Rodriguez

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Tamale, Ghana- Mariam Hotel Restaurant

Today’s community outreach was in the town of Ziong. Most of the stuff was pretty similar in terms of pacing, but we had a nurse this time, named Vagina. Yes, yes, seems funny at first (even I sort of smirked) but she really is a nice and hardworking woman. It’s just her parents’ fault she got such a name. Today, I got to aid the nurse in tallying diagnosis numbers and writing in information for potential cataract surgeries for certain individuals. In the process, she showed me in detail almost every case that came. I saw many mature and immature cataracts, pterygiums, allergic conjunctivitis (where the eye is red due to excessive itching and eye tear excretions), and some other special cases.

One very interesting child that came into the outreach center had burns protruding out of his chest in sort of a square shape with designs inside it. I wanted to take a picture of the boy, but the mother swiftly took him away.
Finally, a couple of the team members found a lizard (they call him Rodriguez) who was extremely friendly with everybody. It was almost as if he had been pre-tamed and then released into the wild.

Due to internet terribleness, I stayed in Mariam till past dark. One thing that the route from Mariam to the UFS volunteer house definitely lacks is lights. So there I was, using my puny cell phone flashlight to navigate my way back home. The random sights of bats flying above me and extreme number of bug/animal noises made for an interesting solo safari experience, with the occasional human popping into my vision every once in a while, which makes my heart skip quite a bit. I don’t really plan to repeat such an experience, but it definitely got my heart pumping.