Julie Myhren’s Blog

Akwaaba to Ghana!

Happy Fourth of July!

 I learned my first Ghanaian word on the airplane: Welcome!  It is 7:30 pm on July 4th, and I have been in Nalerigu since about 11:15 am.  The past two  days have been pretty full, but great nonetheless.  My flight from New York was absolutely packed and I made three friends on the plane: La, a Zimbabwean lady from Texas who was happy to “adopt me” for our trip through customs; Ernest, a 23 year old Ghanaian (pronounced GhanAian) business/finance student who asked me drug questions and wanted to know whyI am not married at 24; and Brenda, a Ghanaian lady who is studying to become a pharmacy technician.  Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep at all on the plane… but the good side is that I caught up on some reading!

I arrived in Accra around 8:30 am yesterday and had my first experience with African taxi drivers… It took some time to assure them that I had a ride (although I had no idea what Fusheni would look like) and that I did not need help with my bag.  Fusheni appeared and drove me to the guesthouse, where I finally showered and felt human again.  During the afternoon, Caitlin, who facilitates the guesthouse for missionaries, volunteers, etc, invited me to join her on an errand run in Accra.  I learned a few surprising things: 1) Accra has a very American/European mall. 2) The grocery story (MaxMart) stocks canned goods from Shop Rite (which is also the name of a South African version of Walmart) (For those of you NOT from the great state of New York, Shop Rite is the name of our food store). 3) During the rainy season, it doesn’t rain every day, only at night and a bit more than usual.

Last night, just after dinner, Kate and Dr. Norman arrived.  Dr. Norman is an OB/GYN who served in Nigeria and several other places for a long time and now travels a few times a year to perform complicated vaginal fistula surgeries in remote areas.  Kate is an OB/GYN resident from North Carolina.  She’s here for three weeks and we’re roommates :).  (Interesting side note: Kate is married to Christian singer/songwriter Mark Schultz).

We woke up at 4am today for our commuter flight to Tamale (pronounced TOMaly) and arrived in northern Ghana around 7:30am.  We then began our drive into REALLY rural Africa.  We were on a paved road for about an hour and a half and then on a bumpy, sometimes washed out, red dirt road for the rest of the trip.  I think it took about 3 hours to get to the hospital.   We stopped for fried yams with pepper, which tasted like starchy fries with mild Old Bay.  We arrived in Nalerigu between 11 and 12.

The Baptist Medical Centre compound is much bigger than I had expected.  Our guesthouse is one of several houses and there are several other volunteers here, too–two medical students from Sweden (Annalie and Miriam), two med students from Great Britain (Andy and Olly), an OB physician and her family, a ladies group from somewhere down south working with kids until next week, and probably others who I will meet at the Fourth of July picnic tomorrow (Saturday). 

Dr. Norman brought Kate and I up for a tour of the hospital and we ended up going right to work–Kate helped out in clinic for the afternoon, and I got my introduction to the pharmacy.  It’s pretty big, and possibly the most comfortable part of the entire hospital–the dispensing area has several ceiling fans and windows on either side and the stock room is actually…. get ready for this…. AIR CONDITIONED!  Jane gave me the grand tour and then I helped out with prepacking some meds.  On clinic days, the hospital sees about 300 or so patients who all stop by for meds on their way out.  We left around 6:30. 

Dispensing is certainly different here, but while the drug names are different, the medications themselves are mostly familiar.  Dispensing vials are impractically expensive here, so prescriptions are filled in unused church offering envelopes from churches in the US.  The system is different, but it certainly works!  I’ll post some pictures tomorrow…

It’s about time to trek back to the guesthouse with Dr. Norman, so I’d better say good night!  I will write more tomorrow!