Blogs from Northern, Ghana, Africa - page 3

This is something for the record books - only a week between blogs! I have just finished talking to Mum, Dad and David on Skype, which was amazing. It’s great to hear that everyone is well and that the UK whether sucks again! Sorry folks! I’m enjoying (well not all the time) nearly 40-degree heat at the moment but sadly have little tan to show for it (as pointed out by my parents on skype - thank you!). So for the past week I have mostly working in the medical centre (I shall spare you the gory stories) and also teaching a few more lessons in the primary school. Thankfully at long last I have had my stitches out and so have been back in theatre operating with the other surgeons. Thursday was particularly exciting as ... read more

Geo: 9.4072, -0.83935The border crossing on the Burkina side was, once again, relatively humourless but efficient, but much less so as we tried entering Ghana. We had our visas for Ghana but that didn't seem to speed the process. It was difficult to determine which official was accountable for what and they all seemed to want to talk to us about something- once they found out that DH was a police officer, an unscripted commotion erupted with no identifiable purpose. DH didn't even get the normal response from the brotherhood when she flashed her tin- no expedited process, no secret handshake, no free ride, nothing. They did seem very concerned that she was coming into the country on official business which, given the reputation of the Ghana police for corruption, may have been the issue du ... read more

Plans…who needs them?! That was the moral of the story last time. The moral for this tale? Never give up. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Mole (pronounced Mo-lay). We arrived at the park mid morning Sunday. Needless to say that after thirty hours of traveling, all we wanted to do was sit back and relax. And that was indeed all we did. The Mole Hotel sits on top of a hill overlooking a man-made watering hole; providing the perfect vantage point for viewing the abundant wildlife the park has to offer. The motel also gains high marks in my book because it has a pool. I haven’t been that excited to see a pool since I was probably ten. The remainder of the day was spent swimming and resting. We even saw a few elephants ... read more

I wrote this blog entry after my trip to Mole the first weekend in March. Sorry it's so late! This past weekend, my program took us tot the northern region to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana (after Accra) and the center of the Asante kingdom and to Mole National Park. It took about 5 hours to get to Kumasi and then another 7 to reach Mole, which is about 2/3 of the way north. Ghana is about the size of Oregon, which gives you an idea about the traffic and conditions of the road. The road to Mole from the main highway was 81km of the bumpiest dirt road I have ever experienced. That portion of the drive took us 2 hours and twice my head hit the top of the van due to ... read more

Well this past week I had quite the African adventure so I will have to split this blog up into pieces for your own sake. We finally found our way up north to Mole National Park and Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary. Its all the way in the upper west corner of Ghana so it’s a long trip anyways, but then throw in public transportation and you’ve got yourself some stories!! I guess plan A would have started when we tried to go buy our bus tickets ahead of time on Thursday. Well we didn’t bring enough money because transportation is so cheap here we weren’t expecting to have to pay 20 cedis. We were just going to go the next day and get them, but other groups have gone the morning of and said they didn’t ... read more