--
FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011
Outreaches this week have been few and far in number because the Kumasi program coordinator has been sick. Of the five days in the week, I attended three outreaches and each of them had fewer than forty patients. Wednesday I was at clinic and spent about an hour observing seven surgeries. Thursday we were off because we missed viewing post-op patients, and I ended up hanging around Kejetia to try and do some mild errands that amounted to an eventful afternoon, including: fixing Omar’s camera that broke at the Indian restaurant when the waitress dropped it after trying to take a picture of us, and a confrontation after a misunderstanding over an unintentional free taxi ride for the Apricot worker Ansare; prowling for what they dub long “light crème” colored hair for my next “do” as opposed to my current “blonde” which is much darker than the blonde I’m used to; trying to figure out why Omar could not withdraw money from the ATM and a way for me to obtain cash from my traveler’s checks (I’ve tried six banks over the past two days, and still the best option I have is to wait for three weeks to have them processed, by which time I’ll have almost left Ghana); hitting up the Vodafone internet café and seeing other obronis; and, filling out stomachs with cheap, authentic street food with the assistance of a kind bohemian/Jamaican-like lad named Gabriel who sadly knows me as Britney from Barcelona. I gave my stomach a go with “cow meat,” which is not so much beef as it is some gelatinous skin part of cow, which was gross (and my stomach is fine! Woohoo). INSERT STREET FOOD PIC HERE!!!

The UFS van picked up me, Ali, and Omar from Vodafone and we were off to see how publicity works. When the publicity is unsuccessful for an outreach, few patients show up and it’s rather upsetting because of the distance we travel and the investment we make in planning. I still would like to be more informed of the management processes behind the coordination of the eye care programs abroad. Much of the large-scale coordination is done in New Haven, but I am most curious about the micromanagement. Yesterday I learned that a representative from the outreach team meets with the chief of the outreach village the night before an outreach to verify the facility and to make announcements to the community via a prerecorded tape with health information on a loudspeaker atop the van. That was pretty sweet.

Today I went to an outreach that was sub-40 patients and sad and was getting rather frustrated with my lack of work this week. I started to feel better when I ate red-red off the street for the first time and when Kate accompanied me and Ali to the seamstress/tailor to have clothing and other things made from the cloth I had bought at Kejetia the day my wallet was stolen. If we had been there alone, there was no chance we would have been able to communicate our desires for a non-obroni price. Nevertheless, I am still expecting some surprises when I pick up my items on Monday.

Tagging along with Kate and Steve after those two pick-me-ups was fantastic. We drove about 2-3 hours each way to this very rural village. The drive involved some monster truck-style maneuvering and left me unable to sleep in the back seat because of all of the ditches and bumps and general unevenness in the road. However, the Africa I got to see during this car ride was the picturesque Africa I’ve grown up to imagine from documentaries on rural villages and from my Disney movies like Lion King and Madagascar. The fauna is absolutely stunning. We made the most of our speakers atop the van and configured it to play the South African FIFA World Cup song from last summer as we sang along and drove with our fists high in the huge skies out the windows. It was a glorious karaoke van. We had to get out to push the car once when we were caught in a mud puddle. During that push I noticed three iridescent blue beetles to the left on some knee-high plant, and I snagged a picture.  INSERT BLUE BEETLE PIC HERE

We arrived at the chief of the village’s place after driving past some bare skinned youngeons with real outie belly buttons (I’ve seen this quite a bit here) and others with distended stomachs in front of their clay houses roofed with palm leaves. We were confused when, after we had sat down after making our rounds shaking hands with all of the villagers present, the villagers then got up and made their rounds to shake our hands again. This was apparently the traditional African greeting. The circle of benches on the sand between some clay houses inset from the road in the unkindly dark was very intimate, and everyone was attentive as Kate gave her spiel about the upcoming outreach the next week. We sat for about a half hour and returned to the van to drive around the village to announce the outreach via the van’s loudspeakers.

This will be a huge outreach with maybe 300 or so patients. The night before it, I’ll be sleeping in the electricity-poor village. Witnessing this process today was surely one of the highlights of my trip, and I am so looking forward to seeing the outcome next Wednesday.

SATURDAY, JULY 9, 2011
New discovery: eggs don’t make me sick anymore! For the longest time I would only eat eggs if I wanted to be sick so I didn’t have to go to school or practice. Now that I’ve had the same fried egg breakfast every day this past week in my lodge in Kumasi, I’ve discovered that I can eat eggs for breakfast and not have to worry about them making me nauseous! There are pros and cons to this finding. Pros: I now have more eating food varieties from which to choose, and a new domain to explore for experimental cooking! Cons: I’ve lost my go-to food that has always guaranteed me a stomach sickness. If I could choose I’d probably choose what I have now because eggs are very delicious. I can’t wait to go home and make some omelets de fromage. Mmm.

We hit up some obroni hot spots today. I was crushed when, along the way, our van hit a baby goat. I love the goats. I want a goat someday. I couldn’t believe that I was in the car that made this innocent creature who was being chased into the street by a stray dog go spinning off the side of the road in front of what I’m sure was its goat and human families. The roads were god awful, and at one point we had to get out and push the van in a depression where the rainwater had collected and caused the wheels to have no traction for a good half mile stretch. It was a bit too close for comfort when the huge Yak obronimobile behind us approached and two taxis came from the front. It was a four-way car pileup and all it would have taken was the slightest incorrect maneuvering of a driver’s wheel and it would have been dominoes volume 2: cars in Africa toppling and mashing the pie of doom in their passengers’ faces. Despite such vehicle troubles, I am still upset that the goat did not survive.

Obroni hot spot number 1 was the monkey sanctuary where we learned about parasitic trees and how they are awesome to climb; saw monkeys of the mona and colubus breeds and listened to them squeal to each other as they hopped from branch to branch; and, were educated about how only descendants of the original priests of the village could truly “own” the monkeys and be buried with their monkeys in the monkey cemetery within the forest. We spotted at least 5 obronis there.

Then, along our way to obroni hot spot number 3, the waterfall at ___, we stopped at a chop shop and saw a few more. Despite the abundance, the waiter spit in my ear and told me that he’d like to “see me” after I was finished eating. I couldn’t escape skidaddling without his notice, and I ended up having the same conversation I have with a million other Ghanaian men: they all want me to take them along with me when I go back home to America, and they love me and want me to marry them. Oh and a lot of times they’ll say “Ahh, America, you mean Obamaland!” They are rather obsessed with Obama here. Yesterday I saw man a-walking on some random street and he was sporting a shirt that had a background with red and white stripes and white stars on blue and then Obama’s face on both the front and back. People here see Omar and ask him if he’s Obama. He respectfully corrects them and says he is Obama’s son.

When we arrived at obroni hot spot number 3, I had decided that each time I see another obroni in Ghana, it is weird. They just don’t fit in and they look painfully uncomfortable. I hope I don’t look like that, because I am rather comfortable on Ghana’s lawn and they kind of look a little pitiful. I suppose this won’t translate to when I’m back in the U.S. with its obroni surplus.

The waterfall was absolutely beautiful, and the entire time I went barefoot. It was wonderful to hear and smell the evanescence of the surrounding nature reserve. This waterfall was much more fun for me than the one at Lake Volta because everyone in the group wanted to jump in and play around. It was so much fun! My favorite activity was definitely log rolling down the rocks, and my least favorite was running because I ended up stubbing my toe and bruising it enough such that not even two Advils alleviates any of the pain. My excitement from the latter part probably came from all of the positive attention I was getting from a pack of schoolchildren from Mali who wanted me and the other obronis to stand in pictures with them. It was adorbs.

It was time to go home, and it was another 3 hour car ride, during which I could not sleep and could not read because it was dark, so I listened to some music from my iPod and tried to make myself comfortable. I also munched on the hugest pineapple I had discovered. It was delicious.

Closing up. Ghanaians don’t really eat much. They’ll eat a solid one or two meals a day. I call the late afternoon meal that I have come to know and love here, “dinch,” for “dinner” and “lunch.” What, dinch doesn’t sound appetizing to you?