Now would be as good of a time as ever to finally let you know that the website we use to edit our blog is banned in Ghana, so we are now playing catch up on the blog as we start our journey across Europe! We have made up blog posts throughout our weeks in Africa and will post them when we have Internet!
With one week under our belt I can safely say that we have made huge adjustments to temperature, food and our appreciation to what we have back at home. The hospital we are working in is called Effia Nkwanta (you can try and google it but we had almost no luck before we came haha). Each morning we get up and have breakfast and reluctantly put on scrubs, knowing how hot we will be all day in them. We learned 2 things early on in Ghana, #1: you have better get used to sweating because it will happen 24 hours a day, #2: Ghana runs I'm Ghana time, you will be early if you show up 30 minutes behind schedule. Sadly our biggest fear was catching a taxi here, probably because we have never had to do it at home, but now it has become a game and we have the bartering system down pat! It turns out when you speak even a little Fante (the local dialect) people feel less inclined to rip you off!
Working in the hospital is eye opening, we have been working on the labor and delivery unit all week and have been lucky enough to be in the OR or "theatre" as they call it every single day to see C-sections! We have noticed that especially during surgery, the procedures are the exact same but are completed with the resources available- which for the most part is incredibly limited. On Labour and Delivery the midwives save the packages from sterile gloves to lay on the scale when weighing babies so that they don't have to waste cleaner wiping it down after. The supplies for the entire unit fits onto the top of a bedside table or nightstand. Instead of doctors delivering babies it is all done by midwives and women are expected to be almost silent throughout the birthing process with absolutely no pain medication. If a woman makes too much noise the midwife will just smack her! That is a cultural difference I don't think I will ever get used to. Despite these differences by the end of the first week we were receiving babies on our own and getting lots of hands on experience!
As for life in the house, it turns out there is almost nothing better than living with 9 other healthcare students! For once in or life our dinner conversations can include the most shocking, gross and "clinically cool" things we saw during our day.
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We have officially completed our first week! To celebrate, a group of us decided to make a 6 hour journey north to a city called Kumasi for the weekend! You see, last weekend marked a very special occasion in Kumasi; a large festival was set to happen as the king of the Assante tribe was celebrating his 15th anniversary of his coronation. Day 2 started in a sweat, we have since realized that it is in fact possible to slightly climatize. We finally got to see Accra in the daylight as we headed to the bus to travel four hours to Takoradi. We arrived at 8 but were told that the bus leaves when it's full, so at around 9:00 we set off! The ride started with an hour long sermon from a preacher, it was an interesting experience because as he paced up and down the narrow aisle singing, the entire bus would sing along too! It is hard to describe what it was like watching out the window but the closest I have come so far is that it was like a real life version of a world vision commercial. It was humbling and heart breaking to see the extreme poverty here in Ghana. Despite this the people here are positive, resourceful and kind. In Takoradi we took yet another taxi to the work the world house we will be staying at for the next 3 weeks! We met the staff and other students and got settled in, and watched the collection of goats, dogs, cats and chickens parade around along the road from our balcony. Monday brought a big orientation of both the hospital and the town, we got o know the lay of the land and meet a bunch of people who are influential in our clinical practice! The first day at the hospital is sure to have adventures in store. 3 flights, one $6 airport yogurt and 30 hours later we FINALLY arrived in Ghana... 3 hours late due to problems with baggage in Heathrow. To add to our stress it took over an hour of watching baggage ride around the carousel before our bags appeared so exhausted and terrified that no one would be left waiting for us to arrive so late, we made our way to customs. Our struggles did not end because we were told that our luggage, containing hundreds of IV cannulas, trach tubes, oxygen tubes etc etc could not be permitted into the country because we did not have the proper paperwork for it (we had called the airline preciously and they said that entry would not be an issue). Maybe it was the fact that we looked utterly exhausted or the fact that we are brunies (Fante slang for white people- they call this out when we walk or drive by but it's more of a statement and not an insult!), or likely it was the fact that the 'mild' 28 degree night was causing us to sweat through our clothes but we convinced the guy that we should be let in to Ghana and by some grace he let us in. We were still terrified that no one would be waiting for us when we walked out the front doors and we would be left in the pitch black in Africa all alone but one of the program managers named Frank spotted us immediately (not a hard task in Ghana) and ran over to give us a big hug and welcome us to the country. Needless to say we were hit by a wall of relief and also the desperate need to sleep. We had previously arranged to sleep at a hotel in Accra before taking a bus on the four hour journey to Takoradi so off we went, stuffed into a small taxi with our four massive bags of medical supplies and our backpacks. With the windows rolled down, we were absorbing all the new sounds and smells although it was too dark to see anything! The breeze from the windows was also our first reprieve from the stifling humidity. Shortly into our journey we saw a small light up ahead, the taxi slowed to a stop and a police officer with a machine gun pointed a flashlight, and his gun into the back seat (Toto we're not in Kansas anymore). All I could think about was "why on earth did I not put my seatbelt on, we are going to get arrested", turns out Lindsay was more concerned about being shot. We were quickly reassured by Frank that they were looking for 'unsavory characters' and we were back on our way. We arrived at the hotel and promptly got a room, briefly meeting 3 other girls who arrived earlier in the day who were doing the program. It turns out they are 3 pharmacy students from Eastern Canada so we were very excited about that! With just a shower standing between us and bed we discovered that the shower in our room didn't work so we took turns filling up a ziplock bag at the sink and dumping it over each other's head over the tub, I assure you it was an adventure in itself. Finally we hit the sack, excited to see what was in store for us in the daytime.
It has always been a lifelong dream to travel the globe. We've spent hours imagining what it would be like to stroll through a bustling marketplace in a place far away from ordinary; explore rugged countries where the language is not our own.
However, we never had the opportunity. We were in high school, then we were in our first years of post-secondary. After a long conversation one night about how we are running out of time before we are expected to grow up and be "real adults," we decided to put to use our university education and blend it with our dreams of travel. And so, Ghana came into our lives. After studying and researching hundreds of different organizations that offer volunteer placements around the globe, we decided on a company that puts us in a hospital environment for the purpose of learning. We are not heading off to Ghana to simply be an extra pair of hands; we are going to Ghana to understand what is means to be a nurse in a developing nation. We will observe and learn from nurses in Africa, who work in an entirely different world compared to our home in Canada. We will not simply see the different health care standards, we will experience the struggles that persist with treating illness in a place where resources are in short demand. Where: Ghana is located on the West African coast. The cities are full of colourful markets selling fruit, cloth, gadgets and spices. It is a friendly nation; kids play football (or soccer) in the streets and if you greet people with a smile, they will stop and say hello. Outside of the city, the rural villages are steeped in traditions of which their people are fiercely proud of. We will make Takoradi, the capital of the Western region, our home-base on our trip. We will work in a large government-run hospital where diseases like Malaria, Typhoid and TB run rampant. Lack of funds, education and stigma can prevent patients in this resource poor country from presenting until symptoms are very advanced. There is no doubt that this country will be a far cry from what we're used to in Canada, yet this is the exact reason why it is so important for us to experience a global nursing opportunity like this. It is one thing to read about people dying of Malaria in our textbooks, yet it is an entirely different story to see the disease advance and claim the life of an individual who, if they had received medical care, would not have been ill in the first place. |