Welcome to Ghana

Hey guys,

I've made it here safely...it's been a long couple of days. I left Detroit Metro around 10am on Tuesday, flew in to DC. My friend Katie from my program traveled with me. Since we had about a 7 hour layover, we decided to hop on a bus to downtown DC. We walked around, and to all my public health friends, the first building we came across was the the Department of Health and Human Services..ha. It was a beautiful day in DC. We sat outside at a little tavern and ate gigantic burgers and fries-a great American meal before departure. We did some more sightseeing and said hi to Obama at the White House...we thought it was necessary we should let him know we were leaving the country. Made it back to the airport with plenty of time, then flew overnight to Frankfurt. I've never been on a plane for more than 5 hours, so I when I wasn't trying to sleep (aka head bobbing) I was getting pretty antsy. The flight to Accra, Ghana departed pretty soon after touching down in Germany. I luckily had a window seat, and sat next to a man from Ghana. So we chatted a bit, and I was able to see a great view while landing.

I was absolutely shocked at the heat when we stepped off the plane. I was expecting it to be hot, but not this hot. And I'm told it gets hotter. Ghana is in the beginning of their rainy season so the average temp is anywhere from 85-95 degrees. Anyway, we were picked up at the airport and taken to a really nice hotel to get settled in. The third member of our team, Ajab, arrived around 8pm. We took showers, got settled in a bit, talked with our professor about our project and then got some much needed sleep. Thursday was a super long day. Not only were we jetlagged, but the heat was making us a bit woozy too. We took about a forty minute drive to Tema, and met with the hospital director and the doctor we'll be working with. Tema is a pretty busy city, and I'm told it's actually more middle class, while the surrounding nearby areas are lacking in resources. However, the doctor to patient ratio (because of the size of the pop) is the reason there are so many challenges.

It looks like we'll be doing 3 week rotations in prenatal care, labor and delivery, postnatal or maybe pediatrics for me. We may also get the chance to do some work with their PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV) team. We have this next week to figure out the details, and narrow in on a research project. Everybody is really nice and friendly here, and Dr. Deganus knows exactly what we're looking for as public health students...so I'm pretty excited about the experience.

We had the chance to take a tour and check out each ward. I probably won't be able to take pictures, so I'll try to describe it as best as I can here. It's not a hospital like you or I have been to, but it's not exactly a health clinic either. It's really more like several small health clinics clumped together in one area. Each building is sort of an indoor/outdoor set up with air flowing through. The patients mostly wait outside on the walkways, or on benches. The maternity ward waiting room is outdoors and has basically rows of pews for the women. The maternity ward was so overcrowded, I don't think I've ever seen so many pregnant women at a given time...there were easily 50 women, probably more, waiting either for prenatal check-ups or to get prepped for delivery. We saw a few women actually in the process of labor. I mean I know I didn't grow up in this heat, and probably the women here are used to it, but I cannot imagine giving birth in this heat with just a small fan blowing on me. Also, the smell of whatever sterile solutions are being used definitely wasn't pleasant either. But the staff are really encouraging and accommodating, so they make it work. I hope that we can help alleviate them, as they are overworked, in some way. We'll find out our main tasks sometime this next week.

Other than checking out the hospital, we've just been getting settled in. We went grocery shopping, got phones, settled into University housing for the weekend. We've met a bunch of students from England and from other areas of Ghana studying here. Also, the group of UM students that will be here for the summer showed up yesterday. So we had lunch/dinner with them, walked around a bit. The boys with us played a pick-up game of soccer with some of the guys in the neighborhood...it was intense. We hung around a bit afterward in the dorms and stayed up late chatting and playing UNO (thanks mom, that came in handy). Today we might explore some more. It's kind of strange, there is so much traffic here and people move quickly, but at the same time, it's so slow. Not much to do but walk around, read, sleep. Most of us don't even want to eat much because of the heat. One big meal in the day is enough and granola bars, bread and cheese, fruit...small things for other meals.

I won't be able to upload pictures until I get to an internet cafe with higher speed. But I'll try to get those up as soon as possible.

I can already tell this is going to be an amazing experience. I'm pretty excited for these next few months. I hope everyone at home is well. Miss you guys. Talk soon.


OH the one thing I left out here....everywhere you look, there is something World Cup related...can't wait to get into the craziness of it! See ya!