Update

My apologies for the lack of posts the past few weeks. This is only the second time I've been on the Internet in the past week and a half. Last weekend, there were black outs throughout Accra that lasted several hours at a time and the networks at the Internet Cafes were all down. Last Saturday (18.10.08 - I'm getting used to the European style of writing the date), the power was out from 1 p.m. to almost 8:30 p.m. Not having a fan during the hottest part of the day was a bit intense. When the sun went down, I had to go buy some candles to burn in my room so I wasn't in complete darkness. It made me think back to my world cultures class senior year when Mr. Pegg showed us a picture of Africa at "night" to see the lack of lights in comparison to the rest of the world. I distinctly remember Kyle Perez saying, "it's the Dark Continent," and knowing Kyle, we all interpreted what he meant differently, but he was right. I can't remember a time when the power was out in the U.S. for more than an hour or two, let alone 8! But the power outages were just the beginning to my Internet hiatus.

On Monday, I traveled two hours north of Accra to Asamankese with Selorm John, the son of Mr. Evans Agyei, the gentleman that my grandparents met this past summer at their conference. We were going to visit Mr. Evans at his home. We left around 6 a.m. to avoid some of the early morning traffic in Accra (but we still sat in traffic for about 30 minutes before getting out of the city limits). The scenery on the drive was beautiful, which helped take my mind off the incredibly uncomfortable position I was stuck in on the tro-tro. I thought a 30 minute tro-tro ride in Accra was bad...2 hours is much worse! Anyways, Selorm and I had a nice discussion on the way up about our lives and plans for the future. Selorm in enrolled in an accounting program in Accra that is overseen by Oxford. He's in his third year and plans to go to either Britain or the U.S. for his master's degree. Once we arrived in Asamankese, we walked abut a mile down a dirt road to the Golden Child Complex School, Mr. Evans primary school. There, I was greeted by Mr. Evans, his wife, the faculty, and the student's of the school. After receiving a tour of the facilities, which included going to all of the classrooms to take pictures of the children, Selorm and I left the school to go to the family's orange orchard. They own about 20 acres of farmland outside the village. We walked around there for awhile as Selorm pointed out different things about the agricultural practices they used. We picked some of the oranges to bring back to Accra with us. After leaving the orchard, we went back to the school and had a late lunch (around 2 p.m.). Immediately after lunch, a photographer who was a family friend of Mr. Agyei arrived and dressed me as a traditional African chief with a kente cloth robe, sandals, jewelry; the whole nine yards. He took several photos of me with his camera and my own. I've got to admit, I clean up pretty well as an African chief; unfortunately, my "lack of pigmentation" didn't contrast very well with the white robe. But Selorm said, "you could be fooled for an African chief with that black robe on..." (long, awkward pause), "if you weren't so white!" We shared a laugh and then went inside to enjoy a cool refreshing glass of pineapple and ginseng juice, made from the fruit at the family's farm. After classes ended for the day, several of the children gathered around while waiting for the bus to ask me questions, vice versa. They asked me things like my favorite color, food, football (soccer) team, if I had any brothers and sisters, questions about the U.S., etc. My favorite was one little girl who asked me to show them a dance from the U.S. I just started laughing; I had no idea what to teach them. Then it hit me...the Macarena (or however you spell it). I showed it to them and the kids were rolling on the ground laughing, especially during the last move, "hip-gyrating." But it was only a matter of minutes before all the kids were doing it. I grabbed a few last-minute pictures before Selorm and I left to head back to Accra. It was an exhausting day, but very rewarding! Mr. Agyei told me before I left how he was trying to establish a sponsorship with a school in the U.S. during his visit this past summer, but had not been successful. He asked for my help in establishing both a "pen pal" program with an elementary school back home and possibly setting up some sort of financial assistance program for the school. The school was ranked #1 in it's district this past year based off of nation-wide exams taken by the children. Mr. Agyei hopes to be ranked #1 in the region in the upcoming years but the school is running low on funds. They've been working on constructing a second floor for the school for the past six years to increase the number of classrooms, to cut down on the student-teacher ratio per classroom. Some of these classrooms had 60 students in them and they were comparable to size of most classrooms in the U.S. After being here in Ghana for about 2.5 months, I've realized that this is the sort of "development funding" that the country needs more than anything. These kids are the future of Ghana; the future of Africa! Mr. Evans is a very hard-working, caring, Christian man who is sincerely interested in the well-being of the children at the school; he even allows some of the poorest, orphaned children live with his family and allows them to go to school for free. In fact, nearly half of the children that go to the school don't have to pay the school fees, but Mr. Evans said that the school won't be able to financially afford this much longer. Hopefully, with my connections with the Danville school board and my grandmother's connection to the CSIU I will be able to allocate some funds for Mr. Evans' school!

That aside, I can now quickly go over the events of the past few days, which have kept me away from the Internet. Tuesday started out like any other Tuesday, lecture at 11:30 followed by lunch. However, on my way to the political science department, I fell in another ditch! I know that sounds clumsy, falling in a ditch in the middle of the day, but this was a very poorly constructed ditch. I saw it as I was walking along and when I went to step over it, the cement reinforcement on the one side came loose and it threw me off balance. My right leg fell all the way down to the bottom of the 3-4 foot deep ditch and I landed on my ankle funny. The pain shot up my leg into my abdomen, I could have sworn that I had broken my ankle (and some swearing I did). It was one of the most painful injuries in my life. I feebly limped to the ATM to take out some money, which was fortunately nearby, so that I could pay for my second visit to the Nyaho Clinic in the past week! Well, long story short, my ankle wasn't fractured...at least according to the clinic's x-ray machine that has to be from the 60's. The doctor said that I had stretched the ligament in my ankle and also sprained my foot. After prescribing me some pain pills and anti-inflammatory ointment he sent me on my way (after racking up nearly a 50 cedi tab) but told me that I should use crutches for the next 10-14 days. Unfortunately, as I later found out from the pharmacy, the clinic was fresh out of crutches and told me that I would have to go to another clinic to buy them. Just great! (On a side note to Eric Yale: I really wish you could see the condition of the pharmacies here. I'll divulge you with that information when I get home in December) Thankfully the cab driver knew where the other clinic was because I had never heard/seen of it before. I bought the crutches for 50 cedis...such a rip-off! Makes me appreciate insurance a bit more now. Most of my medical expenses will be reimbursed by HTH Worldwide Health Insurance, but only from approved hospitals/clinics; this place isn't one of them. Thankfully, the guy who sold them to me said that I can sell them back to him for a "reduced rate." I'm hoping to get maybe 25 cedis back. Anyways, I've been pretty immobile since then. I only get out to the Night Market for food/drinks and now today to the Internet Cafe. The pain medicine is helping and the swelling has gone down some, although my foot still looks a bit deformed (especially with the bruising...I'm thinking of submitting a sample of the color, a sort of purplish-blueish-yellowish-black, to Crayola; I'm suggesting the name "Bruise Blue"). I can put a little weight on it now without it hurting, which greatly helps in showering. I'll probably be on the crutches for another 5 days or so, but for now, it takes a lot of energy to get anywhere. Yesterday, I went to get something to drink/eat around 1 p.m. and when I returned to my room my shirt was, no exaggeration, completely soaked with sweat. I only went about 150 yards total. That's African heat for you! The temperature here is only getting hotter. At night, I sleep in just my boxers with the fan on high power and I still sweat up a storm.

To make matters worse, on Wednesday evening, I got really sick! I threw up a couple times, felt feverish, and the following morning I had a terrible headache accompanied by light-headedness. At that point in time, my ankle was a second-thought to me as I was trying to figure out what could be wrong with me. I thought it could be my malaria resurfacing (thankfully it wasn't and I am fully recovered from the malaria, by the way. Don't want anybody to still be in suspense from my last post). I rested the whole day Thursday, drank lots of water, and started to take my Ciproflaxin (which is normally to treat Traveller's Diarrhea, even thought I wasn't experiencing any diarrhea) to try and kill whatever bug might have been in me. I still don't know exactly what caused it, but I'm feeling better now, although I haven't fully regained my appetite. I'm keeping a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't re-surface. The last thing I want is another expensive visit to the doctor, but I may not have a choice if I feel like I did on Wednesday night/Thursday morning again. I'm hoping that it was just food poisoning from my dinner Wednesday night, which did taste a little funny as I was eating it. Please, everybody just pray that it doesn't come back again! Thanks!

Well, that's all for now. I've got to head back to the hostel soon. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the Internet more often in the coming days to report my condition. I don't want anybody to be worried about me though. Trust me, my mom is doing enough of that for everybody. There are a lot of people that stop in and check on me and I am truly feeling much better, so I don't think it is going to be a problem. All of these experiences, while not entirely appealing, have taught me a lot about myself and make me appreciate my normally good-health and "luxurious" amenities (by comparison) that I take for granted back home.