August 4th, Dirt Roads and Pygmy Goats.

Today we went up to Kumasi. I mentioned this before, but I saw so many crazy things during the drive, that I figured I should show some pictures. I wish I got more, but it was a little hard to take good shots with the bumpiness of the road (or lack of road). We were Kumasi-bound for maybe 6 hours and grabbed food at a rest stop. Here are some cool sights!

You can’t really tell, but this dirt road stretched on for soso many miles. No lanes, just trucks and buses working around goats, people, potholes, and other trucks and buses. What’s more, this red dirt stains everything. The air is thick with this stuff and when I got back to the hotel my laptop was covered with a film of it, which I can’t get off. My clothes and hair also have a red tint to them now. Also, I’m pretty sure I ingested way too much of this stuff, because I keep sneezing.

Usually when someone visits my family in New York, they take pictures of the squirrels. To a native New Yorker, it just shows you haven’t been here long. But I’m pretty sure it’s a universal trend. In Alaska, it’s the Caribou that get tourists excited; In Mexico, it’s the iguanas; and in New York, it’s the squirrels. So it makes sense that in Ghana, I kept taking pictures of the cute little pigmy goats that roamed the streets.

The road is surrounded by these villages, which look like they need a power hose taken to them. Like I said, the dirt is infectious. And absolutely everything has a red tint. Miles between each town, we’d see people walking with jugs of water on their heads, large bags in their hands, or their children slung to their backs. I don’t know their story, but I’m sure they walk more each day than I ran in high school.

Here’s the one picture I wish I got: A bull and some people, chilling in the back of a pick up truck.

Yes, I swear I saw it.

So I might be stuck in Ghana time...

See, everything we ever did in Ghana was delayed by at least 30 minutes, usually an hour, and sometimes even 4 hours (or just never got done). If our outreach driver told us to be ready by 7, it usually meant he would pick us up around 8:30 or 9:00. By most of the world’s standards, that would be ridiculous, laughable, unacceptable even; but we got pretty good at reading Ghana time. So even though I’m back stateside and starting school up again, I find I may have grown a little too comfortable with the delays. I think this blog is running on Ghana time, and to those of you who aren’t in my time warp, I’m sorry to keep you waiting. My computer stopped working entirely during my first day in Kumasi, and I was left with a notebook and runny pen to keep my blog going. Now this turned into much more of a journal, but I’ve still got all my entries! To whoever’s still interested, I just need to rework some things to make up for my broken computer and lack of Internet during my trip. Sorry about the delay. And thanks for waiting!

August 3rd. Surreal.

We really did a lot today. We started our day on the outreach but ended up back in the capital city of Accra. When you do so much traveling on a workday, it’s bound to feel long and surreal.

This is how it started (I’ll list for the readers’ sake): Wake up at seven. Sort glasses; laugh at the 60’s type spectacles. Travel to the makeshift clinic. Get set up with the stations: medical history, eye charts, physician, medicine and eyeglass dispensary.

I was doing eye exams, which are in meters here, and I’m happy to say I’ve got 6/6 distance vision! Because I only speak Brofo (that’s English), I mostly communicated with hand motions, smiles, and a mix of English and Twi. By the end of the day, I did about fifty eye charts. The patients were all smiles… some peaked with their other eye, some showed off, and some were just nervous.

I’ve been getting the feeling that whenever we go somewhere, we’ll always be trailed by a group of kids. They just smile so wide, and are always ready to show off their English. I think the eye test was good fun for them. They slowly inched towards us, and were eager to try the eye test as well. Every once in a while, they’d whisper the number we pointed to from the sidelines. They did a lot of dancing too. Ghanaians are natural CatDaddy-ers.

Eventually we headed back to Accra. As we traveled, I got the impression villages were always set up in the same way: the main street and small-scattered houses that all face, and are spread out from, the main street. I don’t know… it’s a little hard to explain.

Once we got back to Accra I relaxed a while and got ready for dinner. We went out to a Lebanese restaurant in the younger up-and-coming district of Accra. It was noisy, vibrant, and very lively. It reminded me a little of my trip to Beijing, with all the expats and younger travelers who were here for unknown reasons.

Everyone in our group was super interesting. They were either in university, or med school, or even recent graduates and going into their ophthalmology specialization. Most of us were American, though many were also Canadian, and some even British or studying in Ireland. It was really interesting to hear about everyone’s unique background.

Kumasi

Hey all! I’m going up to Kumasi for two weeks. I’ll update every time I am at the Internet café in town. Expect pictures when I get back.

August 2nd, Today was a Travel Day.

According to Frank, we were headed eastward towards the mountain. He’s an optometry student from Nigeria who has been here for eight years. It was a 2-hour drive and there were five of us, which gave us time to get close. Most of us are from Canada and the U.S. but have had the privilege to do a lot of traveling. It was fun to swap stories and strange to be surrounded by people who experience travel in the same way that I do. Combined, I think we’ve actually travelled most of the world.
The village where we were heading was mourning their chief, so we couldn’t distribute eyeglasses and medication. I recently learned that you wear red and black for untimely deaths and white if the death was of old age. In any case, we watched a pretty arbitrary, though impressive, “football” game between “Germany” and “The Netherlands”. During the game, all the children called us Obruni, which literally translates to white person. They usually yell and point, but it’s an expression of excitement not hostility or anything. After lunch we went back to the hotel, hung out and talked a while. Conversation got pretty interesting when Frank came around. He had changed from his more official clothes into a shirt that simply read, Rock Party. We all instantly thought of Party Rock Shuffle and talked about popular American and Ghanaian songs. Like most Ghanaians I’ve met so far, he’s good-humored, helpful, and laughs at our strange Obruni habits and mishaps. We discussed the marital age for woman, and he was surprised by marriage customs in the U.S., especially for women. In Ghana, you only get married for the sake of having children. In fact, the son’s parents expect children very quickly and may get very agitated if you aren’t pregnant within by your second year of marriage. Learning all this, I can definitely say I’m working towards my goal of experiencing the culture.

Really, Thank you.

Before I left. I took on two major projects: collecting 600 eyeglasses and raising 1800 dollars, which would go directly to providing eye surgeries for patients. I’ve surpassed both of these goals thanks to a tremendous effort on my donors’ parts. I really appreciate all that you’ve done for me! I can now say I’ve successfully raised $2000 and collected 615 eyeglasses. 

Thanks again to all those who donated!

First day, oh Boy.

So this is going to be interesting. I can already tell by the shower I took last night; or rather, tried to take as water came down at a trickle. And maybe the fact that I was woken up by roosters. I've met a lot of other volunteers now (13 or so people), they're all super nice and seem to have a lot of fun together. Right now I'm stationed in the capital city of Accra, in the Telecentre Bed and Breakfast. But I'll be doing an overnight trip tonight so I probably won't get internet. Still, I'll try to update again soon. Excited to see what the day brings!

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for taking the time to glance at my page. I know some people were interested in my plans for this summer, and I really had such amazing support with my fundraising project, so I’ve decided to share a record of what I do during my 20 days in Ghana. To put it simply… I’ll be blogging! I think it might help me keep my goals in mind, reflect on my experiences as they happen, and recall their details when I look back.

I’ll start now.

As I’m writing this, I’m on the plane from Amsterdam to Ghana. This is probably the moment where the full extent of my nervousness and excitement kicks in. It’s been building up, on and off, since May when I decided to add this volunteer-internship to my already-busy summer. I stumbled across Unite for Sight by chance, contemplating a program that would combine my love of medicine and global health with high impact volunteering. They partner doctors and educated volunteers with locally maintained clinics to provide free eye care and surgery to patients in need. I’m usually skeptical of volunteer travels that might sound gimmicky and ineffective, but Unite for Sight won me over. They stress sustainability, give clear goals to their volunteers, and have a pretty good outcome. After I was accepted into the program, I did a fair bit of training to get familiar with eye health and volunteering. While abroad, I’m hoping to expand on that knowledge, take in as much of the culture as possible, prove my worth as a volunteer, and spread my enthusiasm.

Wish me luck!