June 28th

Another day of adjusting to the African life. I went to clinic alone this morning because Savannah was feeling a little sick. We had devo and Dr. Alex and I saw a few patients. About 90% of the patients we saw had malaria. One, in particular was a small child of 4 years. She was very sick but was not having signs or symptoms of cerebral malaria. He told me last week they had a child die from cerebral malaria.  

Dr. Alex had to leave at 11 today, so we got a half day off. We went over to the nursery school where Dustin was with Nathan, the little boy he has been tutoring in English. When I arrived I could not find him. The clinic is only about 200 feet from the nursery school and I can usually see them sitting out on the steps. When I found D, he was in a classroom with 25 African 5 year olds. They were jumping on him, pulling his ear, rubbing his hair and he looked exhausted. Not to mention he still does not have his voice back from losing it a few days ago. Apparently he had been walking past the nursery this morning and a woman pointed at him and said "hey, they do not have a teacher- you go in there with them." So, he did. But he had no idea he havoc it would wreak. They were climbing on the tables, jumping off of chairs, hitting each other, running, throwing things, messing with the DVD player and the TV. I saw markers uncapped all over the floor. It was literally like monkeys in a barrel. They would not listen to a word Dustin said, or me for that matter. But, once a teacher from the other room came in, they ran to their chair and put their heads on the desk and did not say one word. 

I was exhausted.

Apparently in African villages, there are some beliefs that if you touch an obruni (white person) you will gain special powers.

That certainly was not true today.

We came home around lunch time and decided to cook. Savannah heated up some left over lunch on the camping stove (as we call it). Next to her is a mini dorm type fridge we use to keep things cool.

Dustin experimented with plantains. You cannot eat things here from the market unless you can peel them. So we have a number of plantains we need to eat. They turned out pretty good!

If you are squeamish - please let this be the end of your blog reading - but I know my medical friends and family members would want to see the gross stuff I deal with every day........

This is a photo of a man's foot who, two weeks ago came in with a pinhole diabetic ulcer on his big toe. Dr. Alex cleaned it, but it could not account for the horrible stench coming from the foot. When he looked closer he noted a darkened area on the inside arch of his foot and down under neath. It turned out to be gangrenous tissue and he needed to surgically debride the tissue, because it was dead. He was kept for a few days on IV antibiotics and released Tuesday. He comes for daily dressing changes and continues oral antibiotics. This is the foot today (Friday)

The man does not want to see a specialist. As most Ghanaians, he believes that seeing a specialist is a sign that you will die. So, they stay around in the village with terrible horrible medical problems and present back to our hospital when it is really bad. A lot of the time it is too late.

Dr. Alex thinks we can save this guy's foot. I guess we'll see....

Ta-ta for now.

Tessa and Dustin