That's Amorre

So I guess as far as basic updates go this week, there was a birthday party last Saturday for a girl on my program. A couple people threw her a surprise party, which I thought was really sweet. We all went out to dinner. Some people went out afterwards. I went back to the dorm, originally planning on going to bed, but then I got dragged out again by some different people on my floor and ended up having a really great night. We went to this rooftop bar in Osu and had some drinks and danced and stuff. Lots-o-fun.

Sunday and Monday were pretty unremarkable, but on Tuesday I went to my internship and there was a second Italian med student there. A male one. Which I soon realized meant that no one would talk to me the rest of the day. So with Twi conversations to my left, and Italian conversations to my right, and no women having babies, I was pretty bored all day. Well, kind of. In a way, the Italians were kind of entertaining. I don't know what they were talking about, as I could only guess based on my minimal knowledge of Spanish/Italian cognates. At one point they were talking about Mascarpone and some sort of pasta, which made me crave Italian food. But anyway, whatever it was they talked about all day, they seemed pretty flirtatious with each other. I felt like I was watching an Italian romcom with no subtitles. It was cute in like a nauseating way. I hope they live happily ever after and have lots of babies, those two gorgeous, tan, European, future-doctor sonsofbitches.

But speaking of my internship, I believe that Tuesday was probably my last day at the hospital. I know I said I was going to stick with it, but I found out the hospital internship won't count for a required field experience I need for my certificate in Global Health at UW. So instead I'm switching to the West African AIDS Foundation where I can help work on projects in community education and outreach focused on communicable diseases. It's a lot more focused on what I'm interested in. Honestly, as interesting as a maternity ward is, and as grateful as I am to have had that experience, I wasn't really sure why they placed me there. But it's all good now. I start at WAAF next week.

And speaking of hospitals, we have had our very first malaria case of the semester, ladies and gentlemen! This dude in my program went to the hospital yesterday morning with both malaria AND food poisoning, the poor guy. We just got back from visiting him, and he's doing fine and probably will be back on campus by tomorrow. Since I found out yesterday, I have been using my 40% DEET bug spray like a fiend, although I still almost forgot to take my malaria pill today. But it's not like it really makes that much of a difference. This kid was taking his pills regularly and still got it so you never know what'll happen.

Anywho, I feel like my blog posts have become less frequent because as the semester rolls on, and I've fallen into somewhat of a routine, there's less for me to say on a regular basis. So I'm going to attempt to change it up a bit and just talk about things I've been thinking about?

At the hospital earlier, we were talking about some sort of weird things we've noticed that I thought might be interesting to share. Kind of some quirks about Ghana that our group has noticed so far:

• Lots of people speak reeeeally quietly. Almost whispering. Sometimes I feel bad because I have to ask someone to repeat themselves like 5 times because when I tell them I can't hear them, they don't raise their voice. They just say what they said again at the same volume and I can't hear them. We were laughing about it because sometimes in our classes, a Ghanaian student will raise their hand and ask a question, and for some reason the professor can hear them perfectly but to us it sounded like a whisper and we have no idea what the question was. Do Americans just have bad hearing? Who knows. It's even more strange to me because they blast their music so loud everywhere here, yet speak so quietly in one on one conversations. I don't understand.
• But it goes both ways. Sometimes we forget about how fast we speak English. Some of the people in my program have said they've asked questions in their classes and everyone just starts laughing at them because apparently we speak so quickly to them that they don't understand at all. It's interesting because I didn't expect communication to be as difficult as it is sometimes. I expected that because everyone here speaks English, there wouldn't really be a problem. Usually it's not that much of a problem, but you just have to pay attention to your speaking sometimes and remember to speak just a little bit slower.
• No one ever seems to have change. It blows my mind sometimes. I mean, when it's at the market or something, I completely understand. It seems reasonable to me that someone selling stuff at the market would expect you to pay exact change. But I was at shoprite last weekend (which is like a target or some sort of supermarket like that) and they didn't even have enough change when I paid for my stuff. Some people even get frustrated with you when you need change. But it's not my fault the ATM only gave me 10-cedi bills and I can't find where to exchange it for smaller ones. It's frustrating sometimes because when they don't have change, people just tell you to come back later and get it, but by the time you come back, how many people have they told that to? And will they remember they owe you money or believe you when you ask for it? And if this keeps happening, how am I even going to remember which places still owe me money? It stresses me out. The people in the kitchen of ISH still owe me like 1 cedi from a couple weeks ago but I waited too long to ask for it back. But it's like 60 cents or something. Shit happens.
• Twi is difficult. And there are some words that are really hard for Americans to pronounce because we don't use some of the sounds they use. For instance, if you mispronounce the word "hwe", (sounds kind of like "schweh") you could mean to say the verb "to look" but accidentally say "vagina" instead. Not that the mix up would cause too many problems, but it might just be pretty embarrassing.
• A lot of people immediately assume I'm either British or German. Even just earlier tonight, there was a Ghanaian driving down the street who rolled down his window and was shouting "ALLES KLAR?? ALLES KLAR???" at me. I have no idea what he meant by that. But I've been wondering why people make those assumptions right away, like whether it's based on what I'm wearing, or whatever.
• Here, the word "soon" doesn't necessarily mean "soon". I was laughing about that with one of my Ghanaian friends when we were out last night because one of my friends wanted to leave where we were and he kept saying we'd leave "soon", but we didn't leave for another hour and a half or something. Or someone will tell you they're on their way to somewhere, and that they'll be there "soon", but actually they're still in the process of getting ready and they won't even leave their place for another half an hour. I guess it's just that there's no hurry here. I kind of like that. Though sometimes it makes making plans a little more difficult, when you show up somewhere about half an hour to an hour before everyone else. I'm still trying to figure out what "soon" means.

Those are just a few observations. Can't think of much more right now, even though I know there are more.

By the way, this is kind of late to bring up, but if anyone ever wants to send me letters or anything, I would love you forever and ever. I miss all of you back home and getting mail gives me warm fuzzies inside. However, no one should feel obligated to.

The address for me here is:

Hannah Goodno

c/o Kwasi Gyasi Gyamerah

CIEE Study Center

Office of International Programs

Private Mail Bag 31

University of Ghana

Legon, Ghana, West Africa

Cape Coast, V-ball, and V-day

Lots of things to update! I don't have much time though so I can't write as much as I'd like to about each thing...

Cup of Nations update: So in case anyone was curious, I actually didn't have class last Wednesday. The professor didn't show up because of the game, so instead a bunch of us went to a bar and watched the game from there. Ghana lost, unfortunately, and then played for 3rd place and lost that game too, so they didn't place this year. Ohh well.

Then this past weekend, we went to Cape Coast. We left Legon early Saturday morning, and drove straight to Elmina Castle--the largest former slave fort in West Africa. First thing that struck me was the unsettling irony of how beautiful the architecture of the castle is , despite knowing about all the horrible things that happened there. It was a really emotional tour. We were brought down into the dungeons where slaves were packed in by the hundreds for months at a time in almost complete darkness, and walked through what they called "the door of no return." We had a discussion about the experience later that night after dinner, where a lot of people shared their thoughts, which was nice because it was interesting to hear about how everyone else felt.

That same afternoon, we went to a workshop on batiking, which is  this way of dying fabric with stamped designs. The place we went to was called Global Mamas, which is an NGO that focuses on fair trade practices and employs a bunch of women to make clothing with batiked fabric to export. There's also a store here in Osu. I need to get over there at some point because they make some really cute stuff. I wanted to buy it all… But anyway, we learned how they do the batiking by stamping the designs in wax on the fabric, and then dyeing it. We made our own banners for our CIEE olympic teams. Someone's going to judge them for us and decide on a winner.

Then on Sunday we went to Kakum National Park to do a canopy walk through the rainforest!  It was amazing. Although, I was a little more scared than I thought I'd be. Before it I was all, "I ain't afraid of no heights," until I got on that rickety rope bridge, looked down, and thought about how people have died on much sturdier structures before. But the view was incredible. I'll put up pictures eventually, but I lent out my camera cord so I have to get that back first…

So Cape Coast was a success. Other updates:

I joined the volleyball team! Kind of. Everyone is welcome to come to practices every day at 3, but there's an actual team that you have to be good enough to make if you want to compete. I don't know if I'll make it, as I haven't played in a while, but so far I'm the tallest one there so maybe that will be to my advantage…?

Also, for an update on the internship situation, I've been debating with myself a lot lately about whether or not I should stick with it. I don't want to go into the boring details of that, but I think I'm just going to stick with it. I just was hoping for something more focused on public health since I'm not pre-medicine, but I know of a place I can volunteer at to learn about PH a little more. Also, things went really well at the hospital yesterday so I feel better about it. I'll just have to accept that some days there's literally nothing to do, and some days there are women pretty much lined up out the door to have babies. So yesterday was a busier day. I saw 2 more births, tried to awkwardly provide comfort for the women in labor, and me and the other student there hung out with the doctor all day and he had us help him place IV lines and then when there was nothing to do he helped us with our Twi.

Also, happy belated Valentine's Day everyone! I got a call from my parents, which was very nice. My friend and I spent our night at a pizza place, where we had to wait for 3 hours (not an exaggeration) for our pizza because the place was packed for buy one get one free night, and it takes forever to get food here anyway, no matter where you go. We were there all sweaty in our volleyball clothes while everyone else was all nice and dressed up, probably on dates with their valentines. So that was cute.

Anyway, hope everyone had a great valentine's day, regardless of relationship status :)

Salad, soccer, oburonis, and babies

I apologize for the negative tone of my last post. I was fine by the next day, thanks to some much needed down time on Friday. I didn't really do anything all day, which was really nice, because normally there's always something planned for us. I just read my book and hung out around ISH.

On Saturday afternoon we had to go to this "welcome durbar" for new international students. There was amazing food and performances, one of which I took part in. It was a dance that we'd been working on for a while, and it went pretty well. If someone puts up a video on youtube and I decide it's not too embarrassing, I'll put it up here. Maybe. Then after dinner there was just normal, non-choreographed dancing. It was like one big, awkward wedding where no one really knows each other. But I had fun. And again, there was free food that was incredible. Goat stew and jollof rice and some noodley dishes and chicken aaaand SALAD. I almost wet myself. (After eating nothing but simple carbohydrates for over 2 weeks, salad is like heaven. I have never appreciated raw vegetables so much in my life.)

Sunday was another uneventful day. I know ya'll probably watched the Superbowl, but I decided that I didn't care enough about either the Giants or the Patriots to take a cab all the way to a bar super late at night to watch the game just for the commercials. Instead, I watched Ghana beat Tunisia in soccer. They're now moving on to the quarter-finals, which is tonight. I can't believe I'm actually following sports. But it's so much more fun to watch here, because everyone's so nuts about it. In a different way than people are nuts about sports in the states. When they scored their first goal in the game, the cheering in the TV room was deafening, someone literally forced me to stand up and jump around with them and then everyone started dancing and singing this song in Twi or something. Nationalism at its finest.

In other news, I finally had a normal, non-CIEE lecture! It was interesting, because it's just a much different system than I'm used to. The professors here will repeat every sentence 2 or 3 times and everyone is expected to copy it down verbatim.  And then we got out of class about an hour early because my professor suspected that no one was going to pay attention after the first 45 minutes or so. I was cool with it.

Also, I made a potential new friend in class today, because we had to share a desk because there were too many people and not enough desks in the room. She was really friendly and we chatted for a while before class started. After class she left really quickly but then later tracked me down because she said she forgot to say goodbye. I kind of laughed to myself because we had just met, and in the US, I don't know a single person who would do that. I would never do that. Sometimes I get taken aback by how friendly some people are. Its one of my favorite things about Ghana so far. I think it's helping me to try harder to be less shy than I normally would be back home, because I've figured out that in general, people don't really respond to you much if you're really quiet or don't greet someone right away. I'm still working on it though. It's hard to try to be more outgoing all the time when I'm not usually like that, but I figure it's better than people thinking that I'm being rude to them.

And on that note, I'm getting better at trying to make people stop ignoring me so much at the hospital. I've introduced myself to several of the nurses, and (besides the midwife, who I'm slightly terrified of) they all seem really nice. Besides the fact that they still call me 'oburoni' instead of my name. There's also an Italian medical student in the maternity ward with me this month, and it gets confusing trying to figure out which oburoni they're talking to sometimes. I think she's definitely the favorite though, because she's in med school and actually knows things, unlike me. I'm pretty useless there. But I might get to start helping more soon! Yesterday I watched them deliver another baby and watched while the Italian girl cleaned all the blood and stuff off of the baby, and they told me I'd get to do the next one. But then it ended up being time for me to leave before the next woman delivered. Bummer.

I'm headed off to my 3:30 class, which I'm hoping won't meet today because the soccer game starts at 4. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, though. We'll see.

One of those days...

Sorry if I'm posting here too often. Writing about stuff feels like therapy though. And I need some therapy right now.
I had a pretty bad day. I have absolutely no idea what's going on at my internship, and I feel like there's no one there who can tell me. I went to the hospital this morning and immediately got lost trying to find the maternity ward. When I found it, they sent me into the labor room to the lady who is the head nurse/midwife person. They told me she would be right with me, but then everyone immediately seemed to forget I was there and so I sat there for an hour until I finally just got up and asked the head nurse what I should do, and she sent me to another part of the ward. One of the nurses had me help her with the laundry at first, but then we got back from that and there was nothing for me to do but watch what was going on around me. So I just followed people around for a while who didn't seem to know who I was or why I was there, and I felt like an idiot. Especially because everyone was speaking Twi constantly and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I watched some doctor put an IV in a newborn baby, and an IV of blood into a pregnant lady, but when I asked anyone questions about what was going on, nobody would really answer.
Fortunately though, I met this girl from Denmark who had been at the hospital volunteering for about a month in different wards, and she told me that out of all the wards she's worked in so far, the maternity ward has been the hardest to figure out what's going on and what you're supposed to do. So she told me I should just walk back and forth  from the main part of the ward to the labor room and just watch stuff. So I did. And I walked back into the labor room and asked the midwife lady if I could just observe what she was doing for a while, and she said she was about to deliver twins. So I ended up in the delivery room. I saw twins being born today. nbd. (?!?!) Still not sure how I feel about that.
After that strange experience, I went back to the other part of the ward where absolutely nothing was happening, and just sat there with the girl from Denmark until the end of our shifts.
And then on the trotro ride home, I was approached by some creepy-ass guy who made me super uncomfortable and I missed my stop, which is why I am at the CIEE office and not at home napping right now. Luckily though, the stop I got off at had a convenience store right there, where I got ice cream to make myself feel better. And I vented to a UPal about my day and he said that it sounded like a pretty typical first day for these internships. Frustration, confusion, people completely ignoring you, etc.
Hopefully it'll get better.

Hallelujah

So I guess I was misinformed when I wrote my last post. It's not actually the lecturers that are on strike like I was told at first. It's the workers at the university who do the cleaning and taking care of the buildings and stuff like that. Apparently it's been a really long time since they've been paid for their overtime hours, so they're now on strike. And I don't actually know if that's why we're not having class the first week, or if it's more just the fact that a lot of Ghanaian students have yet to register for classes, since they let international students register a bit earlier. Either way, I'm going to try to go to lecture about an hour from now on the off-chance I actually have class today, but I doubt anyone else will show up.

I have had a few classes already though. We started the classes that we're taking through CIEE, like Twi and Development studies. Twi is really fun. Our professor is this adorable man who's really energetic and hilarious and ends every other sentence with "Hallelujahpraisethelord!" We've had two classes so far, and I've already gotten to use my new Twi phrases on the trotro! Some guy asked me how I was in Twi and I answered and asked him the same, and he answered. And I was thrilled. Until he asked me another question I didn't understand a word of. Blank stare.

Also, I finally went to my internship yesterday with one other girl from my program to meet our supervisor and tour the different wards. I'm going to be starting in the maternity ward, which sounds intense. I can't wait to start in the public health area in the family planning clinic though. We walked in there and made friends with a bunch of the pregnant ladies who were lined up to see the doctors. They were funny. They kept asking us if we were pregnant too. Umm no. Hallelujahpraisethelord.

The hospital was interesting though. Most of it is not air conditioned, some parts are pretty run-down and it's very crowded. I don't want to judge before I've started though. We'll see how it goes. Still haven't gotten my white coat yet though, because the dude who sells them in the chem department is one of the people on strike. But I officially start working there tomorrow.

I'm off to class! I'll probably just end up at home in about half an hour...