It's turned out to be quite a slow Saturday in Accra. We were up bright and early and ready by 7:45 to head out, but as sometimes happens, the driver was late to pick us up. I used the bonus time to: go to the bank (all by myself! go me!), do my laundry (by hand, go me!) and make my first hot chocolate (from Belgium, yumm. And the hot chocolate wasn't all by myself, I offered Atrish, my food soulmate, a sip, and he had three, but it's ok since he shares his spicy food with me). Finally, we headed to the outreach, only to find out that it hadn't been publicized at all and thus there were only 4 patients. Packing stuff up at noon, we headed back to the guesthouse where I am taking full advantage of the lack of power outages and internet outages to write this down.
Tomorrow we're headed off to parts unknown to do a three-day outreach. I'm a little bit apprehensive about where we'll be staying, what we'll be eating and that sort of thing, but I'm trying to not worry and just be excited. I'm really enjoying hanging out with the other volunteers, so really, this will be just like a road trip with friends where instead of just getting somewhere and drinking, we will get somewhere and be useful and helpful and make people not blind before we drink our box of $1.25 wine. Did I mention that we found wine, 1 litre, for 1.25? It's really bad. BUT: 1.25.
Also, I had a dream last night where I got married. I had on a really pretty lace dress, and I took a limo to the ceremony, and the next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning at home and telling people I couldn't remember what happened after I got out of the limo and nobody believed that I'd forgotten my own wedding so soon.
I'm feeling a little bit silly today, can you tell?
PS: OGC hahaha.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
In Africa!!
First things first: Congratulations to Sharon, Rafa and Talon!!! I am so happy for you guys! I can't wait to come home and have a celebratory mojito with you.
Ok, long time no update!!!
I'm not sure that I'll get much better at updating, but I wanted to let everyone know that I'm finally here! And also, Tai, the package I sent to you got returned to my home, so if you want, you can email me a new address :)
AFRICA!
I arrived here on Tuesday morning at 3am. After a little airport mix-up that left me hanging out by the taxi stand until 6:30, I finally was picked up and made it to the guest house that I'm staying at by 7ish. I pretty much slept the whole first day!
The next day was my first day working with Unite for Sight, and man do they ever throw you right in there! I went with some other volunteers to a village called Choechoe where we were running an outreach program. I went with another volunteer to set up the visual acuity tests, and after a few patients I'd gotten the hang of it. The only difficult part is that there is often a language barrier. We have translators, but they've been known to wander off at times! The day wasn't too busy (so i was told) - we only saw about 50 patients.
Thursday wasn't quite as good - I went with the other new volunteer (my roomate) to the Eye Clinic to watch surgeries. Well, it was pretty much just like the last time I watched surgeries, except it was after a questionable lunch and followed by a bumpy ride home. I went to sleep for the rest of the night. I think I am definitely going to lose all of the weight that I packed on in Europe.
Yesterday was uneventful, except that I ate a bit and wasn't sick :)
Today, however, was awesome. We had another outreach, and ended up seeing 140 patients. I did registration all day, which means that I did a basic interview with each patient to find out what their major eye complaint was. There was a bit of a lull in the middle of the day so I played frisbee with the kids that were hanging around - so much fun!
Now I think I'm going to have myself a shower. And by shower, I mean fill buckets of water and dump them over my head.
Ok, long time no update!!!
I'm not sure that I'll get much better at updating, but I wanted to let everyone know that I'm finally here! And also, Tai, the package I sent to you got returned to my home, so if you want, you can email me a new address :)
AFRICA!
I arrived here on Tuesday morning at 3am. After a little airport mix-up that left me hanging out by the taxi stand until 6:30, I finally was picked up and made it to the guest house that I'm staying at by 7ish. I pretty much slept the whole first day!
The next day was my first day working with Unite for Sight, and man do they ever throw you right in there! I went with some other volunteers to a village called Choechoe where we were running an outreach program. I went with another volunteer to set up the visual acuity tests, and after a few patients I'd gotten the hang of it. The only difficult part is that there is often a language barrier. We have translators, but they've been known to wander off at times! The day wasn't too busy (so i was told) - we only saw about 50 patients.
Thursday wasn't quite as good - I went with the other new volunteer (my roomate) to the Eye Clinic to watch surgeries. Well, it was pretty much just like the last time I watched surgeries, except it was after a questionable lunch and followed by a bumpy ride home. I went to sleep for the rest of the night. I think I am definitely going to lose all of the weight that I packed on in Europe.
Yesterday was uneventful, except that I ate a bit and wasn't sick :)
Today, however, was awesome. We had another outreach, and ended up seeing 140 patients. I did registration all day, which means that I did a basic interview with each patient to find out what their major eye complaint was. There was a bit of a lull in the middle of the day so I played frisbee with the kids that were hanging around - so much fun!
Now I think I'm going to have myself a shower. And by shower, I mean fill buckets of water and dump them over my head.
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