Weekend/Monday

---

The internet has been working the last two days so I wanted to update everyone on what I did this weekend and Monday.

Since we spend so much time on outreaches and at the eye clinic, Unite for Sight gives the volunteers and ophthalmic nurses Saturdays and Sundays off. This was really nice since we’ve only been to some of the rural villages and gave us the chance to see some of the Ghanaian attractions.

On Saturday, six of the volunteers went with our UFS driver to his hometown of Ada, Ghana, about an hour east of Accra where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean. Within five minutes of entering Ada, we met four of our driver’s childhood friends who went with us and were very friendly. After that, we rented a boat that took our group to the estuary where the river meets the ocean. Then we went to a tourist beach for most of the day. A lot of people from the Ivory Coast were there and asked our group if we wanted to play ‘football’, not exactly the football I played ha. I decided to try it out and actually didn’t do too badly, I scored two goals, even though I fell down a couple times! After a day at the beach we headed back to Accra.

On Sunday, we went west to the town of Cape Coast. There are two famous places there, the Kukum National Rainforest and Cape Coast castle. At the rainforest we went on a canopy walk that was 500 ft above the ground! The bridge we walked on was a line of 2x6 boards suspended by about 4 ropes with cargo netting on the sides. One of the scariest times in my life but definitely worth going! Sorry mom . The castle we went to was most famous for being the busiest fort during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. During the trade, 2 million slaves went through the castle operated by the British, and only 1 million of them made it out alive. It gave me a better understanding of how the slave trade originated and the amount of impact it made on the history of Africa.

On Monday, we went back to work. In the town of Akuse, I was told to help with registration. I thought this might be kind of boring at the start, but it gave me a different perspective about diagnosing eye conditions. I would take the patients name and age, as well as complaints about their eye health. I could almost diagnose the patient’s condition by just asking a few questions about what symptoms they are experiencing. After about 8 hours, we ended up treating 193 patients, the most by UFS for the month of August. 28 of those patients were referred for UFS funded eye surgeries.

Tomorrow is my last day in Accra. This has been an amazing experience that I can’t imagine getting this kind of hands on training anywhere else. Thanks to everyone who helped support me going on this trip, I can’t imagine doing it alone. I hope to post tomorrow, but if I don’t I’ll see everyone at home!

---