Mole and Birthday!

This past weekend, we visited Mole National Park, a two hour drive outside Tamale on some of the worst roads we’ve seen. At one point during the drive, the road narrowed to a three foot wide isthmus and our cab was forced to back up and choose the shoulder of the road instead. At another point, I was rudely awoken from my nap (we left at 6 am, I deserved the nap) when the cab nearly stalled out in a sand pit that, for some reason, took up most of the road. At any rate, we arrived in Mole miraculously intact and thoroughly in need of some time at the pool. The pool overlooked a jungle transitioning to savanna, with two large watering holes. Watering holes frequented by ELEPHANTS. We watched them all afternoon doing elephant things, like ambling around and taking showers using their trunks. Several hours into our elephant reverie, however, a band of baboons came tearing through the pool area, swiping Lyubov’s apple from our table and freaking out pretty much everyone. Baboons, and warthogs we later discovered, pretty much roam free around the hotel site. Accordingly, we chose to eat dinner inside.

The next morning, we joined a 7 am walking safari into the park. Led by an guide armed with a rifle, it was actually a pretty intense hike, at times requiring us to walk across logs to cross a stream or scamper up a hill because a charging elephant is right behind you. Seriously, but we’ll come to that later. Having already seen the baboons and warthogs more up close than we ever intended to, the real point of the safari was to find an elephant. We/the guide tracked down a group of three hidden in the trees, and encouraged us to go as close as we wanted. They shied off when a large group of Ghanaian school children came rustling through the trees, and our guide explained that they’re actually quite shy. They would much rather flight than fight, and there’s never been an attack at the park. The only time they do attack, he went on, is when they’re injured or when a baby is involved. Even then, the warning signs are clear: ear flapping and trumpeting. Good thing he told us, too, because not ten minutes later we were creeping close to another elephant we’d come across, all down on one knee for the best possible angle. And then we saw the ear flapping. And then the guard had his rifle up, and there was yelling, and we were running up an embankment, and then an elephant came charging out of  the underbrush. There were some tense words exchanged with our guide, who brushed the whole thing off with a very casual “Oh, that one is injured.” BUT WE’RE FINE, MOM. We’re great. And it’s a fabulous story.

WAYYYYYY TOO CLOSE

Monday was my 22nd birthday, which makes me feel old just to type. With our research falling apart around us, most of the day was spent fighting back tears and reading emails aloud with emphatic outrage. In the midst of this though, Mary, Ceci, and Lyubov really did throw me a nice birthday. I had a crown and a lovely pizza dinner in Bolga, and the night really took everyone’s minds off of how badly our projects are going. We spent a long time singing along to Mary’s 4th of July playlist, and especially with Thanksgiving coming up, I think we really all just want to go home.

Monkeys and Waterfalls!

We were back in Tamale on Friday, where we met up with Kathryn, who graduated from Georgetown last year. She’s now in Tamale working with a clean water NGO, and offered to let us stay with her for the weekend. It was lovely, she had 4 extra (clean) beds and a kitten, which is really all we ever wanted. On Saturday, a cab driver named Small Boy showed up at the house at 5 am, and we were off for a full day of monkeys and waterfalls. [Sidenote: When Small Boy gets a girlfriend, he’s going to change his name to Big Boy. I couldn’t write this entry without including that tidbit.]

We rolled into the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary around 9:30, having spent fully half of the driving time navigating the 30 km dirt road into the jungle. It was more of a dried up riverbed than a road, and would have been entirely impassable during the rainy season. It’s a shame the road is so bad, too, because the Sanctuary is really well kept and makes for a lovely tourist destination once you get there. Like the crocodile pond at Paga, the Sanctuary was first protected for spiritual, not tourism or conservation, reasons. The legend goes that the chief was walking through the jungle and found a bunch of monkeys playing around a coffin, which he took and brought to the local fetish priest. The priest told him he could give the coffin back to the monkeys and they would go away, or if he liked the monkeys he could keep the coffin and they’d stay near the village forever. Weird, I guess, but whatever. Point is the monkeys have been really closely intertwined with the villagers ever since. Supposedly, the monkeys will always seek out one of the fetish priests before they die, so that they can be buried in the monkey cemetery. The fetish priests are buried there, as well. Historically, one fetish priest was always a virgin woman, but that rule has become pretty lax recently “because a virgin is too hard to find nowadays,” according to our tour guide. Who was a German schoolteacher. Anyway, the Sanctuary has two types of monkeys: black and white colobus and mona monkeys. The colobus are a little more shy and stay in the taller trees, but the monas are really friendly and will come really close. They like to raid the villages for food, and will steal shiny things from tourists if you’re not careful. They came right up to us, like within two feet at times. 

After the monkeys, we packed into the cab and Small Boy took us to the Kintampo Waterfalls. They’re the second largest in Ghana, but the biggest are too far away for us to reasonably travel to so we settled. The waterfall was packed. It was a Saturday, and there’s a Muslim holiday this week on top of it, so entire busses of students emptied out into the park. It seems like a great place to go on weekends, there were lots of gazebos for picnics and a guy grilling meatsticks (kabobs... we just call them meatsticks). Plus, when we headed down the trail to the largest waterfall, there were huge speakers set up by the waterside blasting Ghana’s greatest hits. Very few girls actually went in the water, but Mary and I didn’t let that stop us. Some of the guys even helped us climb up behind the waterfall, which I really appreciated because I was going nowhere but face-first into a rock without their help. It was pretty high up, and Mary and I didn’t know how we were going to get down safely... until someone pushed us and we slid down the slippery rocks into a gaggle of kids at the end. It was so much fun, but we didn’t spend too long in the water. Ghana’s freshwater is notoriously swimming with parasites, and we’re almost definitely infected with schistosomiasis now. It’s nothing a thorough deworming back in the States can’t fix, though, and it was so worth it.

With the Muslim holiday tomorrow, we’re not going to be able to resubmit to IRB until Tuesday at the earliest. Troublesome, because we’re quickly running out of time to get everything done. Oh, and the water is out.

Halloween in Tamale

We worked our Peace Corps contacts and landed an invite to their annual Halloween party in Tamale, the largest city in the northern part of Ghana. Tamale is about two hours south of Navrongo, so it was well worth the effort on our part to travel down for the party. We also were excited to have our first tro-tro experience.

Tros aren’t exactly public transportation, since they’re not state-regulated and you barter a price, but they’re not exactly private either, as they run between established and extensive tro stations. I guess tros are analogous to busses... only in the type of disrepair you only see in junk yards in the States. They’re the size of your typical 12-person Georgetown vans, although the interior is ripped out and refitted to fit over 30 people (we counted 35, but some of those were babies). It’s not uncommon to see tros were the doors need to be tied shut with rope, or where doors are missing entirely. And it’s almost a given that there will be animals. The roof of our tro to Tamale was packed with chickens, who squawked most unhappily when we hit a bumpy patch in the road. However, we only paid 5 cedi for the entire trip, which is a pretty good deal.

Tamale, the “NGO Capital of Ghana,” is rumored to be the fastest-growing city in all of West Africa. There are a lot of foreigners and investment, but this also means that the crime rate has gotten really bad, especially targeted attacks against foreigners. However, it’s a fun city and we had a great time. Besides meeting up with the Peace Corps kids, we met another of Ceci’s cousins who attends medical school there. She took us out for great Chinese food, and showed us around the city a little before we left on Sunday, and we were disappointed to have so little time to explore. Never fear, though, we’re headed back this weekend and will hopefully get to see more this time around!

In Tamale, we also had our first brush with Ghanaian homophobia when Mary and I were, somehow, accused of being lesbians. Despite its reputation as a progressive African nation, Ghanaians in general are very conservatively religious, either Muslim or Christian. Nationwide, homosexuality is illegal and completely unrecognized. “That doesn’t happen in Ghana” is a frequent explanation. The subject has become particularly sensitive in this past year, as several prominent politicians (especially in the North, away from the Western influence of Accra) have called for gays to be rounded up and arrested and have asked neighbors to “report” on suspected homosexual behavior. There’s been huge backlash to Britain’s statement that it will cut off aid to countries who do not recognize gay rights: Ghana’s president just this past week publicly vowed to never legalize homosexuality in Ghana. Unofficially, Peace Corps members are working to support the underground gay rights movement, but it’s clear that Ghana is really far away from equal rights.

All in all, it was a really fun weekend away from Navrongo. Because of all the crime, I didn’t bring my camera (this seems to imply that I value my iPhone over my life, and I’m not really sure what to say to that), so I don’t have pictures. However, if you picture me in whiskers standing in front of a mosque, that just about sums it up.

Hospital update: Was called in at 6 this morning to observe a C-section. Gross and fascinating. Not posting details to preserve Kilbride's fragile sanity.

Back on the Navrongo Grind

Back in the office Monday, we were surprised to learn that, as regards our IRB submissions, “sometimes the expedited review takes even longer than the normal review.” Despite how counterintuitive that sounds, we received conditional approval and on Thursday, we met with the IRB coordinator to go over our comments so that we can resubmit. All four of us were rather disappointed in the meeting. We’d hoped for a rigorous scientific and cultural review... and the only notes we received were to reformat our citations and include our nationality and marital status... Wait, WHAT? So for now, I’m having my consent forms translated into Kasem and Nankam and editing my proposal to include something like this:

Principal Investigator: Melissa Ogden, single white female, enjoys long bus rides through the jungle. Looking for someone to talk about kids pooping.

Ceci and I have started spending more time at the hospital, going in on Tuesdays to watch surgeries and on Wednesdays to go on rounds. We also left our phone numbers with the operating theater staff so they can call us in case of an emergency surgery or C-section, though nothing has happened yet. The entire hospital is staffed by only three doctors, but they’re always willing to explain cases and eager to answer any questions. Dr. Zach even started quizzing us on anatomical markers and making us calculate drug dosages. I was pretty proud when some of the cases, like an infant with Scalded Baby Syndrome, were conditions I recognized from class. I really enjoyed my time at the hospital, and feel like it’s going to be something to look forward to every week.

Tomorrow we’re heading into Tamale to celebrate Halloween with the Peace Corps, but this itself was kind of a lame update, so I’m linking my favorite Ghanaian song here in an attempt to make it big in the US by the time I get back. According to Eye Man, it's not actually Ghanaian, but it's still a big hit here. And it's fabulous.

Ouagadougou

Our Ghanaian visas are only good for 60 days at a time, meaning at some point we need to leave the country and re-enter in order to legally remain in the country. Thankfully, Navrongo is only one town away from the Burkina Faso border. Unlike Ghana, which is one of the fastest-developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Burkina Faso ranks second to last on the Human Development Index. It’s much poorer, and significantly less stable. Earlier this year, in fact, members of the military revolted and fired off guns in the streets of the capital, Ouagadougou, and parts of the North remain “forbidden” to Americans (an Embassy worker actually used that word when talking to us). Apparently there’s some al-Qaeda-related-things up there, but I’m just upset it complicates my plans to go camel riding in the Sahara desert. Anyway, following a quick stop in Navrongo in which we learned that no one had even read our IRB proposals yet, we headed up to Burkina for the weekend to stay with Ceci’s aunt in Ouaga.

In retrospect, we should have suspected that any journey beginning with the phrase “Let’s just cross the border and hope for the best” was bound to have a few difficulties, but that’s just what we did. NHRC dropped us off at Ghanaian border control at 2 pm, which I will consider the start time for our supposed 2 hour drive to Ouaga. While waiting for our paperwork to get processed, we watched the news of Gaddafi’s death on a TV in the waiting room. With seven African soldiers all armed with AK-47s. It was pretty surreal. Border control told us we had to walk across the border, which isn’t so much a line as it is a half mile demilitarized-zone. We weren’t even sure we were IN Burkina already... until we reached a burned-out mud hut with a sign proclaiming Burkina Customs. Inside, we met Wongo, a friendly Burkinabe National Police Officer who proposed to Ceci and then negotiated our passage to Ouaga with a cab driver. We didn’t know this would be an issue half a mile down the road, when our cabdriver got in a heated argument with the taxi union about his rights to drive us (apparently, we were supposed to pick up a taxi at the station, and this guy had cheated by getting us at the border). Wongo was called and the matter was settled, but not before we’d spent an hour and a half on the side of the road. After a somewhat dramatic departure from the taxi stand, we pulled over to the side of the road to get gas... out of an old wine bottle...? It was like filling up a car in a zombie apocalypse movie, he siphoned it out using a hose and spit gasoline out onto the road and everything. We finally got moving again, only to get a flat tire. There really is no end to our bad travel luck in Africa thus far. Anyway, Wongo was very helpful, calling once on the road to make sure we weren’t being trafficked and again when we got to Ouaga to talk to the guard at the house and make sure we arrived safely.

Burkinabe gas station

Ouaga is a very strange city, and very different from Accra. In general, it was actually cleaner and well-paved, leading us to question the picture of Burkina I described earlier. We hypothesize that Accra just developed too fast with too little planning, but I don’t actually know enough about either city to say for sure. Ouaga also has a distinct French flair, complete with bakers in chef hats selling baguettes and French desserts. We stayed in a predominantly American neighborhood located close to the Embassy, filled with private drivers and security guards and better housing than our so-called 5 star resort in Elmina. Ceci’s aunt Pam invited us to an Embassy Halloween party on Friday night, and insisted we dress up. Having not brought costumes overseas with us, Ceci and I split one of Pam’s “government sheets” and put together some pretty sweet togas. Which we were wearing when we met the deputy ambassador later that night and he wanted to hear about our research. Picture to come!

We returned to Navrongo this afternoon, calling first to let Wongo know to expect us at the border. As per Pam’s instructions, Ceci executed our first (of many?) African bribe and gifted him a bottle of wine as a present for looking out for us during our trip. With any luck, we’ll finally have our proposals back this week, but in the meantime I’ve got plenty of med school apps to keep me busy!

Accra

Thursday morning we headed into Accra, partially because no trip to Ghana is complete without exploring the capital, but mostly to break up the barbaric bus trip back to Navrongo that loomed over us. With a week’s vacation already weighing on our wallets, we checked into another 8$/night hotel, this one complete with padlock on the front door and a knee-high hose spigot to shower. However, food was delicious and inexpensive, and the view from the porch was amazing, looking out over a bay full of fishing boats. After settling into our chicken-coop of a room, we hailed a cab to the Accra Mall, which is basically a little slice of New Jersey in the middle of Africa. Like hillbillies in WalMart for the first time, we admired simple wonders like movie popcorn and posed for group pictures in the middle of the grocery store. Intending to celebrate Lyubov’s 21st birthday that night, we picked up a cake and a “Happy 21st Birthday!” banner and headed over to Ryan’s Irish Pub, where we easily convinced the entire bar to sing for her.

Well worth $8.

On Friday, we attended a barbecue at the American Embassy, a sprawling, intimidating fortress located in the Accra suburbs. The Marines who work at the Embassy host a barbecue every week for the families of Embassy workers, and we had received an invitation through some of the Peace Corps we met in Cape Coast. However, to get in, we had to hand over all electronics (sadly, including cameras) to the guards, walk through a metal detector, and be accompanied by a Marine at all times. I set off the metal detector no less than 3 times with not a clue how, and it was only at the firm insistence of TJ, our host, that the guards let me pass. We had a great time at the Embassy, enjoying our sloppy joes and AMERICAN FOOTBALL that the Marines magically get on tv, as well as being introduced to the ambassador as he picked up a hamburger. Besides the Marines, who were amazing hosts to us the entire weekend, we met a bunch of fascinating people who work at the Embassy, all of whom were really eager to help us out while in Accra. It seems like the American community in Accra is very close, and it was nice to be a part of it for the weekend.

Ceci’s dad went to boarding school in Accra, and so on Saturday we had lunch with her aunt and several of her dad’s school friends. Having gotten an American perspective of Accra the day before, it was really interesting to sit down with Ghanaians and hear their thoughts. I think we were all really intrigued by Dr. Alex, who has only recently moved back to Ghana after several decades in Ireland. He talked about Ghana’s capacity for development, saying that Ireland was still using outdoor latrines, too, in the 1970’s. However, he lamented the seeming lack of political and personal motivation to work on the infrastructure problems, like open sewers and poor roads, that have irked the four of us since we landed in Accra in August. Overall, my experiences in Ghana thus far have convinced me that I’m not meant to work internationally, which isn’t all that surprising to me, as I’ve been leaning towards working in the US increasingly over the last year. The more I see of Ghana, the more I’m convinced it needs civil engineers and garbagemen more than it needs doctors. Many Ghanaians apparently feel the same way, and Ghanaian health professionals in particular leave the country in droves every year. The brain drain is felt particularly strongly in areas like Navrongo, which are so cut off from the rest of the country that the geographical isolation alone is a deterrent for many young doctors.

We intended to leave Accra on Sunday, but the STC bus company wasn’t on the same page, forcing us to spend another day in the glittering wonderland that is the Accra Mall.  Part of this was spent grocery shopping, stocking up on things we can’t get in Navrongo like peanut butter and vinegar (not intended for use together, though), but the majority was spent in anticipation of going to the movies that evening. The other International Health girls, who live just a two hours outside Accra, had come into the city to see us, and all of the IHealthies had agreed that we needed to see Contagion together before parting ways. In one of the dorkiest movie experiences of my life, the 7 of us sat in a row and marveled open-mouthed at the badassery of the World Health Organization and epidemiologists that could rival Jason Bourne. But it was awesome, and public health is really cool. Really.

...and candy, too...

Our lovely vacation came to a close on Monday, as we boarded another (albeit more comfortable) bus to Bolga. We made good time, actually, and joined a gaggle of old women in bartering further passage onto Navrongo. At midnight, we linked arms and walked home almost a mile in the dark, calmly skirting around packs of wild dogs and trying to convince ourselves that rabies can’t be that serious, anyway.

VACATION: Cape Coast/Elmina

IRB submitted, we departed NHRC 6 am on Thursday, abuzz with excitement and hope. 30 hours later, when we finally reached our hotel in Cape Coast, I cried a little while eating a cheeseburger. The time in between was harrowing and hopefully something I’ll forget as I age. Mostly it was my own fault- I thought I could avoid African bathrooms by not drinking any water for 20 hours, but this just sort of made me hallucinate. This problem that was complicated by the fact that, when hitting a pot hole jolted me out of my malaria-medicine-nightmares, we were crawling along a one-lane dirt road in the jungle in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. And the fact that Irish Mary warned us never, under ANY circumstances, to take a night bus, because they’re frequently attacked by highway bandits. At any rate, we made it there safe and sound and bandit-free, although we estimate that the journey would have only taken 5 or 6 hours on I-95.

So worth it, though.

After a solid meal/nap/shower in Cape Coast, though, we were ready to enjoy our vacation. Cape Coast is a really interesting beach town about three hours west of Accra. It’s arguably the most touristy destination in Ghana, and even Obama has been here! He came in 2009 with his family (Michelle traces her African heritage back to the Cape Coast area), and the town has never forgot it. A big Obama billboard greets you on the highway, and his face shows up on the sides of shops and stalls everywhere. Culturally, Cape Coast is all over the map. Armed with bikinis and sundresses, we were a little concerned when we had to walk through a Muslim market filled with burqas and veils to get to our hotel. Inside the walls, however, the sounds of Muslim prayer on loudspeaker mixed quite hilariously with the American and Ghanaian clubbing music (including one of our favorites, “I Need an African Man.”) Most of the guests were European backpackers or Peace Corps, although the hotel club and beach were frequented by the many Cape Coast Rastafarians. Rastafarianism is basically Afro-centric Christianity, which I only add now because I didn’t know that before and it puts a lot of conversations I had in context. Most of them work as artists or musicians, which actually works well in Cape Coast because tourists are willing to pay for the Rastas’ African artwork. This was an actual conversation that occurred:

Eye Man: The Moon is very happy tonight.

Melissa: How can you tell?

Eye Man: The wind is happy, so the Moon is happy. We call the Moon Eye Woman because she is in the sky with her children, the Stars. The sun is Eye Man.

My new best friend!

Eye Man is probably my favorite person in all of Ghana. He owns a small shop in town where he paints, but he also plays the drums and raps on the side. His hope is to work his way to Accra selling paintings so that he can record some of his music in the city. His real name is Emmanuel, and he is hands down the happiest person I have met in my entire life.

Cape Coast is also home to the Slave Castle, probably the most famous tourist attraction in all of Ghana. Because so many different countries fought over the Gold Coast (the old name for Ghana), the castle changed hands pretty frequently. However, during the height of the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries, the British were in control. Slaves were trafficked to the coast from inland areas, like Navrongo, and were held in overcrowded, pitch black dungeons with no ventilation or waste drainage for up to 2 months waiting for slave ships to arrive. The castle is frequented by descendants of the African diaspora from the Caribbean and the Americas, many of whom leave flowers or wreaths at a traditional African alter erected inside the final dungeon in the 19th century. Set against the ocean and palm trees, the whitewashed castle was absolutely gorgeous, but a really sobering experience compared to how much fun we were having in Cape Coast.

Slave castles like the one in Cape Coast are a frequent sight along the coast of West Africa, and there’s an even bigger one just a few miles down the coast at Elmina. We were forced to evacuate to Elmina after a scarring bed bug encounter at our $8/night hotel in Cape Coast. It wasn’t so bad, though, because our new hotel was pretty amazing (with a pool!!) and it was nice to see another town. Despite the close proximity, Elmina had a totally different character than Cape Coast. It was much less touristy, with fewer restaurant and hotel options, and much more of a fishing town. It was also one of the poorest areas of Ghana that I’ve seen so far, with houses made of nothing but palm fronds and mud. We were in Elmina just long enough to celebrate Lyubov’s birthday before heading out to Accra.