Pumbaa

Climbing for a wife. This wall was used as a competition for men to get a wife.

Sunglasses

Hilda

Kente weaver in Asamang
Two girls at stake conference
Feelin' patriotic
Voting.

James Ewudzie's family in Cape CoastKim and I at Elmina Castle
Kristi, Me, Kim and Margaret at the temple.

Elmina Castle.
Accra Ghana Temple.
My favorite picture
Kristi, Margaret, Christiana, Kim, Emmanuel, Me and Eugene

Our tro-tro broke down. Luckily I had just bought a soccer ball, so we played with the kids while the driver fixed the tro-tro

Papa Goat.

Pounding Fufu
Me, Kim and Margaret on our way to the clinic... this is our beautiful town of Wiamoase.
This drum is 8 feet tall
My friend, Jenny, at the Asante Kotoko (Porcupines) football match

The Philosopher's Walk in Heidleberg. Kim, Tobias, and I. Heidleberg castle is in the background.

I can't believe how fast time is running out here. We have about 3 weeks of research left before we head up to Molle National Park then to Accra then to America. So three weeks left to finish everything! I've been trying to review my notes and going over everything this week to make sure I get it all done and it's going to be a stretch. It's rough too, because now everyone here knows us and wants to talk and help us and we're really in a perfect position to get everything done, but we're so near the end of our time! I've been trying to get all the interviews done that I can though.
One thing I really love about Ghanaian culture is that everyone is everyone's brother or sister or son or daughter. When someone says good morning to you, you respond by saying "Yaa Agya" or "Yaa Ena" refering to the person as father or mother. It's been really good to have a close relationship with everyone. Little kids will come running at full speed from 100 yards away when they see us coming just to say hello and give us a handshake or a hug and ask us if we are doing well. Our house is right behind one of the primary schools so everytime we walk to the clinic we are mobbed by hundreds of Ghanaian children! I'll get some pictures up here soon. We've had the experience recently of going to an orphanage in Mampong and attending a graduation ceremony at the local university and a hundred other things that happen everyday. We had a "political party" here on the 5th after the elections and made kosher hot dogs, mashed potatoes, and watermelon. Long live the USA! I will never be able to do this experience justice by writing a log because the sights, sounds, smells and everything here are just so unique and interesting. I'll try to post some more pictures here soon.

I took me about an hour to upload five pictures today. We went to Mampong instead of Kumasi and the internet is a little faster here. I will try again to post more at a future date. Hope you like these few though

A few pictures

Playing "Take Five" at Hans Cottage with the band. The bass player was our tour guide at Kakum National Park and he asked me if I wanted to come and play with them.

The fishing boats of Elmina

Cape Coast Castle. It was built in the 1600s by the Dutch for the slave trade.

The Accra temple by night

Home sweet home

This is Esther, our Ghanaian mother with Hilda and Christiana, showing us the proper technique for fufu pounding

This is in the market in Agona.

We've been having a great week here. Yesterday I finally got to interview Dr. Samuel. He is honestly one of the greatest people I have ever met. We just spent an hour talking about medicine and malaria and other things and it was a really productive and good experience. I've been able to get a lot done this week for my research, and I have a lot of typing to do to expand my notes...but enough of the boring stuff. Last week we went down to Accra and met some amazing people. The first people that were baptized into the church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) were there and one of them invited us to stay in his home in Cape Coast for a few days. We gladly accepted and over the next three days he told us his story of his faith and perseverance. It was a life-changing experience and I really loved being down there with he and his family. We went on a canopy walk in the rainforest which was just a rope suspension bridge about 70 feet up in the trees. It was really cool. We went and visited to castles, Elmina and Cape Coast that were used in the 16 and 1700s for the slave trade. It was a heart-breaking tour and the descriptions of the way the slaves were treated made me sick. The castles themselves were really picturesque on top of these hills overlooking the Atlatic Ocean. We took a lot of pictures (which I will post at a future date). We also got to go in the ocean (like bathwater) and see the beautiful town of Cape Coast. It was an amazing trip and it would take hours to write about everything we saw and did. So we have about one month of research left to go, so time to crank up the effort. I would love to hear about how any of you, who are reading this, are doing as well, so feel free to send updates through email or just post a comment on the blog.

Hello! I won't have time (at all!) to go into the amazing events that have transpired this last week, at least today, but I will try to do so on a near future date. We spent last week traveling to Accra, Cape Coast and Kakum and had some incredible experiences! We met the first members of the church in Western Africa and heard their amazing stories, attended the temple, went to castles that were used for slavery, I sat in on drumset with a jazz group for an evening, and so many other things happened! Again, I will detail more later when I'm not frantically trying to get a bunch of things done! All three of us are alive and healthy though!

Hey- Well we came back to Kumasi today because we had a couple more errands to run that we didn't get done with before. For those of you who are curious and do not know yet my research topic is on malaria treatment practices in a rural area of the Ashanti region of Ghana. In the last few years things have changed dramatically in the world (and especially western Africa) in the treatment of malaria. The parasite has developed resistance to common treatment methods and new treatments have been needed. My goal is to look at what the Ghanaian government has done in recent years to change their previous policies and impliment more effective treatments. I'm looking at what the health care providers are using, why they're using it and the perceived effectiveness of the treatments. My data-collecting includes interviews, listening to consultations, reading previous (recent) works done about this subject and other things as they come up. I've come to realize that the area I am in is pretty much the perfect setting because about 70% of the patients that are seen have malaria. I've also been able to see a variety of other interesting and painful ailments including serious cases of gangrene, typhoid, huge abcesses, and some other things. I am basically allowed (and encouraged) to do whatever I want. It's a really interesting mix of medicine and cultural exploration because the two are inseperable here. The doctors are very open, but the language has proved to be a huge barrier (one that is really difficult to overcome) but I'm still working on it. So that's what I'm doing until early December!

We came into Kumasi again today to do some research at the University of Science and Technology so we stopped off to check our email too. It's been a good week and I'm really moving ahead on the research! I'm developing more ideas on how to go about collecting data. It turns out that the topic has so many facets, and the more questions I get answered, the more questions I have. It's been great, however, and I'm still trying to learn Twi. Before I left, my friend Molly gave me a good book called Mountains Beyond Moutains... it's one of the greatest books I've ever read and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. It's about a renowned American doctor, Paul Farmer, who has dedicated his life to treating the poor and destitute. Just through reading about his life (from the perspective of another), it has changed a lot of my opinions. That may be because of the setting I'm in right now, among people who have very little means, and yet so many problems that are beyond their control. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and if anyone else has read it or plans on reading it, let me know. I love it here in Ghana and am learning so much everyday. These people are incredibly intelligent in so many ways and I look up to so many of them. I have to run, time's up on my computer.

It's been another great week in Wiamoase. I bought a djembe this week in a little village just outside of Kumasi. The village specializes in wood working and they can make some seriously amazing things! I really liked looking around at all the different animals and statues and stuff that they've carved... but the salesmen were super pushy. Anyway, I found the drum of my dreams and got it for a really fair price. It sounds great and so far everyone has liked to listen to it. Jima, one of Esther's sons (Esther is the lady we're staying with) said he has a good friend that will teach me some traditional African beats. I'm in heaven! haha. I also stopped by the Salvation Army church on the way home from buying some bread the other day to say hi to some friends there. We met these kids the first week we were here and they've wanted me to come play music with them since. So we stopped by and I got to sit in and play the drumset during one of their rehearsals... so fun. All of the songs were Gospel and Reggae mixed, something I'm not too experienced with, but great nonetheless. Other than that, my research is still going well. I got a really good book this week from Dr. Samuel on the new standards for malaria treatments, so that answered a lot of my questions, but also made me think of more. Things are great and none of us have gotten sick yet!

Well I tried to write a post on Saturday that I posted... but it didn't post. oh well! We arrived in Wiamoase last Monday. It's a really small village about 2 hours outside of Kumasi. Goats and wild dogs roam the streets, roosters wake us up in the morning at like 2:30 then 3 then 3:30.. etc. It's an amazing place. We're staying with an older lady that is very respected in the community. Her husband is the main doctor at the clinic that I'm working at. Her children are mostly grown up but have been home for school holidays these last couple weeks. It's just a great situation. On Saturday we went to a soccer game where the team from Kumasi played a team from Algeria. I guess the Kumasi team is pretty good becaues they've won like every game for the last 3 seasons, so it was really fun to watch. People here go NUTS about football. I started work at the clinic on Monday and have already seen some pretty interesting things. About 70% of the patients who come to the clinic are diagnosed with malaria, so I guess I have my work cut out for me. The physicians and nurses and lab techs are so nice and basically letting me do whatever I want. This week the lab tech is going to teach me how to draw blood and prepare it for analysis. I spent a few hours on Monday looking at malaria infected blood on a microscope... it's all just so great right now. Next week one of the doctors told me he wants me to come with him to give immunizations in a nearby village. I guess it's just on-the-job training, but I'm kind of nervous about all that. So far so good as far as my own health though! I'm also spending some time trying to learn Twi, the local dialect. Although everyone here must learn English in school, they always speak Twi to each other, so we've been trying to learn in order to communicate more effectively. Plus, all of the consultations are done in Twi, so I need to understand what's going on. Luckily it's not as complicated as French, so hopefully I will continue to learn more and more.
I have learned that it will probably be impossible to upload pictures while I'm here because the computers are too slow! I'm sorry, but when I get home on December 8th I will post all of my pictures. I love it here

So I'm here in Kumasi, Ghana. It's about six hours north of Accra, the capital. It has been a serious adventure so far. It seems like nothing here is familiar! I'm not able to upload any pictures right now because these computers are really really slow, but I will try again soon. We spent one full day in Germany, visiting the city of Heidelberg and the castle there... it was amazing. Words don't do it justice. We stayed with the greatest family there who took us in and really showed us a good time. We ate schnitzel and sour krout and loved it all. Tobias, a friend of Kristi's showed us around and was so great to us. It was too bad we could only stay for one day!
We flew from Frankfurt to Lagos and then to Accra. Getting off the plane in Accra was like stepping into a new world. Again, words just don't do it justice, and I need to spend some time just writing it all down in my journal, but everything here is a new experience. We only spent the night in Accra, and took a bus up to Kumasi, where we are now. We got in yesterday evening and spent the evening walking around and finding a place to eat, etc. Today we spent the whole day walking around Kumasi, just experiencing things here. We went to the zoo and saw lions, crocadiles, etc. and went and visited the culture center where we sat and watched a Rastafarian religious service... quite interesting. We then spent some time walking around the largest outdoor marketplace in western Africa. That was one of the most unique and crazy experiences I've ever had. There were thousands and thousands of people and merchants selling everything you can possible imagine. I took a few pictures which I will post later. Everyone we meet here is very friendly (although a lot of them want to just sell us stuff). But mostly everyone we meet is very fair and doesn't try to rip us off. So far it has been quite an incredible and eye-opening experience, and I'm really enjoying it all. Once I post some pictures you will have a better sense of what I'm talking about.

I'll be using this blog to post pictures and journal entries about my trip to Ghana that will begin on September 1... that is if I can get all my visa stuff taken care of! Feel free to make comments or send me an email at andrewgessel@gmail.com