My bus story is better than your bus story.

Ask a person who regularly utilizes public transportation, and he or she will likely have a crazy story or two about a memorable experience that took place on a plane, train, or automobile. Remember when our commuter ferry was given an impromptu acrobatic demonstration by a pod of performing porpoises?  How about the traveling brigade of mimes on that flight from Salt Lake, or the time you ended up sharing a cab with a Dumbledore- doppelgänger who rambled the whole way about the "kids these days"? Right. Well, I’ve got one for the books. Raise your hand if you’ve ever first-hand witnessed a bus exorcism.

Thought so.

On Saturday afternoon at 4:00PM I boarded a tro-tro (crowded African minibus, for you first time readers) with the intent of meeting several other volunteers from my organization in the beach town of Cape Coast. They had spent the day there, and I was very eager to join them for the evening and remainder of the weekend. One problem with tro-tros is that they will not leave the station until full. An hour and twenty five minutes later, we finally were on the road. Clearly Cape Coast was not a popular destination that afternoon. Frustrated but satisfied to be finally en route, I pulled out Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides and settled in as comfortably as I could to read peacefully on this 2.5-hour journey.

Within thirty seconds of departure I was startled by a man in the front row who, kneeling on his seat and facing the back of the bus, suddenly began yelling at top volume. The man wore a gaudy purple tunic adorned with silver piping. He was about thirty and at first glance attractive, if you discounted the crazy fire in his eyes and irate froth that was already starting to manifest around his goateed mouth.

I looked around, bewildered, as the other passengers patiently sat at attention. The man threw out a singsong “Hell—oo” to which they replied in unison, “Hi.” And again, like an elementary teacher ensuring attention from a group of children. “Hell—oo.” “Hi.” Suddenly he barked out a command, and the passengers shuffled. I became uncomfortably aware that I was the lone Obruni on the tro-tro, and was situated quite conspicuously smack in the middle seat of the middle row. The shuffling stopped as the passengers procured Bibles from their backpacks and purses. Suddenly the man in purple broke into hymnal song, and was enthusiastically joined by the entire tro-tro. Minus the blonde in the middle who didn’t speak Twi.

I should preface that I am a Christian, and absolutely am not mocking the message that the man was supporting. I was just completely caught off guard by what I was about to encounter, and could not in a million years envision a similar situation on Seattle’s 40 Route that I took from Ballard to South Lake Union all winter. The fact that such a display of religion was so aggressively presented in a public setting seemed crazy to me. It was incredibly invasive, yet so brightly received by the audience. Talk about culture shock.

A few hands-in-the-air, swaying-side-to-side minutes later the singing stopped and the real show began. The preacher began to dramatically dictate from the Bible he held, gesticulating riotously and shouting the words with enough Twi fervor to distract from any light reading I had planned on accomplishing. He leaned into the face of the man in front of him, screaming inches from his face like a drill sergeant. He palmed the head of a preteen boy to his right and looked maniacally into the boy’s eyes, shaking his free fist toward the heavens then back to the boy. I realized that if he outstretched his arm just a bit further, my own head was within palming distance. At this point I decided to duck down and focus on my novel as best as I could.

This proved to be wildly unsuccessful. I read page 141 about seven times over and over again without absorbing a single word, as the preacher became more and more agitated and I could literally feel the force of his words rattling my skull. I was absolutely incredulous that this spectacle was not only tolerated but accepted and responded to by my fellow passengers as well as the driver and the “mate” (the man who handles money and keeps track of stops) of the tro-tro. Every few minutes the “Hell—oo” “Hi” routine was repeated. There were several “HALLELUJAH!”s directed to individuals who answered on cue with chirping “Amen!”s. I felt him aiming his words at me as he switched to English, shaking with passion as he hurled scripture in the direction of the one person not responding to his tirade. I kept my head down, fighting the inappropriate urges to:

a) Request that he employ his “inside voice”

b) Look up and engage in a stare-off that would undoubtedly open doors for him to save my heathen American soul

c) Laugh

As a young girl proudly knelt on her own seat to read a passage from the Bible while the preacher nodded approvingly and interrupted periodically with his own two cents, I whispered to the boy next to me, asking for a piece of paper. I held open his Bible for him while he tore the requested scrap from an exercise notebook procured from a ragged once-pink backpack. For the next several minutes I took notes on the situation, suddenly itching to document the other-worldly peculiarity of the scenario.

As I wrote, a sudden hush fell upon the tro-tro. A women to my left bowed her head and silenced her toddler. I peeked up as the preacher laid his hands on the shoulders of the mate. He suddenly screamed, in English, an astonishing commandment for the demons unseen to free this captured man from the forces of the Evil One. The passengers held their hands up and murmured words of support. The mate raised his head to an outbreak of applause.

The preacher shouted out in Twi again, and everyone shuffled once more, this time procuring cell phones. He barked out his phone number in English as the passengers frantically poked at their phones, saving him as a contact. "I want to be your friend! As a commandment of the Lord I will be your friend!" shouted the preacher. As lovely as a Saturday chat over tea with this gem sounded, I declined the invitation of friendship and left my own phone in my purse.

And suddenly, after 48 minutes (of course I was counting!) the debacle stopped as abruptly as it had started. The preacher turned around and flopped into proper sitting position in the front row. Two girls behind me played Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” from a cell phone and sang along with enthusiasm that, in the US, would only be appropriate for the shower or driving alone late at night. I looked around in disbelief at the Ghanaians who all acted as if this had been a normal commute. When the preacher's cell phone rang and he took the call with a mild-mannered “Peter, hello,” I couldn’t help but bury a muffled laugh into my arm. In response I received a disciplinary stare from the child who had lent me the notebook paper.

The next two hours were entirely uneventful, and without another peep from Purple. This experience topped the charts of strange Ghanaian experiences. I’m proud to now hold the rights to arguably the best public transportation story out there.

9 to 5 ...ish

When I arrived in Ghana, it became clear fairly quickly that I would have to be very self-sufficient in order to maintain a significant workload. I wasn't handed a work manual or assigned specific tasks; I would have to be proactive in creating work for myself based on the needs I saw and within the scope of my abilities. 

Luckily, my co-volunteer working in Public Health is also a go-getter. She and I have been quite successful in tackling projects as we see fit. 

We spoke last Monday with our  director Eric about our desire to have more work. He was able to connect with someone who asked if Claire and I could visit the Regional Maritime University and give a presentation about breast, cervical, and prostate cancers to a group of students who would be presenting the information to children in schools.

We were to present Friday (3 days later).  On topics with which we had no detailed experience. With very limited Internet access (only available at the office, and during a week peppered with power outages). Roadblocks aside, we were up for the challenge.

We spent the week cramming intensely, researching during the days and saving informational .pdf files to our computers and reading them at home at night. We created a PowerPoint presentation and several interactive activities to break up the monotony of an 80-slide presentation detailing the causes, effects, treatments, and prevention of each of the aforementioned types of cancer.

On Friday we boarded a tro-tro in Kasoa, and three transfers and an excruciatingly sweaty 2 hours later we arrived at the university on the far side of Accra, in a city called Nungua. 

We called our contact there, Derrick, who met us in a courtyard and said he didn't think we were coming (we weren't sure why, as we had confirmed twice). The room he had booked for us had been rebooked. But Derrick pulled some quick strings and secured us a makeshift presentation hall in a lounge room, where there were several students laying on couches watching Beyonce music videos.

Claire set up her laptop, and the students gathered. Our talk went smoothly. I was concerned there would be a lack of interest or lack of understanding (we had no prior idea of the students' level of background knowledge on cancer). But the ten or so men and two women were overall attentive, and actually asked very insightful questions and were enthusiastic about the activities we incorporated.

 Claire and I with the students at the Regional Maritime University

At the end of the talk, one young man presented us with two cans of Malta (a Ghanaian drink resembling nonalcoholic Guinness beer) and a formal thank you: "On behalf of my fellow students and our program we thank you kindly for visiting and educating us. We wish you safe travels back to Kasoa and best of luck in your time in Ghana."

Claire and I took a taxi to the tro tro station, convinced a confused shopkeeper to trade one cold Coke for our two cans of warm gross Malta, and began a 3.5 hour tro-tro death crawl through traffic back to Kasoa. 

With the cancer talk out of the way, we were able to refocus on some of our original tasks. Our internships here are based on researching tuberculosis for the Ghana Health Service. We conduct interviews in nearby towns to determine the present knowledge of tuberculosis. The government has recently started subsidizing screening and treatment for TB, but most people aren't even aware of the disease let alone that the treatment is free.

We also give informational talks about TB in schools to children around the community. We recently created two new games to involve the children interactively, and painted a giant "TB Tree" that the children can pin "leaves" with terms written on them to as a fun way to learn the definitions of tuberculosis-related lingo.

The making of the "TB tree," which students will be able to pin leaves onto matching terms with their categories. For example, "covering your mouth" will be correctly matched with the branch labeled "prevention."

Our next big project involves setting up free screenings for both Tuberculosis and Hepatitis A and B in the community. We initially wanted to keep our focus on TB, since our research here is about that disease. However, Eric was adamant that Hepatitis A and B are bigger threats in the community, so we decided to tackle all three. 


We are only in the beginning stages now, researching the resources we will need and how much it will cost. We have a meeting scheduled this afternoon with a director of a local private hospital who has coordinated screenings in our town in the past. I am only here for another 5 1/2 weeks though, so this goal will definitely be a lofty one! But we're excited to take it on.

Work is becoming more and more of a familiar pattern, and I'm excited to have these projects to focus on. Stay tuned for the updates!

Anti-malarial Entertainment

There are two main options for anti-malarial medication. Doxycycline is relatively inexpensive, but has the unfortunate side effect of making one extremely sensitive to the sun. Malarone (just auto-corrected to "macaroni" ... yum, I wish) is significantly more expensive but instead of the sunburn potential, only threatens a much more vague possible "weird dream" side effect. 

My health insurance covered three months of Malarone for free, and my blue eyes already make me an unfortunate definite losing contender against the African sun. I opted for the macaroni. I mean Malarone. 

Strong medications have never had a huge effect on me. The Percocet prescribed for my wisdom teeth extraction left me still crying in pain for several days following the procedure. I've been known to spend nights wide awake after desperately taking Ambien for my insomnia. I took a Xanax as I boarded my flight from New York to Istabul en route to Ghana, but still cried secretly in a panic, convinced the whale of a plane would definitely not get from one continent to the next without plunging into the Atlantic.

(I realize I've just made a very good case for myself as some kind of prescription drug junkie. I promise this is not the case.)

Anyways, the point is that I didn't think the weird dreams from the Malarone would be an issue for me. 

I don't know what constitutes a "weird" dream, as my dreams are usually not realistic in the first place. But I have lots of dreams here starring people I haven't seen in years. Ive noticed that many of the male cameos have really big beards, when in real life I've never seen them with facial hair. Last night I vivdly dreamt I sat on the floor of Safeway's bakery section eating chocolate chips with two volleyball teammates I haven't actually seen since college.

The dreams are just the tip of the iceberg. A little background about my sleeping. I have, on a few occasions, contributed to full conversations at night that I have no recollection of the following morning. More often though, I bolt upright with a startled gasp that scares anyone in the room or nearby. My roommate in Seattle tells me some mornings, "I heard you freak out again last night" to which I bewilderdly shrug, generally having no recollection. 

My mom (sorry mom! For the blog's sake!) also wakes with these night terrors, but to a more intense degree. I remember tiptoeing into my parents bedroom after having a nightmare as a child, whispering "Mom?" and her sitting up and screaming bloody murder, startled out of her sleep, and scarring me for life. My grandpa apparently did the same thing. So these night terrors sort of already run in my family, but are rare for me, usually happening once every few months.

Until Malarone.

In Ghana I pull the terrified gasp at least once every night, according to my now-immune roommate. Sometimes I wake myself up, sometimes I don't. 

One night last week I awoke on my feet, absolutely convinced the house was burning down. The air outside smelled differently than normal due to a recent rain, and my sleep stupor translated the smell to that of smoke. I sleep with an eye mask on to block out the floodlight outside my window, and when I ripped it off and had momentary blurry vision, I thought it was smoke in the room. My roommate Sarah spent five minutes trying to convince me there was no fire, until I finally just nodded in submission, crawled back into bed, and promptly fell asleep for the remainder of the night. 

At least I'm protected against malaria?

That's all I've got. No life lesson in this post. But it was too amusingly self-deprecating to not enlighten you with. Enjoy.

On the Daily

Nearly three weeks in. Where did that time go?! The past week was a blur. "Ghana time" or "Africa time" colloquially refers here to a very lax schedule and complete disregard of promptness (I've learned to expect +/- at least thirty minutes for any scheduled meeting or activity), but I've found it can have the dual definition of time sneaky enough to race by unnoticed.

I feel like it was just a few days ago that I was afraid of the lizards in my bedroom and was amazed to see women carrying huge items on their heads or goats and chickens crowding the roads. These things and so many more have become second nature to me here.

I've thus far devoted my minimal blog efforts to the exciting things happening here and have yet to simply set the scene of my day to day life in Ghana. So, from the beginning...

While planning my trip, I decided that I wanted to stay with a host family rather than a home or hostel with more volunteers. I wanted to experience the Ghanaian lifestyle and understand daily living firsthand. I was told by the Cheerful Hearts Foundation coordinator that I would be staying with an older woman who runs a school and has a teenage granddaughter. 

When I arrived in Ghana, I was brought to the home and introduced to a girl who seemed about my age. It turns out that my arranged hostess decided to travel in the fall. Once in Europe, she opted not to return. Her granddaughter, Leah, stepped into the role of hostess. Leah is nineteen and takes care of my roommate Sarah and I. She does the cooking and cleaning and helps with her grandmother's school, which is actually located at our house. At 19 I could barely keep track of myself, let alone two other people and a household and a school! Props to Leah.

Our house is located in an area in Kasoa called Blue Top Estates. "Estate," however, is decidedly an exaggeration. There are three units in the house: one for Sarah and I, one for Leah, and one occupied by a couple named Gloria and Frances and their exuberant and permanently naked toddler son Henry. We have a well from which our bathing water is drawn each morning and night. Cooking water also comes from the well, so I'm extra cautious about boiling it before consuming any to avoid parasites.

The kitchen is a tin-roof addition to the house with a steel-grated door, cement floor and walls, and lack of electricity. A propane tank and camp stove sit on a wooden bench under a barred window and a pile of various pots and pans is stacked against a wall. We chop vegetables and do other food prep outside on the well. The refrigerator is in mine and Sarah's entryway. There are no shelves so it can only hold what can be stacked on the floor of it or piled into the door shelves. 

The kitchen is just to the left of this scene. The entrance straight ahead leads to our rooms. The photo is taken from the well.

 

Sarah and I share a bedroom equipped with two twin beds and one small book case. Correction: one twin bed and one hospital bed, and one small bookcase. I've learned to sleep in a partially-upright position (the hand crank that adjusts the angle is broken), and sometimes I'll wake up a few inches further from the wall than when I fell asleep due to my nighttime movement rolling me away (the brakes on the wheels are apparently also broken). Sarah and I sleep backwards on the beds, with our feet at the wall and our heads in the middle of the room, in order to be more directly cooled by the ceiling fan. 

And finally, saving the best for last. The lovely ladies' room. The latrine is located outside and around the corner of the kitchen in the courtyard. That conveniently places it directly outside our bedroom window. I'll keep the aesthetic details to a minimum, except to say that one is never alone out there and can always expect the company of several cockroaches. 
 
I've transformed the complimentary sleep mask I received from Turkish Airlines into a gas mask suitable for my latrine trips. I've actually managed to minimize these trips quite well by locating the few other restrooms on my day-to-day paths and befriending the people who grant permission to use them.

Overall the house is definitely not modern, but I can adapt for the most part. The worst is when the power fails though, especially at night. This means the fans don't work, and when it's 90 degrees with 80% humidity, sleep is absolutely impossible. Unfortunately power outages are pretty frequent. 

The Cheerful Hearts Foundation office is located about a quarter mile down a dirt road. There are a few residences along this road that are typically bedroom-sized metal edifices with cement foundations and porches where the families congregate. The adults will call out "Good morning/afternoon/evening" (never "hi" or " hello" - it feels very proper) or "Ete sayn" (how are you?) to which we respond "eyeh", or "fine." The children will run after us yelling "Obruni! Obruni! Obruni!" then "Obruni bye bye!" as we pass. 

One of the roads leading from my neighborhood to Kasoa

"Downtown" Kasoa is another 15 minutes from the office. The clinic where I work on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as the bank, an Internet cafe, the market, and taxi and tro-tro (bus) stations are all on the bustling, dusty paved road that constitutes the hub of the city.

The other volunteers live in the director's giant house another 20 minute walk away in an area called Peacetown. There were 3 people when I arrived, 5 as of now, and 4 more scheduled to arrive this week. The house is equipped with running water, a flush toilet (what!!! It was 2 weeks before I saw one of those in Africa), a television, couches, and a kitchen that doesn't require going outside to access. Basically a palace. 

During my first weeks here I requested to be moved to the volunteer house because the cost is the same regardless of where you stay, and the reasons I had wanted a home stay were not really fulfilled (to live with a family and gain an understanding of the workings of a family unit). However, as summer break in the Western world approaches, more and more volunteers are signed up to arrive and pack the volunteer house. I have decided to stay put in my not-so-luxurious but more private location and to brave out the less than ideal amenities while I am here.

I have my whole life to watch movies or be surrounded by other Americans... I'm learning to appreciate the quiet and simpler life in my African home. I have so far read more books in the past three weeks than I probably have in the past year combined:

• The Paris Wife by Paula McClain
• Eat and Run by Scott Jurek
• Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

And I'm halfway through:

•  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

On a typical morning I get up between 6 and 6:30. Monday and Wednesday I rinse off with a quick bucket shower, have a mug of Bran Flakes and shelf-stable milk or a banana with groundnut spread (basically peanut butter), and make the thirty minute walk into Kasoa for work at the clinic starting at 7:30. Other days I don't have to be at work until 8:30, so I'll usually go for a run through the dirt roads in the nearby neighborhoods.

These runs are always entertaining; the Ghanaians think I'm insane and will holler out, "Obruni! Are you for the excercise!?" or "Obruni! You like the jog?" There is one Ghanaian who also runs and I see him every morning and stop to say hello. Tony runs in long pants and a knit cap and always has a very complete warm up consisting of jumping jacks and showy stretches in the middle of the road. I asked him if he is training for anything, and he said "No, but the exercise is good for the cholesterol!" (YAY! Health-educated!!) I also asked about the knit cap and if he gets hot while running. He said "Oh yes, yes but it's for the sun on my head." Love this man. One person aware of health issues like high cholesterol and overexposure to sun is better than zero.

We usually finish with work between noon and one. Sometimes Claire, the other Public Health project worker and I will find lunch in Kasoa and then head to the office to use the internet and do some of the research side of our work. I generally arrive back at our house around 4 or 5, and we aim to eat dinner at 6:30. 

 A typical dinner in Ghana consists of rice or some form of yams, cassava, or cornmeal and some kind of oily stew. My roommate Sarah and I are trying to teach Leah to incorporate vegetables (rare in Ghana) and other nutritious aspects. This was a collard green stew served with rice, black eyed peas, avocado, and a little tomato stew leftover from the previous night.

The days are slow. I am often antsy with an unfortunate combination of boredom and lack of desire to do anything based on the exruciating heat and humidity. This is where the reading comes into play. After dinner there's usually more reading, another bucket shower, and I'm in bed by 9 or 10:00. 

Weekends are a different story. So far I have traveled to Busua Beach (see previous posts) and have made shorter visits to the capital Accra, the nearby touristy Kokrobite Beach, and another beach town called Winneba. We sometimes make trips to ShopRite, the American-esque grocery store about 40 minutes away, just to have air conditioning and the familiarity of supermarket shopping. This is where we find items like cereal, milk, and anything else we can't purchase from a stall on the side of the road.

All said, Africa is most decidedly not America. But I'm learning to adjust, and am starting to feel more at home here than I did in my first and second petrified weeks. There are times when I wish I could just spend a day in America to recuperate then head back here to finish out my time, but unfortunately that's not an option. So I can make do. 

Send me something!

...You'll earn a lifetime position on my Favorite People Ever list!

Emily Botts

C/o Eric Opoku Agyemang

PO Box 344

Kasoa Central Region, Ghana 

(Be sure to get a tracking number if anything larger than a letter)

I would love to hear from you!

Easter Weekend at Busua Beach

Thursday afternoon, the four obrunis of Kasoa commenced a weekend journey to the beach. 

The journey began by tro-tro. Tro-tro: Definition: rickety vehicle equivalent in size to an airport shuttle van, crammed with 30+ cranky Ghanaians and, on this Thursday, four naive  obrunis trying to soak up some holiday sun. Five  massively sweaty hours later we transferred to a taxi, and another hour later we rolled into the blacked-out town (brief electrical failures are very common all across Ghana) of Busua. We had just travelled a little less than the equivalent of Seattle to Portland on roughly six American dollars.

We checked into our homestay at "Auntie Elizabeth's" for another 10 cedi per night each, or less than 5 American dollars. The locks on our doors were literally identical to the one I had on my diary in fourth grade. Super safe, right? We optimistically decided yes, dropped our minimal belongings and headed to the beach. 

That night I had my first Ghanian beer, served in 750 ml bottles. After sweating all day in the tro-tro, we were all starving and parched and the Ghanaian equivalent of PBR beer was like heaven. Our food took forever to arrive, cooked by "Auntie Florence" in a little shack-like restaurant feeding the town from a Coleman stove. We headed to bed happy, stuffed and buzzed.The next morning I paid the price. Dehydration had set in, paired with the beer and strange food. My stomach was not a happy camper. However, Auntie Eliabeth had cooked amazing fried crepe-like "special pancakes" served with sliced bananas and avocado. We also had the luxury of coffee! Who cared if it was instant Nescafé powder? We were thrilled. I managed a little special pancake and a cup of coffee and hoped it would settle the unpleasantness I was feeling.

That day we spent on the beach with another female traveler we met at breakfast, from England. The other great part about this town, there were more obrunis! It was nice to be a little bit less of the minority than in Kasoa, where we live as the only white people and get heckled and stared at consistently. That day we slack-lined on a line set up on the beach, kicked a soccer ball around with locals, played in the water, surfed, and burned in the African sun. (...fine, I speak for myself here. The other girls toasted nicely. I am the unfortunate lone tomato of the crew.) 

We met Ben, the owner of the Black Star Surf Shop. Ben is a mid-twenties blonde from the UK who was awarded a grant to start a business in Busua after falling in love with the town while volunteering short-term. He moved to Ghana permanently and opened up the shop, which along with its rival surf business, is by far the main attraction of the area. He's regarded as a local and is beloved and respected by both visiting obrunis and the Ghanaians alike. I was beyond impressed with his story and life track.

There were many activities planned for the Easter weekend, the highlight being a widely advertised but vaguely described "Jungle Party" planned for Saturday night in, you guessed it, the jungle. It was the talk of the town from the moment we arrived. There was plenty of action on the beach that evening too, a huge sound system had been set up at Black Star and there were several young locals participating in a rap-off. It was wild, mostly a very distinct electronicy reggae-ish beat style peppered with the "rap air horn" and a lot of putting your hands in the air. 

We enjoyed the action on the beach for awhile. At one point a few Ghanaian little girls came up and started playing with my hair. They spent a good twenty minutes "braiding" it into a tangled mess (that would later lead to significant hair loss while trying to run a brush through it). I loved how bold the girls were though, and how much fun they had playing hair salon with the obruni. 

Saturday morning the other girls decided to check out a semi-nearby village built on stilts. My stomach was definitely not going to cooperate with a two hour tro-tro ride. I had also made endless promises to my family before leaving that I would avoid rivers and canoes after hearing about a crocodile incident in Tanzania (doesn't matter that it's a completely different country) years ago. My two year old niece Sam had warned me with a giant "chomp chomp chomp!" complete with arm motions of crocodile jaws, and my silly fear combined with upset stomach were reason enough for me to stay behind from the excursion that day.

I spent the day with Dave Eggers's "Zeitoun" in a hammock. I also drank out of a real coconut, just to complete the cliche. No complaints about missing out on alligators here.

The other girls arrived home around five pm, one extremely sick and another feeling mildly unpleasant. The functioning among us gathered for dinner back at Auntie Florence's (I didn't have to wait for my dinner here. I had initiated a diet of bananas and Sprite, which would continue for the next four days.) By the time dinner was over, three of us were not doing well, me being in the best shape among us but definitely not 100%. 

Fast forward an hour, and our poor homestay had transformed to an infirmary. I'll spare most of the details, other than to say:

1. I was fine, just drained. And not totally comfortable. But not dying, unlike...

2. Our English friend (here's where you see the importance of anonymity). Who had the most unpleasant, awful, literally gut wrenching violent sickness I have ever seen, and I've been the unfortunate sufferer of some serious stomach flus.

3. Another girl in our group was in a 12 hour fetal position suffering from what was later self-diagnosed as food poisoning  from a hard boiled egg ingested over lunch.

Only two made it to the jungle party. 

One ended up rushed to the hospital 40 minutes away.

One remained in fetal position. 

The remaining was rendered paralyzed by fear over what she had just spent the night witnessing in the next bed over, and wondering what on earth was she doing in Africa!?!? Three guesses on which one that was.

The next morning (Happy Easter!) we got the rundown on our English friend who had been rushed to the hospital. She had malaria. Which she had contracted even while taking her anti-malarial medications, presumably because she had been sick a few weeks earlier and deducted that the medicine hadn't absorbed properly during that time. Terrifying. Once malaria is contracted, a person has it forever, and has to manage flare-ups for his or her life. It's fairly easy to treat if monitored correctly, but still. It's malaria! 

The rest of the trip had a bit of a damper on it. The girls who made it to the jungle party were not feeling hot from the festivities, I still had zero energy and a hateful digestive system, the food poisoning victim was still suffering from that episode, and, obviously, the malaria trumped all those things. We were a sorry crew. But we decided to stick out one more day, mostly to put off the trip back to Kasoa. 

We spent a quiet day recovering, but the fun had to end. In the morning we said our goodbyes to our malaria-ridden English friend, Auntie Elizabeth and Auntie Florence, and made the trip home. It was not a happy 5 hours for anyone on board that tro-tro, but I guarantee the four obrunis aboard were the happiest to arrive back in Kasoa. 

That night I celebrated making it through one week in Ghana. 

It got better.

I suppose I left off on a rather morbid note, given that it would be another five days until I'd write another update. Despite my harried arrival in Ghana, week one turned up.

On Tuesday, I was shown around Kasoa by Eric, the director of the foundation. He helped me exchange my US dollars and cents for Ghanian cedes and pesewas. (The exchange rate is 2.6 GHC to 1 USD, so an American dollar stretches a long way here.) We purchased a Ghanian cell phone and Sim card, and stopped by the healthcare clinic I will be working at to meet the head nurse Grace. Eric bought us  waachi - beans and rice topped with an oily, spicy tomato "stew" and shredded cabbage - at a stand selling traditional Ghanian food to go. I met the rest of the volunteers (there are 5 total, all girls spanning our twenties) and saw where the office where I can use Internet and do any writing side of my work.

The next morning I arrived at the clinic at 7:30 am. One other volunteer from CHF works there as well, so it was nice to have a familiar face. We helped with different projects however, her in vaccinations and me weighing babies. I spent the morning hanging babies that had been fitted into a cross between a diaper and a shoulder bag from a large scale and recording their weights. The babies were adorable, and oddly hilarious hanging from these weird getups. I was impressed with the diligence the mothers displayed by bringing their babies for these monthly weigh-ins. 

Thursday was different. During my time here, I will spend Mondays and Wednesdays at the clinic and Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays conducting interviews about local tuberculosis knowledge and giving informative presentations in schools about TB. I took a shared taxi with Priscilla, the head of the public health project, to a town about 20 minutes away called Nyanyano. We walked through the streets stopping to give locals a short interview about their knowledge of TB. Priscilla asked questions in the native language Twi ("chvee"). I attracted interviewees by being an obruni and recorded answers translated by Priscilla. 

Normally we would then go give a presentation in a school explaining the symptoms, prevention, and treatment of tuberculosis. Ghana has an alarmingly high prevalence of TB so the government recently started offering free screening and treatment for the disease. Unfortunately not many people in rural areas are aware of this and are undereducated about TB in general. 

The schools here take a two week holiday for Easter though, so I will be unable to join for a school presentation until May 5 when classes resume.

We obrunis decided to take advantage of the holiday as well and have an adventure for the long weekend (all businesses are closed Friday and Monday of Easter weekend). After realizing we were too late to book accommodations at the huge Easter festival in the Eastern Region city of Kwahu, we decided on a trip to the beach instead. 

3 days in and I was about to become an expert of African travel...