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.

At the clinic

Long day. Spent today with Dr.Agnes Arthur at the clinic for hypertension and diabetes out patients. I was allowed to write all the prescriptions copying them from the patients record. It all took very long because we could only leave when all the patients have been seen and they (all very elderly people) just kept on coming. Although they didn't at all look their age, 80 year olds looking as if they were 50, that was surprising to notice.
Also met a really friendly med student girl from Kings college doing her elective here and she gave me all these tips for applying to med. She's here also for 2 weeks but is in another team than me, in team E I think.
Finished at 4pm and now going back to the house to meet Sarah and Johanna and maybe get our cloths tailored into some clothes.

Mole National Park

Quickly returned to the house to collect my backpack and went straight to the bus station where after 3 hours of waiting took a bus to Tamale. This Metro Mass bus was so uncomfortable!

Kumasi bus station

After about 6 hours of continuous bumpy roads completely squashed in my seat, we arrived in Tamale at about 9pm at night. There were some other UK students on the bus to who I tagged along to. I was actually planning on staying in Tamale for the night and head to Mole early the next morning. However they wanted to go the Mole or Larabanga (village near Mole) straight away just to get there and make most of the next day. It was a hassle to find a taxi for the 5 of us since the road was very bad and quite far. Agreeing to pay 125 cedis (25 cedis each) we headed off on what was to become a crazy journey.

We kept on breaking down. First of all, the front right tyre punctured and completely deflated because of one of the many many potholes so we had to stop in the middle of the bush in the pitch black surrounded by lions and elephants. Then the battery started to keep dying, so therefore the engine was very weak and about to stop every time and the head lights kept switching off, so therefore the driver had to use a handtorch through the window to see the road and mind the potholes. We also had to often get out of the car, push and then quickly jump back in while it was driving which was quite fun. What made things worse was all the police checks and also later on the heavy rain which made the road very difficult to see.

We almost had to stay the night in a little hut with the locals where we stopped for half an hour where the driver was trying to fix the engine.

Finally after 5-6 hours we arrived at Larabanga and very kind that one of the Salia brothers waited for us to arrive. But, while we were stopped with these local people for a while, another taxi came past with Western people and they arrived before us to the guesthouse of course and told the brothers that we had car problems and that we wouldn't make it to come so then they got our rooms! Very rude people! Also for just leaving us there stranded with no lights while they were perfectly fine and quickly headed off into the darkness.

Our hut at Salia brothers lodge

When we arrived in the rain and thunderstorm at 4AM, one of the brothers brought us to another guesthouse they have, called Savannah lodge (which sounds very luxury I though, actually a lodge, a big thing, but no this wasn't the case). They kindly put down matrasses in the kitchen for us and helped us with our mosquito nets. They especially waited for us so this was very nice.

Sleeping on kitchen floor

We were only to sleep for a couple of hours through the thunderstorm though since we wanted to go on the morning safari walk, but because of the rain this wasn't possible. So we slowly had breakfast (peanut butter breads and tea) and moved to two round huts where we could stay the night next. These were the real houses where the local people lived in, with mud walls and thatched roofs. So I stayed with the other girl, Susy, in one of them and the guys (Ben, Sam and Jacob) stayed in another hut. It only cost 6 cedis per night which they claim to be the cheapest in Ghana. These costs are used to run a school (set up by the brothers along with other projects such as watering systems and other schools in the area) right next to the guesthouse where the local kids can attend for free, so they use the accomodation costs to pay for the teachers which is 60 cedis per month per teacher.

The UK students on the way to park entrance

We walked an hour to the entrance of the Mole park right when the rain stopped and organised to go on a 2 hour walk with a ranger. Here we met some other travellers who were all doing volunteering here as well. The walk was nice but didn't see any big animals. The usual kobs, bushbucks and waterbucks, crocodiles (from the viewing platform), monkeys, baboons, birds and that's about it. The nature was more nice to see though than the animals, all the greenery and fresh air.

We then had lunch (which we already ordered in the morning so that it would be ready by the afternoon). I had macaroni cheese which was allright for saying it was Ghana. And it was nice to sit overlooking the big water hole and the panorama of all the greenery of the park.

Warthog

Croc

Later I joined a jeep safari with 4 other girls (Italian, German and Australian) and a couple from NY. This was 21 cedis per person for 2 hours. It was fun to sit on the roof of the jeep.

 

And....we saw elephants!

3 big ones. We got out of the jeep and walked towards them. This was very nice.

But one of the girls in our group kept on walking closer to them to get better pictures, so then one of the elephants starting flapping its ears and started charging at us so we rapidly had to run away. This was a bit scary if it actually would've charged into us but luckily after we backed away the elephant kept back as well and they all walked away.

The only way to get back to Tamale from Larabanga was to catch the 4am Metro Mass bus and since I really needed to back that day I could not take the risk of waiting for a later one which might never even come. The Americans staying with us at the Salia brothers lodge were also leaving and when we arrived at Tamale they asked if I wanted to join their bus to Kumasi. Also 3 random dutch girls tagged along, students from Maastricht, they were very friendly and happy that they came along as well because we were brought to a friend of one of the Americans house to sit, play cards and wait until the bus left. But after sitting there for 4 hours or so, the dutch girls and I really wondered what we were doing here. One of the girls from the group also had malaria and was very sick, this is because she had been given the wrong tablets for which the mosquitos are resistant here.

I realised my money went faster than I expected and was left with only 11 cedis to get back to Kumasi. The trip turned out to be more expensive than I thought it would be. The sleeping was very cheap at 6 cedis a night but the food and drinks at Mole Motel were quite expensive, but it was so hot that I was quite thirsty and hungry so couldn't really do without. The trip cost me in total about 133 cedis, not that bad.

One of the American girls, Erinn, was very kind and gave me 10 cedis so that I could join their bus costing 20 cedis (which wasn't worth it btw since we were all squashed on eachother and other local people were just put on stools in between the aisles of the minibus). Of course I would return the money to her the next day since they would be here in Kumasi for 2 nights and their hotel was sort of near the hospital so no problem.

The squashed minibus to Kumasi