Obroni! Obroni!

As much as I want to share my experiences in Ghana with my friends and family, I’m not sure how to do it. The experiences were many and unique and they had an impact on me I don’t think I can describe in words. I don’t think I even truly understand the extent of that impact yet. Even my photos will not help as much as they usually do. All I know is that a part of me was extremely sad to leave Ghana and that I returned to Paris feeling exhausted, like I had been bombarded with too many things at once and I needed time to process them all. But all of that was overshadowed by my feelings of appreciation, happiness, and excitement. If nothing else, my experiences in Ghana helped shape the path I want my life to take: as of right now, anyway, I want to pursue a career in ophthalmology.

Even though I signed up for the Rural Villages program with Dr. Baah, his work happened to be based in Accra for the three weeks that I was there. Accra is the capital of Ghana and also the largest and most developed city in the country. Consequently the work that I did wasn’t exactly rural, which was a bit of a let down. Instead we worked in Accra’s various slums, which were often very poor but nothing compared to most of Ghana’s rural villages. The experience was completely different from what I wanted, but I can’t complain because it was still so incredible.

We stayed in the Telecentre Bed and Breakfast, which was a fun place to stay with really nice staff and a great breakfast. The facilities themselves were an odd mix of luxury and roughing it: each room had air conditioning (thank goodness) a TV and a fridge but there were bed bugs and water that didn’t always work. I really enjoyed staying there.

In my three weeks I saw many volunteers cycle in and out of the Telecentre. No new volunteers came for the Rural Villages program; it was just me and two boys (Terry and Matt) the whole time. Terry is 28, lives in Fort McMurray, Canada, has a double major in physics and chemistry and is pursuing a Masters of organic chemistry this fall at the University of Alberta. He is really into athletics. He is an Iron Man tri-athlete and performed the marathon section WHILE JUGGLING. Yeah. Matt was awesome. He and I got on really well. He just finished his freshman year at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, but he’s from New Jersey originally. He’s pre-med, with a double major in biology and economics. He’s an EMT, volunteers in a Free Clinic as a pharmacy tech, and works at the Cleveland Clinic in the heart failure ICU. Pretty cool, huh? All of the other international volunteers with Unite for Sight were incredibly nice, interesting, engaged individuals who genuinely wanted to make a positive impact in other people’s lives. The local volunteers, opticians, doctors and surgeons were equally so and it was an honor and a privilege to work with all of them.

On a typical day we would leave around 7:30 in the morning (although because timeliness is pretty much a non-existent concept in Ghana, it was anywhere between 6:30 and 9:00). The Save The Nation’s Sight Clinic Ta Ta (or van-bus hybrid), already containing much of the local staff, would pick us up and take us to a slum anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour away. There we would set up the canopy, the tables with medicine and eyeglasses, and the visual acuity charts and get to work. The day before or sometimes the day of an outreach someone drives through the area announcing via megaphone where we are and what we are doing. Consequently, there were often patients already waiting for us when we arrived, but people would cycle in an out throughout the 7 or 8 hours that we were there. I almost exclusively performed the visual acuity exams. I liked it that way best because I got to interact with the local people and because it was the most challenging job. A Tumbling E chart seems intuitive but many of the local people had a really hard time understanding what they were supposed to do. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why - cultural and education differences? Anyway, that accompanied by the language barrier meant you sometimes had to be pretty creative to get the point across. Sign language became my good friend. We saw anywhere between 10 and 100 patients on any given day and we usually spent two or three days in one area. During the last two weeks we got to go to the clinic a couple of days in the afternoon to observe surgery.

On the weekends we did various things. On my first weekend we accompanied Dr. Clarke’s volunteers to the Volta Region, which is northeast of Accra. We left on Sunday to do some sight seeing: we went to a Mona Monkey Reserve and fed them bananas; we hiked up to the Wli Waterfalls (the highest falls in West Africa) and went swimming; we drove for hours through jungle and tiny villages. We spent the night and did outreach on Monday. That was my biggest day - 220 patients! On my second weekend Matt, Terry and I went to the Central Region with a few of the local staff members. We visited Kakum National Park and went along the canopy walkway. We explored Elmina Castle, an old Portuguese trading post and Dutch slave castle. It was, understandably, both interesting and incredibly depressing at the same time. That kind of history sends shivers up your spine. In the later afternoon we went swimming at Cape Coast. You had to be careful of some of the trash in the water - make sure that 4x4 doesn’t hit you when the water retreats! When we got out of the water we had dark oil splotches all over our skin and clothes. The locals had a lot of fun with us. The young boys would throw themselves in to incoming waves right in front of me in the hopes that they would be washed into me. I don’t think so. I was onto them, but I did get tackled a few times. Hmmmm…On my third weekend we visited the Cultural Center, a big market and did all our souvenir shopping. We also visited Bojo Beach near Accra, which was much quieter than Cape Coast. Aaaaaand, I got my hair braided! It took 6 hours and I had serious neck cramps afterwards but it was really fun. I was planning on keeping them in until I got home to Reno but swimming at Bojo Beach for two hours was a little too hard on them and they started to come unraveled after just a couple of days.

Two memories stand out among the others. One is of observing surgery for the first time. I had never before observed surgery of any kind, except on some PBS program, and it was one aspect of my time in Ghana that I was looking forward to most. It didn’t disappoint! It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I think when we’re younger most of us think of the eyeball like a balloon, really delicate and easily pop-able. Of course when you poke an eyeball it doesn’t pop, as demonstrated in many of my photos, and as it turns out the eye ball is not as delicate as you might think. I couldn’t believe how apparently rough the surgeries were: yanking and poking and cutting and scraping. Yikes, but so amazing. I can’t imagine anything is more rewarding than restoring sight. In an ideal world I would have gone on outreach every morning and observed surgery every afternoon.

The other memory involves the patients that we screened and brought to the clinic for surgery. When we arrived and walked through waiting area to the operating room, I was always greeted by at least one “Sister Kate! How are you?” or “Auntie Kate! It’s so good to see you.” Often people would introduce me to siblings or children that had accompanied them to the clinic. By that point I had screened hundreds of patients so I could never remember any of their names, which was frustrating, but words cannot describe how touched I was that they remembered me. It’s one thing to help a person professionally (to test their visual acuity or remove their cataract) and it’s another to make a personal connection with them. I think in the medical world both are essential and rewarding in different ways.

Interesting Tidbits about My Time in Ghana:

1. While walking around Accra we got a lot of “Obroni! Obroni!” which is the Twi word for white person. It’s like “gringo” in Spanish. A lot of the kids would say “Obroni coco,” which translates to “white person white.” A little redundant and very cute. I ended up learning some Twi while there. I can say “how are you?” and “I’m fine.” I can also say “thank you” and “cover one eye” (very useful).

2. Everything in Ghana is bagged. You don’t buy water bottles, you buy water bags. You just tear off one corner and go to town. A lot of the alcohol is bagged, as is the ice cream. It was cool. Somehow it made drinking water fun.

3. Never in my life have I ever been in a place where religion is a stronger influence. There is a small Muslim population in Accra but it is predominantly Catholic. All of the stalls on the side of the street have names like Clap for Jesus Body Shop, God Is Great Hair Salon, and Jesus Is the Secret Clothing Design. I hated it when people asked me what I worshipped because when I said “nothing,” a barrier automatically went up between us.

4. There is a very special handshake in Ghana. You slap palms and then slide down into a normal handshake which concludes when each person grasps the other’s middle finger between their middle find and thumb and then snaps off. Sometimes it’s more complicated but I won’t attempt to explain. I found this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OpQsQ2PeIo

5. People really do carry everything on their heads. That was probably the most visually obvious cultural difference from anywhere else I’ve ever been. Sometimes you can hardly believe the size and weight of the load (a couple of times we saw people carrying entire dining room sets on their heads - the table on the bottom and all the chairs stacked on top) and other times it seems kind of silly (I saw a man buy a pack of Mentos gum, take one, and then put the pack on his head and walk away).

6. For me, the most unattractive aspect of Ghana was the garbage carpeting the streets. It really was everywhere. One time Matt had finished a water bag and was holding the trash in his hand. One of the school kids we were talking to looked at him like he was green and said, “What are you waiting for? Drop it.”

7. The other unattractive aspect was the roads. They love their speed bumps in Ghana and often put eight in close succession. So annoying. If there aren’t speed bumps there are innumerable pot holes which you have to weave your way through. Neither of these things prompts the drivers to go any slower.

8. The children are, for the most part, very friendly and polite and sooooo charming. If you say “how are you” the consistently respond with “I’m FINE.”

9. Accra’s livestock is as free-range as free-range gets. They literally wander wherever they want all the time. I don’t know how you keep track of which chicken is yours. There are goats EVERYWHERE. Millions and millions of adorable, filthy, trash-eating goats.

10. Every local that I met could open bottles with their teeth. I tried a couple of times. Nope.

11. I you want to get someone’s attention in Accra (a waiter’s for instance), an “excuse me sir” will get you nowhere. You have to “tssss!” Yes, “tssss!” It seems rude, right? I thought so too and it took me a while to get comfortable doing it. It’s amazing how well that little sound travels. Everyone turns around when you do it and then you can motion to the person you want.

12. I think this probably applies all over the world, but of anywhere that I’ve been I noticed it most in Ghana: an introduction and a hearty handshake make all the difference. When most of the people sit down in the chair to have their visual acuity taken, they look apathetic or even annoyed or scared. The moment I introduced myself and asked how they were their attitude completely changed and they smiled and became relaxed and engaged.

That’s my Ghana experience, as best as I can explain it right now. But it goes so much farther than that - the things that I did, the relationships that I formed, the skills that I acquired, etc. I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I don’t know. It was just wonderful. I have no doubt that I will return to Ghana in the near future and continue to be involved with Unite for Sight for many years to come.

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Part of trip: Volunteering in Asikuma, Ghana

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