Sunday again

hotel Azynzolo

lobby of the hotel

This morning I came to get breakfast and the kitchen was closed. I went to the reception to ask about it and the man said: sorry the lady is unwell. At that moment the boss came in, heard it and started real shouting: Bullshit. So he has phoned her and she is coming. This is the hotel I am staying at. It is near to the town centre, nice shady terrace and friendly people. Only this boss….. It is sometimes very strange to see how people communicate with each other.  A kind of staccato hard talking. Also to patients they talk like this. Someone enters: PAPER! Not please , not do you have a referral.  Have to get used to it. At the other hand very friendly, always laughing. Shaking hands a lot. What I also like very much is the music everywhere.  

bushmeat, dried wild rabbit

So on Tuesday I started with my second project, a small ultrasound office in Navrango, 25 km from here. They want to expand but it appeared they want me also to teach ultrasound. Albert is a real nice guy, he has studied business, but after some years working for a sugar company decided to start this. He trained himself and in some course to be an ultrasonographist, and he is rather good now. He has two trainees and a lady from another clinic, whom I have to train. We saw one lady who appeared to have a twin and she told us she has two twins already

guinea fowl eggs


Organisation is difficult. As there is no proper hotel in that village I still stay in Bolgatanga.

shea fruit

He borrowed the car from his brother and we drive every day up and down.It is a beautiful trip, nice landscape. on the road we buy guineafowl eggs and sheanut fruit and many other fresh vegetables In the evening I am invited in their house for dinner. His wife is nice, she is a police officer. And cooks very well!!!

The second they we went to Navrongo we suddenly stopped….. petrol finished.  We could see a petrol station  about 800 mt further down, we pushed the car, then the station had no petrol!!!! The big problem is this week the prices of the petrol .The government is going to higher the price of petrol next week , so all the tanks are closed ,waiting for the high price. There is a real crisis here. I saw on the news hundreds of cars, stuck in Accra. Anyway there were some boys who went in the village and bought two lt. of petrol for us. At that time for $1,5.  That evening he bought some more on the black market. Two days later we got stuck again, now on our way to Chiana, a small place where he goes every fortnight to make ultrasounds. This was really in the middle of nowhere , hot, middle of the day. We were lucky there was one tree. He went hitching on a motor cycle, bought 1 gallon in the next village- now $ 3 /lt .

black market

waiting for fuel

 It is a nice little town, a clinic with 2 midwifes, about daily one delivery. She gave us the bushmeat, a dried wild rabbit. Which i ate yesterday and it was delicious. We finished our program and came safely home. Someone told him that if he went at 04.00 in the morning to a certain tank there would be petrol. He waited 4 hours, then gave up. So yesterday we bought on the black market again $4/lt  Albert persisted to go to Paga, where the  sacred crocodiles are. I rather didn’t, afraid to get stuck again.  But we made it and had a nice day. His wife , daughter and a friend were with us. Paga is the border town to Burkina Fasso. A lake with lots of crocodiles is the attraction there. Of course they fed a chicken and we had to “sit” on itTwo more days and the trip comes to an end.

. 

sunday outing

procession, praying for rain

from Bolga in 4 hours in Ouagadougou

Already a week later. Much has happened, let me start with th sunday outing. One of the midwifes, Mary took me for a trip around the country, we had an amazingly old cab, hold together with ropes, but we made it all the way! the first town was Congo, where we were going to visit a cathedral on the top of a hill, that appeared to be closed. But we had the chance to see a large procession, with over 500 people along the road, clapping and dancing behind the cross. Mary –who is a moslima herself--- told me they were praying for rain. Anyway, an impressive site! Then we drove on to Bongo, to visit a small hospital. On the way we passed two health centres and a CHIP. Kind of very small HC, but they do deliveries there. This region is one of the poorest of Ghana, and you could see that in the fields. Women working hard sowing and digging, carrying water. It is a beautifull landscape, with a lot of very old trees. A great variety, I saw the kapok, neem, mahogany, teak, sheanut, and of course the BAOBAB. That is the tre I love most, and it is flowering now, which is only a short time, and I never saw it before. The sheanuts are covered by a green peal and in it a layer of very nice tasting fruit- like sweet avocado. And of the nuts they make the sheabutter. The land is very dry though, now wonder they’ re praying for rain.. The Bonga hospital was small but seemed neat and well organised.. One of the midwifes working here is a very famous midwife,  she won the price of the best midwife of the year and went to Washington to receive it. An amazing woman who managed to lower maternal death rate in this region by her own convincing methods. She went to all villages around her health centre to   why people kept delivering at home. After this inventarisation she changed the manner of working in the HC and people started coming. For instance they were allowed to take their own herbal bath. Maternal death does hardly occur anymore-she says. Now she is working on preventing teenage pregnancies. An inspiring lady! The price of 5000 dollar she used to buy bicycles for all the fieldworkers, to restaurate the health centre and invest in projects.

Than we had again a nice trip to the place Sirigu(only 5 km from the Burkina border) where another inspiring woman started a cooperation for women. 500 women are working for this organisation, painting, weaving baskets and making pottery. All in the old style. Also they paint their huts in the way it used to be den here. Beautiful to see, and of course I bought something there .

Next day was rhe last training day and we enden with a real ceremony and certificates. Most of them learned a lot and picked it up fast

Meanwhile I started my next project,  that will be for the next blog

Bijschrift toevoegen

shea nuts

with Agija Mary 

old baobab tree

last day teaching 

End of the training

message from Ghana

It is five days ago already that I arrived in Bolgatanga, northern Ghana. What I thought was to  be a small village seems a town with 80.000 inhabitants. I come here on behalf of a PUM project to teach midwifes on cervical cancer screening, a totally different job from the obstetrics I did before. First day I met John, the organiser. He found  me a reasonable hotel opposite the building where the workshop is given. I have trained 13 midwifes for three intensive days and today we started practicing. In the regional hospital-which looked amazingly clean to me, but the minister of health was visiting…..-we had a room and two beds. With some improvising we saw over 40 women How much one can learn in a few days.There is a great difference between these midwifes, some pick up very fast, others will have to prctice for a long time before I would trust the mto do the test. But they are all nice.  Laughing a lot. So these have been very intensive and tiring days.

The note where I stay, looks nice , but......

one of the midwifes on her motorcycle

Another midwife even with a child on the motorcycle!

practicing as grandma, Ghanaian grandchild?

village behind the hotel

 But I did get some time to see some of the town. I walked behind the hotel, you come in a simple village with beautiful baobab trees. Although a lot is cut down for cooking! Very nice = non begging children! With one of the midwifes I went to the local market, buzy and colourful as ever. Of course also the crafts market was visited, baskets, cotton, leather… too much

Temperature is very high here and it is humid. Even if you go out at night it is warm. Yesterdy I went with a PUM colleague to a restaurant  where they had a outside screening of the footballmatch england / urugay. A very pleasant evening!

In spite of the heat and the moderate hotel I am enjoying the stay here.

Tomorrow training again and sunday I am off!