Always choose bad news first; then you can turn it into good news.

Monday, May 26

Cape Coast

This past weekend I took a trip over to Cape Coast, a town about 2 ½ hours west of Accra. The town is best known for Cape Coast Castle and Kakum National Park, a rainforest les than an hour away. The game plan as we set out Saturday was to arrive in Cape Coast and find a place to stay. Sunday we were going to tour the Castle and see the town and then Sunday night Thomas and I were going to camp on a tree platform in the rainforest, while Amit and David slept in the comfort of the Oasis Inn another night. We would wake up early Monday morning and do the canopy walk before it got crowded when the park opens at 8:00am.
We had tried to call ahead to reserve a place to stay, specifically at the Oasis Beach Resort, however, no one would answer their phones. We arrived in Cape Coast and easily found Oasis. Luckily, they had one room, or bungalow rather, left for us. It was a very neat place. They had about 10 little bungalow huts along the beach front and a restaurant and night club on the grounds. The view from our window—from anywhere near the ocean—was gorgeous!
We went ahead and toured the castle on Saturday because we had time. Most of what the tour guide told us I had recently learned in Western Civilization, which made it of special interest to me. There’s a huge difference between learning about a subject via power point presentations and text books, and actually seeing the small enclosure that housed 200 men for 6 months. I couldn’t even fathom fitting 200 men in a single male dungeon chamber. I would love to talk more about the Castle and its history, but in the interest of your future bifocals (or current ones), I’ll let you email me if you want to hear more.
Since it didn’t take as long to see Cape Coast as planned, we decided to move up the trip to Kakum and wake early in the morning to go. (I’m here for 3 months, so I intend to return later to sleep in the rainforest. Who could pass up an opportunity like that?) However, when we woke up, it was pouring rain. So our rainforest trip got rained out.
Overall, Cape Coast is gorgeous!

Hospital News
I started my rotation in the ‘surgical’ ward today. I was really excited because I would finally be watching surgeries! I arrived at 8:00am, and sat in the office for about 30 minutes. Things usually don’t get started right at 8:00, so I wasn’t surprised. Then I followed a doctor and then some nurses for about an hour. At 10:00 am I helped the nurse take vitals in all the wards. As I think I mentioned before, the nursing students are doing their clinicals right now, so there are about seven of us following one person. They aren’t allowed to take blood pressure yet, so that has become my job just about anywhere I go. About 11:00am I was finished with vitals and sitting in the office again. Being used to early 7:30 starts in the Operating Room back home, I though surely by 11:00 they should have started some cases and maybe they had misunderstood my rotation and I was missing the procedures. I asked Rosie, an nursing assistant, when they do the surgeries. “On Saturdays.” La General Hospital only performs surgeries on Saturdays—my day off and a day I am usually out of town.
Since this discovery, I have talked with the assistant manager of Projects Abroad, Ellie, about possibly changing placements to a hospital that performs surgery more frequently. All the medical placements are full, but she might be able to move me for my last month here. I took the opportunity to make another suggestion as well. Rather than taking vitals for three months, I asked, “Would it be possible to only work at the hospital a few days a week and spend the other days at Buduburam refugee camp?” I thought this was fishing, but to my surprise, she said that would be fine! A discouraging situation has turned into one that might be even better. Now I will have more time to focus more on my area of study-- the consequences of conflict on health care.

Buduburam
My connections with the refugee camp came about in a very coincidental manner. Hollywood would probably call it fate. Last Wednesday I was riding in a tro and started talking to two gentlemen. When I told them I was a volunteer, the first question out of their mouths was, “Would you like to visit the refugee camp?” This caught me by surprise, since it is one of the main things I had been hoping to do since I started planning my trip! As it turns out, I was talking to the Director and Volunteer Coordinator of the Pan-African Center for Peace (PAC), a local non-governmental organization (NGO). The director is Ghanaian and the volunteer coordinator is actually a Liberian refugee. When I mentioned my area of study, they were very excited and invited me to come to their office to further discuss opportunities in working together.
I have arranged to meet with them and visit the camp this Wednesday. I hope I will be able to spend two days a week there. The tentative plan at this point is that I will spend two days at the hospital, two days at the camp, and then Fridays on the medical outreach trip with Projects Abroad.
I’ll keep you posted on what I work out!



Tuesday, May 27

In addition to being able to split my placement, I found out at work today that surgeries are performed during the week at times! Today I had the chance to watch an emergency etopic pregnancy case, a hysterectomy and cyst removal, and a C- section! It was very interesting to compare operating theaters here to those in America. I hope to write more about it later.

Hope everyone is having a great day!