Time to update my blog! I haven’t been on the computer for a while, sometimes I feel it is really refreshing to be away from internet, phone, and electronics (except my ipod-I need music!). Of course, when I go on I love having letters to read so I feel in touch so thank you! It is an extremely humid afternoon, and all I can do is type and hope the rain doesn’t fall until my clothes have dried on the line. There are women who do laundry for us, but then we have it hanging in our “porch” to dry. “Porch” refers to the room that is enclosed in the house, but is kind of a veranda type location with cement floor, brick wall, and a clothesline for laundry. There are no chairs, because it is either too hot, or there is the threat of malaria at night. The laundry is done by hand, and the only thing I have washed by hand is a dish towel. Apparently you rub the clothe against your wrist, but I am not sure on this because I pretty much rubbed my wrist raw trying. If I had to choose between a dishwasher and a washing machine the decision wouldn’t take me a second. Washing machines are an amazing invention, and among nations where the women are working many hours, I don’t think life would be enjoyable without.

One thing I wanted to share about was Sundays in Kasei. Sunday morning I overslept (side fact) because I failed to set my alarm for 3:00 AM. You see, my alarm is my ipod, which is stuck on Iowa time, and when I am tired, I forget that I can’t set my alarm clock for 8:00 AM, and expect it to go off until it is actually 1 PM. Don’t worry though, the chickens always make sure I wake up. We attend the Church of Pentecost here, and Miriam told us that this church is known for “speaking in tongues.” Apparently if they believe in all three parts of the trinity, they are able to speak in tongues in prayer to God. I guess the reason Gretchen and I have never realized this before is we never know what they are saying in the first place, so to us it is all the same. I have never heard of this before, and Theresa tried to make me do it, but I think if I did it would fail just because I still don’t think I can. If anyone wants to let me know more about this church please let me know! I am open to learning about it since I have to go to the church for the next two months. J After some delicious jell-of-rice (that is not the correct spelling) and plantains, I spent some time reading. I am reading the book Who I am in Christ my Neil Andersen, and I highly recommend it! When I speak at morning devotions at the hospital, I am pretty much going to retell his introduction to the people, and of course give him credit. Then I went to the school for volleyball! There were only men playing when I came, and I just stood watching because none of them were speaking English. They were playing teachers vs. students but honestly I don’t know which side was which. The best part was when they disagreed on a play because both sides would start yelling at each other and pointing and lines and indents in the dirt. I asked someone if they wanted a referee, and for the next five minutes all of the guys who talking to eachother and laughing. I am pretty sure they were laughing at me. Oh well, after they went to play football, the high schooler guys asked if I would play with them (I played with them last week.) Funny thing, throughout the past week I noticed a few kids would come up to me, and try to look at my elbow or knee. I was kind of confused by this, but I realized they were looking for my battle wounds. Last week I left with a bloody knee and elbow. This week, I succeeded in cutting open my knee. It kept bleeding, but I just kept playing. By the time I left, blood was down to my ankle, and everyone I walked past would stare at my knee. As of now one cut is healing, and the other one is infected despite my constant ointment application. To all the medical worrisome people out there do not worry. I am working at a hospital so if it gets worse I will have no problem finding a bandaid. :) After a dinner I talked to my family on the phone for the first time! It was definitely nice to hear their voices, and the wonderful static our home phones possess whenever they go outside. 

Monday I started consultation!! I am watching a man whom I call Professor. He is the head of the nursing department, and he has some sort of masters in nursing. Most of the cases are malaria. Don’t worry, I am fully capable of diagnosing malaria: fever, chills, loss of appetite, diarrhea, stomach pain, and headache. Primary malaria is treated with an artesnate/amodiaqin combination pill, but secondary/severe malaria is treated with quinine. 

John taught me all of the right words to say: Bra. Tenase. Den na eye wo? Wo fe? Wo bo wa?. 

Consultation is set up differently here. The patients wait outside with their own folder and insurance, they get vitals in the waiting room with everyone else, then they wait for their turn in consultation. They sit in a chair and see Professor, his two insurance, surgery consent, and diagnosis form fillers, and me. Then they leave and go to either Lab, Pharmacy, Theatre, or home. Besides malaria, hernias are very common. Men here do a lot of physical labor and they can get different types of hernias such as chronic and acute cases. It definitely looks painful, but many come in and have the surgery done the same day. What is the most interesting part of consultation to me? First, I love diagnosis. I love going through the signs and symptoms, and figuring out what is wrong. Second, the people intrigue me. If you took out the malaria and hernias (which are preventable) and pregnancies (Muslims are very reproductive) there are not a lot of issues. Spend a day in an American consultation room and you will see countless colds, earaches, flu, etc. That to me is fascinating. What are the things that make America so sickly? Ask Ghanaians and they will say, “All Americans do is eat salt and sugar which makes them get sick all of the time.” Other reasons? They get physical activity walking around for transportation, doing laundry, washing dishes, running after their children, cooking, and going to the market. The food they eat is fish, rice, beans, and lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. They aren’t eating packaged foods and processed foods with added sugar and salt, and their meat comes from animals who have been running around the village and road all their life. I am not saying this is the answer to all our problems, but I think it is definitely interesting. :)

Anyways, I will close with the end of my journal entry last night: 

PS There are trails of ants crawling on my walls, a lizard, and a spider in my room. Thank you for making Raid, Lord. May it be your will that the lizard leaves by himself back outside without touching me, and my room does not give me cancer.  

My camera is locked in Dr. John's home, so expect a picture later tonight. (Probably just my bloody knee.)

God is Love,

Affia Boatema

Here is Charles, Stella, and "Momma" smashing the yams for the fufu. The soup was on a gas stove behind the brown towel. This is at the Vogel Nest in the inner porch.

Homemade Fufu

Well there is not much new to say today...maybe I should have spaced out all of the new information. :) Tonight we went over to the Vogel nest for some REAL fufu. Real refers to the fact that Charles smashed the cocoa yams with a long stick and a wooden bowl. It was wonderful, and I took pictures I will put up later when the electricity is working. Fufu is like a dough, but consists of smashed yams. They are large balls and are considered the dish of the area. The balls of fufu are in a large bowl with soup. Tonight the soup consisted of crushed peppers, tomatoes, some other ingredients, and tilapia that was bought at the market. The tilapia was dried, and the meat is very good! It does not have the fishy taste that I am not fond of. The soup has a consistency similar to what you would see with strained chili. Also, in the traditional way we ate the fufu tonight, we sat around a large bowl with the fufu and soup, took some of the dough with our right hand, dipped it in the soup, and ate it. The tricky part was that you do not chew the fufu, but simply swallow it whole. I was able to do this, but sometimes I would forget and they would laugh at me. The clinic is going well, we are still in the OPD, but tomorrow is one of our last days before moving onto vitals and consultations. Tomorrow is a national holiday known as African Union Day. I am not sure exactly what it is, but some people don't work. I don't mind working since I wouldn't know the difference anyways. Twi is coming with time, but still have a long ways to go. Gretchen and I are the only white people around the village, and it is kind of a weird feeling to walk and have small kids stare at you and yell abrunee!! (this is white lady in Twi) I also had a little girl at the market look at me, scream, and cry to her mom which was a little sad, but once again we are adjusting! Tonight I began using my filtering water bottle so that I can take the water, and drink it without constantly using up plastic water bottles. So far so good! I guess we will see how I feel tomorrow. Well, that is all I really have. The electricity is out again tonight, but hopefully this will not be a common occurance. I am learning a lot in the morning devotions at the hospital. The entire staff is to come to devotions around 7 am every morning, and I am enjoying the messages, even if they are shortened translations. There is great devotion spent on prayer every morning, and a faith in God's provision in guidance that is very inspiring to me. God is Love. Abby

 This is Mother Theresa's guesthouse. She is pictured below with a far away view of our beloved scorpion whom Gretchen did not even get scared about. Gretchen and I both have our rooms in here (on the left). Every morning chickens somehow appear right outside my two windows (ok I don't actually know where they are, but they are loud.) and wake me up by doodling. Actually, I find it much more peaceful of a way to wake up compared to just hearing a loud alarm clock. :)

Hey family and friends! Sorry I have not posted in a while. I am trying to keep up to tabs with family emails, writing a personal journal, and my blog without having too much technology around. Actually as I am writing this I am listening to my ipod for the first time since leaving my home last week. J Also, as I am writing this we just got the power back on after it shut off after dinner. I washed the dishes by the faint moonlight, and now at 9:00 pm the electricity is on, but we do not have internet so you are reading this after I posted it. Where to start…Saturday Kwame took us to the Accra mall after a breakfast of beans and scrambled eggs, delicious muffins (I have no idea what the flavor was though), and some instant coffee. The Accra Mall is actually really modern. It has a Puma store, Apple store, a cinema (theatre refers to the operating room J), and a game store which is a South African Walmart. Yes, it even had the low prices logo! It was the only place to find lasagna noodles before heading to the village. We ate outside the mall and had some pizza! This was actually the first pizza I have had since my food sensitivities a year ago, and it settled perfectly well…praise the Lord!!!  After some vegetable pizza, we traded some money in for cedas (Ghana currency) and headed to the Ghanian military base to try out for the army!....just kidding…Don’t worry mom and dad I only went there to visit Kwame’s pastor who is in schooling to be a chaplain. Kwame’s pastor is part of the Church of Pentecost, which is also found in America in places such as Houston, California, South Carolina, Minnesota, and New York and he was proud to say he has visited them! Except he said driving on American roads was crazy because we are not nice drivers. I can explain…you see this is a “hot” culture based on relationships, and we live in a “cold” culture based on how fast, efficient, and quick things can be checked off a list. Driving here is fast, but people pull out in front of other people because they know the other person will wait, you never drive to fast to not be courteous and yield for others. The church here in Kasei is also of that denomination.

Back to our visit to the pastor…his wife served us guava juice which was delicious, and Kwame, Gretchen, the pastor, and I talked about the church, culture, etc. All of the sudden the electricity went out and the long curtains to the floor were flying everywhere. It is so hot, that suddenly it just starts pouring, blowing, and thundering as is what happened tonight. Once the rain slowed down, we left to catch our flight to Kumasi at 4. We cut it close, but we got through a scan of our bag and pat down at 3:53 pm. Then we waited for an hour in a general waiting room because they were afraid the storm would hit Kumasi. That hour was interesting as everyone around us spoke Twi, a common Ghanaian language, and they continued to speak Twi on the bus that shuttled us to the plane when they wouldn’t let us out. In the end, Gretchen and I boarded the plane, slept, and arrived in Kumasi!!!! Dr. John told us the plane came to Kumasi, turned back around to Accra, and then decided to come to Kumasi after they decided it was safe to land. What a day! We then drove with Dr. John, his driver, Estella (a young, newly certified as of today, nurse midwife) to Kasei. Along the way we stopped for “biscuits” aka crackers J. At each village we drove through on the way people were crowded along the road watching the BIG football game outside on small televisions…by the way Ivory Coast won….Yay! J (This was the clear choice for everyone as they have a Ghanian player. The lights just went out again….I will finish tomorrow.

Anyways, after the two hour drive to Kasei, we arrived at St. Luke Hospital!! J I honestly feel close to home here, besides St. Luke Hospital, we have the Demco patient ward, and the Vogel home. Not to mention Dr. John has a Northwestern College glass plate, and love for the college…did I mention he has been to Orange City and is a fan of Foreign Candy and the Pizza Ranch? J

This is a long post, I am sorry for all of you slow readers, but I have learned SO much the past few days. Sunday morning after egg omelette sandwiches, we headed to church. Dr. John gave the message because the pastor was in Kumasi, and it was mostly in Twi. We introduced ourselves as Affia (me) and Accosia (Gretchen). There was lots of singing, dancing, and praying. The message was how we are all unique, and can use these gifts to serve God. Dr. John said we had no fear, which was crazy because I feel like I can be a scaredy cat…I can’t even make it through an episode of Monk without being scared of the dark. J The afternoon was spent visiting Stella’s friend, Winifred, and playing volleyball with some young men from the village. We played right outside the primary school using two tree stumps as poles and an old net. There is definitely a new meaning to the “talking” on the court after playing and seeing the difference when we don’t speak the same language! I scraped my knee and elbow, and they were worried about me, but I was perfectly fine. The parents were on the other side watching the adult men play a very intense, professional soccer game. Then it was time for dinner. We had fufu and some soup with hedgehog (0% fat!), entire crabs, and snails. I did my best on the fufu, but I struggled with the seafood portions. Hedgehog tastes like chicken! I think my dad should start bringing it home for my mom to cook for dinner J.

Today we started at the hospital with 7 am devotions. I spent time in the front where patients come, and I learned all about filing insurance. There are the capitated, re-capitated, and new capitations to fill out along with activated/deactivated insurance. I really enjoyed learning about their insurance computer system, and I will begin here this week before moving onto consultations, maternity, surgery, etc. Then we headed to Monday market…wow is all I have time for now, but I am sure a later Monday post will explain, but there is nothing like being in a huge market, and being one of two six foot tall white people (aka abrunee). Love you all, and sorry for the novel!! (The saddest part is I could have said so much more. J) 

PS Yesterday there was a lizard next to the toilet, I think I killed it without knowing it which is kind of scary. Today there was a scorpion in the door of the guest house, and Theresa (our mother) was surprised it didn’t run away and hide…..I do not know what to think of this piece of information. Needless to say, it is dead, and she has checked all around and now found anymore….and we have a picture!!!!!!

My tilapia with bunka, Gretchen's barracuda steak, and Kwame's grilled chicken and fried rice (right).

Gretchen, Kwame, and I eating along the ocean. The malt beverage is an non-alcoholic energy drink for all of you who were able to read it. Also not the wind.

Hello!
This is my very first post from Ghana! Gretchen and I were able to meet in Chicago at the airport. We bonded over some Burrito Beach which of course included guacomole, and I am so excited to get to know her better-she is wonderful, and we are quite similar in many ways. :) What a blessing! After flying overnight from Chicago to London, we spent a few busy hours in London first on a bus, then going through customs, and finally buying a camera card since I forgot one at home. I cannot say that it was easy for me to sleep on the red-eye flight, but by the time we flew from London to Accra I was falling asleep reading. When we arrived at the airport we were hit with a wave of humidity. Gretchen and I stuck together, and were met with a greeting card that said: MR ABBY GRETCHEN. From there Monica, an airport worker, guided us through customs which was a blessing, and we met Dr. John's son, Kwama outside. Kwama brought us back to their home in Accra which is a very beautiful lime green stucco home. We slept in until 11:15 am, Kwama had set breakfast out before work of eggs, muffins (which he admitted were from the bakery), coffee, and beans. After work Kwama took us out to a restaurant right on the ocean. Needless to say, I gasped when first seeing the ocean, because of course that is always a winner with me. :) The resturaunt was a hotel/spa place and we sat right next to the ocean so we could smell the salt and watch crabs walking on the poles in the water. My mother would be very proud to know I ordered tilapia and bunka. When my plate arrived so did the entire tilapia, but I did a very good job (according to Kwama) of eating the meet from one side, and flipping it over to do the same. It was very good! (I took a picture before and after.)The bunka is kinda like corn dough that you then dip in sauces that were hot. :) The waitress brought our a bowl and soap for me to wash my hands, but Kwama said I could just use my knife and fork instead.
Tomorrow after Gretchen and I do some shopping for food to bring to the village, we will be flying from Accra to Kumasi, where Dr. John will pick us up. We have talked to Dr. John on the phone a few times, and we are excited to meet him! So far Gretchen and I are doing well, and we really don't feel like we are in Africa too much, but we are excited for all of the possibilities of things we might be doing. Prayer requests would be for safe travels through the airports again tomorrow, and continued health as we adjust our diets.
I will try to blog again soon, probably after we are settled in Kasei. The local time here is 8:19 pm, but I am already tired! I must transition from late nights to early nights, and earlier mornings. :) Plus, Gretchen is waiting to use the computer. Hope all is well for everyone. If you would like to get a hold of me, I am communicating via facebook and my email address: abbyjh3@gmail.com. God Bless!

Welcome!
So if you are looking for Abby's blog about her adventure in Ghana you are in the right place! I am not the most techonological savvy person you have ever met, but I am going to do my best to keep this updated on what is going on with me. Right now I am getting ready to leave, and I have a lot to do yet! I am not into packing, I am a bad procrastinator simply because I do not like packing things I still need. Hopefully, I get the ball rolling so I can leave in less than three days! :)
My prayer for this trip is that God uses me for His purposes. I also want to continue to grow in my relationship with Him, as I am continually learning to trust Him even when life doesn't always make sense. My theme verse for this trip is Joshua 1:9 which says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” This verse not only extends to this trip, but also my prayer for my life: that I am prepared to follow God's calling wherever He leads me. Well...I should probably get some sleep. I will blog once I get down to Ghana else once more before I leave.