May 29th

It was Saturday. I had spent the morning washing my clothes, followed by weeding the farm with the guys who live in the compound. I spent some time reading, and then went with along with Elijah – my host father – to his groundnut farm to negotiate a weeding deal. I learned tons, more to come on that later. Regardless, it was my first real “day off” in a long time, especially since I had gotten here to Ghana.

It was 4:30 now. The sun was beating down relentlessly, the still air of afternoon fighting the inevitable cool of the evening. I lay on the series of wooden planks outside the family compound, under a thatched shade, where people usually sit. I was writing in my diary, processing the millions of things that were running through my head: what I’d learned in the week, a check-in on my goals coming into this placement, how I was feeling and why…

Children ran around, playing a game where they were selling rocks to each other, pretending it was food, using leaves as money. Periodically, they’d expect me to buy some rocks, and exchange some leaves. I smiled. It was quiet. I was reflecting, restrategizing, and of course sweating buckets.

I walked into the compound, telling my host mother and host sister, Dana and Ana, that I wanted to help them prepare food that day. “Will you teach me?”

“Will you learn?” Like that, we drew up two small wooden benches and we got to it. I knew I would be more of an observer than anything, because even though I know how to cook in Canada the sheer mechanisms are different here. Sure enough, my most valuable contribution was probably airing the coal in the base of the cooking stand, feeding it oxygen so it erupts into a small flame over which the soup bubbled.

We laughed and I got laughed at, a usual occurrence I’ve long gotten used to. We made jokes, half of which got lost in translation either ways. The three-year-old Janet was up to her usual antics, and we all laughed at her dancing with the baby, Jethro. We laughed at my FAILED attempt to stir the T-Zed, the staple maize-based food in Ghana (see picture).

After all was said and done, the food was ready and the sky was darkening as the sun set in the direction of Saboba town. I peered over the compound wall, and saw vast green fields shuddering in the breeze that had finally come. A chill ran through me, not from the temperature but from the gut feeling of the natural beauty that was before me. It was that romantic image of Africa everyone talks about, the one that misses all the details, but yet is just gut-wrenchingly awesome in it’s power. A feeling of content brew in me.

“Why are you smiling?” Dana snapped me out of it, but ever so slightly.

“At home, in Canada, I do the same.” I tried to explain. “I always spend time with my mother, or my aunt, when they are cooking. Just like I am doing now.”

It was true. A nostalgic feeling was cursing through me, and I instantly felt… at peace. I knew this feeling; it was one I had been missing for a long time. It was the feeling… of home.

—

—

The Week Before May 29th.

Frustration, worry, and confusion were dominant in my thoughts when I put up the post Echoes and Dust during my second week here in Saboba. I now know it was a product of culture shock, being overwhelmed at the task before me, and the realities of working in development. Things are more on a roll now. Apart from the above, though, the frustrations were also a product of the fact that I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a persistent headache, was constantly tired, and had some digestive issues.

I was sure it was all psychological, and that it was the heat. Regardless, when I was talking to my EWB coach Dan he told me to get checked out at the local clinic in Saboba anyway. I don’t like bothering with doctors, but as the saying goes among us volunteers: “a fart is never just a fart in West Africa.” I agreed to get checked out as a precaution.

—

My friend Yousif and I ventured over to Saboba Medical Center, which is also a hospital. His kid, named Fortunate, was running a high fever, so we all went together. I got my health ID card, got a file made, and spoke to the other people seated in the outdoors waiting area waiting to be seen. There are really a few (maybe 3-5) qualified doctors at the hospital, one of them an enigmatic, rude American ex-pat who I had an argument with. I don’t pick fights with many people, but this woman just pushed me over the edge. And I wasn’t the only one; the entire hospital staff is vary of her, but staffing issues mean they have no choice.

Either way, because it was morning there wasn’t much rush at the clinic. I was seen by an elderly Ghanaian doctor who barely heard what I was saying, but told me to get a blood test and a urine test. I went over to the lab room, and after giving some blood I went around the back of the building give my urine sample. While the technician performed the tests (yup, I was standing right in the lab) we talked about medicine, and his work. He did the test for Malaria: negative. Typhoid: negative. I sighed, these were useless tests. They were only being done because I was a foreigner. They did the litmus test on the urine: all normal. I took the lab results (scribbled on the back of the requisition) to the doctor. He, without listening to me again, gave me a prescription that’ll “take care of all my problems.” It read:

  • Ciprofloxacin –> broad-spectrum antibiotic, also used to treat Typhoid. there was no way i was taking this for no good reason.
  • Doxycycline –> preventative anti-malarial. ridiculous. a) i didn’t have malaria. b) i am already taking an anti-malarial.
  • Potassium –> why the hell would I take potassium?

Needless to say I crushed the prescription as soon as I walked out, and did not buy-in to the ridiculous money-making drug dispensary the doctor wanted me to buy from. I was kind of pissed, because it literally was just a stamped-on carpet-bomb method of medicine! What if I was a patient with something actually seriously wrong?! What if I did not know what those drugs were, which most people walking into that clinic don’t; if you’re not sick with the right thing those drugs are bad for your system!

Yousif and I talked, and he said “we don’t have a choice. We have this, or we have nothing.” He was referring to the medical care, specifically for a Northern Region district. “Who wants to work here?”

He was right. In Ghana there is no incentive for doctors to come work in the rural communities. After medical school, you get placed; but because there is such a shortage most doctors can pretty much dictate where they serve. And why wouldn’t you work in a big city? Tamale, Kumasi, Accra… As a result health care available there is actually pretty decent.

Meanwhile, the people on the outskirts… they are left to fend with completely inadequate medical care.

Yousif told me generally people who get seriously sick will either die, or travel far to get good health care. He said that many times people can’t afford it. He told be about the times surgeries went horribly wrong at Saboba medical center; I won’t go into that.

On my way to Tamale for a meeting last week, I was sitting beside a coworker. Her daughter was puking her guts out with Typhoid. “Are you going to the hospital for your daughter?” I asked

“No, I’m going to Kumasi for a check-up. I have breast cancer.” Kumasi is 400 km from Saboba.

—

Ghana is really pushing to improve. I know development will reach these areas, albeit slowly. Unlike the US, Ghana actually has affordable government health insurance for all their citizens.

But I want to point out some things about Canada:

In Canada, you get paid more for working in a rural area. Your student loan is forgiven if you serve in an under-served community. In Canada, social welfare takes care of the sick. Most mentally ill people are supported, not marginalized and thrown onto the streets. In Canada, an ambulance will come get you in 3 minutes if you’re ill. There will always be doctors at the hospital, and priority will be given to the most grave situations.

We have many problems in Canada; I’m not denying that; but take this moment to really appreciate what we do have. Take this moment to count your fortunes, and be thankful of where we’re living and the systems in place to catch us when we fall.