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Published: September 4th 2008
It is amazing the things I have to leave out in these updates because so much goes on and my time on the internet is limited (with it working so slowly + the fact that I have to pay for internet time in most cafes).
On thing I definitely meant to mention last time was my water bottle experience. Here in Ghana, a normal size bottle of water is the equal vent of 40 cents, and a very large bottle is 70 or 80 cents. However, they have these 500ml plastic sachets of water that come in bulk, and you can buy over half a week’s worth for 90 cents. So, they are amazing. The only thing is that we have to sanitize the outside of them because to drink out of them you bite off a corner and suck the water out, and the outside of the bag can have some kind of illness waiting on the outside haha. So, on the rare occasion that I do buy a water bottle, it is a luxury. I happened to buy one of these luxurious water bottles on our way back from Kumasi/Mole this past weekend. I was feeling very lightheaded as I had been all weekend, but as I took my first drink of water from the bottle, I was certain that it felt very funny in my mouth. Imagine my surprise when I look down at my left hand, which is holding the bottle’s lid and see 20 or 30 tiny tiny red ants crawling over the lid and my hand. Now imagine my surprise when I realize that there are ants in my mouth and headed into my belly……………..! As I am franticly spitting tiny ants to the ground, I notice them drowning inside my bottle as well. I am certain that the cap was sealed, so my theory is that some ant egg somehow got laid on the inside of my lid and hatched while the bottle was waiting to be bought, so all the tiny ants had been living right above the water waiting to escape. Seems like something you would call the company about back in the U.S., but here I just went back to the store, showed them the ants all inside my bottle, the one lady said, “It’s true!” as she looked at them, and they exchanged my bottle for a new ant-free one. So much for luxury.
My biggest story from yesterday is that my lightheadedness became increasingly bad, making it hard for me to walk, focus, etc. so I ended up at the hospital again (a nicer one). I ended up getting a blood test (where I was told that my grip is amazingly strong for someone so wimpy haha) and based on the results of the test I was switched over to a new anti-malaria drug, and also prescribed the pills given to someone who has malaria. Apparently, one of the two should allow me to return to normal, and the other should not have any negative effects. SO, as someone who doesn’t get sick much back home, I am certainly becoming invested in Ghana’s healthcare! Today I am still finding it very difficult to walk around campus, but am getting by on the hope that in a few days I can be clear headed, and hopefully have at leasttttttt a couple weeks of normalcy.
Tomorrow our group leaves for Capecoast for a short weekend.
Classes are starting to get into full swing, although professors still don’t show up all the time and random preachers still preach before class. Getting the weekly reading assignments is somewhere between interesting and impossible, as there are no text books. Instead, the lecturer is supposed to give their department the text, and a department person makes a ton of copies of it, so each week, a student would pay a few dollars to each department for a photocopy of an entire book (no concern for copyright laws here it seems). But, so far, none of my lecturers have given the copy machine person the weekly readings, so…..
In my lightheaded stupor yesterday I signed up for another dance class that a lot of students in my USAC program are taking…and it seems that I am going to have to start practicing outside of class as it is becoming clear that I am falling behind! (Or, as I am secretly hoping, once my horrible head fog goes away, the moves will start making sense.)
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Toni
non-member comment
I hope you are feeling better very soon.