Cape Coast- Canopy Tour and Elmina Castle

On Saturday morning, we woke up at 5am to start getting ready for our day trip to Cape Coast. The driver was set to arrive at 5:30, but instead arrived on AST (African Standard Time, not much different from Megan Standard Time) at 6:45. After a few complaints amongst ourselves here and there, we hopped into the van and headed to Accra. We picked up Kofi from his hotel, and the other Michigan girls from their hostel. The drive to Cape Coast was about three hours. I head-bob slept for a bit, but mostly stayed awake to look out at the changing scenery. West Ghana doesn’t present much of a difference as the east, but it’s always interesting to me to see style of housing and the goods people are selling on the side of the road. There’s always something going on. I think I’ll miss the people-watching the most when I return home.

We arrived at the Kakum National Park around 11:30am and set out on our climb to the canopy. Katie and I both got really excited at the feel of being in the woods and climbing. It was a small taste of the adventure we have planned at the end of our trip. We have about a week of travel time from when our internship ends to when we depart for the US. We had been throwing around all kinds of ideas of where we would travel. Initially we really wanted to fly to Eastern Africa, where several of our friends are doing their internships, or possibly to South Africa. We even thought Morocco would be an awesome adventure. But with the travel time and expenses required, we’ve decided our best trip will be right here in Ghana. We’ll head east and then north to explore the Volta region and climb the tallest mountain in Ghana. It will be a true backpacking adventure. We were happy to get a feel of the outdoors this weekend, though.

The canopy was absolutely gorgeous. Sometime within the last 10 or 15 years, a group of Canadians from Vancouver built a series of bridges in the canopy. There is no other canopy tour in all of Africa like this. I guess at times you can even see elephants down below and monkeys in the trees. We didn’t see any wildlife, but it was still a beautiful view nonetheless.

After the canopy tour, Kofi took us to some fancy resort nearby. I ate Red Red for lunch..sooo good! After lunch, we all piled into a room near the bar to watch the rest of the Ghana-Australia match. We were all hoping for a second goal from Ghana in the last ten minutes, as a win against Australia would have qualified Ghana for the next round. Now they need to hold their own against Germany. We’re sort of hoping for a Ghana-USA match up. In order for this to happen, Ghana has to be the #1 seed from their group and USA has to be #2 from their group. Or Ghana has to be #2 and USA has to be #1. Here’s hoping.

We headed to the Elmina Castle for the last part of our day trip. In 1482 the Portuguese arrived on the shores of Ghana in hopes to exchange spices and other goods for gold. They built this gorgeous white castle, which served as a trading post for many years. Unfortunately, it also served as a slave-trading post. It’s sort of ironic that this castle is so beautiful and lies upon a breath-taking coastline, yet inside the castle walls such atrocities took place.

We all felt an eerie presence walking through the castle. The guide showed us to the rooms where slaves were imprisoned. When we walked into the room where they kept the women, we all noticed a decaying smell. The guide explained that at any given time, up to 150 women were haled up in this one small room, with barely any air or light let alone space for them to move and find an area to urinate, defecate or menstruate. A stench from nearly 200 years ago still lingers. Once in a while, women were allowed to come out of the room and into the sunlight. Can you imagine this being your only view of freedom?

They were allowed to see sunlight for an hour in the day, and also bath from the rainwater reservoir that rested underneath the stone floor. During this time, the governor would come out from his bedroom (bigger than any of the rooms the slaves were kept in) and stand on the terrace over-looking the women. He would choose one lucky lady. She had two choices. She could either refuse and be chained to a cannon ball and beaten for the day – an example for the other ladies. Or she could choose to submit, climb up the ladder into the governor’s quarters, and be taken in the corner to be raped by the governor. She was never to stay in his bed.

On certain days, hundreds of women were lead down the small staircase within their cave-like holding room. This staircase led to an even smaller room. The room where men stayed also joined into this room. In chains and shackles, they all crammed together, and formed a single-file line into the tunnel at the opposite side of the room. It was in this room that sometimes husbands, wives, brothers and sisters would be reunited. As they shuffled through the tunnel, they were led into the room of no return. When entering, one can see a small opening with a view of the ocean. Hundreds of years ago, slaves entered through the opening and into the fresh air at last, but only to soon walk onto a ship to take them to the Caribbean or North America. The guide told us that the men and women shipped to North America would have been slaves in what is now New York, Florida and Texas. We learned that slaves that were healthy enough, according to the traders, were selected to board the ships. It’s just a theory, but health scientists have thought that slavery may play a part in one of the reasons why African Americans are more likely to experience heart disease, hypertension, etc. Only slaves that were plump enough after making it through days of starvation were chosen to be transported and only those that could retain enough salt and water to make it across the sea, survived. Interesting thought. Either way, being in this room, it was hard not to imagine the pain and suffering that people endured as they were taken away from their families away to strange worlds. Flowers and grave adornments now decorate this room. Visitors who have traced their ancestry back to Elmina have left the decorations.

After the tour, we had the chance to walk around on the top tier of the castle. The view was absolutely breathtaking. We also browsed through the gift shop which sold postcards, trinkets and many books about things like Ghana heritage, history of Elmina and oh yes, of course, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope. Let me tell you, the people of Ghana are VERY fond of Barack Obama. He’s on a billboard at least every 30 miles or so. Sometimes, when Ghanaians find out that we are American, they even call us “Obama people”. I’m sure the Republicans in my life are rolling their eyes at this point, but I’m only laying down the truth! Obama love is so very alive here in Ghana and we Michigan liberals are loving it, too. Ha! Anyway, after browsing the gift shop, and being harassed by the many sellers outside of the castle we made it safely to our van and headed back to Accra. We passed approximately four Obama billboards in transit. It was a great trip.

Adventures of Kate and Meg

**I’ve updated this post. I was in a rush to post it and only had the chance to read through it after I had posted. I tried to make things a little clearer and easier to read. I’ve also added more of my thoughts….

Katie and I have had lots of bonding time here in Africa. I love Ajab equally, but somehow when she’s around, we just don’t get into the same kind of situations. It’s most likely because almost everybody here thinks she is Ghanaian and so if she’s with us, they think we’re being taken care of. People are generally surprised when they find out she’s actually from Cameroon. So yeah, maybe it’s because Ajab is African and gets the way things work here better, or maybe it’s because Katie and I are a little bit of misfits and when it’s just us two, we always seem to find ourselves entangled in some sort of story. The last few days have been no exception.

On Thursday, Katie and I decided to go to the Accra Mall after work. We needed to get a power strip for our electronics. We came to Ghana with four wall plug-ins; three have short-circuited. We flagged a taxi down and asked if he could take us to the Tema Motor Roundabout so that we could catch a connecting tro-tro to the mall. This particular taxi driver proved again why we love the tro-tro so much more. First, he wanted to charge us three cedi. We’ve been here for 6 weeks now and we know how this works. A trip of the distance we were going should require only about 0.50 of a cedi (50 peswas). I said thank you but no thank you to the driver and walked away. He “tsked” us back to the taxi, a common way of getting someone’s attention here, and agreed to take us for two cedi; still pricey, but we accepted. Second issue: the taxi driver actually did not want to take us to the roundabout at all. Instead he dropped us off at the end of the on-ramp to an expressway heading in the opposite direction from Accra and told us to cross the five lanes of traffic to the other side in order to head in the right direction. We weren’t about to argue, and we didn’t have much time anyway because as soon as we stepped out of the taxi he began reversing back up the on-ramp. The kind taxi driver dropped us off at the point of the expressway where a tollbooth is located. Not too many people are hopping onto a tro-tro at this point. But, we crossed the five lanes of traffic anyway, and asked the street sellers the best way to catch some form of transportation to Accra. One of the guys flagged down not a tro-tro, but a giant 50 person plus transport bus. Katie and I hurriedly scampered across the traffic, got onto the bus, which was at a mere rolling stop at the booth, and made it to our seats. For 70 peswas we finally made it to Accra.

A day at the mall was much needed. We found out that we wouldn’t be able to get the power strip and step-down converter that day, though. The shady electronic shop guy had to go buy one from his guy at the market and wouldn’t have it in his hands until after the weekend. It was no big deal to us, as the real reason we wanted to go to the mall was to see Sex and the City. It was well worth the trip to enjoy a piece of American cinema and a bucket of popcorn. After the movie, which was super cheesy but well received by us given our cravings for New York City and dresses and high heels, we got some ice cream and called it a night… a great Obruni-American night.

The next day we went to the market in Tema to find our own guy with a step-down converter and power strip. This trip was successful. The assembly, however, of the step-down converter and charger done by yours truly – daughter of an electrician- was not so successful. I learned a very valuable lesson this day: Always read directions! After managing to blow up the step-down converter and my camera charger (which thank God Katie has the same one), slightly electrocute my hand and nearly cause a small fire, Katie decided I was no longer allowed to be near any sort of electronic devices or plugs. We found out in the end, that the converter is not completely necessary. Our electronics will take 220V, which means that the charger alone will work just fine for us. Thank God there were no major casualties.

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Sundays are generally slow days. Everybody is at church from like 7am until 2pm. Exhausted from the week of work, and a long day of travel to Cape Coast on Saturday, Katie and I decided that we could sleep in. It also down-poured this morning, which gave us perfect sleeping conditions. When we arose at noon, we knew we wouldn’t be able to find food for a while. After 2pm, we began wandering around Tema, thinking that we’d have to just resort to snacks for the day finding that nothing was open. We finally stumbled across some random Chinese restaurant, which looked a little bit like a warehouse, but we were so hungry at this point, we really didn’t care. They cooked us up some fried rice and spring rolls, which hit the spot. In walks this Ghanaian businessman who now lives in Beverly Hills, CA. He ended up paying for our entire meal. Sweet deal. We thanked him and said that was completely unnecessary. He told us that he knew we were students, and that God is good and that we should live knowing that and accept the free dinner. No arguments there!

Walking back in the direction of our place, we planned on stopping at the Internet café. We saw that the new restaurant located above the bank that is right next door to the café had finally opened. There’s been an “opening soon” sign up since we’ve arrived in Tema, so we were pretty excited to check it out. It such a cute place, and has great food for a reasonable price. I’m sure it will become a staple for our last month here in Ghana. The woman who owns the place so kindly added Tiramisu on the house to our order of Espressos. We’ve been really well cared for here. Katie and I shook our heads at how lucky we’ve been through all of our recent adventures. We love Ghana.

Things have slowed down a bit here, and life here has become semi-normal. We’re well past the adjustment period, and it almost seems as if this is our home now. We know though, that our time here is limited. Walking home from the Internet cafe after our Sunday together, we talked about all the things we will miss about Ghana. It’s funny, because Katie and I both went through a phase around our 2^nd or 3^rd week here where we completely questioned our decision to come here. Even last weekend, I was feeling a little homesick. Katie has been to Africa a few times now. She says that she goes through this every time. Now we are starting to approach that phase of questioning the way we’ll feel when we return to the US. Somehow, through all the resistance and questioning, the African way of life has woven itself into mine. I’ll explain it this way: Remember how I spent an entire chunk of a blog post complaining about the food here? Well, while I still crave food from the US, I’ve now been here long enough to have cravings for Ghanaian food as well. It’s the same with the way of life and I know returning back home will warrant some resistance and questioning as I pull away from my life here in Ghana.

It’s sort of like backpacking; something that Katie and I both love to do. We’ve talked about how backpacking actually is a pretty rough experience at times. You walk for miles in a day up and down loose terrain with 25 pounds or more on your back. When you arrive to a campsite, work is still required. You must quickly find wood or begin sawing at a dead tree in order to build a bug fire so that you can enjoy a meal out of a bag, or some sort of small snack. Sometimes it rains, and then everything is muddy and soggy. Sometimes you get really frustrated from the pain in your feet after walking for days. Sometimes you get really sick of being dirty and smelly. But somehow, when you make it out of the woods (and if you’re Jeff Knaus, head directly to Wendy’s for a Biggie #2), with time, you always want to go back. The beauty that you see in nature and the peace that you feel from the experience is well worth the struggle and pain. Our adventure in Africa has given us a similar experience, which is why I think it’s only appropriate that our last adventure here is a backpacking adventure. I wonder when I return home, how long it will take before the pull of another adventure abroad begins to call me back.

Will I ever smell African smells again? No matter how pungent they can be, at least they are honest and real. Will I ever be able to purchase a fresh pineapple sold on the street by a woman with her child tied to her back? It’s just not the same when it’s pre-sliced from a grocery store. Will I ever see kids playing a game of pick-up football in the field nearby through a tro-tro window? There’s something so special about the spontaneity of children and the game. It’s just not the same to see kids lined up in their blue and red jerseys on the manicured lawns of Firefighters Park from my air-conditioned car. Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I don’t absolutely love the US or the people that live there. Believe me, I miss my family and friends more than I could ever explain in words. I also miss the clean air, summer in Michigan and my favorite t-shirt and pair of jeans more than you could know. But just as laughing with my friends and family, spending time in the woods and watching sunsets in Glen Arbor complete my life, spending time within another culture also fills a part of who I am. For now, I will enjoy each day left in Africa and take in this last month of experience and adventure, so that I will have many memories to keep with me until next time.

A Quarter Century in Ghana

Ghana was especially happy for my birthday! We were all pretty excited about the win. In general all Ghanaians support all the African teams. But since Ghana has been the only African team to pull off a win for their first match, I like to think I'm in the best country in Africa :) I'm sure there are some willing to debate me. We are told though that Ghana is the gateway to Africa.

I'm sure my family and friends all know by now through this blog and my emails that I'm having a great experience. It was a little strange turning 25 here, only because this is the first time I haven't had my family near to celebrate. However, my Ghana family has taken GREAT care of me! Katie, my roommate, bought me a hamburger and fries (yes they have those! but the taste is a littttlllee different). And then she got us a block of cheese (strange request, I know, but it's rare here) and a Snickers!!! I was a very happy girl. Our taste buds immediately flared up. It's weird how much our bodies miss American food. We also watched an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia just to make me feel more at home. At work on Monday, Dr. Deganus surprised me with a gift. This woman, honestly I could go on and on about how grateful I am to her. She bought me this beautiful fabric with my colors (purple, blue and green). She's taking me to the tailor on Friday to make an African dress for me. How cool is that?!? I am a lucky lucky girl.

We've been pretty busy this last week. We're sort of taking a break from being in the rounds and getting our research in gear. Tomorrow we'll start interviews with translators. It's nice to be doing the public health end of things now. There's not much to update on, but we'll be traveling to Cape Coast this weekend to see the slave castles and take a canopy tour. So look for pics after the weekend!

Well, it's hard to believe my journey here is half over. We've been here for six weeks, and things are actually starting to feel normal here. I know my heart will miss this place. What a great way to bring in a new quarter century.

Life is Good in Ada

Ghana is such a beautiful country, I am eager to explore more. This past weekend we headed to Ada, the city where the Volta River meets the ocean. It’s located about 2 hours east of Tema, at least by tro-tro. In order to access our destination resort, we had to take a boat on the Volta. There were plenty of Obrunis to be seen upon arrival. It seems we all have the same idea: work/volunteer all week in the big cities, then head in any which direction away from those cities to enjoy the lush scenery that Ghana has to offer. We pulled up onto the sand and met with the keeper of the resort. She showed us to our hut.

We spent the day in the sun, and retreated for shade when needed. We laid out on the Volta River side of the beach, as opposed to the ocean. Unfortunately environmental regulations are not well developed here, which leads to a lot of pollution in the ocean. (Although, I guess back home we too are having our own struggles in the Gulf.) Nevertheless, we enjoyed our time in the sun. Katie and I were both pretty excited to sport our new Chelsea and Man U beach towels (football clubs). We caught the sunset at about 5:30pm. We were all amazed at the gorgeousness of this place.

After sunset we drank some beers, and enjoyed a bonfire. The boys caught some crabs then threw them on the fire -a tasty late-night snack. Before heading to bed, I hopped into a hammock and laid under a palm tree, looking up at the stars. Great choice. I’ve actually never seen so many stars all at once. I felt lucky, blessed to be there. I was feeling a bit homesick this weekend, so it was nice to be outside, looking up, and thinking about all my family and friends back home. I stayed out on the hammock as long as possible, unable to pull myself away from stargazing and searching through memories from home. I finally put myself to bed in our hut, although I considered sleeping outside. Once the Rastafarian man, who had been rastafarying all day long, had finally decided to shut off his blaring music that he and only he was dancing to, we were able to fall asleep to the waves. It sounds like a dream. I did come back with souvenir bed bug bites, so not 100% perfect, but picturesque for sure.

We enjoyed breakfast by the beach (banana pancakes wit sugar on top!!) and then took our boat ride back to land, back to the tro-tro. Such a great weekend! Ghana is beautiful and life is good.

Children's Ward

My heart is full. I just spent the last week in the children’s ward. I have been enjoying my days observing health care delivery in the maternity unit, and have felt connected in many ways to all that I have been learning in ANC and Labour and Delivery. But there is just something different about children. Women’s reproductive health is my area of educational interest, but children get my heart. I felt excited every day this past week to pop out of bed in the morning, take the tro-tro to the hospital, and join the doctors for rounds in the ward. I had sort of forgotten why I became so interested in international health and really, public health, in the first place. I studied abroad in Panama as an undergrad. My main interest and direction of research was on maternal and child malnutrition. Sometime during the trip, we visited an island off the coast of a major city in the mouth of the ocean called Son Cristobal. I remember pulling up to the dock, and stepping off the boat into a crowd of curious young faces; I was eager to learn about them, too. Most of the children had tattered clothing, pockmarks from parasites and decaying teeth. They had so many obtrusive health problems, but they were still kids. They played like kids, they laughed like kids, they were happy like kids. It’s the same at Camp Quality, too. So many of our kids are sick or have already endured so much, yet it seems at camp they have the time of their lives (as do we). If there’s one common theme about kids, near and far, it’s that they find time to enjoy the fun in life and certainly live life down to the very moment.

Most of the kids in the children’s ward are sick with malaria, diarrhea or suffer from malnourishment. There were a few HIV cases, but they were not in the majority. West Africa presents a very different picture from the Eastern and Southern regions of Africa. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Ghana is less than 4%. Certainly, HIV/AIDS is worthy of our attention, but thinking statistically, malaria and diarrhea in the child population are more outstanding health problems.

There are great things about Tema General Hospital, and I have to remember to focus on the good and not to get down about the gaps in the system. There’s a balance to be held, as we must also constructively critique areas of improvement. It seems that malaria is the glaring health problem especially for vulnerable pregnant women and children. Within three months at Tema GH, the children’s ward may see up to 6,000 cases. We asked the health professionals why they think this is the case. They told us that they educate, but nothing seems to stick. People know well enough that there are mosquitoes in this region and that they cause malaria, but still so many fail to take proper precautions. I wasn’t settled with that answer. There has to be more to it than that. Perhaps it’s that people feel that malaria is the norm and not a pressing health concern; sort of like chicken pox in the US. It’s true that a good portion of people living in areas of malaria contract it within their lifetime, but it can be dangerous, especially to children and pregnant women. Cerebral malaria can be fatal; it can also terminate a pregnancy. There are prevention measures against malaria in antenatal care. In fact, most of the women I saw were prescribed medication to prevent it. But with over 2,000 cases of children with malaria in one month, clearly something’s missing. I can’t settle with the idea that if there was education displaying the clear threat of malaria and if there was an affordable, accessible, and easy method to prevent this disease, that women wouldn’t adopt this method to protect their children. The latter is the ticket. Education alone is not enough to change behavior. This has been well understood in public health for some time now. You can throw education at a community all you want, but to really inspire behavior change, the social environment must also change. As a public health student, I see this disconnect as an opportunity. Malaria is preventable and with community education and accessibility to and availability of proper preventive measures, we can decrease the amount of people who get infected.

From my public health perspective, the population most vulnerable to malaria is the target. My clinical perspective, however, was concentrated elsewhere. We met Dr. Antwi for rounds on Monday morning. He is a young, handsome and charismatic pediatrician; not arrogant in anyway. He's definitely meant to be a doctor for children. I could tell by the way he examined his patients and joked around with them that he is well liked in the ward. He took the time to explain each case to us. When we approached patient 15’s bed, Dr. Antwi looked perplexed. He explained that the boy had come in with fever, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. He was also presenting signs of liver failure. With the combination of not being able to stabilize him quick enough and his family not having enough funds to afford basic labs and cultures, the boy ended up suffering several co-morbidities. He is now blind, deaf and possibly brain damaged. For an entire week, we watched his worried mother take care of his every need. When she wasn’t taking care of him, she was parked at his bedside, sometimes praying, sometimes with her head down just trying to catch a few minutes of sleep. When we met the boy on Monday, Dr. Antwi just sort of shook his head and said there wasn’t much they could do with their hands tied. We were all a bit unsettled at this. Katie and I spent a good portion of the evening discussing the need for palliative care if there weren’t any social services that could support this boy. We arrived the next morning, and headed straight for patient 29’s room, a baby we had all sort of adopted for the week. Katie scooped the five-month old into her arms, an action he was craving and needed. His mother brought him into the ward the Thursday before. She then admitted herself to the HIV/AIDS unit with chances looking slim that she would regain her strength. The father has abandoned them both, and soon the mother will pass. Instead of focusing on the questions of where this child will go, we focused on giving him the attention he needed most.

Not long after, a crew of doctors showed up for rounds. We again followed along. This time, Dr. “Boss” (I never got his name), the chief of Peds joined along. He walked in late, in the middle of another doctor’s presentation and took the lead from there. He is a small man, but his personality is big. I immediately equated him with Dr. D, the chief of Peds at Children’s Hospital in Detroit. Dr. “Boss” holds the same charisma, and scatter-brained intelligence.

Patient 15 was the last to be seen on rounds. We all crowded into his room, mostly somber knowing the situation. The doctors examined his vitals and checked for any progress. The three of us were wide-eyed, hoping for something positive. After standing around shaking our heads for about 5 full minutes, this speech from Dr. “Boss” emerged:

“So what should we do? Just wash our hands clean of this? This is a sad case, you know, a very sad case. The co-morbidities he’s suffering from, he’s so compromised, now. At the end of the day, is this our fault? Did we do this? His mother will now have to end up supporting him. And where’s the father? If there is a father, you know, before you know it there will be a divorce and the woman will be alone. She doesn’t have the money. Why does this always happen? It’s always the poor that are the sickest. What God would allow this? I guess when I get to the gate I have a few questions for God myself. So I’m asking, what should we do? We just walk away and go home? This is too sad, let’s just go have a beer and forget it. Come on. We have something to do with this, so doctors, what do we do?

Most of us stood with our hands tied behind our backs staring at the floor. Dr. Antwi, who is normally all smiles, stared off somberly, too. Finally, he lifted his head and spoke up.

“There’s a church group, you know. We could call a church group. There was one that brought in the boy, the HIV twin.”

The day before during rounds, we reviewed another abandoned HIV case. The boy, no more than a year of age, had been born to an HIV positive mother. He had a twin brother who was HIV negative. The sibling was clearly getting all of the mother’s nourishment through breastfeeding, which inevitably may result in another abandoned child with HIV. The twin brought in by the church group was near death from malnourishment. We found out on Wednesday that he hadn’t made it through the night.

Dr. Antwi’s suggestion jumpstarted the group from a moment of despair to thoughts of hope. Mumurs erupted through the group of doctors. Dr. “Boss” nodded along, but I could see by the look on his face, that he had a suggestion of his own.

“You know, there’s a Dutch organization, an NGO. Yeah, they’re doing great work. They have a sort of home for children with illnesses like this. If you go there, I promise, you’ll see every illness you’ve ever seen in your textbooks. Let’s connect his family with them, huh? I mean this is about quality of care right? We all know about palliative care. My mother, for example, she was diagnosed with cancer, two months to live. They put her on palliative care, she’s still cooking me meals. I mean, we can do this right? Let’s keep this boy comfortable; let’s let him have quality in his life. This is possible, and at least we’re giving some hope, right? I mean this is what it’s about. This boy is an example of the holes in our system, but let’s make this work, even if it’s just one case. We might not see things change in our lifetime, but if we can do something now and set things forward, it will happen one day. Hmm? I don’t know, maybe one day then we’ll be giving aid to the US.”

We all laughed. I was touched. I had lost sleep over this case the night before. I know better not to get too attached here, but I couldn’t shake the thoughts that this boy will not be supported because he now has disabilities that could have been prevented. I mean my Mom and sister make careers out of supporting children like this. So what does that mean then for children in Ghana? Where will this boy go? And what about his mother? I know that sad, unexplainable things happen all the time. But I too found myself questioning God’s role in all of this. What God would allow sickness and suffering with such limited solutions? It’s just hard to understand sometimes. Something in my soul needed this speech. I needed to feel chills; I needed to feel connected. It was the sermon that I needed to hear. It’s not that Dr. “Boss” said anything overly profound, but he gave us that small glimmer of hope. And if that’s all it was, then so be it. At least there’s hope at all! That small speech woke up a feeling in me that maybe sifting through all the crap in this world for the hope that within it there may be something good just might be worth it. In more literal terms, it means there are certainly health professionals here that get it, people that want to move things forward and make life better. It means there’s room for greater improvement in quality of care. It’s all very possible.