Ghana!

Hello everyone!!

Day 1: When I woke up the morning of the 13^th I could not believe I was in Ghana, Africa! Ah yes my dream come true. The port was in Tema and it was more of a freight port and it was the ugliest sight to see because all you could really see where cargo boxes everywhere. But we could hear African drums being played outside to welcome us. So me and my roommate Bridget got up for breakfast and then met up with about 6 other people and went into Accra which is a bigger city in Ghana. It was only 15 miles away but took us about an hour to get there because of all the CRAZY traffic. I don't mean bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic you see coming home from work. They have so many roundabouts, cars, and people EVERYWHERE. Walking around with things on their heads to sell to people in their cars and on the side of the road. No one uses turn signals and they just stick their hang outside the window and everyone is yelling at everyone and it is crazy busy. I would have had a panic attack if I had to drive there. The cars were so close to each other, I'm surprised we didn't see anyone get hit by a car or people get into car accidents. Also we were in a huge tour bus that shuttled us to Accra so all eyes were on us the whole drive there. A lot of people, especially kids, were really excited to see us and would wave to all of us through the windows. We finally got to Accra and were bombarded with locals trying to sell us weird bracelets with our names on them, or little drums, and the game mancala was popular for them to sell as well. We walked around to find an ATM and when we got some cash money we walked around for a little bit and took a taxi to the Makaba Market. I will have to post some pictures of this place because words cannot describe it. There were people EVERYWHERE selling everything and anything you can imagine. The taxi driver dropped us off right where they were selling food. Food as in whole fish sitting in the baking sun with flies all over them, cow hooves in buckets, and I saw some lady literally hacking away at a cow leg in the middle of the street. GROSS. The smell was a little overwhelming. We quickly walked to where they were selling clothes and were harassed along the way with people wanting us to buy their stuff. I had to keep telling myself to be patient and not get annoyed because it is the way these people make their living. As I was walking along some people were yelling things at me, and while I couldn't understand what they were saying, I knew it was friendly but I had no idea why they were getting so mad at me. Me and two other girls stopped to look at some dresses, which is hard because people were constantly pushing us to get by, and got split up from our original group. At first I didn't think it was a big deal until I realized why people hated me so much. I had my camera around my neck and wasn't even taking pictures but some lady said I better put my camera away or she was "going to slap me" so I quickly walked away and right after a man grabbed my arm and said "you come to our country and treat us like animals" I was furious he was touching me so I pulled away and he wouldn't let go. I tried not to make eye contact and be my usual self and freak out. So I told him it wasn't even on but I would put it away. I yanked my arm away and caught up to the two girls I was with and we all admitted we were a little freaked out because many of the people were not friendly and we weren't with our big group that had guys in it and couldn't find them anywhere. So we were walking out of the market to get a taxi to take us to a restaurant a professor on the ship recommended. As we were walking out these ladies stopped us to look at dresses and were very nice and told us to keep our backpacks in front of us or else someone would cut it off of us. So we quickly got into a cab and headed to the Country Kitchen. Once we got there we found the rest of our group and ate a local lunch. I had some of the local beer, star, and chicken, rice, and some thing with beans in it. Not really sure what it was but it was good! (Not as good as Brazilian food). We were walking back toward the main area of Accra and these 3 kids were following us for most of the way just laughing and walking in a line right next to us. The kids seemed to love us! We then stopped in a wood shop and the guy that made these beautiful African masks and other wooden pieces introduced himself to us and we definitely made his day by purchasing a ton of cool stuff that I can't wait to give out to people when we get home! After a long day of walking around, being hassled, getting sunburned, eating good food, driving in taxi's and shuttles, and buying awesome things we headed back to the ship for a much needed shower. Once we got back we all decided not to go out and be well rested for our FDP the next day.

Day 2: I had an FDP this day for my African American psychology class. I don't know if I have explained what and FDP is before but it's a field directed practica which means the professors lead trips themselves for their classes that are mandatory to attend to pass the class. You need to attend 2 for each class. So in total I will go on 6 FDP's for my classes. I spent the day in Torgorme Village in Ghana. It honestly was one of the most amazing and eye opening experiences that I will never forget. I was a little nervous about going because I didn't have the friendliest encounters at the Makaba Market the day before. As soon as the bus pulled into the village, kids were running alongside it and everyone else was smiling and waving. Our guide said that the whole village comes together on this day for the naming ceremony and they love when we come to visit. When we got off of the bus we walked in a straight line with our left hands behind our backs (many people in Ghana consider the left hand to be the "dirty hand") and had to shake the hands of the chief and the village elders...talk about intimidating! We then sat down and listened to them play the drums and watched the young girls dance in the most beautiful dresses. There were hundreds of kids, mostly dressed in school uniforms that were swarming our chairs. I was on the outside of the row so I had about 20 kids trying to look at my eyes, touch my hair, see my freckles, sit on my lap, and just be near me. I wouldn't consider myself drawn to kids when I see them but I was absolutely in love with these kids from the moment I got to this village. They were so polite and genuinely excited to see us. I was trying to pay attention to the chief with all these kids around me because we were then given names. The first name is always the day of the week you were born, Tuesday (mom dad I don't know if this is right?) and then the name the village gives you. My name is Aozo Xoese. They then gave us hand-made painted clay bracelets, which were so pretty, and a piece of pottery with our name written on it. After that they did more dances and invited us up to teach us how to dance. Seeing my African American psychology professor be the first one up there to shake her booty was hilarious. All of you that know me know that this was a dream come true to dance at this African village! I couldn't even keep up with the younger girls they were so good! After that we got to walk around the village and see how they made pottery. (of course the whole time all the kids were walking with us and holding our hands) Only the women make pottery and it is the most backbreaking work I have ever seen. They don't get to sit on a chair with one of those machines that turn for you to make life easy. They bend over at the waist and make the pottery from scratch on the ground using sand, clay, and water. They then use a leaf and water to shape the bowl and a stick to make designs on it. I would get so bored if I had to do that all day and cook, clean, and take care of kids. Then the best part of the day! We got to play with the kids. Ahhhh words cannot describe how much fun I had. I took the most amazing pictures that I cannot stop looking at. I wanted to stay there all day but unfortunately we had to leave. It was so hard saying bye to the kids and getting on the bus. But I got on the bus knowing it was one of the best days I've had so far on Semester at Sea and I will cherish it always J That night me and all my friends went out to a bar/club called the Manila Bar. It was a very local place with a big bar, pool tables, outdoor seating, and an outdoor dance floor. They played awesome music and I had a blast!

Day 3: Habitat for Humanity in Ghana! How cool! It is especially near and dear to my heart because I put a lot of time into being the president for the Habitat for Humanity Campus Chapter in Boulder so I wanted to see how Habitat operated internationally. We left at 7:00 in the morning…a little early for me considering I got maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before, but when else will I get to go out and enjoy Ghana nightlife? But no worries! I slept on the 2 hour and 30 minute bus ride there. Once we got there we got split up into groups. One group put up walls, the other group moved stone bricks, and the other group plastered the outside of a house. I got put into the most physically demanding group of moving the stone bricks. They were huge! And there were a ton of them, but it was a good workout. We unloaded bricks and stacked them at a site where they were going to begin to build another house. Kids from the village were around us helping out, but they were actually kind of bratty which was weird. They kept trying to ask us for our sunglasses or our watches. I wasn't sure if they were trying to show off but they were really rough and tried to be tough guys. We then headed off to get lunch, which we brought with us from the ship. We gave a ton of our extra boxed lunches to the kids to give to the rest of the people in the village. It was sad to see the people want to take the lunches we had already eaten and to see them pick through them. Ah, it was hard to watch but we were glad we got to give them all of the extra boxes because there were quite a few of them. After lunch I got to switch to plastering a house, which was really fun. We got to hang out with some of the guys from the village that taught us how to plaster correctly; it's harder than it looks! Very straining work and a slow process because they don't have the technology or the materials to build a house efficiently. After a very long day we got back on the bus and got back to the ship in time to eat some dinner. I showered after dinner and got the WORST sunburn ever haha I have the weirdest tan lines now. I went out again the bars and had an even better time than the night before. I love nothing more than dancing and having a good time with my friends. Also fun fact, prostitution is legal in Ghana so they were everywhere hoping to make some money from the American boys. Hilarious. They were unsuccessful. They were actually very nice (I don't know if the one's I talked to were prostitutes or not) but they really wanted to talk to me all about being a woman in the United States and it was interesting to ask them questions about being a woman in Ghana. I'm glad I befriended them because later in the night someone dropped a glass bottle and some pieces went into my foot, which started to bleed. I hopped into the bathroom with my friends and a couple of them followed me in and poured alcohol on my foot to clean it (hahahahha I don't think that works unless it has a certain percentage of alcohol in it) and got me some napkins from the bar and cleaned off my shoe for me. Very nice people! Don't worry my foot is healed it was a lot of blood for a very small cut. One of them asked for my name so she could find me on facebook, even people in Ghana have them apparently. I told her my name was Vanessa Green so if that girl exists on facebook she will get a friend request from an African lady!

Day 4: I woke up in the morning with massive bug bites on my legs, so itchy!! I had a free day and so did Bridget so we found a few other people (including my good friend Chloe) to all get together and we were determined to find an orphanage to go to for the day. We wanted to go to the City of Refuge. It is an orphanage we had heard kids do through Semester at Sea and they loved it. So we got into a taxi and went with this guy Dillon to the Tema market so he could pick up a pair of shorts he had tailored. We walked through the streets of the market and loved it so much better than the market in Accra. It was a little less crowded and we weren't getting bombarded with people trying to force us to buy things from them. We then got back into the taxis and asked them to take us to the City of Refuge Orphanage and they had no idea what we were talking about. So we spent an hour on the phone trying to get the number to the orphanage and we kept losing service and no one knew where the place was. We were all getting really frustrated because no one could help us. And when you get in a taxi in the United States and tell them where to take you they know exactly where it is. They also have meters in the United States; in the countries I have been to so far you negotiate the price of the ride before you even get in. Craziness. It creates a lot of arguments and yet again more bargaining. So FINALLY we got the address. Our taxi driver took a back road to avoid traffic which ended up being closed so we had to turn around and go a different way and when we got to the road it was supposed to be on we accidently turned into a military school, scary, and quickly drove out. 3 hours later we found the orphanage! It was 5:30 at night and we wanted to be there at 2:30. We were nervous we wouldn't be allowed to see the kids. We stumbled across the co-founder of the orphanage John who welcomed us with open arms and took us to his house where he lives with his wife, Stacy, who is the other co-founder and his six kids. They were so excited to see us and showed us a video about the orphanage and made us dinner. John Omorefe is from Nigeria and Stacy Omorefe is from the United States and they met at a bible study in Ghana and fell in love and started the organization together, adorable! They are truly amazing people that help save children from child trafficking and child slavery. A lot of "slave masters" go into villages and see single women with 5 or 6 kids and offer to pay 10 cedi (which is about 6 American dollars) for one of their kids and the women gives her kid away to them because they need the money. These kids are mostly sold to fishing villages because the fishermen need about 3 people to help them with the nets, so who better than kids who you don't need to pay and can abuse physically and emotionally? John goes into the villages and observes and tries to negotiate with the chief about letting the children go with him because he knows the people are lying when they say the kids are their biological children. John said sometimes they would hand the kids over because it is illegal and they don't want to get in trouble with the police, but sometimes John says it takes a very long time and a lot of negotiation because it is the fisherman's livelihood and who would help them if he didn't have child slaves? I had no idea the extent of child slavery and how prevalent it was in Ghana. I always pictured it happening more in East Africa or Central Africa. It was heartbreaking to see the children that have already suffered either the loss of both parents or their parents selling them as if they were a piece of property. John and Stacy then took us for a tour of the property and they have 20 acres of land that they will use to build farms. I didn't realize how new the organization was, it was only started last year, but I was surprised by all of the progress they have made so far. They just had students come in and do a sustainability project and they built a well for the orphanage. John and have a house with their family and there is a huge building that houses the rest of the kids. There were soccer goals, basketball hoops, and a school that was in the process of being built. The school was pretty nice and they said they have an American principle but only Ghanaian teachers and their goal is to have a Ghanaian teacher and an American teacher for every classroom so they can work together to give the children the best education and general knowledge possible. We then got to play with the kids, such cuties! We all brought a bunch of candy, toys, pencils, play dough, pens, and other things to give to the kids and they loved it. It was so awesome. We were all extremely happy we didn't give up on finding the orphanage because seeing those kids made it 100% worth it. You could tell they were very grateful for us coming to see them, even if it was later in the day. If you want to read about it you can go to www.cityofrefugeoutreach.com We got back to the ship, ate, showered, and went out for our last night in Ghana!

Day 5: It was our last day in Ghana and I had an FDP for my technology and reproduction class. Another 8 am start for me (by this time I was 100% exhausted) but once we got to the Tema General Hospital it was all worth it. Since I work at a hospital and my mom also does, it was especially close to my heart to see what goes on in third world hospitals. We specifically visited the maternity clinic and the labour/delivery ward. It was one of the most interesting and educational trips I have made so far. It is one thing to read about how bad facilities are and what gruesome things women have to go through to give birth, but it is another thing to see it first hand. Ghana is in the lower range for countries with the highest maternal mortality rate, which is so sad to see because most of the time is can be prevented but the woman isn't educated enough or doesn't have the means to get the care she needs. The women who are pregnant arrive at the hospital…that is all open…different building for different things…no closed walls. I literally saw someone on a gurney being wheeled outside to another building, which cannot be sterile. So anyways, they arrive at about 4:30 in the morning and hundreds of them wait outside to be seen for pre-natal care. The only form of registration they have is a booklet that they have to carry with them through out their pregnancy because most women give birth with midwives in their home villages and not at a hospital unless there are complications. That way the midwife in their home village can look in the booklet and see what type of prenatal care the woman has received, if any. They test for HIV so they can give the mother the AZT drug so they do not pass on HIV to their baby while breastfeeding. They also do ultrasounds, check-ups, lab testing, physical examinations, and other prenatal care. The women have to wait hours and hours to be seen and they are assigned the same midwife every time they come to the hospital so the midwife can get to know the patient. Most of the women cannot read or write so there are pictures showing the women what to eat during their pregnancy and pictures of women towards the end of pregnancy and complications they have that require them to go to the hospital immediately. The midwife talking to me said most women come in once to get lab testing, physical exam, and medicine then never come back. She also said that they have 2 OBGYN's and they are only there for emergencies. Midwives run everything and they were very nice and very knowledgeable about pregnancies. I wasn't expecting them to be almost as educated as the doctors were. They just believe in a more natural process of birth but understand why you need a doctor if there are serious complications that disrupt the natural delivery process. We then went to the labour/delivery building, which was the most interesting part of the trip. There were hand written signs everywhere, for the midwives, which had flow-charts, directions, diagrams, pledges, and rules written on them to remind midwives of procedures. In the United States you would never see hand written signs on the walls reminding the doctor of what he needs to do. There was NO privacy what so ever in the facility. The most privacy you had was a thin curtain that moved around in the wind anyways so you could see past it. There were so many women in labor when we were there and one room we were outside of, apparently the woman gave birth when we were standing there, because the midwife rushed out to clean off and weight the baby. We didn't hear any screams or crying coming from the room, and remember they have absolutely no pain medication. It seemed very quiet and peaceful. That would never happen in the United States, especially the no pain medicine ha! The labour/delivery ward wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still really bad. Not sterile at all, no privacy, not enough medical equipment, NOT STERILE. I would never want to give birth there. They had birthing rooms with 2 and 3 beds in them which means you would be delivering a baby next to another woman. No thank you. There was no air conditioning; the beds were completely flat so the women looked extremely uncomfortable. We walked by the O.R (which they call the theatre) and the doctor that was giving us a tour opened the door and let us look inside at the surgery! I was in awe. They were taking out the most massive fibroid (growth) I have ever seen in my life and the woman thought she was pregnant the whole time, but it was just the fibroid attached to her uterus. Poor thing, it was so big and heavy and she was probably really upset she thought she had a baby the whole time. All of the sudden the lady controlling the anesthesia (wasn't she supposed to be monitoring the patient walked out with the fibroid and asked if any of us wanted to hold it. Of course I volunteered so I put on a glove and got to hold it. I couldn't believe how dense it was. If something like that were growing inside of me and I thought I was pregnant it wouldn't have grown near that big because I would have been monitored by doctors and they would have removed it in a sterile operation room with no audience! It was SO cool getting to hold the fibroid though, something I will never forget. The first surgery I got to see was in Africa! We then went into the recovery room. It was a huge room with about 50 "beds" where women were breastfeeding or sleeping. It was not sanitary, or private. I felt really uncomfortable being in there and stepped outside because I felt like it was a private intimate moment a mom should have with her child after giving birth. Also, on a sad note, women that give birth to a stillborn are required to stay in that same room for a day with all the other moms that have had babies. How terrible would that be, that mom is probably in severe emotional distress and really depressed and she has to look around at all the other mom's breastfeeding their newborns. We got to ask the doctor more questions and headed back to the ship to leave Ghana! It was such a cool trip and I'm really happy I got the opportunity to see the facilities, meet some mothers, talk to a doctor, and speak with a few midwives. All very different perspectives in Ghana healthcare. It definitely could use improvement, but compared to a hospital in Ethiopia, it would be considered a fairly nice hospital.

So overall I absolutely loved Ghana! Most of the people were very friendly, open, and wanting to talk and get to know me. It was very different than Brazil because there wasn't such a language barrier since many people spoke English and the official government language was English so all the signs were in English. I had some of the most amazing experiences that I will never forget and got to meet some of the nicest and most interesting people in Ghana. I can see myself returning to Ghana in the future to help out some of these villages with public health and family planning. Especially the women and children, they need more education! It gave me a lot of ideas about what I might want to do career wise and I couldn't be more thankful for the opportunity to have been to Ghana.

Now sailing on the beautiful sea for 6 days then CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA for 6 days. I CANNOT wait to be in South Africa. It will be a completely different African experience than Ghana and along with Vietnam it has been my number one destination on my itinerary!

Love and miss you all,

Alli