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