35 minutes to load this page… torture.

Sitting in the internet café, typing this up on Word waiting for my turn to use the one computer that is connected to the owner’s cellphone which is running the internet at a snail’s pace after not having been working for the past little while… that is our excuse for no posts!!! All 4 cafes in the surrounding towns have been closed or not functioning on our last attempts!

But I digress… Life in Ghana has been good to us. The girls settled in very quickly, learning bits of the language, adopting local names and dancing at funerals.. We have sported African dresses, beads and braids and have been complimented on how well we have perfected the fine art of “chillin’” (“You people are seriously chilling!”) We have spent close to 5 days or nights a week at the hospital or on outreach for the past 3 weeks. We usually get home, get bored and head back to see what we can do. Our entertainment is constant action on the wards.

We were thrown right into Ghanaian life upon arrival. We spent the first few days in Accra where Alex tried her first bowl of fufu, Julia M tied the first baby she saw to her back and Lyne tried her hand at bargaining at the markets. All with the soundtrack of amazing local music and the shouts of “obroni” (white man).

Less than 2 days later we were whisked away to the Volta Region to the hospital where we were welcomed with open arms, big smiles and a very daunting timetable prepared by the head nurse. Highlights at the hospital have included the Julias helping a woman deliver squatting (despite much protest from the midwife), going on an outreach excursion as part of a polio eradication program (including walking to a canoe in “schish” infested water Yummy!) and working in the children’s ward. Some of the moments have been amazing, but many are frustrating and eye-opening, like a little girl who came in severely malnourished (11 mts old, barely 4kg). With spoonfuls of sugar laced peanut butter, she slowly regained her strength and got to go home. We have seen things that were just not fair. Preemie babies that never get a chance because of lack of medical equipment. Children who are treated for malaria for the 6th time in their short lives. A woman who died after a c-section leaving her twin boys motherless. But you take a big breath and promise to get better so you can do more.

We have been tricked into thinking we are tanned, only to watch red earth swirl down the shower drain. We have dipped our toes in the ocean and run screaming from jellyfish. We have bought bananas fresh from the forest, knocked oranges and mangos from the trees for our breakfast. We have danced to the local music, showing them that white girls can too dance. We have made babies cry just because they have never seen a white person before. We have stood under the highest waterfalls in West Africa in our underwear, much to the shock of some local school kids. We have collected marriage proposals. We have hidden 1400 condoms on the catholic hospital compound and smuggled them out the back gate to an NGO. We just got up and danced in the internet café because our favourite song came on. In short, we’re working harder than ever and
having an awesome time.

Advertisement