Akwaaba!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Akwaaba to my blog!! I think the easiest way for this blog to stay organized is for me to write in either bullet points or chronological order. We’ll start with the chronology of the last 20 hours.

Saturday:
3:30p—my bags were PACKED in the car. An hour early.
4:30p—we pick up Eva and drive to the airport.
7:30p—I get on the plane to Atlanta.
11:30p—I get on the plane to Accra.
… fast-forward 11 hours. Not the best night’s sleep ever, but it’s fine. Side note: I think I might have airplane-induced RLS,
Sunday:
2:30p—(now we’re on Ghana time. 4 hours later than Michigan time.) We land. Get through “customs” and grab our bags. Kofi and Dr. Anderson were waiting for us at the airport. About 15 Ghanaian guys try to help Eva and me with our bags, even though we have Kofi who knows what he’s doing. We pay them, drive to an air-conditioned restaurant, drink some bottled water and establish an action plan for the next few days.
4:00p—We check into the international student hostel. It’s near the Teaching Hospital, which is where I’ll be doing stuff in July. Kofi introduced us to Ella, another UofM student who has already been here for 4 weeks. It was so great to see someone with a shirt that said “Michigan Volleyball” on it. It turns out that she went to Greenhills and knows Hannah. What a small world. When Eva wakes up from her nap, Ella, a grad student at Brown, Eva, and I will walk over to His Place, a restaurant down the street.

Anyway, we’re only here one night. Tomorrow we’ll fly to Kumasi and meet Dr. Anderson there, where he’ll introduce us to the hospital directors in Kumasi and then take us around to the clinics that Eva will be evaluating. That will probably be helpful because I think I’ll be traveling to those clinics at some point to interview the Ob/Gyns who work there.

Now on to scattered bullet-pointed thoughts:
• I like Accra. It reminds me of Lima, Peru in that it is dusty and filled with pollution from the cars, but there’s something about the city that makes me feel a little more optimistic. There are kids washing cars and selling things at every stoplight, just like in Lima, but they don’t seem as desperate. Maybe it’s because these kids speak English, and I’m sure I’ll see much more poverty in other places, but this place seems like it’s developing, not like it has tried to develop and then has been squashed down and stunted.
• I just took a shower. I didn’t have to sponge-bath or anything—there was a rusted handle and a shower spout. The water smelled vaguely of pond-water, but I was just happy to get all the sweat and airplane off of me. I’m not picky—as long as I can rinse my hair, I’m good. It is going to be so hard for me to remember not to open my mouth in the shower.
• Speaking of drinking shower water, I am PARCHED. I still haven’t taken my morning malaria pill and it’s almost 6:00p here. I hope Eva wakes up soon so we can go grab dinner and water.
• Mom, my cell phone number is: 011-233-24-707-7555. Right now I have like 2 minutes, but I’m going to buy some more ASAP. Kofi had phones ready for Eva and me—we’re using phones that previous UofM students have used. What a relief that we didn’t have to go get phones. I was worried about that.

In conclusion… nothing spectacular has happened, which is GREAT. No lost bags, no faulty visas, no plane crashes. I’ll take it. I’m excited about this summer. I’m glad that we have the night in Accra because I don’t feel like I have to explore and memorize street names and buy groceries and make phone calls and check my email and put my clothes in drawers and get my stuff organized. We’ll save that for tomorrow night.

Ghanaian proverb of the day: A child who asks questions does not become a fool.