Some photos :)

The town with no vegetables

I don’t think I would have ever believed I would be in a town that was in a famine.  However because of the wonder of global warming – Bolgatanga has found itself to be nearly there.  The people here live off their land, and mostly work as farmers.  The grain, millet, corn, vegetables etc is then harvested and traded in town at the market or used for the family.

Again I reiterate… because of global warming – the rainy season has not yet come, it is about a month late.  Normally at this time it will be raining daily and the crops will all be about 1 metre high, but our reality is the rain is very sporadic, the crops are only 1 cm (if that) and the land is as dry as a raisin. 

To be honest for me the rain is a bit of a hassle, it means I can’t bicycle around and will be late to work, but for families this is an absolute tragedy, it means they simply cannot survive; their kids will only eat one meal a day, (that is plain rice), and the family will not have food.  Even NGO’s have to go into preparation mode for this disaster, when normally they work in preventing poverty, and strengthening communities, now they have to find a way to support those in extreme poverty, with no food, to live.  In fact Oxfam sent an emergency email out to raise funds as this is happening right throughout Africa.

Also because of the drought there is no fresh vegetables….none!  Seriously, I haven’t eaten a vegetable for over a month now.  Ok…… I exaggerate (slightly) I have had a yam, an onion, and maybe garlic …… that’s it!  I’m craving vegetables….i dream of salad, courgette, brocolli, asparagus….sigh.

Mama Laadi

I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about where I’m staying while I’m here in Bolgatanga.  I live in a Foster Home which is run by an amazing woman called Mama Laadi.  Afrikids met Mama when she was living off nothing and had a one bedroom shack full of children from the streets or orphans that she had taken in to care for.  AfriKids and Mama are now in a partnership called Operation Mango Tree.  There is 35 children who live here and she also cares for another 85 in the community that come to visit her regularly for money or food.

She is such an amazing women – she has devoted her whole life to caring for these kids, she is the most giving person I have ever met.  In fact she normally goes without to make sure the kids have enough.  An example from just last night: she wears 1 dollar jandles which have broken and as one of the straps have snapped and she was going on how she was going to fix them with a drill rather than buy new ones!  Ha ha … you can also hear her coming from a mile away dragging her one broken jandle!

At the moment she is paying a lot of money for some kids from the community to get operations – one child has ambiguous genitalia and his lower abdomen is basically all open with his intestines hanging out – he is now 5 and been like this all his life with no one helping.  She raised enough to send him to Kumasi (one of the bigger centres), so now he is down there with his mum… unfortunately they are still begging on the streets… but mama has given them money for medicines, and enough for nappies so he doesn’t leak faeces everywhere.

There is also another child who has retinoblastoma (cancer of the back of the eye) usually this is caught early, but this child’s eye was actually hanging out of his face and no one could afford to help him.  Mama gave them about 1000 of her own money to go to Accra and get surgery from the cancer specialists.  He had his surgery on Monday.

Every day I see new children come here and she will give them money for books and food.

The kids that live here come from varied backgrounds.  Most of the stories I don’t actually know but sometimes Mama will tell me and it makes my heart break.  Little one 'P', now 7 and an absolute darling… Mama found him in the market with his mum and grandma – they were begging, and the mum has mental health problems… she covered him in faeces from head to toe – he was only 7 months old, so Mama took him in and raised him.  Another child who is my special friend 'M'– she is 5, her mum got stoned to death for being a witch, and the community left her to die, mama found out and stormed in with all community watching, picked the child from her death bed….. and now – she is the boss of the house!

Yet as tragic as each of their stories are – there is so much love and laughter and singing and dancing in the house.  The children are just wonderful and playful and full of love.

Malaria and how fluids can cure everything

I have been here 20 days exactly and wo-behold I got myself malaria!  I have been doing better than ever with my preventative medicine; taking it everyday like clockwork, been using insect repellent, sleeping under a net and definitely not going outside after sundown!  But I got it! Grrrr

I knew as soon as I got it too – I was feeling quite good in the morning and biked to work… then the headache came….and didn’t leave.. despite panadol and brufen.  I also felt very strange and heavy in the head, which then became accompanied with a side of nausea.  Got the test and the whole lab laughed at me for about half an hour! Ohhhhh malaria!

I found out about 2pm and decided to close early.  I told the other medical assistants etc but people kept coming and coming and coming!  And of course I ended up closing last out of everyone – how?

I even dealt with two emergencies with my malaria on board; a one year old boy bought in in shock and unconscious.  Thank god for APLS – the drummed in A.B.C   He was peripherially shut down and cold and his capillary refil was about 7 seconds – I pumped him full of fluids and went to check on him in 2 hours and  he was up and breast feeding….. whew.

Because all the other doctors had gone I also dealt with an adult emergency – a lady 25 bought in because she couldn’t breath.  Her hands were all flexed up and stiff.  I knew as soon as I saw her she was hypocalcemic and was breathing fast due to acidosis – so pumped her full of Ringers Lactate and WA LA – hands and breathing became normal!

After that I called it a day – slowly managed to bicycle home and crawled into bed for 5 days solid!  My head just felt weird the whole time, dizzy and heavy and the nausea was ongoing!  I just slept and read books and slept and watched movies and sometimes sit with the kids quietly.  Even now when I’m writing this on Day 5 of malaria I’m feeling ready for another sleep and it’s lunchtime!  Ha ha – nighty night