13th – 15th November: arrival at Agomanya
Day 22, 23, 24 Yes, Ghana is indeed a country full of surprises. As we had finished writing the last blog we started to prepare for the so called farewell party. As I have already told you we did not know what we should expect. The first information about the small party in our guesthouse had been replaced to the information that we would go outside with some other people and they had also said something about a bus. And … there was a bus. It was the hospital bus. Except from the esate department there were quite a few people joining us who I did not know yet. We experienced our first adventure of that evening during the bus ride. As we did not take the main route, but the one which is in “better” condition we also could go faster. The shaky but compared to most of the other vehicles confidence-inspiring bus found his way through the dust of the road. Although the driver could avoid most of the holes in the street the bus was making a considerable noise. Right after we left the town a lively discussion between the passengers, in a mixture of Twi and a little bit of english, started. Five minutes later I could not hear the noise of the bus any more. Not that the bus hat turned less loud but when Ghanaians are having a discussion this is done with a lot of enthusiasm. I just wondered how they could understand each other when ten people are talking or rather shouting at the same time! Anyway after about one hour we reached a quite fancy club where we got Ghanaian beer and ate the meat our friends had brought with them. Soon after everybody was dancing inlung the three Germans. At 10 to 10:30pm we started our way back with another even more lively discussion. The evening was really funny, we enjoined it a lot!! 🙂 On Sunday we went to the church service at 8am and prepared to our departure. Unfurtunately we could not say goodbye and a last thank you to Ralph and Sister Mary any more, but a very friendly nun came by and surprised us with presents from the hospital, a very nice shirt/dress and a lovely wall decoration. After a very long journey (about 6,5 hours) we finally arrived in Agomanya. The town Agomanya, in the Eastern Region not far from the Volta lake and dam, seams much bigger than Agroyesum. The hospital is a bit smaller. As we arrived here two nuns wellcomed us very warmly, showed us our accomodation and informed us that there will arrive a German doctor on Monday who will share the house with us. They also did not miss to inform us about the daily church service at 6:15am, which we managed to visit this morning. On Monday we tried to get a picture of the situation of the hospital. We first talked to Francis the electrician, Dominic the estate manager and the administration and joined Francis going through the hospital to collect broken devices. The rest of the day we started repairing these. In the evening we had a very nice talk with the German doctor who gave us very interesting views from the perspective of a surgeon. Today was the hottest day (at least it felt like the hottest one) of our stay here in Ghana. That´s why our tasks, like repairing the suction machine from the theatre and the ventilators from the mortuary as well as looking at the generators were quite exhausting. Now we just take a rest to be ready for more surprises waiting for us at the last few days in Ghana 🙂Text: Annika-Weiß