Day 6 (July 31)

This morning we met Mr. Emmanuel Chegedwe, the District Chief Executive of the Kassana-Nankana District- a position equivalent to a governor. This position is appointed by the president and approved by the district assembly men (mayors). We were to refer to him formally as the Honorable District Chief Executive or the Honorable DCE for short.

This meeting was arranged as an opportunity for us to describe to him our organization and inform him of our intention to work in Yua. This was a rather formal meeting but we did very well especially since we were guided through it by our local partners: The Ghana Poultry Network and Afrikids. Jared and Trotta both spoke and did very well at portraying our goals and intentions. Hon. DCE identified for us those issues he has found most pressing in the Kassana-Nankana district. These include: the lack of access to clean water, sanitation, irrigation, health, and the increasing problem of desertification. His office and those in power in the district have been working very hard to solve these problems but he described to us that their own lack of resources have prohibited them from extending themselves very far. The Hon. DCE gave us his full blessings for our project and has even offered financial and logistical support to complete our mission.

We will be meeting with him again tomorrow in Yua for our first community meeting .We will also see him later in the week for dinner. He is very supportive of our efforts and it turns out that the Hon. DCE is also a trained engineer!

After this wonderful meeting we headed to lunch at the International Café where we ate lots of goat bits with two dishes: rice and black eyes peas with red sauce and rice with peanut stew: very nice!

The market was next: I got to pose with a giant pig, take photographs, and see some wonderful fabric work…. –Danielle

In the evening we ate dinner at what is essentially an orphanage, although they don’t use that term for it.

It is a house, built by Afrikids, where one woman, Mama Laadi, takes care of 45 children (with some help from the older children). There we had an excellent dinner that was cut a bit short by a scare, a situation that would be a bit embarrassing, if the final outcome was not such a relief.

With 36 hours of plane travel (hectic at that, with switching terminals 3 times, delayed flights, etc.), one day off followed by 17 hours on a bus (with another hectic start as we were initially told a 10:00 AM departure time, only to be abruptly awoke at 7:15 to learn that the bus leaves at 8:00), little sleep, and culture shock, some of us have been feeling a bit fuzzy headed from time to time. It’s difficult to tell fatigue from more serious symptoms. The doxycycline that we are taking to help fight against malaria is most effective on an empty stomach, but this can lead to nausea and dizziness. Ben and Danielle were both feeling very weak when we arrived at Mama Laadi’s. There we met 3 medical students from the UK, who all had reportedly contracted malaria in their one week here so far. They told us that we had the symptoms of malaria, and that we should go to the clinic to be tested. Ben didn’t initially believe that he had malaria, but the students’ stories made him begin to wonder. 2 of the students had essentially no symptoms when they were diagnosed as positive (although a few of us are beginning to doubt the accuracy of that diagnosis).

We left for the 24 hour clinic, where all of us were going to get tested. Due to the other patients however, only Ben and Danielle we tested. As we waited for the slides with our blood samples to dry for microscope analysis, the technician explained that malaria does not generally show up for 10 days past exposure, and that symptoms are present before detection is possible. He seemed very knowledgeable. He showed us the slide of a positive case, a 3 year old child who had phase 3 malaria, very serious. Our final diagnosis: negative! The symptoms were likely fatigue, and possibly low sodium or blood sugar due to the differences in the African diet. Still, malaria is a major concern, although it is treatable should one of us contract it. As the technician was writing the diagnosis, Nich from Afrikids (who was gracious enough to wait through the process with us) said to Ben “this is your ticket to Yua.” The next day we would all find out what a blessing that would be.

-Ben