keep their windows open and I end up gagging on all the dust and pollution. Since most of the roads are dirt roads, cars kick up tons of dust. The only days when the dusty air is manageable are the days when it rains. Also, the exhaust from all the cars is almost unbearable. I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about the fumes that I inhale on taxi rides. (My sick stomach is probably also due to a number of other factors which I'll talk about in my next post. . . sigh).
Riiiiiiiight, salsamania. Sorry for getting off topic! So we got to Coconut Groove around 8 and noticed that it was just a really nice hotel. There was a bar, a swimming pool, a goat-kabob stand, and a dance floor outside in the courtyard, and it looked like it might rain. The courtyard was gorgeous, though, and we each bought a Star (the Ghanaian beer of choice) and a goat-kabob while we waited for things to start.
I felt pretty confident about my mediocre salsa skillz because Aaron and I took a Latin dance class at school in the fall. Haha. He and I were the stars of the class, and it was super fun, so I felt like I had the basic steps down and could teach the other volunteers a little salsa. Most of them had no idea what to do. So after we munched down the goat, we stood around and I showed them the basic back and forth step and how it goes with music. Then, after about 1 minute of teaching them, a very tall Ghanaian man came over and asked me to dance. I told him, "Oh! I'm very bad!" but he insisted. So I tried. We actually danced pretty well. I certainly was nowhere near as good as he was, but I tried to follow as well as could have been expected. We danced for about 10 minutes, and then he went back over to someone who looked like she may have been his grumpy girlfriend. Haha. The other volunteers looked slightly impressed. But they all insisted that they needed to drink more if they were going to be able to try to dance.
As they got more drinks, the party got started. Some very good dancers were leading lessons for beginners and also for intermediate dancers. I went with the intermediate dancers and the other volunteers went with the beginners. Luckily, it didn't take me too long to pick up a Ghanaian partner. We learned some cool turns and the other volunteers learned the basics.
Then, a song started that all the Ghanaians recognized, and they all lined up on the patio. A lot of the music up until this point had been in Spanish, but this song was in Twi, and everyone knew the dance to it. Thank goodness the dance was very similar to the electric slide! We were able to catch on pretty quickly. Throughout the night, there were about 5 other line dances that everyone seemed to know. Of the 5 more, I was only able to catch on to about 1 of them. I'm pretty sure that the other dances were very complicated (and not that I'd just had too much to drink haha), but the truth remains unclear.
When we weren't line dancing, we were salsaing. Ghanaians, I learned, are very friendly and respectful partners who were always happy to dance with slightly-clueless obrunnis. I danced a little more than half of the time with locals, and the rest of the time with other volunteers. We had come with 4 girls and 3 guys, so I was often the volunteer who looked for partners outside our group.
As if it weren't amazing enough that we were all salsa dancing and line dancing on a gorgeous patio to amazing music, about 20 minutes into the party, it started pouring! The rain didn't let up until the party was over. Almost all of our dancing happened in the rain, and it was glorious! Tons of people hid under the balcony by the bar, but most of us (UFS volunteers) just stayed out in the downpour. We were soaked to the bone and I was so close to going swimming in the pool with my clothes on.
The only thing that we could think to ask each other the next morning was, "Did last night really happen?" Yeah. We really did salsa the night away in a downpour. It was an AMAZING night.
Fabulous!
I am so backlogged on blogging. I have so many more things to write about, and I keep putting them off because my choices are - 1) go out and have amazing times that are worth writing about, and 2) write about my amazing times. But ok, right now I'm gonna really take some time. Until I go to the beach :)
As promised, I'm going to work back through time. Right now, I'll talk about what I did exactly a week ago. On Sunday July 5th, we woke up too late to go to church, so we took an easy morning. Not much is open on Sunday because it truly is a day of rest. That's always slightly frustrating, though, because it's hard to find food to eat on a Sunday. However, there is another Ghanaian Sunday ritual in which we decided to partake that day. This, my friends, is the ritual of football.
Just as a note, football is not the same thing as American football. Ghanaians play the football that you actually play with your feet. We silly people know it better as soccer.
Every Sunday, there is a football game at the Accra stadium downtown. The stadium is about a 30 minute drive from the Telecentre, and it's a cool place. There are two tiers of seats - the top one is painted red, the lower is painted yellow, and of course the field is green. If you are perceptive, you realize that this turns the whole stadium into one big Ghanaian flag: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana. It looks great.
Last Sunday, we went to a football game. The two teams were Asante Kotoko (a club team from Kumasi whose mascot is the porcupine) and Liberty Professional (a pro team from Accra). It seems like Ghanaians are much more into club football than professional, because the Kotoko fans came out in swarms! We decided to root for Kotoko too because we figured they were the underdog being a club team playing a pro team and because the Kotoko fans thought it has a hoot that the obrunnis were wearing Kotoko hats and had Kotoko flags around their necks.
I bought a really crappy quality Kotoko flag to wear around my neck, and it the best-spend Cedi of my entire life. Accra is just filled with Kotoko fans, and on our way home from the game, we have so many friendly people holler at us about the team that we obviously mutually supported. People hanging out of car windows would yell "Kotoko!" or "Asante Kotoko, the best!" or "Fabulous!" (the team's motto) out their windows, and I got a free mango on the street because the vendor was a huge Kotoko fan who taught me his Kotoko chant. It was amazing - wearing Kotoko gear made us an instant favorite as we walked home from the game.
The game itself was nuts. Kotoko scored the first two goals, then Liberty scored three, and finally Kotoko scored one more in the last three seconds to end the game in a tie. Every time Kotoko scored, everyone went bonkers. The men hooped and hollered, jumping up and down and waving all their gear. They trash-talked each other and yelled with wide-eyed enthusiasm. And the Liberty fans sang amazing cheers when Liberty scored. They had full-length songs and ran laps around the stadium. They also brought along drums and drummed along with their cheers.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Village of Hope
Howdy!
I know it’s been a while since I last wrote, but although the Telecentre claims to have wireless internet, what it really should claim is that it has wireless internet . . . occasionally. The internet is down way more often that it’s up, and every time I try to get my e-mail on Thunderbird, I hold my breath to see if it will go through. What this means is that a lot of these posts have been written days ago and saved in Word until that magic moment when we have a small window of World-Wide-Wonder. In fact, as I write now, the Web is down. Maybe it will be of some help for me to tell you that I’m writing on July 7th, my BG’s birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BG!!!!
Well I have a ton to write about, and I think I’m going to go backward. Right now, today is fresh in my mind, and last week in Tema is a dull and unpleasant memory. This post will be about today, then I’ll work back through our great weekend, and then I’ll say just a little bit about last week.
As the title of this post suggests, a number of us spent today in the
Today was particularly interesting for us as volunteers because we were doing a different type of outreach than we were used to. Instead of dispensing eyeglasses and medication, we dispensed knowledge! Our role was to provide an approximately 90 minute presentation to the first through fifth graders, and then another similar presentation to the JSS (junior secondary school) students afterward. When I learned what we would be doing, I was so excited to get to be a teacher for a day!
In preparing our presentation, we broke down the speech into the following topics:
1. Introduction to Eye Health and Unite for Sight
2. Anatomy and Functions of the Health Eye
3. Vitamin A Deficiency
4. Refractive Error
5. Conjunctivitis
6. Pterygium
7. The Sun and the Eye
8. Eye Trauma
9. Glaucoma
10. Cataracts
Topics 3-10 are all common diseases of the eye (minus number 7) and in each of these sections, we included symptoms, causes, prevention, and treatment. There were 7 volunteers and 1 nurse on this outreach, so the nurse did the introduction and each volunteer got one disease. However, I got to present 2 diseases because there were one fewer of us than there were diseases. I prepared to talk about conjunctivitis and cataracts.
After we prepared, the woman in charge of health education at school lead us to the lecture hall. We sat up front in chairs while at least 200 students, first through fifth grade, filed into the hall. In order to made the filling process more manageable, the students filed in while singing a song – “We love you with the love of the Lord.” One lucky fifth grader had been picked to lead the singing and the procession. Every student was wearing a blue and white uniform with closed toed shoes. Then, as soon as everyone was seated, a man who seemed to be in charge stood up front of the hall, asked everyone to bow his or her head, and said a prayer. He prayed that the students would be able to hear the message that we were bringing that day so that they could learn to protect their God-given gift of sight. It was a practical and beautiful sentiment. Then, it was time for us to speak.
The ophthalmic nurse, Robert, did our introduction. He talked about UFS and had each of us stand up to tell who we were and where we were from. It didn’t take long for him to see that these students were going to need constant engagement to keep their attention. This wasn’t because they were poorly behaved, but simply because they were young. You could see their eyes losing focus after only a minute of un-engaging speaking. So, Robert had them play a game to illustrate the effects of blindness on how a person can live life. He pulled a boy and a girl from the audience. They kids introduced themselves, blushing madly, and Robert took a tootsie pop from his pocket. He put the pop on the windowsill and said to the boy, “Find the toffee.” As expected, the boy went over and picked up the candy, grinning. But then, Robert blindfolded the boy, put the toffee on a different windowsill, and said, “Ok, find the toffee now.” As the blindfolded boy stumbled around, the whole lecture hall giggled wildly. It was a good thing that he was a good sport. While the boy was still blinded, Robert instructed the girl to help the boy to find the toffee, since she could see. She took him by the hand and led him to the right sill where he finally clutched the toffee in his tiny grip. The whole group laughed and applauded, and the blushing boy and girl returned to their seats with their tootsie pop prizes. Then Robert explain why this demonstration was so significant. When you are blind, you cannot do even the simplest tasks, and your blindness becomes a burden on not just you, but your whole family. Your family has to guide you in all your simple tasks, and they often have to do this at the expense of doing other things like going to school or doing their work. In this way, a blind family member is a burden on a family and on a community. I thought this was a very very effective way to begin our presentation.
I was about fourth in line to present, and I watched the other volunteers talk about eye anatomy and a few eye diseases. The other volunteers seemed to be having a bit of trouble in keeping the attention of the 200+ eyes in the audience, and I resolved to do better. When I stood up to talk about conjunctivitis, I asked the kids to say “conjunctivitis.” They giggled at how funny it was to say. Strangely, the locals call the disease “Apollo,” so when I told them that this funny word conjunctivitis was the same thing as Apollo, they grinned. I had a student stand up and tell me how you can tell if someone has Apollo, and I game him candy when he said, “The person will have big eyes, and they will be red!” Then I elaborated a bit on other symptoms. I always introduced a new topic with a question to the audience, and they loved to answer questions. It was so hard to pick which wildly-waving hand to call on! Finally, at the end I asked a concluding question to make sure they had been paying attention, and I rewarded the correct answer with a tootsie pop. As far as I could tell, I had really managed to keep the kids’ attention!
A few more volunteers presented their diseases, and then finally I stood up to talk about cataracts. The girl who had presented right before that had talked about refractive error with hyperopia and myopia, so I started my talk by showing the class my glasses and telling them that I was a perfect example of someone with myopia. I took the glasses off, and said, “Well now you all look like fuzzy blobs!” and they thought I was so silly. Then, I talked about cataracts, asking questions all the way, and finally I did a demonstration. I pulled a cute little boy from the audience and explained that having white cataracts is just like having pieces of white paper over your eyes - all you can see is light. So I put white paper over the boy’s eyes and waved my hands around. He giggled because he couldn’t see a thing. Then I shined a flashlight over the paper and he saw the light. It worked really well as a demonstration.
Basically, I loved teaching! One of the other volunteers recorded my cataract speech because I had done so well with my Apollo talk. Even Robert said I had done a really great job. This experience is really making me think that I should consider applying for Teach for
This has turned into an incredibly long post, so I guess I’ll just say one more thing about the school. This day was the first day where English had been the preferred method of communication with the local people! The kids’ English was great, and they seemed to understand everything we said as long as we talked slowly and clearly. It was amazing to be able to talk directly to the kids instead of speaking through local translators like we usually have to do at outreaches. It is so wonderful that the children at this wonderful school are being taught in English, because English is the key to mobility in
When the man in charge asked the kids to thank us for coming they responded in unison, “Thank you and may God bless you.” I echo this sentiment.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Ha!
Ok, as soon as I published that last post, I realized that Theatre~Dude must be Scott Gage. Yes? I certainly hope so :)
Goodnight again.
Goodnight again.
Back from Tema
Howdy Everyone,
I just got back from spending my week in the Accra suburb, Tema. I promise I will write a little more about it later - I'll tell you about our team, our outreaches, and about the other obrunnis that I met today. Right now, though, I don't feel muck like typing. I feel pretty put-off.
About 20 min ago (around 9:45 PM) I wanted to go down the street and buy a coke. A very simple quest. I set off down the road, but it didn't take me too long to realize that everything was closed. I guess this makes a good amount of sense since it's been dark since 6 PM. So, right as I turn around to head back, I notice that there are two guys quietly trying to speed up and walk behind me. I start to get nervous, and I turn around to look at them to let them know I see them. Then one of them starts to talk to me - "Hey angel. Are you scared? You are walking so fast . . . " I didn't know what to do but to pick up even more speed so that they would have to run to catch me, and I maintained course and speed for the 40 seconds longer it took to get to the road where the Telecentre is. As soon as I turned to the corner, I felt home bound because I could see other volunteers lounging on the front porch. Luckily, the creepy guys didn't turn down the road with me.
What the heck was that? I felt like I was back in New Haven. I've never been afraid to go out at night here in Ghana before, but maybe that was silly of me. Maybe I should be afraid. Well, I'll always go with a buddy from now on. Grr, I'm angry and insulted at being so blatantly disrespected.
So that's why I don't really feel like writing very much now. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows in Accra. But tomorrow we are going on a sight-seeing and sight-walking day trip to Kakum National Reserve which is a preserved area of rainforest. We are also going to the "slave castle" which used to be a huge containment facility for the slaves who were going to be shipped overseas from Ghana to the Caribbean and the Americas. It should be both a beautiful and solemn day. So once that cheers me up, I'll be ready to write! Sorry for being a bit frustrated right now.
Before signing off, I have one final question. Who are you, Theatre~Dude?! You keep commenting on my posts, but I don't have the slightest clue who you are. Please let me know, so I don't have to be sketched out by you like I was sketched out by the pair of Ghanaian night-crawlers that just ruined my evening.
Goodnight all!
I just got back from spending my week in the Accra suburb, Tema. I promise I will write a little more about it later - I'll tell you about our team, our outreaches, and about the other obrunnis that I met today. Right now, though, I don't feel muck like typing. I feel pretty put-off.
About 20 min ago (around 9:45 PM) I wanted to go down the street and buy a coke. A very simple quest. I set off down the road, but it didn't take me too long to realize that everything was closed. I guess this makes a good amount of sense since it's been dark since 6 PM. So, right as I turn around to head back, I notice that there are two guys quietly trying to speed up and walk behind me. I start to get nervous, and I turn around to look at them to let them know I see them. Then one of them starts to talk to me - "Hey angel. Are you scared? You are walking so fast . . . " I didn't know what to do but to pick up even more speed so that they would have to run to catch me, and I maintained course and speed for the 40 seconds longer it took to get to the road where the Telecentre is. As soon as I turned to the corner, I felt home bound because I could see other volunteers lounging on the front porch. Luckily, the creepy guys didn't turn down the road with me.
What the heck was that? I felt like I was back in New Haven. I've never been afraid to go out at night here in Ghana before, but maybe that was silly of me. Maybe I should be afraid. Well, I'll always go with a buddy from now on. Grr, I'm angry and insulted at being so blatantly disrespected.
So that's why I don't really feel like writing very much now. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows in Accra. But tomorrow we are going on a sight-seeing and sight-walking day trip to Kakum National Reserve which is a preserved area of rainforest. We are also going to the "slave castle" which used to be a huge containment facility for the slaves who were going to be shipped overseas from Ghana to the Caribbean and the Americas. It should be both a beautiful and solemn day. So once that cheers me up, I'll be ready to write! Sorry for being a bit frustrated right now.
Before signing off, I have one final question. Who are you, Theatre~Dude?! You keep commenting on my posts, but I don't have the slightest clue who you are. Please let me know, so I don't have to be sketched out by you like I was sketched out by the pair of Ghanaian night-crawlers that just ruined my evening.
Goodnight all!
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