General update

Today and yesterday I spent the morning in the Pediatrics ward of the hospital. We followed the doctors around on their rounds and then sat in on their clinic. The doctors are two women from Cuba who have a limited grasp of English. This language barrier makes it a little hard to understand what’s going on. Though English is the official language of Ghana, it is really only spoken by those who have been educated. The people who do speak English have a wide range of abilities with the language and all have very thick accents, which also makes it hard to understand. Most of the kids come in with malaria or anemia, or both.

In the afternoons, I have followed Stefanie and Maira to Hans cottage (a pool and restaurant) where we have taken the children at the orphanage. They had a great time in the pool and then they were treated to a big meal of spaghetti and fries in the restaurant – that’s some food that I would have loved to eat.

The food hasn’t really been agreeing with me. I think it’s partly due to the heat but also to the fact that the food is so foreign. We have been eating Ghanaian versions of Western dishes, but it’s really not the same. I couldn’t possibly eat a real Ghanaian dish. With the heat and the smells of open sewers and urine everywhere, it is really hard to choke down food.

It is so unbelievably dirty everywhere. I don’t think I’ve seen a proper garbage can since I’ve been here. The garbage is just strewn about everywhere and sometimes in huge piles on a street corner. The sewers are all open and reek really badly. In town you can see chickens and goats walking and eating in the sewers – sort of removes the mystery of why people get sick eating meat…ugh. The beaches have the potential to be stunning – they are all white sand beaches with great crashing waves and a blissful breeze – but they are covered in garbage and feces from people who use them as their toilet. One of the other volunteers was trying to get a scenic picture and afterwards realized that she’d also captured a man having his early morning bowel movement, toilet paper roll and magazine in hand…gross.

Having said all this though, I’ve been amazed at how quickly I’ve felt more comfortable here. The Sampson family have done all they can to make me feel at home and Stefanie and Maira have been great with immersing me in Ghanaian culture. I’ve been quite lucky and am surprised at how quickly you can become used to the heat, lack of running water, intermittent electricity, and being covered in a constant layer of filth and sweat. The mosquitoes are not nearly as bad as I expected. They are supposed to get worse when the rainy season picks up, but still, I think that these people don’t know what Ontario mosquitoes are like.