Outreach!

Tuesday, that was yesterday. Yet again I've failed to write a post on time. But yesterday was pretty hectic and chaotic.

In the morning, we prepared to leave for the medical outreach. As usual, we had toast with jam and leftover snacks and food from the day before. I had been taking antibiotics for my cough for several days now, although I still have more tablets to take, my still cough didn't get any better so I stopped taking it since that morning.

We went to a local clinic first to pick up vaccines for polio to inoculate the young ones in the village. Tamara and Sarah, who were American volunteers who came recently to Blue-Med, joined us on the outreach! Unfortunately, Alicia, who went through depression and a bad stomach aches, went back to California early.

The Blue Med group primarily worked on inoculating the children, but the volunteers mostly worked on treating eczema, ring-worms, and wounds.

We primarily treated the children in school. Still to this day, I can't exactly tell if the blotch on children's heads are ring-worms or some other disease or just a scar (though I've gotten better at it!). So I always make sure someone else checked the child I treated.

After the outreach was over, we headed over to the Royal hospital, and relaxed at a bar for an hour as some Blue Med people went back to the hostel to get condoms. Yes you heard me. CONDOMS!

No, they are not for our use, thank you very much. This is actually the first sexual health outreach we did over the course of 3 weeks. Although many Ghanaians do know the consequence of risky behaviors, oftentimes not much precaution is taken. So we had a wooden male genitalia to demonstrate the proper way to put on a condom. We went around the town to give out condoms to various people, and demonstrated how to use them correctly.

Though it was definitely awkward giving out condoms (as you can imagine...) we knew we were helping to educate so that made us feel a bit more confident.

Now, the story is going to get very ugly.
The thirteen British volunteers left today, Wednesday. So as one can expect, they decided to throw a last night party yesterday. Party itself was not the bad part. But some volunteers decided to participate in a competition who can drink the most shots of gin (BAD BAD IDEA).

And of course, others unscheduled people joined in and before anyone knew, one after another  become intoxicated.

I left the bar rather early so I didn't see too much drinking going on, but when I saw them crawling back into the hostel, I knew some people had made some bad decisions to go overboard. Bathrooms were quickly filled with people throwing up into the toilets and bins. I really hoped that no one had to go to the hospital.

So the night passed as people were just too tired to carry on. In the morning, a lot of people were just extremely tired, but everyone was apparently feeling not too bad (very surprising). Im just glad that no one had to go to the ER.

So Today, all 13 of them left, and we said our final good byes. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged. After 3 weeks of volunteer and fun, it was sad for them to leave, but they felt like it was time to leave. They got tired of eating rice, which is understandable, since half of our meals are rice+ red sauce hehe.

After everyone got on their tros and left, the hostel felt really empty. Only 3 Americans and I remained, until new people come this weekend.

Today was a really lax day. We basically spent time with Swansea students until they left around 3, then the rest of us played cards and chatted about everything from college and med school to our personal lives.

We strolled about the village in the evening, and saw some campfires where we stayed for a couple of minutes.

My parents are worried that I've been coughing for over 3 weeks, though without any other symptoms. I should go see a doctor when i go back.

Tomorrow, Arienne, Sarah, and I are planning to go to the municipal hospital in the morning. They are going to work in the OPD for the morning while I work in Diabetes department. Then we most likely will go to the maternity and the labor ward to see if there are things we can help out with.