I returned to Hohoe from Accra on Easter Sunday in order to go to work on Monday this week. It is a holiday but I am free to go into work if I want to, so I do. The kids with burns on the ward would definitely qualify for an on call service at home but of course there is no such thing here and they have barely moved since last week. I do as much as I can to remedy this, whizz around the other wards and leave a bit early, just as the dust is whipping off the road and around the sky, warning of an imminent downpour.
Said downpour only takes a few minutes to arrive and leaves me sheltering sociably in several different stalls with the locals on the way home. I try to use the internet but the electricity keeps going down, which is bad for business when you run an internet cafe, so after a bit of starting and stopping, Godwin, the manager, shuts up shop for the day, and I go home.
On Tuesday we went to the children's ward armed with i pods - for dancing to, play dough - for our new found 'play dough elephant' craze and lots of noisy activities which possibly lead the staff to believe we have lost the plot altogether. Some things, for the family at least, are a bit cheerier but I didn't hang around for the dressing changes.
Wednesday is visiting Likpe caves day again and I decide to go along, partly for the exercise and partly because the 29 year old stroke patient (from Likpe) who has yet to regain any real function, was discharged home last week with no wheelchair and no follow up with physio. I am not convinced she will attend the loose arrangement to reattend the hospital in a couple of weeks so I am hoping to visit her at home to at least give her a firm appointment and see how she is getting on.
It is slightly more challenging than my usual home visit in that this patient has no phone number, she doesn't know I am coming and her 'address' consists of 'Asorkor's house, Likpe Todome', so I have to hope I meet somebody who knows her and will take me there. Amazingly enough I do, but after a bit of investigation I discover that my patient has been sent to prayer camp where she might stay for several weeks or months. Prayer camp is a long way away and I can't visit it :o(
It is a good job that I didn't go into the hospital on Wednesday in any case, since the previous day the dispute that Kristina and Julianna had been having with the nursing staff and medical director over the burns kids, reached a climax of bad feeling and unpleasant exchanges resulting in them being banned from the children's ward - dismissed from their volunteer posts! Unfortunately for me, the director's relationship with 'volunteers' is now such that, by association, I also find myself evicted, leaving me with two days remaining and no placement to attend.
I have agreed to meet Cindy in physio so I sneak into the hospital in the afternoon. I am perhaps overly nervous about the prospect of being spotted but I realize, as I glance around furtively, that since I have never met the director I have no idea who to be avoiding. It is, sadly, not safe to go across to visit the kids and I feel disgruntled :o(
On Thursday I go to the Christian Orphans Home with Becky to help teach the kindergarten and P1 how to count to five. Which proves more challenging than I might have believed six weeks ago. The orphanage is better equipped than most and we spend quite some time watching a dvd on the laptop, of the kids acting out the crucifixion (recorded during the many hours they spent on Good Friday marching around Hohoe). In many ways it was nice to go somewhere else, to experience school in Ghana, and see for myself what the other volunteers spend their time doing in the mornings.
As much fun as all this was though, on Friday I decide to abandon work altogether (feeling somewhat disobligated to anywhere in particular) in order to visit Ho. Ho is the capital town of the Volta region and a place that somehow I have never got around to seeing. So I said my goodbyes to most of the other volunteers, who would be spending the weekend in Accra (and gone by the time I returned) and caught a tro tro which got me there by about midday.
My confidence in Ghanaian driving is never improved much by the frequent burnt out and bashed in cars that we pass at the road sides. It was particularly not helped today by the large tanker lying on it's side, with people dancing around trying to transfer whatever it was carrying to another tanker, which is blocking a good deal of the rest of the road. We passed it again, lying alone, on the way back: I wonder how long it will stay there.
Having been escorted (quite some distance) from the tro tro station to a recognizable central point by a friendly local, I wandered off in one direction looking vaguely for the ever elusive ice cream and some souvenirs. I eventually took a break for a while at an awesomely large and speedy internet cafe before going off to explore the other side of town (which was remarkably similar to where I had been earlier).
Things were livelier back at the tro tro station: I watched as one tro tro ploughed through a space that really wasn't big enough for it, taking the door of another tro tro with it and almost ripping it off completely. It moved on with much shouting and shaking of heads as the tro tro waiting behind blasted it's horn impatiently at the delay. At least there is entertainment to pass the long wait to go home.
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