The weekend had arrived and we had a great day of adventure planned. We all piled into a tro we rented for the day and headed out to Paga. Once we arrived our first stop was to go to the crocodile pond. There are apparently over 200 crocs in the small pond and there are definitely some big mamas in there. But surprisingly they are all very tame. We were able to pose with one of the larger ones. And when I say pose, I don’t mean standing some 10 feet away pointing at it. I mean we were standing right on top of it, straddling the thing while we stroked its back. We were even able to hold the tail. After we had taken enough pictures, it was feeding time. Basically, they had a couple medium sized chickens that they would toss at the crocs and they would eat them in one large bite. I was personally lucky enough to feed one of them. And it was beyond awesome, definitely have to post that video when I get around to it, one of the coolest and most violent things I’ve ever done. We then sat around on some rocks while the guide tried to tell us the story of the pond but apparently no one was able to hear the story anyway. We then piled back into the tro and headed towards our next stop, a slave camp. This is the place where they would keep slaves before they would ship them towards the coast where they would then be shipped to the new world. It was very interesting to see the conditions that the slaves had to deal with. They showed us the holes carved into the rock where they would eat and they showed us the rocks that had been carved out by the writhing chains of the slaves that were being punished. But they also showed us this large rock that they were able to bang on and play just like a set of drums. There was even a small group of men and some children that put on a little show for us while we danced along. After our stay in the slave camp we went to lunch. Our leaders surprised us by taking us to Burkina Faso, a bordering nation. The border control was very light and they let us through with very little convincing. We posed for a couple pictures by the countries signs and ate at the restaurant that is apparently frequented by the OG groups. We all had some rice and stew along with some grilled goat. After our short stay we got back in our tro and headed to Bolga to go check on our dear friend Kitan. When we got to her room, it was as if we had entered into a comedy club. She may not have been feeling well but she was telling us the stories of the times she has had at the hospital and everyone was laughing the entire visit. It was nice to see that Kitan still had high spirits even after all the ordeals that she has been through. Eventually it was time for us to leave. Jackie made the decision to stay with her through the night and to be honest after the show Kitan put on I think we were all begging for more. Then we made the tro back to Sandema. The bros escorted the lonely Peeps back home because neither of her roommates were with her. We then went back home to our own family to have some dinner. Unfortunately, our baby brother had gotten malaria so he had to go spend the night at the hospital with his Momma. So the bros just hung out with the family and watched a little Iron Man 2 but eventually we all went to sleep.
Today a small group of us went to the Navrongo hospital while the rest of the OG’ers tried to recuperate from their various diseases. It was the bros plus Kelly, Sam and Emma. We were first introduced to a couple of the doctors and then we sat through Peds rounds. Literally, sat. They would call the patients up to this desk they had set up. A little bizarre, but it definitely made it easier on the doctors. After rounds, we went to the research center that is based at this hospital. We were given a tour of each department, complete with talks from each of the department heads. After our tour, our small group headed back towards the bus stop. We made a stop for lunch first at a small restaurant by the road where they had a huge sign with a lot of different things but in reality all they had was rice and stew. We then continued on the long trek to get back to the bus stop, but not before we found some Barack Obama underwear!!! Also, some of the girls were able to pick up some fabric and dresses. Eventually we got to the bus stop and found a tro that was Sandema bound. When we arrived, we stopped at our Mama’s bar again to have our afternoon drink and then the bros went home while I tried to get in some internet time. I got a little bit in but not before I had to head home for dinner. After dinner, Taha had to go and pay the families so the rest of the bros decided to go with him. First stop was to Peeps, Jackie, and Kelsie’s. We ended up spending a little too much time there having fun and meeting the family. We then started to leave towards our next destination, Emma and Sam’s. Jackie and Peeps decided to come with us as well because at the time we had planned on going out that night to grab some more ginger drank. So we started towards their place but about halfway there we notice that there is a lightning storm happening. So we stopped and watched as the lightning lit up the sky. After a while, we continued our walk. But as time went on we noticed that rain had started to fall. We began to pick up the pace because we were still a pretty good distance from our destination. Gradually, the storm start coming harder and harder, so by now we are all sprinting just trying to find some shelter or maybe even make it to Emma and Sam’s. But right as the storm it about to hit its peak we stumble upon a pretty odd scene. There is a man and he is standing between another man and a woman, the man on the outside with a firm grip on the woman’s shirt. At first, we didn’t pay much attention to it because of the rain but then we realized what was most likely going down. We attempted to break it up as best we could and of course the man was definitely under the influence and a little hard to reason with. Lucky for us, he wasn’t very belligerent just very sad, so eventually we were able to break it up and we escorted the two parties away from eachother. By now the storm is on full blast and all of us are soaked to the core. We decide to just take refuge at some random complex in front of someones porch. We had a pretty good laugh when we realized that we weren’t the only ones with the same idea because the next patio over was filled with about 12 goats huddling together to get away form the rain. As time went by, the winds picked up and since we were all soaking wet we had to huddle together for warmth. But we all warmed up eventually and we made the most of our situation with sing-alongs, stories, and just washed the storm wash over everything. A couple of times the lightning made us jump in surprise and so did the patrons that decided to check on the crazy white people on their porch. After about two hours, the storm finally died down and we continued our trip to Sam and Emma, who were perfectly asleep in their comfy dry house. We came in did our business had a small chat and then we were on our way. On the way back, we were invited to go spend some time at Mizbah and Kelly’s place. We were able to dry off a little more and we played some guitar and enjoyed some of the ginger drink that they had picked up earlier that day. After a little while, Mizbah has the great idea to go cook some pasta along with some garlic bread. Jackie and I decided to help out and we had such a great time preparing the food and the warm meal definitely hit the spot. By this time, its about 2 in the morning so the girls decided to stay the night while the bros decided to start the walk home. Unfortunately, it started to drizzle again, but I was able to steal an umbrella from Mizbah. But of course thats too easy, so about 20 feet after leaving the house, one of my sandals breaks. Thankfully, it did rain a ton and the dirt roads were actually really soft. I ended up taking off my other sandal because it was just so much more comfortable. We got home pretty late again but this time we had a key so there was no more drama this night.
Today, even more people dropped out. Jackie and Peeps were out of commission and Emma and Sam stayed home with their own problems. Taha and Kelly were still with Kitan at Bolga. So that only left the bros and Kelsie. Deez left to Bolga to have his own adventure while the rest of us went back to the hospital. Kelsie and I joined in on rounds and Martyna went back to the lab. We didn’t stay too long after because we wanted to say goodbye to our friend Andrea who was catching the bus back to Bolga and we also wanted to use the internet cafe. I wasn’t able to do much before it went down. We decided to grab some lunch instead of waiting for it to come back so we went to this place that Martyna had gone to yesterday with Mizbah, which serves rice balls with a peanut soup. It was really delicious but it was super spicy, even I couldn’t put it all away. After our lunch, we went to our Mama’s bar and had a drink and relaxed. As we were leaving our baby brother, Cyril, had finally warmed up to me. He held out his hands and took steps towards me so that I could pick him up, absolutely precious. After our drink, Martyna went back home in an attempt to get a change of clothes. Kelsie and I decided that we would go back to her place to check on the other 2 OG’ers that were out today. We made the short walk back to their place and I met some of the family. We then just went to their room and chilled for a pretty good amount of time just talking and listening to some music. Eventually, Martyna shows up because he couldn’t get into the house anyway but soon it gets to be a little late so we headed back to our own home where Deez had just arrived. Upon arrival we met their 2nd oldest son, Butros, a 17 year old who had just finished school that day. We sat down to a dinner of yams and stew and spent some quality time with Butros and Gideon before we called it a night.
Today, things just got worse, health-wise. Kitan was moved to Bolga hospital and peeps got pretty ill herself this morning. For the bros however, we were in perfect health and had a rather eventful day. The first episode we had was this moning at breakfast. Taha was off taking a shower I believe but the rest of the bros were sitting at the breakfast table enjoying our eggs and bread. Then suddenly there is some loud crashing and clucking going on just outside the door. We all look at Gideon and ask what the heck was that? He calmly responds, “Oh, thats a guinea fowl”, which are these turkey looking things about the size of a normal chicken. But we all knew that there is no way just one guinea fowl could be that loud. So Deez and I get up from the table to go outside and there is a dog chasing around about 7 of these creatures. We ended up watching them for a bit until the dog actually cornered one of the fowls. The bird starts to head over to the gated little patio thing that our family has outside the front door when Deez says, ” I wonder if that thing can get in here.” As soon as he says that the bird hops up onto the upper part of the gate and crashes through their patio and runs inside the house. At this point Martyna is still getting up from the breakfast table and he was so startled by the sight of this crazy bird coming straight at him that he did just about the silliest dance I’ve ever seen, later coined the ‘Guinea Fowl Dance’ which Gideon now performs frequently and at the expense of Martyna. The bird then stumbles around behind the TV and sprints, head first right into the refrigerator. By this point everyone is laughing their asses off, but this poor bird is still flopping all over the house. So we gather whatever composure we could and chase this stupid thing around the house about 8 times before it finally leaves. What a crazy awesome morning. Then when our breakfast was finished we headed towards the market so we could find a present for our family. Its pretty tough to pick a good present but in Sandema the first gift that comes to mind is of course a goat. So we arrived there at around 8 and the market had absolutely nothing set up. We waited an hour until we had to leave to go to work, but we vowed to return later. Jackie and I were in consultations for the morning. About half the town was waiting for consultations so we flew through all the patients just trying to get them the proper care and to get them to the places they needed to be. But I was still able to learn quite a lot despite the rapid pace that the patients moved through. Somewhere in the middle of it all though, I was able to sneak out and meet with the other bros as we headed back to the market to pick up a goat. Of course being ‘white’ the people first laugh when they see us walking up to check out the goats. And then they proceed to try to sell us diseased or injured goats for ridiculous prices. Unfortunately for them, we had an expert with us, Taha, who has now bought about 4 goats in his life. So we start asking around for the male goats and whenever you ask that the goat herder finds the closest male to him and lifts it up by his hind legs, shows your their testicles and gives them a good squeeze so there would be no doubt. Eventually after some tough bargaining, we find the perfect goat and at only 25 GCD, a great deal. So we head back to town with our new goat, which we named BROat, on a leash so we can tie him up at a friends house near the hospital. The coolest part about the goat that we bought was that he was very tame. He acted pretty much just like a dog out for a walk. We eventually got to where we were gonna post him up, we tied him to a small tree so that he could get some shade and then went back to the hospital. After our hospital time, we all went out to lunch, at this time there is only 7 of us. After our extremely cheap but filling lunch, we all broke off to do our own things. Jackie and I went back to the hospital to give some food that she had promised to one of the medical assistants working there and then we went to the internet cafe. Unfortunately, there is only about 2 computers that have internet so I didn’t actually get any time but it was nice to relax. After a little bit of time we then headed towards the Horizons Children Center. Where we met some really awesome kids and got to play around with a monkey that they have there. Unfortunately, the monkey isn’t to fond of strangers so the only thing he would do is slap stuff out of my hand that I tried to offer him. After spending quite some time there, we headed back to town where the bros went and picked their goat up so we could present it to our family. We got there with perfect timing, right as our papa arrived. I’m not entirely sure how stoked they were to get the goat but I could tell they at least appreciated it. After our presentation, we went to our room to lay down for a bit and wait for dinner. Eventually we were called for dinner. This night we had Teezed (pronounced ‘tea zed’) It is pulverized millet and plantain and is served with some soupy stuff which is packed with a ton of leafy vegetables and fish. I loved the stuff because it tasted just like a Filipino dish that I eat often back home, Sinegang. After we finished dinner, Mizbah called us up to see if we wanted to hang out. We figured sure why not. So he arrived rather shortly but first he had been called up to go pick up a friend of his in a town nearby. So the bros decided that we would just go wait by OG tree while he journeyed to go get his buddy. We sat around OG tree for a while just starring up at the clear gorgeous night sky. You could see every star and even the cloudiness of the Milky Way, absolutely beautiful. After a while, we headed back to town to meet back up with Mizbah. When we met up with him, he asked us, ‘you guys wanna grab a drink?’ And respond, sure but its pretty late is anyone open still. So Mizbah walks into this shed looking thing and walks back out with 4 chairs and a table. and then some lady walks out with him and takes our drink order. Mizbah suggests that we try this ginger drink so we get some of that and a couple sprites to mix it in. We ended up finishing the entire bottle between us because it was just so good. After a while, the professor that hosts students from the University of Calgary walks on by and he decides to join us. After he joins us, we decide to order Apeteshie, which is a Ghanaian drink, basically fermented palm wine and others may disagree but I thought it was quite tasty. And shortly after we order it, a student of his joins us as well. So now we are all just drinking and having a great time with some really enlightened conversations. Eventually we notice the time. And of course it is about 12:30 and we had told our family that we would only be out for a very short time. We make our way back home praying that our home is unlocked but of course its locked up like fort knox with at least 3 locks on every entrance. So all the bros are just pacing around the outside of our house for about half an hour, contemplating our options because it was only our second night with our family so we didn’t want to make a bad impression. Our first idea was to bang on the door but we didn’t want to wake the whole house up. Then our next plan was to try to wake up Gideon, but we were thwarted by a group of large wasps that none of us wanted to go near and later we learned we were at the wrong window anyway. Eventually we were able to get a hold of Kelly, who luckily had Mama Azuma’s number and we were able to call her up. We got her out of bed but I guess they couldn’t find the second set of keys so she had to call papa. At this point, we were scared out of our minds because we had no clue how papa would react (now we know hes a total sweetheart). And to make it worse we had to call him back from his chiefs meeting because apparently one of their brothers had died. He arrives after a while and we enter the house and it was as if the only words we knew were ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’. Our family didn’t seem to mind our shenanigans and was perfectly fine with us showing up as late as we had. We got into our room, heaved a sigh of relief, and had a pretty good laugh at the whole situation. We reminisced on the great day we just had and eventually nodded off to sleep.
Today was our first day in the Sandema hospital. Its very small and there is only one doctor whom I still haven’t met yet. Basically, everyone here is either a nurse or a medical assistant so obviously their resources are very limited. Unfortunately, today marks the day where everyone started to get ill. Kitan was admitted into the hospital today and everyone else started to catch their own things as well over the next few days. But today, everyone was in rounds and it was mostly just malaria patients with a couple liver conditions caused from hepatitis and some infections sprinkled in here or there. After rounds were finished, we went out with our group and got some lunch, just some simple rice and beans. And afterwards, we were introduced to OG tree. Its a Bayoba tree, which is a popular fruit of the region. I dont know how other Bayoba trees are but OG tree is a pretty tall tree with a lot of really thick branches. Those of us who were in climbing capable clothes climbed up while others sat on the ground. We just had some mild conversation while we waited for Deez to arrive because for some reason he thought he would be able to cross a riverbed without getting mud everywhere, so he had to go back into town to clean himself up. When he arrived our leaders just wanted to get our initial reactions of the town and to clear up any confusion that we may be having with the different culture that we encounter in Sandema. Everybody seemed pretty pleased with Sandema because it is much more relaxed than Accra and there isn’t anybody trying to heckle us or introduce us to their good friend Jesus every 5 minutes. After our talk, we were introduced to the classic OG game, WA!!!! Its really fun and impossible to explain in writing so just ask an OG’er and they will gladly show you how its done. After our talk, it was about time to head back to our families. We chilled with our little brother Gideon and had some rice and stew for dinner. A very simple day but Sandema really started to shine throughout the next couple of days.
Sorry the posts are taking me a little longer. There is only one computer with internet connectivity here and it sometimes cuts out. So I’m doing my best and will try to update as quickly as possible. Thank you again for following!
Today we woke up at around 4 to catch the bus to Bolga. We rode a small tro to where the bus picks people up for the long ride and we all piled on in. Finally, a bus where I could actually move my knees. The trip actually flew by and apparently we made amazing time to Bolga. We arrived in Bolga and opted to grab some lunch before making the final leg to Sandema. I was able to finally try some Banku. It tasted a lot like kenke but it was much slimier. Needless to say I wasn’t a huge fan but it was served with this delicious ground nut soup which strangely enough tasted a lot like asian food. Also, peeps ordered the fufuo and I was able to grab a little bit of that. Apparently it is smashed up cassava and is also served with the same soup, it was definately much better than the banku. Also, all this time we were still caring for our dear little chick, Blastoise. He was peeping the whole ride over but I have to admit I was getting a little attached to the little guy. After lunch we meandered around Bolga and then we hopped on the bus to Sandema. And they packed the crap out of this bus, Deez even ended up having to stand up and the poor fellah kept getting yelled at by these old ladies because he was blocking the television screen. We got to Sandema eventually and we greeted by a ton of people. We met this super awesome guy named Yao and he had agreed to take care of Blastoise for us. After a little mingling, we all parted ways and the four bros headed home with our new 11 year old brother Gideon. First, we made a stop at the bar which our new mother, Mama Azuma, owns and we met their one year old child named Cyril. We arrived to our new home, met our new Papa and settled into our room. Mama Azuma came back home eventually and made us some dinner which was spaghetti and stew. And then we just hung out with our family and watched some Kung Fu Panda. Deez went to sleep a little earlier because he wasn’t feeling too well but Martyna, Taha and I stayed up and got our Buli names. Mine is Ajoosiwayne (sp?) which means pray to god, Martyna’s is Awomboro, which means there is god, and Deez eventually got his, Awunate, which means god’s gift. Then I went to sleep on a bed for the first time in 2 days.
Today was the day of the wedding and nobody was super happy when we were woken up at 5:30 after only getting to bed at around 2. We were woken up early to go visit a past OG’er who was there doing some research project but unfortunately got sick and wound up in the hospital. Not many people wanted to go (who could blame them) but we managed to gather a rather strong force and marched over to the hospital. We talked to her for a while and then headed back to the house for some breakfast. Once everybody had their pretty faces on, we left for the wedding. Actually, we went to about 8 other places first. We visited the grooms house, the brides house, the chiefs house, etc. and everyplace had a handshake line which all of us walked through. We then sat down for a while outside of the mosque where apparently the couple got married but none of us actually knew that the wedding was happening until it was already over. When all was said and done we went over under a tree and had some refreshments and a couple of us danced for the entertainment of the locals. After our little show, we then went back to the grooms house (not even sure at this point) and had some dinner that they had prepared for us. We hung out for a little bit and played with some really adorable kids. Afterwards, our merciful leaders gave us the night off as opposed to the long trip to Sandema. We basically just sat around on our host’s couch and watched some movies and played card games and buzz word. After some well deserved R&R, we went back into town to grab some dinner. We went to this really nice place and they had two adorable kittens that we named Banku and Fufuo. They were absolutely precious and we had planned on bringing them home but somebody(Taha) forgot to grab them. Peeps and I decided to leave a little bit early than the rest of the group because she wasn’t feeling too great. We grabbed some mango and ended up meeting a journalist on our way back home. He ended up walking us home and we had a pretty interesting conversation about how we perceived the healthcare in Ghana and he enlightened us to a few things about Ghanaian society. Most importantly, however, we found a little baby chick that was abandoned in a gutter that peeps decided to rescue. We brought him back home where he was given the name Blastoise. Originally, we had planned on leaving him there with the family but there wasn’t any mother hens to take care of him so of course the only other option was to bring him on the 10 hour tro ride with us to Sandema. Things settled down for the night, a couple of us stayed up and watched spider man 3 but eventually everybody got settled back in their sleeping spots and promptly fell asleep.
Today we spent the entire day in Kumasi. First we woke up really late because it was super long week and we grabbed some egg and breads at a stand down the road. After breakfast we headed into town to get a tro tro to this NGO named Kawta, which deals with women education and rights and the like. We spent a good while there discussing their goals and achievements and met all the people involved with the projects. After our meeting we went back to Kumasi and to the market named Kejatia, which is supposedly the largest market in all of Ghana. I tried to go to the forex instead but of course it was closed already. So i just walked around with Deez and Taha that needed to make some withdrawals from the ATM. Once they grabbed their money we met up with another one of Taha’s hookups and we grabbed the OG t-shirts!!! It looked really sketch because he basically just went up to some guy who then went into some alcove in the building and came out with a black bag which he then handed to taha in exchange for a wad of cash. We then wandered through the market for a little while longer then met up with the rest of the group so we could head home. We ate the same chinese food again at the hotel because it was too good to pass up and then our trip leaders called an audible on us. Instead of staying the night and waking up early in the morning we decided to leave that night and take a late night tro to the next town, Wenchi, in order to catch a wedding the next day. Everybody was already really tired and honestly the trip was a pretty tall order. By the time we got there everyone was really cranky and not to disregard our host’s hospitality but they weren’t exactly prepared to accommodate all 12 of us. We managed to squeeze 4 of the grils on the couch and I personally slept on a bed made of coats. It could’ve been worse but I was too tired to really care and besides we had a big day planned tomorrow and not a lot of sleep to do it.
Today I spent the morning doing hematology rounds. They were already halfway over and they had finished really early so I didn’t really get to learn too much. But the main reason for that was that it was so uncomfortably hot. For some reason, the ceilings were lined with fans but none of them were turned on. Martyna, Emma and I were sweating right through our clothes, trying anything just to get relief but also pay attention at the same time. The best part though was that the Ghanaian doctors and students looked perfectly comfortable in their long sleeved shirts and their lab coats while we panted like dogs. After rounds ended, we went to the internet cafe and grabbed some taxis to go to the World Health Organization. We got there and had quite a long conversation about some of the projects that they were running. After we finished the meeting, we pulled a birthday surprise on Kelsie because it was her 20th birthday!!! Taha and Deez had gone earlier that day to a bakery and got her a really awesome cake. We sat down to eat the cake but none of us had eaten lunch yet and we were crazy hungry, so we ate the entire cake in about 30 seconds. We then went back to the student hostel at korle bu and got our tro together so we could head towards Kumasi. The ride was about 5 hours long but it was by far the worst one yet. There was traffic on traffic, bumpy roads for miles, and on top of that no leg room and low ceilings… not a good day to be a tall person. However, we were lucky enough to have a tro with a DVD player. We were able to pop in the DVD that Martyna had bought earlier in Tema station. The DVD’s here are only one disc but they have like 20 something movies on it and they all share a common theme but not necessarily the same language. So we throw his DVD in the player and its titled Cannibal Holocaust. He mainly bought it just for laughs and as the first movie got going we realized the quality of the movies were pretty silly. By the time the first movie ended everyone was more or less taking a nap but I stayed up and watched the next film but it was really a huge mistake. The movie was more than disturbing and there was a scene with a turtle that I would much rather not explain. Anyway, we eventually got to Kumasi and stopped at the hotel that we thought we would be staying at. Unfortunately, they were full but since Taha has got sweet hookups all over Ghana the owner of the hotel allowed us to stay in his other nicer hotel for the same price. And this hotel was amazing; running hot water and A/C, what more could you ask for? They also made us americanized chinese food, which is hardly very cultural but definitely hit the spot. Some people went to sleep early others just hung around for a bit and when we were all sufficiently tired we went to sleep.
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