Ghana Day 7

Today’s adventure was going to the kick-off of the Public Health Week in Accra. It “started at 10,” which today meant what it normally means on African (or I should probably say non-US) time, which was 11:15 or so. I shadowed Stella again, but she didn’t come into the office before going there so I had the opportunity of finding my way by myself. That’s really not at all true of course, since there’s no way anyone could get anyone by herself without knowing the city, but I got there with the support of 6 or 7 people pointing the way rather than one person leading me, which I think is an improvement and pretty much how it’s going to be for the rest of the time.

The event itself was a bit boring, since the three keynote-type speakers said the same thing (down to referring to the same stats and using the same sound bites), and the skit that the health workers put on was in Twi (or possibly Ga), so while I’m sure it was entertaining based on the audience’s reaction, I had no idea what was going on beyond one girl getting lung cancer for smoking. After the program people were encouraged to get screened for some diseases (hypertension, diabetes, malaria, etc) and have their BMI assessed, as well as donate blood. While I briefly considered doing the latter, I decided that among other things, I probably can’t stand to lose the water weight right now since I’m pretty consistently dehydrated as it is. So I’m off the hook as far as my mother is concerned.

I think perhaps the best part of the event was that afterwards they handed out lunch in takeaway bags. This would not be the best part normally – jut a highlight – except that this particular event had highlighted the importance of eating fruits and veg and avoiding fats, and all of the food we were given was fried. (Also all meat except for a little bag of fried dough snack sticks, so I ended up handing mine over to a boy who was trolling for food and definitely needed some fat more than I did, along with the non-alcoholic beer it came with. I took a sip of the beer and yes, it is still really nasty even without the alcohol in it. Sorry everyone.)

Tonight I am swapping the boys that are living in my compound. Matt is in (yes, he’s nerdy, in keeping with all the Matts I know – studying chemical engineering or something), and Stephen will be leaving tomorrow night before I get home from work. Matt will be around for the rest of my time here, as he’s also spending 8 weeks. He’s got a strong travel background (his dad has moved around to places in South America and Asia a lot) and wants to be one of those bleeding heart doctors who does surgery in third world countries. He’s very friendly and chatty, and should be a pretty tolerable guy to live with. Now I just have to cross my fingers that the two sisters showing up tomorrow are equally amicable. This place is sort of starting to feel like a hostel.