Kumasi, the land of no internet

What a busy day we just had in Kumasi. Riding a completely packed trotro back to the Kate Memorial Hotel a full twelve hours after we left this morning, I feel full, content, and satisfyingly tired.

A Tro Tro, a large van that everyone packs into. Only costs fifty pesway. 

We did our fourth outreach today in a small village called Tachi Mantia. At first it was just business as usual- testing visual acuity and dispensing drugs and glasses. I wasn't having very much success with the kids- I made this one cry when I took a picture of him, so I focused on learning twi instead.

But then towards the end of the day as we were packing up our stuff I saw some little heads peeking at us from the door frame. I went to investigate and this is what I found..

They were loads of fun.

My favorite was Wujen. He is eight.

He was so full of life and energy. Wouldn't stop smiling until he made a silly face in a picture. Then when I showed him the picture he would explode into giggles again.

He and many other school boys made my day.

After work we went to the market and a two hour search for dinner. I ate Foo Foo, the signature dish of the Kumasi region.

Life in Kumasi is a little different than in Accra.

Some differences:

1. I can count on hot water. Amazing.

2. Banana trees are everywhere, it is very green, and there is much less dust than in Accra

3. Breakfast is consistently one thing, not so amazing.
4. No Internet (to explain the delay in my posts)

Oh, and I have officially switched to only bagged water (as opposed to bottled). And I ate uncooked vegetables yesterday... I'm feeling risky.

On Tuesday I observed surgery at the Charity eye clinic. Very very cool. The doctor let me look in the scope with him and I saw everything. I can practically perform a cataract surgery now ;) jk

Tomorrow we are going to visit a monkey sanctuary and two waterfalls.
I cannot wait.

Love in Abgloga

We are on way back from my second outreach. Today we were in a village called Abgloga in the Volta region. Mepe from yesterday was in the Volta region too. Dennis (one of the ophthalmic nurses we work with) said that we do a lot of our outreaches there because there is not a single ophthalmologist for a population of over 2 million people.

Today I worked at the visual acuity station. Testing people for the accuracy of their vision is actually really easy.

After work the women of the village cooked for us what they call akple and we call banku. In Ghana there are hundreds  of different dialects of tens of different languages. Nearly every village has their own dialect, making it very difficult for people to communicate. In Abgloga, they speak ewe. The food was delicious, and we ate it with our right hands which was a little awkward for the leftys in the group (only me..)

I got some really great footage of two girls playing slide (a hand slap game we all played when we were little). Then i got to play the game with one of girls. It's pretty amazing that a game that I learned growing up in a suburb of Arizona is also played in a remote village 

in the middle of Africa.

I loved all the children, but there were three that especially stood out. One little girl who could not have been more than nine held her baby sister on her back for nearly the entire day. Children here are given a lot of responsibility, but not a lot of respect.  As with most cultures outside of the US, respect comes with age and children are better seen and not heard.

The other two were a smiley pair of twin girls. Adorable.

It's difficult to get them to smile in pictures. They usually just stare, but modeling agencies should do their recruiting in Ghana if they are interested in tall, thin, beautiful women with high cheekbones and a fierce look.

As I was testing peoples visual acuity, a young man who seemed to be about 17 asked me for my email address. He wanted to know if I could get him a job in America.  A lot of the people see us as their way out, their ticket to a new life. Sometimes we get marriage proposals.

When we got back to the Telecentre we went to Highway View for a Star.

Another perfect day in Ghana.