Wli children

Wli Village~ weekend outing

HoHoe, here we go

Took a tro tro to the HoHoe area for a weekend in nature! It was wonderful and so refreshing :) From Hohoe there is a little village called "Wli"about 15 minutes by taxi, where we stayed Saturday night. This village is the real deal! No longer concrete huts, but red mud huts scattered among the lush Africa jungle. Each person, adult and child stops their banging of cassava for dinner with their long wooden sticks, or from carrying big, metal water buckets on their heads, along the trail to hold their hands up and say "You are Welcome" These people are beautiful! There is so much behind each set of eyes.

Saturday took a short hike to the Wli lower waterfall and stood there for a long while just feeling the power of the water crashing down 1600 feet above us. It was so windy! After the locals gave us a beautiful African dance performance and dragged me up on stage for a dance lesson, and after the drums stopped drum, drum druming through the night..slept until the rooster outside my window crow, crow, crowed at the top of its lungs, ha! Got up since sleeping wasn't an option, ate a good breakfast, and headed out for our 5hr trek up the beautiful mountain range to the upper falls. It was quite the adventure..switchbacking up the mountain did not exist..instead we made our way straight up! or straight down! with either a 6 inch trail...or no trail.. pushing back jungle brush well above my head. Our little, guide Alfonso told me there was a 100% chance we would not encounter any snakes... i told him i think thats a good number :) What we did encounter was hundreds of beautiful colored butterfies, bugs, and preying mantis. It was crazy tiring, but well worth it. I think i'm gonna go back, as the cook offered to let me join in behind the kitchen to learn the secrets of making Fufu, and their special..mushroom soup!

On the way home smooshed in with a tro tro full of locals, and my friend Hettie & I asking them a million questions about Christmas celebration in Africa, and starred out the window getting a glimpse of African nightlife in the country. Amazing weekend :) and Christmas is around the corner here now, on and off the ship!

Man of my dreams!

Found me a chocolate man! table of drying cocoa beans from the Wli village forest

Ghanian culture

learning Ghanian culture...

have 70 different dialects...offical one is English :)

average daily income is $5

Tribal marks most often seen on the ward-
a horizontal line below the left eye (even on babies!)
on forearm, homemade ink pen tattoos- first line is for their name, 2nd- name of
their Tribe, 3rd- name of their father's tribe

Known for production of Cocoa, rice, gold, fabrics

It is an insult to wave, point, or shake with your left hand as that is the hand you supposedly "wipe" with! Considered "unclean" and rude

Knives, spoons, forks do not exist at the dinner table! You must use your right hand as your spoon.

Main dishes: Fufu (mashed cassava), Banku & Kenkey (fermented maize), beans, rice & fried plaintains.

"Madarse" is Thank you, "Dabie" is no in Twee...the only words i know and can remember thus far. the word please doesn't exist.

"Toilet" means # 2. They laugh at me if i say popo!

"Minerals" means Coke or Fanta (soda)

lanes on the highway serve no purpose

take your shoes off before going in a home

they love their Nigerian soap operas.

will have cellphones and a television in their home, but no running water and 1 bed for the family.

4 choices for transportation: foot, taxi, tro-tro, or bus. You take your chances with all of em'!

If you go to a remote village..make sure you meet the chief. If he offers you a small glass of potent alcohol, pour a few drops on the ground before drinking as a sign of honoring the forefathers. Tribal political power is as prevalant as the offical government.

Ghanians are very friendly people! They will always remember your name. Very generous and outgoing.

sometimes a little TOO friendly. Marriage proposals, and I Luv yous, come after "my name is ___" ! I read that this is because otherwise their Ghanian woman don't take the men seriously.

* Reading a book on Hot and Cold cultures.. and their cultural characteristics, how they socially interact with people differently. Its called "Foreign to Familiar". They consider the southern U.S. a "hot culture". Hot- more relational oriented/indirect communication Cold- business first, direct communication. Living in Texas the past 2 years, and growing up in Michigan, its been really interesting to look back at my life, and now here in Ghana and see how right on the book is... and figuring out how to not offend people with my own cultural norms from both places, or even where i fall in that scheme! Good read for travel lovers :)

a latte' rest

Laying low this week in the air conditioning, catching up on some R & R between work. The Ward has been fun, but crazy as its a full on pediatric ward for me now. Lots of Cleft lip and palate repairs, palatoplastys, debulking/amputations, cataracts, etc. If one cries...they all get upset and cry! I found out this week balloons make for better pain control than narcotics! It looks like a circus down there now! :) ahh gotta love organized chaos! (kids suddenly on the floor squatting by their beds peeing into containers they've found, as they are used to doing) Charades can take you pretty far if a translator isn't near by. Always an entertaining shift...never boring thats for sure.

If anyone is interested in sending toys, we have a PATHETIC toy bin: half of the puzzle pieces missing, fully colored in coloringbooks, mismatched lego connector pieces. Toys are a wOnderFul method for distraction during wound care, pain control, and/or to simply pass the time, waiting for healing; I would love to see that thing double, brimming with functional toys, new or used~ in fact, i'm making it my new personal mission. Also, this is so funny to me for some reason, but the adults LOVE to watch the old Ten Commandment movies over and over again! (EVERYDAY) VeggieTales too. If you have any old ones laying around you stopped watching 10 years ago or would like to donate some toys, please let me know!!!!!

Started a new side hobby as well this week... on my way to becoming a Starbucks BaRistA*! We have a coffeeshop on the upperdeck in our meditteranean lounge area where staff goes to relax and hang out... You want a latte', a lotta lattes i'm your girl :) I'm not gonna lie, it was a little like the chocolate factory episode on " I Love Lucy" trying to get all the concontions right, but so fun for me, luckily the training has only begun.

Thursday evening, got a tour of the engine room. Amazing! I'm even more convinced engineers are brillant, genus people! I felt like I was in a spaceship~ there is a whole underworld to the ship you would never know is there! The engine pistons run three stories high!

There is a tropical storm nearby this week so the boat is moving a ton, huge waves crashing on the breaker. Even the slightest movement makes you feel like you're going crazy in the head, tipsy topsy.. hope its over soon.

This coming week I do night shift duty, but the following weekend my friend Hettie and I are planning a trip to HoHoe to see a waterfall and climb the highest point in Ghana. Until then, I'm happy with laying low :)

the bead factory

Saturday took an adventure to the bead factory! Had to take a Tro Tro (kinda like a big van) to a town called KPong 2 hours away. Fit 25 people in there! This is the furtherest away from the ship I've been so far, the more outside of Tema we got, the more green and lush it became. Reminded me a bit of the tropical Dominican mountains and forest...beautiful!

Saturday is also the only day of the week that people in Ghana have funerals. So as we drove through the village streets, we saw probably about 10 funerals taking place. They dress in black and red linens. For them, a funeral means a celebration of life. They carry the casket down the dirt road while family and friends dance and sing along their sides. It was amazing, made me all teary- eyed.

After a Tro Tro ride, taxi, and walking about 2 miles on foot, the end of the middle of nowhere dirt path led us to circle of small buildings (the factory)surronded by HUGE mango trees. Mr Cedi of Cedi beads himself gave us a demonstration of how each one is hand crafted.

Most are made from crushed glass bottles, others are made from red dirt/clay from termite mounds. Apparantly their saliva used to build their homes, helps the clay they make their beads out of withstand hot, hot temperatures during the firing. Each molds of bead are fired around 800 degrees celcius! If they are hand painted they need two rounds of firing and 2-3 days of cooling.

After the demonstration went to the local bead market and did some shopping! It was SO fun to wander through rows and rows of hanging beads. Went home and have spent Sunday morning, stringing and creating my finds. Most strings of beads cost anywhere from 20-60 cents. However, they also had a section in the market with lots of older beads that were a little bit more expensive; bought a few beautiful, long, white beads that been handed down from generation to generation through their grandparents. For all my artsy amigos, I documented the bead making process for you on the photo link. enjoy!

Olivia & her Mushroom hut

Olivia, 23y, is one of 24 woman chosen in a M.S. program to help start a mushroom business. She graduates from the program in December and hopes to sell her mushrooms to local hotels and resturants. Met her Wednesday doing home visits with my friend Uta. Got to go into 6 different woman's homes in Ashaimen to see how the construction of the mushrooms huts went. She did a fine job! She is also a fabric maker and one day soon, she has invited me to go back to shadow her for a day in the tye dying fabric factory in the middle of the village to see the process. I'm very much looking forward to this :) Did I mention how much I'm loving all this!

the African cradle

"aunTie Steph"

On attempt #4 success! Lets just say there is a reason God made African woman with big packages up front... not holding on me!! This is the way woman carry their bebes here :) They laugh at me in the ward when i pick them up and put them on my hip. Its so precious to see them sleeping in these at the marketplace.

O.R.S. education

In Ashiamen village- the poorest community outside Tema. These are 5 out of the 25 local leaders being taught and trained in Maternal Health principles. They are learning how to take the knowledge back to their villages and educate their communities. Today, sat in on one of Mercy Ship's communitiy dev. classes on how to make a O.R.S (Oral Rehydration Solution)to replace fluids lost from rampant diahrrea. A pinch of salt and a palm of sugar!! Taught simple signs and symptoms to look for in severely dehydrated children and adults and how to treat it, how to break the cycle of diseases that cause diahrrea. Taught three cheap different ways to purify water. (Around 30,650 people die each day from diahrrea)
We had a fun time mixing up the O.R.S. and taste testing each others. I think I put too much salt in mine!

Fishing village

Monday morning went on my walk to the lighthouse and decided to go a bit further outside the offical port walls... what i found was absolutely breathtaking. This is just one of many pictures i tried to capture of this little fishing village in Tema. Fish 3 feet long in bowls on woman's heads, baskets and baskets full of little fish, crabs, stingray. New boats being chiesled into being among the old tattered ones. Thousands of fish being washed and then thrown back onto the dirt to be dried and sold. A little further up the beach we saw remains of old sunken ships, a soccer game, and smoke houses where goats and little children where coming out of no where. This is like a little piece of heaven on earth :) I felt so alive, I can't wait to go back!

(link on the left for the rest of the pictures)

view from my favorite spot at the lighthouse

Agnes my dear & me

She got to go home this week! I will miss her.

Sam & Bernice

Full Moon *

Hello! What a week its been~ was it a full moon this week? Strange things kept happening. My week started with a big CRASH... monday night at the end of my shift we were all sitting down to give the next batch of nurses report when i heard a pulse oximeter beeping on one of my collegue's patients. I walked over to see what was causing it and our very first Thyroidectomy patient (removal of a huge goiter)was coding!! She turned a horrible ash color, eyes rolled back and the left side of her neck started to swell to the size of a cantalope completely occluding her airway! I just froze for a second..looking at her is disbelief, we had JUST talked about how bleeding was a RARE risk from this type of surgery. Adrenaline kicked in and ran for the oxygen and crash cart, 911 emergency team was called and about 20 minutes later she was put on the pulley system to the OR to reconnect her carotid artery. Found out later she lost all her blood, but was quickly replaced with IV fluid and blood tranfusions. Well, I guess God answered two of my prayers... I got to see my miracle and she lived! I keep playing it over and over in my mind and there is no way she should have survived that. I was sure she was gone. It was quite emotional and hard for me to continue work this week, but the staff has been great and we are all really becoming a team. My nightmares have ceased thankfully and 2 days ago she was extubated and walking around making funny comments as she is still a little doped up!

The other real life nightmare this week was happening simultaneously as the code... the sewage system was broken on 3/4 of the toilets on the ship for 2 days! enough said. Its fixed now, thank goodness.

Got another new roommate this week that i'm really excited about. She is working as one of the Community Health directors (one of my other huge interests here) and seems to be really adventerous, I'm looking forward to getting to know her better :)

This week got to go see some of the other ministry sites. Mercy Ships has some on-shore projects such as building a maternity ward unit extenstion to the local hospital. They designed it after the typical model here in Ghana (4 women laboring in ONE ROOM!) yikes. Its interesting how modesty plays a big part here in some ways but not in others?? Also building a HIV/AIDS education center just for teens as they found out that many weren't going to get help b/c they were afraid of running into their elders at the local hospital. They just layed the foundation. I have such a huge respect for these workers. They make it brick by brick in hot, hot weather (6 degrees from the equator)!! Also saw the dental and eye clinics Mercy Ships has out in the community. They were using the same building as a local community health center in which this week in 5 days Ghana is trying to immunize every kid under 5 for Polio and Measles, still killers here. It was a bad house!! ha. Babies everywhere!

Had to get away from the full moon a bit this week, so we had a roommate day and rode bikes to the local health club to swim for the afternoon. The ocean is not safe to swim in around here b/c of riptides and bacteria. Besides riding while inhaling much gas and dust, wearing pants in 100 degree weather... its was a little piece of heaven! Also ventured out to the lighthouse near the port and its absolutely my favorite place around here. If you go in the morning you can see all the colorful, beat up sailboats heading out to catch fish for the day. Its like something out of National Geographic, each boat has three pieces of timber crafted between a bedsheet to become a sail! The sea is gleaming and its stunning, a place for fresh air and peace. I love it. God is good to get me through this week.