Change, Sweet, Sweet, Change!

So much has changed since my last post I don't even know where to begin!

National Cultural Center

Just some really cool clouds

Last weekend I went downtown again on Saturday to visit the National Cultural Center, which my guidebook told me was a good place to check in with the tourism office about different events going on and there are craft shops etc. Well, apparently everything happens during the week and the place was practically a ghost town. O Ghana...the country doesn't seem to care much about tourism. Anyway, the place had beautiful grounds (minus all the trash that permeates this whole city) so I just walked around, visited the 3 shops that were open, bought a few knickknacks and hung out on a bench and read, enjoying a moment of repose and sanctuary away from the crazy city center. That evening I went to Vic Baboo, a restaurant downtown that my guidebook informed me was the place to run into other backpackers, which I thought might be a nice break from my suburban solitude. There were a few travelers there but the place turned out to be a nice restaurant and not much of a hang out spot. Not really the place for me to meet people so I ate some yummy Indian Dahl and decided to head home. Took me about 45 minutes of walking and getting lost in the dark near Kejetiva Market (the crazy central market I mentioned) and trying to find the place where the tro-tros head back to Kenyase but after many different directions from about 10 people I finally found my way. Spent another hour sitting in the evening traffic so was absolutely beat by the time I got home! Decided to just enjoy a day of rest Sunday. Did laundry, made food, read a book and watched movies. I really appreciated the quiet!

Loom that makes Kente cloth.
It's famous cloth for this region.

So after a fine, but nothing spectacular weekend, things finally started to change! The Founder of the school, Albert, arrived, which really changed EVERYTHING. The shift of energy at the school was shocking. Everyone was moving around with places to be and things to do and people were chatty and looked alive. It was a whole new world. A bit worrisome that the energy seems to really stem from him since he lives in the U.S. and only comes for a few months out of the year...but that's part of my analysis for my project I suppose.

Speaking of my study...I finally received IRB approval to start! I began filling out UNC's proposal the first week of my internship in Chapel Hill but so much kept changing about my project (and then not really changing at all) that I didn't get it submitted until after my first week here. IntraHealth also required an IRB approval so that was application #2 and then UNC required that I get a local IRB approval making it IRB application #3. The local IRB turned out about as hard to get as you'd think it would in Africa... a.k.a. it didn't happen. The second option instead of a local IRB was to get a letter from a local expert saying my study was culturally sensitive - easy enough since the school knows why I am here and are OK with it but not so easy when all of a sudden the Registrar was out of town, the President was at a conference and the Founder was traveling. Whew! Anyway, the Founder a.k.a. Chancellor of Garden City University College finally arrived in Kumasi this week and got the letter signed for me first thing. I submitted it all to UNC and I was approved by that afternoon!

Another change started to take shape last weekend and that is just the fact that I've been here for a few weeks and feel more settled and comfortable with my surroundings. It's amazing what a few weeks will do. I have learned to appreciate the quiet I have in my big African compound, even with the cockroach problem I seem to be having. I also feel more comfortable at the school, my "office," and people are more comfortable with me. One of the women who works in accounting got me fabric and helped me go to a tailor to have it made (and paid for the tailor!) after I complemented on her dress. I think we're even going out dancing after work tomorrow since it is her birthday!

Part of the great thing about having Albert here is that he is determined to help me learn more about the school and he's definitely a do-er so when I've needed things done for my report he's been a great help.

Yesterday, Albert took me to visit a new hospital that is being built by his cousin on the outskirts of Kumasi. The new hospital will serve as one of the clinical training sites for GCUC nursing students. The school needs more sites for clinical practice since the one teaching hospital in Kumasi is completely overwhelmed with students and therefore they don't get well trained. To supplement, the students go to various private hospitals around the area. This new hospital looks top of the line as well with new technology that will be really great for the students to learn.

Chinese Food!

Albert Acquah

My cooking station...
always an adventure

After visiting the hospital, Albert took me to a Chinese restaurant at one of the nicer hotels in the area. Food was nothing amazing although the spring rolls were really good. It was nice to get out for a change since I've been eating chicken, rice and the few vegetables I got at the store for about a week now. (Definitely not complaining though that I can cook for myself - my stomach has been much happier! Also, GCUC's Practical Coordinator was with us and when we dropped her off at her house she gave me two small eggplants straight from her garden so I am excited to cook those tonight!).

Before I got a nice sharp knife
from the market last weekend,
this was me chopping
vegetables with my Leatherman...
I'm glad I brought it at least!

Practical Coordinator talks to
some of her nursing students
while at their clinical site

Today, Albert and the Nursing Practical Coordinator and I visited one of the clinical sites where current students have been working for the past 8 weeks. It was great to get a tour of the hospital and see the students in action as they practiced various skills. A graduate of GCUC is now employed full-time there, which was nice to see. I also got to take videos of him and the Practical Coordinator for a "I'm a Health Worker" video series that CapacityPlus has been doing throughout the 5-year project.

Always like seeing condom ads!

All the signs around the hospital were sponsored by an
energy drink company but I asked and the
 hospital isn't funded by the company...only the signs.

I started interviewing people for my study this week as well and while quite a few had to be re-scheduled it has been a good start. I have a lot more to do so it is going to be a busy few weeks but it will be good. I've already gathered some information from the interviews that made me realize there was a huge misunderstanding here at the school for what they thought was happening with one of the tools from CapacityPlus so I am trying to work on that on top of my project.

Also, now I have exciting plans in my future! The founder really wants me to see the rest of Ghana and all there is to see so we've coordinated a trip to Mole National Park this weekend! It is Ghana's largest wildlife refuge so I get to go see elephants, monkeys, maybe lions, etc! We're also going to go up to the most Northern part of Ghana to Bolgatanga and maybe to Paga where there are these crocodile ponds that apparently have the friendliest crocodiles in Ghana, whatever that means....I am for sure not going to test out the theory!

Garden City University College

This is how slow today is --
this is Rex,
sleeping in his office.

Not much to do today as I am still waiting on my IRB approval. Ahh bureaucracy. So I figured I'd write a short post detailing the school I'm working at and giving a short update.

Garden City University College (GCUC) is a private not-for-profit college with schools in Nursing, Business and Information Communication Technology (ICT). A school of Midwifery will begin this Fall. The building/campus is really beautiful. Three stories high and brightly painted, the building is divided into 3 sections by two airy courtyards. There are many classrooms and offices surrounding each courtyard and one library in the top corner of the farthest building. Only the IT room has a/c but because of the air flow through the courtyards and the fans in each room it's not too hot anywhere. I am, of course, still spending most of my time in the IT room enjoying the a/c, but if I had to work in another room it wouldn't be too bad. :) Across the main building is a nice green field that as far as I can tell is not used for much of anything. It gives the place a nice campus-y feel, however.

Front of the School

If you look at the picture above you can see a grey building that towers over the school. This is the school's second building, which is half built, partially painted and already in use. The bottom right section of the bottom two floors houses classrooms and offices and a fully set up midwifery training room (that has apparently been ready to use for over a year with no midwifery program in place). The school builds a bit more of the building as they get money and then it goes on hold when that money is gone. Seems typically African. 

So that's basically the school. I am hoping to get approval to start my interviews soon so I'll have more interesting stories but that's about it for now.

FOOD UPDATE: 

I finally got to go grocery shopping!!! I seriously have never been so excited to buy vegetables. Rex had to go to town yesterday to do some errands so he took me to a grocery store first. I did not realize, however, that we would be "running his errands" until 10pm that night so my groceries sat in his hot car for many hours - hopefully they're still edible! I was too tired last night to really check. Just shoved them in my tiny fridge (my college dorm size fridge that is located in the dining room because it couldn't reach the plug in the kitchen and I can't use the regular size fridge because the lady who locked up her side of the house also locked up the fridge shelves so no one could use it....) and went to bed. 

My stove top is literally like a travel stove top that connects via a tube to a huge propane tank. I'll have to take a picture later, it's strange. Anyway I finally have a stove and groceries and plan on cooking tonight so I will report back later!

Rex's longest errand included visiting a local non-profit, Sun Shade Foundation, which is run by a former business lecturer from GCUC. Rex does IT work for them pro bono, which is why we were there forever - he was installing new software. The visit was really interesting though and I somehow got roped in to volunteering for the organization so you may be hearing more about them (Ike, the Executive Director, was very persuasive). They are a micro-finance company that gives small loans to mostly women building up small businesses, selling goods, etc. They also provide training and clothing donations. 

Ike also mentioned he could get me tickets to see a Ghana national football (American soccer) game in a few weeks, which would be awesome!

As per usual I have written more than I intended so I'll sign off for now. 

Sending you all (whoever you may be that's actually reading this thing) much love from Ghana!

First Weekend Explorations

**Apparently I can't write short posts - sorry! Hope it's interesting at least**

Last week, well this week too, was (is still) a tough transition for me. Even with Heather, my IntraHealth colleague still here, I felt pretty isolated and lonely. As I explained in my last post, the house I am staying at is very close to the school but very far from everything else. I am in a suburb and getting into civilization takes about 20-30 minutes and that's with a car that will take you directly where you want to go! Public transit is a whole 'nother story.

My first few days here I had only seen about a 3 mile radius from the airport, school, my house and a restaurant (the closest actual restaurant is 20 minutes from where I live, otherwise just street vendors. Grocery stores are even farther...but I think my new friend Rex, the IT guy with a/c in his office, will take me to one this week, now that I have a stove top!). So last weekend arrived and I was itching to meet friends and explore the city.

One of the lecturers/faculty members at the school has traveled to the US many times and said his favorite thing is when someone drives him around and shows him the sites and he offered to do the same for me. What's better than a local tour guide? Especially someone associated with me professionally and trustworthy. Saturday, Heather leaves for the US and my new friend, I'll call him Obin (name change) picks me up from my house. I didn't know where we were going but was excited to get out of the suburb.

Kumasi is a big city and is quickly growing. It is the 2nd biggest city in Ghana and rapidly approaches the same population size as Accra at almost 2 million people. The growth is apparent from all the traffic and the fact that Kenyasi, the suburb I live in did not used to be a part of Kumasi but Kumasi has grown to meet it in recent years.

We drove to town, avoiding the center since traffic is horrendous here, and first went to the Armed Forces Museum. The museum is an old British barracks and the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and very enthusiastic. He showed us many old guns and relics from the 2nd world war, during which Ghanaian's (though at the time it was Gold Coast not Ghana) fought for the British. Then he showed us where prisoners of war were placed in confinement in groups of 10 or 20 with only standing room and left there until they died, all of them. He put our group in one of them and closed the door briefly - I was thankfully the last one in because it was really creepy and claustrophobic!! We left about half way through the tour after learning more about the Ashanti kingdom (Ashanti is the region we are in), and how they fought against the British.

Obin had mentioned driving to Lake Bosumtwi at some point and I didn't think it would be that day but that's where he started driving next. Traffic thinned out, the roads became thinner, less paved and more potholed and buildings grew scarcer. Like much of the African countryside I've seen, once out of town I saw many half-built buildings (actually those exist in town too) and many fully constructed and even freshly painted but abandoned windowless buildings. Much more frequent are the vendor stalls selling all sorts of odds and ends and necessities (tissues, powdered milk, recharge credits for your phone SIM) and the women and children walking along the side of the road with a big metal bowl on their heads selling Pure water packages or fried food. In between the stalls and clusters of buildings are vast fields of corn and lush greenery - if it weren't for the trash scattered all over it would be perfectly scenic. Driving in Ghana is like driving on an obstacle course, dodging potholes, avoiding other cars and people, trying to find the most filled in part of the road. And in doing that it means driving on all sides of the road, whichever is more flat, weaving right and left while still maintaining your speed only to slow down as you approach a pothole you can't avoid or an oncoming vehicle. It's amazing I have seen no accidents so far!

After about 45 minutes of driving we arrive at the top of the mountain from which we can look out and see Lake Bosumtwi. It's absolutely stunning as you can see from the pictures here.

View from top of mountain looking at
Lake Bosumtwi

Lake Bosumtwi

We made our descent toward the lake and got out to walk around. In typical African form, we were first stopped to pay a 2 cedi (about 1 dollar) park entrance fee, then asked for a donation at the information booth and then children came to wash the car while we were walking in order to get paid. All small hassles, which probably would have been worse if I weren't with a Ghanaian who spoke to them in Twi.

Town of Abono

Enjoying a beer in the mango garden at
Lake Point Guest House

This was Abono, the "main" lake town, which consisted of a small cluster of houses and shops and that was about it. We left there shortly after, traversing lakeside through another very small and clearly very poor town on dirt potholed roads and arriving at a gorgeous getaway, clearly popular by local volunteers and backpackers set back from the lake in groves of mangoes, with small huts as lodging and mini tables with thatched roofs delicately placed along the hillside. We stopped there to get a drink and relax for a bit. I definitely hope to go back there and stay a night!

Lake Point Guest House
at Lake Bosumtwi

The story kind of goes down hill from here. Short version is I realized that Obin was trying to get more from me than just my friendship. I had started to feel really uncomfortable by things he was saying at the guest house but never enough to say anything outright. Now that I've stewed over all the little signs from throughout the day I am even more put off and uncomfortable. Anyway, that was the last time he'll be my tour guide. It put an unfortunate damper on the day but I will try to just remember how beautiful the scenery was rather than his awkward unnecessary comments.

Whew ok this is already a ridiculously long post. Short-ish story for Sunday was that I felt like I needed to go exploring on my own rather than have a tour guide that had ulterior motives. So I walked out my front door, jumped on the nearest "tro tro," which are like Dakar's "car rapides" but WAY less decorated and a bit more safe....a bit, and I headed into town. Spent an hour walking around the central market, which is absolutely insane, and also happened to be on fire that day, so I didn't really go into it. It's one of the largest markets in Africa apparently so I'll have to go back another day.

Central Market on Fire

I got lost a few times, found a taxi and went to a hotel that had a pool. Ended up that hotel had drained their pool so they sent me even farther in the opposite direction of my house to another pool. I spent the afternoon happily swimming and sunbathing and getting stared at by a bunch of Ghanaian's who preferred to sit under the shade by the bar and just stare at the pool. And yes, I was the only Obruni there.

My own African Compound

Akwaaba to Ghana (Welcome to Ghana)!

** Warning - this is my intro post so it's just mainly descriptive and might be boring to some of you. Later posts will hopefully be more exciting. I'll make shit up if I have to!**

San Juan, Puerto Rico - I went from this...

To this...Kenyasi, Ghana
(a suburb of Kumasi)

Whelp, it's been quite a week already and it's only been 3 days. Traveling to Africa is already quite the shock on one's system but leaving the beaches of Puerto Rico to come to Ghana was another level. The trip was relatively easy despite 24 hours straight of traveling on 3 airplanes. I slept practically the whole 11 hour trip from NYC to Accra and the rest of the time ate salty overcooked plane food and watched a movie. I even ended up getting two seats to myself  since it was a fairly open flight!

Heather, my colleague at IntraHealth was at the Accra airport once I got through immigration and customs, we found a place to change my money and off we went to the domestic side to catch our flight to Kumasi. At check in we ran into our other colleague, Dr. Ojo, who would be co-running a training with Heather at Garden City University College (GCUC) (I'll get to that later). We arrived in Kumasi and had a driver from the school pick us up from the airport and that was it! It was probably the easiest sequence of traveling I've ever done.

Before I left I didn't really know where I was going to be living so I was a bit surprised to find out that I have my own African compound. Like a boss. The school, GCUC, is putting me up at their guest house, generally reserved for faculty. It's a big concrete estate, with a tiled empty gazebo and large empty porch in front colored in pinks, oranges and reds. The house is absolutely huge and I actually haven't even seen all the rooms because half of it is locked up. When you enter you're in the living area, sparsely decorated but welcoming with 3 couches, coffee table, working tv, and rug all colored in red, cream and pink patterns, which adds some nice color to the black and white tiled floor and very white walls. To the right is the part of the house that's locked away (I'll get to that later). You then enter a small dining area that is only connected to the kitchen through a small window, below which an ironing board is set up for all my ironing purposes (ha!). 

My African Compound

Front of House

Turn left from the living room before you get to the dining area, go down the hallway and you've entered the other half of the compound. There are two bedrooms, each adorned with their own bathroom (one working, one not...I have the working one albeit full of spiders and cockroaches..yay). Then another bathroom in the middle (which I've adopted since it seems to be bug free and has a cool LED light on the shower head when the water's running...shower party!). My room is also large and sparse, with 3 floor to ceiling cabinets with locks, a chair and a rock hard bed (apparently an African thing I had forgotten). 

Gazebo
(gonna try to find a hammock to
hang since it's cooler outside
than inside most of the time))

Downsides of the housing #1 - it's hot and stuffy and has no air circulation. Each bedroom and the living room at least has one ceiling fan and I'm working on figuring out how to get the air circulated. However, as many of you read on FB the other day, every 3 days for 12 hours, Kumasi runs scheduled power outages. Since my only source of air run on electricity, the house is pretty unbearable during these stints. This brings me back to the other part of the house being locked. I found out yesterday that the Head of the Nursing Department who generally lives here, locked up her side of the house when she left for South Africa, where she'll be for 6 months. All fine since the house is so big except the fact that she A) locked away the stove so as of right now I have no place to cook B) locked away the shelves of the refrigerator (who does that???) and C) locked away THE ONLY PART OF THE HOUSE WITH AIR CONDITIONING. So I'm a bit bitter.

Downside of the housing #2 - it's in Kenyasi, which is actually a suburb of Kumasi and has really nothing around it and nothing within walking distance so I'm pretty isolated from the actual city. Downtown, which I have yet to visit because I've been at work every day so far, is about 20 min away, though thankfully it's only a $3 cab ride.

What am I doing here in my isolated African house in the suburbs of Kumasi? Good question! I'm here as part of my summer internship for my Masters in Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. I am a Summer Fellow at IntraHealth International and through a mix of funding from them, Center for Global Initiatives and Health Behavior department at UNC I came here to work on a USAID project called CapacityPlus. As mentioned above I'll be working at GCUC, a private not-for-profit university focusing on nursing, business, IT and soon, midwifery. CapacityPlus has been working with the school for about a year as a pilot project to develop school management tools that the school will use to increase capacity and produce higher quality and larger amounts of health workers. I am going to be conducting a qualitative study and interviewing people throughout the school that have been working on this project as well as others that the project affects (like students) to document the process by which the school has been working with CapacityPlus in developing these tools and beginning to implement the school management plan.

My first few days at GCUC thankfully involved getting to be a bystander of Heather and Dr. Ojo as they trained the staff at GCUC on one of CapacityPlus's tools. I was able to work on my human subjects review application so I can start my study soon.

Dr. Ojo running the training
 (yup this is Africa and they have a
really awesome computer lab
with great internet!). 

IntraHealth Crew for the Week

OK this was a long post and I'm getting bored of this myself (next one will be about my adventures to Lake Bosumtwi) but I'm going to end you with this picture:

My new friend Rex found out I could drive manual and decided to test my skills on the potholed roads of Kenyasi. I totally owned it. :)

Bye bye for now!

Obruni Ariana (White person Ariana)