days 4 and 5

Hey everyone!

Yesterday was a pretty awkward day. I went to the morning meeting and my team had been on 24 hour duty, so they all left to go to sleep. Since I had nothing to do, I went home and went to sleep for a few hours/read. . I took a picture of the exterior of our hostel. You can see on the right there is a big black cylinder. That is one of the few water tanks around the building. You also notice all of the lines, as there aren’t any laundry mats in the vicinity.


After noon, my roommate came back and we went to the beach again! The tro-tros and taxis are so ridiculously cheap its unbelievable. To go to the beach (which is about 30 mins by tro-tro) and come back, it costs total all of about 1 US dollar. Everything is pretty cheap here. For dinner I never spend more than 3.5 US dollars! And they have very large portions! It is pretty crazy.

Today, I went back to school and had a really good day on the wards. First we had our morning meeting. It is really bad because although everyone speaks English in the morning meeting, it is VERY hard for me to understand them. They all speak fairly quietly and with accents that for whatever reason don’t make sense to me. I try and I try but it is very difficult. After the meeting we had a talk from a drug rep, discussing an anti-malarial drug. His points were shotty, and he was picking and choosing what to say from the research. The doctors tore him apart after he spoke. Pretty entertaining.

Finally, we made up to the wards for rounds. Since I am the only medical student at the moment, I went with the residents and really just tried to listen and take in as much as I could. We saw triplets today and they were SOOOO cute. There are babies everywhere, and all of them are so adorable. Its funny, though, because in the states there are huge initiatives trying to get women to sleep safely with their babies not in their own beds. In the hospital here, though, all of the women share their bed with their babies, even multiples. I’m not sure if the babies are taken away at night, but all day they lay together with their mothers on the beds, with blankets flying everywhere providing the potential danger of suffocation.

There are about 5 women on the floor with gestational diabetes. One of them is absolutely MONSTROUS!!! Her belly looks like Kate’s (from jon and kate plus8) when she was pregnant with sextuplets. One doctor likes to point out all of the things that we have in the states that they don’t here, and the ways they try to get around not having technology. Its amazing how helpful they can be without some of the monitering systems we have in the states. It seems that the most important tool that they use is listening to the fetal heart beat.

Also an interesting note, every morning the women are expected to pay 3 cedi (about 2 US dollars) for use of the mosquito net on their bed. They also pay for the gloves which are used by the doctors, and many of the tools (speculums, syringes, etc.) One woman today couldn’t pay for the plastic disposable speculum, so they found an old (and kinda rusty looking) metal one. I wonder what happens to those people who cannot pay the 3 cedi a night for their mosquito nets.

This afternoon we traveled to the Osu Children’s Home, where I donated the toys patty bought. We were given a tour of the facilities, and the kids were SOOOO cute. There is basically a room full of babies sitting their eating and I almost died!!! Then we went to the toddlers and all they wanted to do was hold our hands and get picked up and hugged. The facilities aren’t anything glamorous (although nothing really is here in Ghana), but it is truly amazing what they do for the kids. They have a school for the young kids, and every year hold a graduation ceremony for the kids moving on to school outside of the complex. I know I chose right by giving them the toys, and they will truly appreciate them.

Alright, this was a pretty long post. This weekend I will be traveling to the cape coast and kakum national park (I get to walk along a huge rope bridge over the rain forest!). So I think I should post again Sunday or Monday. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Amanda