Goodbye and stay healthy

Said goodbye to the girls at 5am (they were leaving to Mole park for the weekend) and met Mike at the bus stop around 10am to catch the bus towards Accra. Then waited around the airport along with all the other western people (which was quite strange I thought) until the flight. 

My doctor, Aggie

So surprised to see these bags on the streets, so I just had to buy one haha. 

Well this is it, the famous Komfo Anokye sword - not that exciting

The Komfo Anokye sword museum

Making some Dutch pancakes for our last night together

GOODBYE!

Flight back to Amsterdam

~THE END~

Komfo Anokye Hospital moments

Hanging around A&E

Last day at the hospital. Aggie, my doc, had nightshift the previous night so she has been at A&E from 8am to 8pm and then from 8pm to 8am but in fact she finally closed around noon after the big ward round with the professor and a spontaneous meeting promoting the drug 'Lipitor' by David who works for Pfeizer. Lipitor claims to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and MI by 42% if I remember correctly. 

Scrubbing up for the labour ward

ICU

Yam and Plantain for lunch

Key to the staff toilet

The ICU unit

Some pictures

Fufu

45 stamps

ICU burns unit

Weekend Splash to the East

5am departure

Travelled to Hohoe by Metromass bus. It took 11 hours to get there from Kumasi. 

Exploded tyre with a very big rupture

Still we kept driving for at least half an hour before we stopped to change it

Hohoe - drumming with Jojo

Here we bought a kente bag and I had some colouful kente shorts made. We also played a local game called "Oware"

Princesses Sarah and Jo in our room at the Pacific guesthouse in Hohoe

Kiddies in Hohoe - gave them some stamps =D

Street view of Hohoe

Sunday - Early start. Left the room at 6AM, took  a trotro to the Wli waterfalls and started the tiring trek at 07.30. In total we hiked for 6 hours, it was very tiring. Especially with the slippery grounds with the rain. It was actually quite dangerous with climbing along steep slopes. It was clear we walked at such a fast pace since we overtook the group in front of us who left an hour earlier from the base. Carefully watching our steps and not being able to rest for too long on one spot since the ants would climb into our shoes and trousers in just a second and start biting and holding on very tightly we made it to the upper falls. We were told by other people who went to bring swimming wear to swim underneath the fall but it was freezing up there with the cold wind and splashing water.

Finally after 4 hour hike we made it to the upper falls 

After a few minutes we returned back down to the lower falls, which we actually thought were nicer than the upper ones, so just to mention, the exhausting trek to the upper falls is not worth it unless you really enjoy the hard trek. 

The lower falls

Monday

Walking through Hohoe

Lake Volta

Trying to buy Fanjogo through the window of the bus

Wli village

Kpando - Lake Volta in background

We were planning to be adventurous and take the ferry across the lake, then two trotros, a bus, cross the lake again and then a bus to get back to Kumasi. We though since we have the whole day to get back this would be possible, also judging by the book this seemed possible. However already after getting to the second stretch where we had to cross the lake (the largest artificial lake in the world) this was difficult because there were no more ferries going to Agordeke (the town where we had to be to take the trotro) since a few years (btw our guidebook is 5 years old so no surprise). We could though charter a small canoe type boat across which we almost did but the fishermen were asking a big price. Finally we got it down to 30 cedis but then decided not to go and stick to the safe side and just take the direct bus to Kumasi.

But then another problem, this bus already left early in the morning so that was no longer possible. We could take a bus to Accra and then from there to Kumasi but that would take longer than necessary.

So then after taking a taxi back to the town we changed our minds and decided to take the canoe boat across (which would take 1 hour according to the guys at the lake and 2 hours according to the guidebook). We mustve seemed really strange to the local people, they kept on taking pictures of us right in our face, and also that we wanted to get into a canoe (we only saw boats being pushed with a stick and paddle so this was really funny, but there were a few with engines) and cross the biggest artificial lake in the world with rainy clouds on the way. After trying to find the owner of the boat back again with no luck we headed back again to Kpando disappointed of missing out the boat ride but maybe safer in the end. From here we took a trotro to Ho (capital of the Volta region) to hope for a bus to Kumasi which we were told there was, but after 1.5 hours when we arrived at Ho there was no more bus of course. So we had to take a trotro to Accra which must've taken 4.5 hours. Tried the STC bus station but no more buses to Kumasi from there so finally ended up taking the VIP 20 cedis bus 6 hour comfortable trip. So in total we spent around 16 hours getting back to Kumasi from Hohoe.

Market day fish - trying to find a boat to take us across

Plantain girl at Ho

Final bus to Kumasi - Fanyogo (frozen yoghurt in a bag) which was covered with an advertising paper from Kruidvat from NL! Quite funny

5 August

Joined Sarah at her A&E day with Team A

A & E day

A&E day. Quite boring I must say. Met up with Sarah and Johanna to shop at Melcom and visit Mike at the office. Got some cool Light for children t-shirts. Afterwards we bumped into these Chinese guys who are friends of a guy in ward D5? and is one of Sarah's patients. They invited us out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant which was so luxurious, like an oasis stepping into China with Chinese TV and only Chinese people walking around and the usual decorations. It didn't feel like Africa anymore. These guys were here for gold mining. They seemed quite well off with 2 iphones each and a nice big airco car and of course for inviting us (which was quite pricey, well for Africa and compared to the prices in China). I was able to understand some things they were saying in Mandarin and tried out some things too.
The evening was quite random and ended with washing clothes in the very widely used bucket.

The modern A&E Orange department

KATH day 3

I've realised I probably would not want to work here at KATH (Komfo Anokye Teaching Officer). Everything is quite slack and seems not too serious too me. Today the lab results from one of our patients showed she had PTB (pulmonary tuberculosis) after a few days of lying in the ward and potentially passing it on to others perhaps? She was transferred to another ward but that did take some time.
There are so many nurses around in the wards but they all seem like ants slowly running around like headless chickens (sorry but that is what it seems like to me). They seem to be not too caring. Also I've noticed some situations which you would never ever see back home. Okay the bed sheets seem to get changed quite often but then they seem to use the same towel to wash different patients. Oh and also there was a nurse walking around just waving an exposed needle around (without gloves) and then 10 minutes later she stuck it into the patient, but that was definitely not sterile anymore because it's been lying around opened up already.
Not only bad things though, they do have enough materials and meds and definitely not under staffed.