Starting at the Clinic

Yesterday we finally got to start working at the clinic. Turns out there isn't much they need us for. I'm learning so much more than I'm helping, but I sort of expected that. Basically the way it works is Bankas, the pastor who runs the clinic, picks us up in his big yellow van at 7:30am (after telling us insistently that he'll be coming at 6:30), and the four or five of us who work at the clinic drive with Livingston, Kingdom, and Mama Salome (three ghanians who also work there) to wherever we are meeting that day. Possibly a school, or an empty church. We set up three small stations in the space: one for getting your blood pressure taken, one for meeting with Innocent, the optometrist (don't you love these names?) and one for giving Mama Salome your prescription and then picking up your meds/glasses.

The first day I was working the last station with Mama. I was under the impression that the clinic was free, but this is not so. It costs 1 cedi (about 60 cents) to register, and then you must buy the eye drops (2 cedi), reading glasses (10 cedi) or sight glasses (20 cedi) that you need. And if you need bifocals or glasses with different prescriptions in each eye, you must pay 70 cedi and get yourself to the clinic's homebase to pick them up. The one redeemable piece of aid that the clinic provides is free operations for people with cataracts (a surgery that would otherwise cost 800 cedi), and unfortunately, many people have cataracts (although most of the patients are 70+ years old, so I wonder if they'll really take the effort to get the surgery even if it's free. You have to travel to the hospital in Accra to get it, which can be a 3-5 hour, bustling, tiring tro tro ride away).

Despite all this cynicism, I've only heard good things about the clinic from local ghanians and all the workers. And I'm certainly learning a lot (I must have taken 100 people's blood pressure today, using the old equipment, not the mechanical kind, so I now appreciate how hard it is to listen to someone's pulse in a room full of loud people speaking Ewe). I get to talk to lots of people, so the 3 or 4 conversational phrases that I know in Ewe are being perfected. And today I got to talk to Livingston for a while (he was working the blood pressure station with me) and learned all about his family and schooling (he's 24 and hopes to attend law school, but he's working at the clinic now to support his family and save up for school).

Still loving it here. And Jolof rice for dinner, so I couldn't be happier. Check out facebook for a few photos (they're taking forever to load so I don't think I'll get them all on there, but I'm trying as we speak). Go Bruins!!