A referral

As my daughter Erin, is doing such a great job of journaling about our trip, I am going to refer you her her blog. http://dullpost.blogspot.com/ for a more descriptive narrative of our ventures in Ghana. Enjoy!

Visiting another Village and Hospital

As usual, things get rather jumbled when you don't have access to a computer all the time, and what access you do have can get a little iffy at times. How lucky we are in this country! So, I will retrace in depth, some highlights of our journey and learning experiences.

First let me tell you about our trip to the village where Pastor Gabriel is. This is a village along the Sunyani Road, on the way to Kyekyewere, where Pastor Ben (in Kumasi) and Emmanuel Opoku (here in STL) are working on a sanitation project. Our first stop was at a home. It consisted of 3 rooms, one that was the 'kitchen' or primarily storage for cooking utensils and some food, a hallway that lead to the second room which contained the occupants clothing (a man and wife live here) and another room with mosquito netting and only large enough for a double sized mattress on the floor. The gentleman was kind enough to allow me to take pictures of his home. His home are the pictures you see above. The kitchen area, where the shelving is, is only for storage of cooking items and some food. Food preparation is done outdoors. Actually most living is done outdoors.

We then visited the village latrines, yes, that is village latrines. You see, the village is about 1/4 mile from the potties. In the women's side, there were about 6 small 'stalls' which inside were a hole in the floor, a basket for paper (like newspaper, magazine paper for wiping) and that was it. Now, being a nurse, I have seen and smelt things that are quite unique, but I about made it 2 stalls down before gagging. This type of set up is not uncommon there. While I purposly haven't gone into explicit detail, nor included the pictures I took, it is important for us to understand the lack of not only water, but clean sanitation facilities. These are the things that make diseases common areas like this, diseases we rarely see in the US. This spread of disease is why education, sanitation, clean water are important. Such simple tools to provide good health.

Pastor Gabriel then showed us the remainder of the village. I will insert here that during this tour, his little 3 year old girl had my hand and was following me along in her bare feet. She was proud when we reached her family and we were able to meet her Mom, brothers and sisters. A huge smile broke across her face as she looked at them, then at me. We were made very welcome and the children shyly practiced their English skills with us.

Later that day were visited a hospital in Dafura. It is about 50 beds consisting of a women's ward, men's ward, pediatric ward, labor/delivery/post delivery ward and 2 operating rooms. It is built in a square with a nice large open area in the center. All the windows are covered with mosquito netting and all the beds were full. In the lobby of the out patient department, there must have been 80 to 100 people waiting....waiting to see the ONE doctor on duty for the entire hospital. He not only sees the out patients, but makes rounds 3 times a day. Nursing staff is there to assist. We saw the laboratory, dispensory, medical records area and both OR's. Seeing this facility was good as I began to formulate in my mind what is needed in a health facility in Kyekyewere.

So, I think I will leave you with these thoughts now. Seeing for myself what I have only read about or seen pictures of, was a learning experience in itself. One cannot begin to envision the need for items and practices that, in the US are common and expected by patients in the health care system. When one doesn't have even clean water, how can one expect to raise a family to live to adulthood? See their children educated? See their grandchildren run and play? One may not see their child reach the age of 5 years and every day is a struggle against disease and potential death. My cold shower that night was a blessing....

Tomorrow I will post about our meetings with Nana and the customs involved in the discussions along with the outcomes of the discussions.

From GhanaWeb

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=152500

Wow...so much has happened the past few days. We were in Accra during the election process here in the US and Erin stayed up all night (day) and watched with our hosts in Accra. We took a lot of Obama buttons with us and everyone in Kyekyewere, Kumasi, and Accra wanted one.
It is good to be 'home', although we aren't in St. Louis yet. The cool weather feels wonderful and a hot shower....what luxury that was! So another flight home today and then my own bed.
Our trip was a huge success in more ways than one. We were able to establish some relationships there, got some estimated prices on buildings, and made many notes on what the WSF would like to accomplish.
This is a quick entry as another airport to conquer today. Will have a more extensive report in a few days.

Saturday Novemberr 1

Hi All! Happy Halloween a day late and I do hope you are all well. These past few days have just flown by. We have visited with 2 Chiefs now, and another was interested in a health clinic. My priority though is with Chief Nana at Kyekyewere. We have had a number of visits with him and his elders and he has even come to the hotel to 'chat' on his way back to his palace after filling in for the Ashanti King (the King was in South Korea). Yesterday we met Chief Nana's family and discussed the clinic. An architect has drawn up plans and hopefully Chief Nana and I can discuss those before we depart Kumasi in Tuesday.

We have visited a health clinic and hospital (or did I tell you that already?). These were interesting and gave great examples of the standard of care along with how business is run. We also visited another village where sanitation facilities are in dire need. One little girl, about 3 or 4, took my hand and walked with me as we toured. I understand now why the people in the middle ages carried a pomander with them...fortunately a cold, kleenex and some patchouli helped in this visit.

Today we saw about 50+ patients at the Chief's palace in Kyekyewere. We could have seen more but between the heat, no lunch and being very tired...well, we had to stop. I was quite surprised to find the numbers of hypertensive adults is very low. But, they do exercise (walk everywhere) and have a low sodium diet for the most part. We gave out a lot of vitamins to adults and children who were with their parents. Some skin disorders were seen, actually one very interesting child with two sores about the size of a quarter on his left leg. Both sores had good granulation tissue although one did have some pus. Dr. Erin cleaned them up and referred him to the local clinic as she thought they may be due to an internal infection of sorts.

Thursday night we had a wonderful dinner with Sisters Irene, Jackie and Lorraine at their house which isn't too far from our hotel. They are lovely ladies and the evening flew by. As for food we have had a good mix of the local and pizza. Breakfasts can consist of omlet or sausage (wonderful but I won't ask what is in it!), toast (sometimes with mystery meat inside) and canned baked beans! Most days we don't get lunch as we are visiting or traveling. Then dinners may be of the local variety, chicken, vegetable rice, a salad with beans and mayo (no thank you there, the mayo sits out all day), baku ( a corn-like dumpling), talapia, or fufu. Thankfully, non dried fish...yet!

We have seen all kinds of sites in and around Kumasi and will get some pictures posted probably when we get back to the US. It is a little difficult to do that here. We did get to the cultural center for about an hour a few days ago and such beautiful hand work from jewlery, to prints, baskets, batiks....carvings.

And....I must share this with you all before I leave for the evening..yesterday I was made a Queen Mother! This is quite an honor...I even got to sit on the 'stool' used for Chief's and Kings! I was presented with my own Kuente cloth 'outfit" at Madame at the hotel has provided me with dress jewlery (necklace and bracelet ) and everyday bracelet that signifies a Queen Mother.

Edward, our driver, is great. He takes such good care of us, translates and keeps us in the know!

So, while we have along way to go, Life is going well here in Ghana and I am pleased with the progress we are making in discussions. That is very important in the clinic establishment. Each day is a new adventure...and each night I collapse into bed and awaken to the Muslem Mosque across the street (that is at 4AM! then 5AM)! Truly a cultural melting pot on our little block.

So...we will go to a celebration at Pastor Ben's church tomorrow afternoon. And in the morning take a little side trip to visit the local lake. We are in need of a break and relaxation.