Back with the Boys…and Annie

Wednesday May 27, 2015

Jarome, aka "Biggy."

This week I am back with Crystal eye clinic! It feels good to be back. I missed these guys. Ernest, John, BB and now Jerome. Jerome picked us up from the airport but wasn’t working with us because he was working as an intern at the hospital. He is an Ophthalmic nurse. I love him, he’s a super funny guy. It has been a fun few days with him in the mix. We are on another overnight outreach to Takoradi. It is a city in the Western Region past Cape Coast. They have been very long days. Roughly 300 patients every day. Luckily we have been working pretty fast so we are finished around 6 or so each day. We are staying at a pretty descent hotel too. The first 2 nights we didn’t have AC but last night we did. Because of the power outages, when the generators are running there isn’t enough electricity generated to run the air conditioners. I am sharing a room with Daniel and Austin and there is one queen sized bed haha. It has made for some interesting nights. Our second night all 3 of us were pretty out of it. We watched a movie on my laptop that night and afterwards went straight to bed. Austin and I had fallen asleep near the end of the movie. I honestly done know why but I moved from the bed to the couch after the movie and sept there for an hour or so. I woke up and remember asking myself why I was sleeping on the couch, I returned to the bed only to find that Austin was sleeping like my dog does by taking up the whole bed so all I am left with is a small sliver at the end. At that point I was too tired to care and so I slept on my back for another 30 minutes or so and then I groggily asked austin to move over. He gave me a death stare and rolled over. He doesn’t remember anything. Now Daniel was sleeping in his net on the other side of the bed. Where was my net? On the floor haha. It takes up too much room with D’s net and I was too tired to get it. Our first night we all slept in our nets. It was the first time Austin had even pulled his net out of the bag. He had bought one of the ones that you have to hang from the ceiling. The exact kind that they tell you NOT to bring because they are pretty much useless. We ended up draping it over top of mine and D’s nets. It looked so funny because it hardly left any room for Austin in the middle. Anyways back to the weird night. In the middle of the night Daniel felt something move near the side of his tent. He flicked it but it didn’t move. He thought it might be a lizard or something so he punched it. Turns out is was Austin’s foot. He had been moving his toes in his sleep haha. Right at the moment Daniel punched his foot Austin was experiencing a scary part of his dream. A dew days ago the 3 of us watched the conjuring and it took its toll on Austin. For those of you that have seen the movie you will understand this a bit better. But the part where the girl is having her foot pulled in her bed was the exact thing that Austin experienced in his dream when D punched him in the foot. So he woke up pretty startled. And for some reason Daniel was laughing I guess, he doesn’t really remember why. So that was our night. It was pretty funny to talk about our 3 different experiences and perspectives on what happened. Sorry if it didn't make sense or just was not funny at all, but to us it was hilarious. We even started laughing about it when we were each writing it in our journals later haha.

Annie is the only girl on the trip and Gavin is the only guy back in Accra with the other group. Everyone that is one this outreach is: Austin, Daniel, Richard, Jerry, Annie and myself along with the Crystal workers I mentioned earlier. Richard and Jerry usually get their own rooms but they had to share this trip. They also had a queen size bed in their room along with a small couch like ours but they refused to sleep in the same bed haha. So they take turns sleeping on the couch. They keep asking if there is another available room but I don’t think that there will be. Annie one morning finally said, "why don't you just share a bed!" ....(silence). Not all men can share beds I guess.

John and his new "girlfriends." He always has new girlfriends wherever we go haha.

The first few outreach days have been pretty good! The work is the same as it always has been. I love spending time with John. I am trying to learn some more languages from him. He’s taught me some more Dangme. Thats his native language. We have had some good laughs and inside jokes. He is defiantly one of my favourites. 

It doesn't get much cuter than this.

Of course there are always children wherever we go. they love hanging out with Obruni’s. There was day especially where this one girl loved looking through my camera at everything. She wouldn’t take any pictures, she didn’t know how, but she just used it as like a magnifying glass to look at everything. There were some other kids that I spent some time talking to and taking pictures with too. Black babies are still the cutes things on the planet hands down. I have met and played with some pretty cute kids. I wish I had pictures with all of them but I don’t. 

She was the one that loves my camera.