We are home and settling into 3rd year!!! Sorry about the delay.. but here are (finally!) the pictures! [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Marrakech at dusk, just in time to see the Djemma el-Fna (the large square in the middle of the market area) transform into an explosion of sensoral stimulation- dozens of food stands selling cous cous and tajines; spice stands; mint tea; snake charmers; monkeys; dancers; drummers; henna painters; acrobatics-- completely and utterly fascinating and overwhelming! We then spent the next hour finding our riad amongst the maize of small alleys that make up the medina where getting lost multiple times is to be expected. However.... when we did find it, it was completely worth the eff [View Full Entry]

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Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! We qre long overdue for an update on our travels: but have been busily traveling and having a marveloustime! also... sad to say.. no pics until we return to the stqtes... we left our camera connector at home and for some reason the cqrd reader we bought in ghana no longer functions. sad; So our lqst week in accra was highlighted by q physician strike. The docs wanted a 50% raise in salary and the governments first offer was 6%... so they went on strike; cqring for admitted pqtients and new (dire) em [View Full Entry]

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Rome was a blast! We vistited the sites and were quite happy (after a month of ghanian food and recent upset tummies) to feast on pasta and seafood.... and wine and campari! Thanks so much Itay for the recs!!!! Not to mention that its always fun to walk down the street with a beer in your hand! Our last night we befriended two italian couples qt dinner by giving them the rest of our cigarettes.... while in rome, right? [View Full Entry]

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Well, we're beginning our last week in Ghana. We have definitely enjoyed our time here, and are going to miss many aspects of Accra and Ghana in general. Melinda has been operating more, and more importantly, she learned how to wrap a baby on her back. I've been doing the same thing, going through rounds, and spending some time in the clinic. We also befriended the neighborhood kids and made a HILARIOUS video of the youngest girl (3yrs old) dancing. For our last weekend here we decided to head to a little eco-lodge/beach resort we heard a lot about. So... on [View Full Entry]

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Some things we learned over the last week at work, and during our weekend trip to Kumasi: 1. Ants are ok on sterile fields. 2. Operating in 100 degree heat and no air conditioning makes you sweat. 3. If an ill patient does not want to sit up to have his lungs examined, he is lazy... and it is ok to tell him so. 4. Working up chest pain in the ED proves quite the challenge without an EKG, chest x-ray, cardiac enzymes, or a basic metabolic panel. 5. You can have your kidney transplanted in Accra, but think twice if [View Full Entry]

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After our first week in the hospital.. we jumped ship Friday afternoon and took a bus to Cape Coast. The beach itself left something to be desired (areas looked more like a garbage heap than a beach) but we ate great (cheap!) seafood and met some lovely traveling Australians. Tour of the Cape Coast Castle was eye-opening... it was the largest slave-trading center in West Africa. I don't think that a museum has emotionally affected me that strongly since the first time I went through the Holocaust museum. We also visited Kakum National forest (not known for spotting big game like [View Full Entry]

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Well, we made it! My knees may never be the same after two long cramped flights, but it was nice to arrive in 75 degree weather at 9pm. To bad the next day was humid and in the 90s. We're staying in a nice place called the Dean's Guesthouse that's close to campus. They have a shower, although they don't have hot water, and it mainly just trickles out, so we need to use buckets to bathe. But, at least we have air conditioning in our room, which comes in handy. The majority of our time, however, is spent either outside [View Full Entry]

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After spending most our the past month working and only thinking about work, now we can focus on our trip. The countdown is on. We leave Sunday, May 3rd, and now we have to figure out how to pack for 6 weeks. [View Full Entry]

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