Beautiful countryside on the way to the falls.

There was a very sick two-year-old girl in the hospital.  No one was certain exactly what was going on (b/c they can't test for much), so they were treating her with several antibiotics hoping one might be appropriate.  She was in respiratory distress and they put her on CPAP (best they could do b/c can't intubate).  Her parents were sitting there looking sort of almost numb and I so wanted it to end well for them, this little girl, this family.  Anyway, she made it through 24 hours until last night when the hospital lost power and it didn't occur to anyone to turn on the generator.  She died within an hour.  Just like that, dead.  I'm told her chances were pretty poor regardless of the generator incident.  Either way, I can't get my head around some of this.

Top to bottom: Kids hanging, butcher shop, small store where we found some wheat bread (sort of), and a side street lined with shops.

Women carry babies on their backs and just about anything you can think of, including a sewing machine, on their heads!

Lots of Goats in Ghana

My friend, the goat, who hangs on the front stoop.

Ghana, a Couple of Complaints ...Compliments to Follow

It’s been hard for me to post because my internet connection is terrible.   Maybe I’ll write more often in Word (as I am doing now) and upload it when I’m able; even if several posts come up at once, it might better chronicle my experience, as my feelings and impressions seem to change from day to day.

Anyway, first impressions of Ghana were not great.  We arrived in Kumasi midday Monday and a driver, who works for the program, picked us up at the airport to take us from Kumasi to Kintampo.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but, holy shit, I think the entire city of Kumasi is afflicted with hoarding.  For several miles, we drove along a road that was lined with people selling their “wares”.  There were heaps upon heaps of tires, hubcaps, mufflers, engines, fenders, shoes hanging from clothes lines, piles of fans, plastic chairs, mattresses, old TVs.  I don’t think anything that has ever been made or imported into Ghana has been thrown away.  It went on and on and on; it was like driving through a twenty-mile long junkyard.  And the fumes were endlessly noxious.

In terms of our place, it’s run down, but really very livable.  That said, I was pretty horrified at first.  I’m a bit ashamed to admit this since, unlike ours, most of the homes around here are one room shacks, many of which are propped up with tree limbs and/or are otherwise dilapidated.   Nonetheless, when I entered, it was sparsely lit with only a few fluorescent bulbs dangling form the ceiling, the furnishings aren’t too aesthetically pleasing, and portions of the house are painted this very unsettling shade of green.  After awhile, it occurred to me that the only thing missing was a dripping faucet; then it would have become a perfect cliche.

On another note, it’s quite the hazard walking around town here in Kintampo.  It’s busier than I expected; there are maybe four commercial-ish blocks, but with way more taxis, motorcycles, tros and trucks flying around than you’d imagine.  There is no such thing as pedestrian right of way and, to the contrary, I think they go out of their way to try to run you down.  You have to be careful to stay out of the way of vehicles while not falling into the ditches that line the roads.  These are several feet deep and are anywhere from three to maybe five feet wide.  Yesterday we walked by a gaping hole that had to be 10-12 feet deep and 5x5 wide.  I think it had previously been covered with some planks b/c I’ve walked by there several times now and have never noticed it.  In fact, I don’t know what was up with yesterday b/c everything down by the main strip seemed cranked up a few notches.  There were throngs of people, blaring horns all around me, cars and bikes coming within inches, the wind whipping up clouds of red earth that got in my eyes, and those chocking emissions.  Plus we were followed, and not very stealthily at that.

Medical Care

So things move slowly in Ghana.  I still do not know if I'll be working in a school or doing something with the local mental health project; the language barrier might be an issue with the latter.  Appropriate introductions are taking some time and no one seems to be in a hurry with respect to much of anything.  When we first arrived, Steve and I met with the medical director at the college (who Steve is, in part, working for) and he basically said it was nice to make our acquaintance and why don't we plan to meet in a month or so to discuss next steps…okay then.

Anyway, while Steve is starting to work on the emergency curriculum, he has been filling in time by working at the hospital.  And, the cool part is that I have been able to accompany him on rounds.  It’s incredibly interesting.  The facility is extraordinarily basic and bare bones with very limited resources.  The emergency room or casualty ward as they call it is about three years old.  It’s essentially another ward where the sicker patients are channeled, as opposed to going through outpatient as they had before.  But there isn’t really much that happens insofar as emergency-care as we know it.  On a positive note, many of the kids are there with malaria and that’s generally treatable if they get the hospital; so they get better.  The hospital has two doctors (in total) and they perform general surgeries; they do c-sections, appendectomys, etc. and the PAs do these as well.  I don’t quite have a handle on how well the hospital is staffed and/or how timely they are in getting a doctor or PA in for an emergency surgery; after a certain hour there are only nurses working and there is one in the ER.  Also, for a whole lot of other stuff, you’re pretty much screwed.  The lab is closed in the evening and Sundays (not sure about Sat) and is limited in the types of tests they can run.  They don’t intubate patients in the ER, do spinal taps, get an EKG; they have no ct scan at the hospital, etc.  So you can kind of get the picture.

More photos to come. It's slow!

Above taken from outside our house.  Below, typical housing and a closed shop along the roadside.

It actually hasn't been that hot in Ghana

Okay, this is going to take some getting used to.  I need to figure out how to disable public access to my blog before I post much.  But, for starters, I'll leave it at I'm hungry a lot and our place needs some sprucing up so to speak.  Although, we do have very cute goats that hang out on our front steps.  And I finally have internet access and it's not dial up!