All Hallows Eve

Following another beans and weenie breakfast, we organized ourselves for a day of important meetings and a large ceremony in Kyekyewere in the afternoon.

Our morning meeting was at the palace with Chief Nana and his well respected uncles. One of whom had lived in England for most of his life. During this meeting, we addressed who would be responsible for things being built in a timely fashion while we were in the states. The uncles, on who runs a contracting business, agreed to this role both for ease of communication and for the level of professionalism and trust they provide. Chief Nana seemed satisfied with this plan.

The afternoon ceremony was a village wide affair. The primary reason for the event was to celebrate the completion of two habitat homes built by the Northern Ireland group.

As typical of most outdoor events, there was LOUD music played with way to much treble through an aging set of speakers. When the music died down, several speakers including a district politician spoke through the crackling, feedback prone pa system.





During the ceremony, Mom was presented with a gold, pink and green Kente cloth. She was given an Ashanti name and made an honorary Nana (name for a tribal chief or queen mother).





After, there was more music and dancing led by a group of young women. They engaged the audience including the Chief and the Irish group.

October 30th: The latter half

Lunch, for me, was fried plantains and vegetable fried rice again. The architect introduced to us by Chief Nana met with us to discuss our building plans. We sought to emphasize, with the help of Edward, that we would like a drawing prior to our departure. It was another long meeting, but ultimately a very important one.


picture credit to Chris White

After our late and long lunch, we had some time to rest before heading to dinner at Sister Irene's home. Three nuns lived there and all work in education.

Just proir to leaving for the sisters' home, we had a surprise visit from a mildy juiced Chief Nana and one of his elders. The intent of that visit was to let us know there were "rumors" spreading that we had visited another village cheif to discuss another clinic site. He also wished to ensure our dedication to building a clinic in Kyekyewere prior to introducing us to his trusted family members and to the village in Friday's planned ceremonies.

We arrived early in the evening to a very welcome spread of appetizers and wine. The eldest in the group, was eager to have a beer that evening. I found this especially endearing.

For dinner, we had Jallof rice (beef, veggies in rice) prepared by their house help and lots of good conversation about their exceptionally interesting lives and Ghanaian customs that we found amusing. One of the nuns admitted that her favorite shop sign was for a hair salon called "Curl up and Dye."

I cannot even begin to do justice to describing how fascinating these women were to me. They educate Ghanaians both formally in traditional academic settings and informally by tutoring and hosting a library on their porch for neighbhorhood children to drop by and check out books. Ultimately, it was a fantastic evening and hopefully a home where Mom can stay on future trips.


Picture credit to Chris White

October 30th

Our plan this morning was to have another formal meeting with Chief Nana and elders regarding the clinic. We spent some time in the evening preparing our gifts for them, had Edward purchase Schnapps to present to the chief and wore our foundation shirts.

When we arrived in Kwekwewere, plans changed. Chief Nana was at another meeting regarding temporary coverage for another chief of a broader collection of villages. We did, however, plan a time to meet with the architect and review our building plans and expectations.

On our way out of the village, we stopped by the primary school located on a main road. The children were in their lessons, taught in an open air room under a tin roof, reciting English phrases, discussing "information technology" and basic science. We were somewhat of a disruption; the children all gawked as we drove up. They mostly wanted to be in pictures and share hellos.



On the side of the road, there was a few men selling coconuts and our driver, forever seeking to entertain us, pulled over to buy some for us to try.


I like coconut, but a whole one was more than I could drink or eat. We briefly dropped by the hotel to clean up and change heading out with Daniel so he could show us his church and a school it funded.

Our next stop, was in a village on the other side of Kumasi. This school was a bit nicer in appearance than the first, though the basic structure and lessons seemed to be similar.




I loved the alphabet pictures on the side of the building. Each letter being represented by a word/picture familiar to the Ghanaian children (oranges there are green and papaya is called paw paw and HECK yeah there are queens!).



Instead of ice cream cone cupcakes, they had sugar cane for snack time. They kindly shared with our group.






We next stopped at a Kumasi craft market. In retrospect, I should have bought a few more things there, but without the option of bargining with the shop keepers, it did not have much appeal to me at the time (knowing in Accra I could wheel and deal to my heart's content). Mom bought some nice baskets. And, we saw some fruit bats in the trees surrounding the shops.

After an unexpected morning of new experiences, it was time to head back towards our hotel for lunch.

Oct 29th Part Two

We left Kyekeywere and met for lunch at the Beauty Queen. Over lunch, Mom, Chris and I discussed and drew up a rough idea of what we thought was realistic for an initial clinic/hospital building allowing for plenty of expansion.

Roughly, our plan included a labor room, delivery room, postnatal ward, observation ward and a few sites for outpatient visits including one where short, bedside procedures could be performed.

After lunch, I returned to my room to shower. Having been invited to Pastor Ben's family home, I anticipated this might be a more formal visit.

With our driver, we traveled to Pastor Ben's home. His father was a rather jolly man who chatted with us in their living room for a brief time. His mother sat to the side mostly silent as I guess she was not proficient at English. He appealed to us to build a clinic near their church.

We next traveled with Pastor Ben to meet another Nana from anther village to again talk to use about building this clinic near their church. They referred to him many times as a Doctor. I was expecting a medical doctor, but it turned out that he was an Engineer trained in Switzerland.

Finally, it was time for dinner and a visit to an internet cafe. After several days with no contact, I was eager to contact a few people. Naturally, their internet connection provided little to no service on that particular day.

Dinner was at an out door restaurant near the cafe. Music boomed from the pa system. The phenomenon of too loud to be appreciated seemed to be common. I tried a native dish called Fufu in chicken soup. The fufu is a paste made from cassava and plantain. The soup had a tomato base and the chicken included all parts (liver!). I was not a huge fan as I really enjoy crunch and texture, but I felt like a champ for trying.

English Breakfast Day Two (part one)

October 29th.

My nights quickly already acquired a pattern. Sleep at 10ish, awake at 3ish and back to sleep at 6ish. I had Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and Al Jazeera to thank for keeping me sane while awake for three hours a night.

We awoke to another breakfast of beans, toast and meat (one day it was eggs, perhaps it was this one). Our plan for the day was to visit a Seventh Day Adventist hospital in a nearby village.

After some confusion about our plan (initially Chief Nana was going to accompany us, but due to scheduling conflicts he did not) and a quick stop in Kyekyewere, we headed to the hospital.

There was a wall surrounding the land and we had to pass through a gate to gain access to a parking place nearby the hospital. The gentleman who ran the hospital had been informed of our interest in seeing the facility by Chief Nana. Touring the hospital required first meeting this gentleman and explaining who we were and why we were visiting. This seemed standard enough.

We entered his office. Mom told our story and explained that she intends to build a clinic/hospital in Kyekyewere, etc.. The response from this gentleman was in this medically underserved nation utterly bizzare. An odd mix of welcoming and warning. He basically told us that we could not do anything as spectacular as his place and boasted about their lab and surgical suites.

After sitting there for way too long (by my impatient, western estimate), we were finally assigned a tour guide and took a walk around the hospital. Think single story, concrete, mostly open air and tons of people (very few elderly) waiting patiently on benches for a turn to be seen.


This is a photo taken by Chris White. We are talking with a head nurse.


We inspected the lab. This was a single approximately 10 x 10ft room with four or five people, a microscope and centrifuge. Nothing like the insanely huge high tech lab and pathology department at my academic hospital. We then moved on to the surgical suites. Nothing much to them. There were also a few ward beds for post operative, new mothers and other medical cases. Unfortunately, out of respect, I did not photograph at this hospital.

We finally met the one physician working full time at the hospital. He was a hairied thirty-something with very little time and a huge burden of responsibility. Not only did he have to round on all inpatient wards three times per day, but he also saw a steady stream of outpatients. I am not sure how these visits were distributed between the doctor and various midlevels. I couldn't fathom what drew him to his profession (seemingly an entirely different one from mine) being that it seemed he had to give up all hope of a life outside of work.

After leaving the clinic, we stopped by Kyekeywere to inspect some new habitat construction and briefly met a group from Northern Ireland working on two houses.

Ok. We are STILL on First Visit 10/28 part FOUR

Having sanitation as a focuse made for some rather amusing albeit distressing photos. Our next stop before finally leaving Kyekyewere was at the city "dump" and waste facilities.

Scampering about the trash and human waste were a few adorable and lively barefoot children. Illustrating one of our largest concerns; the ease of disease transmission where education and sanitation are lacking.

Below are my final photos of the day with a few comments.




Above is the "dump" located a short 100 or so yards from the chief's compound. This area was not fenced off or demarcated by signs. The human waste facilities are just down a short path about 50 yards away. While offering some attempt at basic sanitation, I cannot imagine what might draw a person to utilize said facilities. When ones only other option is to pass waste freely wherever whenever, while not recommended, it clearly seems preferable.


Don't miss the tiny face peaking out from the bottom of the doorway into the women's latrine. I didn't intend to catch anyone in a private moment... really.






So excited about the camera, sister forgot to pull up little one's drawers for the photo op.

Providing better, more attractive and functional septic sewage facilities to the village is so important for the villagers and their health. Improved sanitation has a huge impact on rates of diarrheal illness, water/foodborne diseases and ultimately a populations survival. Only 62% of the world's population has access to basic, improved sanitation according to WHO/UNICEF definition of such as of 2008. This is up only 8% in the past 20 years. Clearly, this is only one of many things we can impact directly this small population.

After an enormously educational/eventful day, we were exhausted and retired readily to the comforts of the Beauty Queen.

First Visit Part Three

After leaving the clinic, we headed over to see some homes built for villages by Habitat for Humanity and its volunteers (mom being one). These homes were typically four rooms. One for cooking, one for a "bathroom" and the other two were used as living/sleeping space.

These homes are typically made of concrete bricks made at or near the building site. And, metal roofs.

Included below are pictures of some of the homes villagers live in who do not have the resources to purchase a habitat house. There is also a wandering population of the village who works at farms by day and stays in either partially built, vacant homes at night or where ever else they can find shelter.








This is the floor of a typical bathroom (basically a hole in the floor, a few water buckets and a little straw brush to push in refuse). The imprint of a lizard in the concrete amused me so I took the picture.

At this point, we had a chance to visit with my mother's friend Lydia who she met during her prior trip and who we saw the night we arrived as she walked, in pain, to a nearby clinic. She primarily had abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting for a few days. She showed me the prescription given to her at the clinic and there were twelve medications on it. Basically, they had four different antibiotics (covering, I suspect, H pylori and almost any other infectious diarrheal illness) as well as medication to relieve heart burn and diarrhea. A shotgun approach. Lydia had not filled said prescription nor had any intention to do so. She did not have the money to cover this multitude of medications. Her symptoms slowly seemed to resolve on their own.