Ghana Photos 2009

Ghana's Beauty Queen, arriving with us at Tamale Airport

Admiring our plants

Surrounding area

With the girls at Gidipass

Downtown Tamale

COLWOD women at work

Furniture shopping, al fresco

Women I taught, from Rwanda & Burkina Faso

One of many road accidents

Snack time

Bon Appétit

Jim with one of his nurses

Colorful choir, in song at Mass

Church grounds, after Mass

Walking on the road

Getting together at SWAD

Photo-op

Preparing supper

Ghanaian cuisine

Jim with Godwin, our cook

Jim's home office

Our living room

Abdulai Mumuni, our reliable night watchman

Home Sweet Home

Thanks for visiting my blog. Until next time...

Departure on the Horizon

In a few short days, I will be leaving West Africa again - taking with me some favorite reflections:
- taxis weaving in and out of bicycles, motorbikes, cows and goats,
- Ghanaian women in beautifully fitted dresses of various designs parading up to the two large collection baskets in church, dancing and clapping along with the music,
- groups of children walking on the road, dressed in uniforms of different colors according to their paticular school,
- mothers balancing all sorts of products on their heads with babies securely wrapped against their backs,
- well-behaved youngsters seated in the first couple of rows at Mass, imitating the singing (and swaying!) of the full-bodied choirs (usually three different groups),
- our Tamale home, complete with thriving plants and mango trees, tucked in between two neighboring houses, and just a short walk out to the main road which leads into town,
- images of Jim: examining a patient in the clinic, performing surgery in the OR, climbing into a taxi and immediately practicing his local language skills with the driver and other occupants, complaining to Godwin about cooking too many beans too many times, conversing and laughing with Abdulai Mumuni in Dagbani like they are old friends, sitting at his computer researching a medical topic or hoping to make a Skype connection with our kids in the US.
Look for Ghana 2009 photos to be posted in the near future and thanks for reading!

Teaching/Tutoring

In addition to Jim's work in the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic at the hospital, he has been lecturing two mornings a week at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, one of four medical schools in Ghana. The other three are located in Accra, Kumasi and Cape Coast, the school here in Tamale being the only one in the Northern Region. Unfortunately, once students in both the medical and nursing programs graduate, the majority choose to work in the south, leaving this area very much in need of healthcare workers.
As for me, I have enjoyed teaching English to the young French-speaking missionary sisters and as often happens, an instructor can learn just as much from her students - in my case, cultural information about Rwanda and Burkina Faso as well as other African countires in which they have lived and worked. Have also been tutoring the Archbishop Emeritus in computer skills now that he is retired and no longer has a secretary typing letters and sending his correspondence. My own kids would laugh at this saying it must be "the blind leading the blind" but I guess I can at least impart a few of the basics. And so, these morning teaching sessions, along with a little French to English textbook translation have helped to keep me fairly busy.
Tonight, we have a dinner invitation from the Sisters of Our Lady of Africa and tomorrow will be the beginning of my last week in Tamale for a while.

Some Observations

Just as the head of a family is expected to take care of those in his household, employees paid by the Ghana government (for example, at the hospital) expect the same of their "head." However, as a result, many workers (certainly not all) with this mind-set often demand to be reimbursed for every little thing beyond the bare minimum of their "job description" - such as transportation, food, uniforms, cell phone credits, and of course any over-time hours. At the same time, those often "in charge" seem to be extemely lenient if an employee arrives late, leaves early, or simply fails to appear at an assigned location.
On the other side of the picture, employees at the hospital are sometimes not paid for weeks and even months at a time due to a financial glitch originating in Accra. Others work in temporary positions for long peroids, occasionally years, with no pay, just hoping that they will eventually be placed on an official roster.
The red-tape of bureaucracy is further seen in the frustrating amount of time it takes for certain things to get done. One example is the new intensive care unit created in the hospital here in Tamale well over two years ago when a good deal of face-lifting took place in the country with Ghana hosting the African Soccer Cup. The unit is still waiting for the necessary permit which would authorize it to be fully utilized - something about the contractors not yet being paid for their work and not enough trained nursing staff.
And yet, there are those three separate instances yesterday when a Ghanaian saw me trudging along with my packages and literally ran over to ask if she could carry them for me. Not a polite, ambitious youngster eager to pick up a few pesewas, but a teenaged school girl and two middle-aged women. As I was beginning to think I must be looking pretty old and seemingly in need of obvious assistance, my friend Hubertine reassured me that it was simply customary Ghanaian courtesy to receive such expressions of kindness. I decided to believe her.

Local Happenings

Two impressive British members of the core team to rebuild Tamale Teaching Hospital treated Jim and me to dinner at SWAD last week. The young man is a civil engineer and the young woman is a project manager, both committed to a stay of three years here. The possibility of the hospital renovation/rebuilding was questionable until just recently when the Dutch government agreed to "gift" a substantial portion of the cost to Ghana. The plan is to construct a brand new facility alongside the existing one. The old hospital will continue to be used during construction and when the new hospital is completed, the entire medical staff will work there while the old building is gutted and refurbished, eventually providing space for administrative offices, a cafeteria, additional wards, etc. A modern, well constructed hospital will be such a welcome sight, especially if the budget will allow the much needed medical equipment which is presently lacking. Now if only crucial medications and miscellaneous other supplies could follow....
On another note, I forgot to relate one of Jim's previous amusing experiences when the Islam period of fasting finished a few days ago. Last year at this time, it seemed Jim went out to answer the doorbell which is on the exterior of the wall surrounding our property. When he unlocked and opened the metal entrance gate, he encountered two young men carrying rather large and apparently sharp-looking knives. The flash of concern that crossed Jim's mind was quickly diffused when they asked if he needed some assistance in killing his goat for the ritual meal commemorating the end of Ramadan.