You eat this with only with your right hand! Yes, no silverware! (But I am guilty, i did use a spoon)
I finally went to the Diabetes center in the Municipal Hospital on Friday!
I met Gifted and Teena, the two nurses at the department.
I mainly worked on using technology (computer) to record the diagnosis, medications, vitals, etc into the system.
This, unlike ordinary record sheet, leads to the pharmacist giving the prescription to the patient, so wrong type of medicine or the wrong dosage can lead to devastating consequences! I paid my utmost attention to all the details, to make sure I was always on top of things and not making mistakes.
Because I came around 9 in the morning, which is a little bit after the rush hour in the Diabetes department (because there is a huge influx around 7:30 and 8), we didn't have too many patients to take care of.
So though I had plenty of patients' records to take care of for 2 hours, after it I had half an hour to chat with the two nurses and take pictures at the place.
Many people are interested in my hair, because it is rare to see hair grown out like mine. (Many Ghanaians, both male and female, often trim their hair very shortly) Interesting!
After the work in the morning was finished, Tamara came to visit me, and we both went to OPD, where Arienne was wrapping up her work. Sara was not feeling well that morning, so she couldn't come to the hospital with us :( She feels better now though!
The three of us went to Melcom's to buy some juice, but mainly to break our 10/20 Cedi paper into change.
We did get juice, but they didn't have small change, so some of us had to settle for 5 cedi's and some lost money because they rounded the total amount!
Oh well, thats how it works in Ghana!
In the afternoon, we went to the cured Leprosy Village.
Sara, Arienne had their first goes on treating the patients!
Though Sara is a medical student and 25, and Arienne is 20 and a college student, I was a veteran in dressing wounds at the leprosy village! (I feel so proud!!!)
Initially, Arienne's university UC Berkeley, because it had funded her to come to Ghana, had control over what she could and couldn't do medically. They barred her from dressing wounds because she was not professionally trained to do so. But she convinced them otherwise, so now she can treat the patients with us! Yay!!
We usually have 8 or more volunteers coming to the village, but we only had 3 days on Friday. It took a bit more time to treat the patients than before, but we individually felt that we accomplished something, so that made up for the prolonged time!
Overall, Friday was a very productive day!
When we returned to the hostel, we had a volunteer who just arrived! Freya is from England, and she is going to start university at Nottingham (hopefully I am spelling it right), and she is studying nursing.
Normally, there would be a tour on the weekends.
But since I was the only one signed up to go on the tour, I decided to stay put for the weekend and get a refund. Tamara left on Friday to go to the orphanages in the Northern Ghana. But on Saturday evening, Lin from Canada arrived. So we are number-wise even in the game!
Both on Saturday and Sunday, I shopped like a madman in the market. My bargaining skills increased as I visited each shop! They had some very good deals, and I couldn't resist changing my wardrobe a little.
Plus, some of the Swansea students said that Americans lack a sense of fashion. Well, I better show them how we dress!!
Overall, the weekend was very relaxing. I got to listen to a lot of both local Ghanaian music and One Direction. Yeah, I know I am VERY behind on pop culture! On facebook, literally thousands of pictures were posted by the Swansea Students and I couldn't help but look through every single one of them and comment!
So finally, Today. I woke up with a terrible headache. I WAS going to go back to Diabetes as early as 7:30. But when I woke up around 6:30, I did not have the energy to get up.
So I went to the Royal hospital around 9:30, and went around the wards to take vitals.
I came back and had a nice Yam lunch. In the afternoon, we cleaned the Hostel. The JCL (living room), bedrooms, and the bathroom. Now everything feels much cleaner. We haven't cleaned the hostel since a week and a half before the Swansea MeSHers left! (Medicinal science and humanities FYI).
Anyway, I only have tomorrow as the full day, and I am off to the airport on Wednesday to catch a plane to Atlanta that night.
A month surely has flown by very quickly. As I listen to One Direction's Forever Young (originally by Alphaville), I imagine how fast my childhood and teenage years have passed.
Life is short! And we gotta make the most out of it! As I wake up every morning breathing, I thank god for giving me another day to live my day to the fullest. That is why I am in Africa! I have experienced amazing things and I wish to come back to Africa next summer to serve! Africa is truly the land of "real" opportunity.
Opportunity to make fantastic changes in this land! Much work needs to be done, and there's always more than enough opportunity to serve and contribute!
The summer of 2012 has truly been an eye opening experience. I know I've been coughing a lot and some things haven't gone as smoothly I wanted them to go, but I always thank god for giving me this amazing chance in Africa.
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