Monday May 5, 2014
It rained all night, howling, and dropping buckets of
water. This morning was nice, overcast,
and surprisingly dry outside. We got to
Aninwah Medical Center for our clinic.
We were given a quick tour of the hospital including a tour of the
mortuary. I am not one for dead bodies
so I stayed out of sign. I did glance
the limbs of a body—frozen in the freezer though; that was enough for me.
The clinic went really good today. I was in charge of logging all of the
assessments in a notebook. We had close
to 240 individuals come through today and receive teaching, assessments, and
supplies that we were handing out. I had
many helpers—some of whom recognized me last year, which was really neat.
All day long I was being petted, people were playing with my
hair, touching my face, and calling me Kwaku.
Kwaku is my name in Twi the language spoken here in Ghana and Kwaku
means Wenesday—it is the day I was born on.
So all day long people were singing Kwaku to me, inviting me to take
them to America with me, and telling me how soft my hair was. It was really fun!
The clinic filled up with kids so quickly it was overwhelming
but I think everyone did a really good job handling the crowd teaching, and
doing the best that they could. I found a child that is in the homepage of our website, which was so cool! I took another picture of him and then pulled up his picture from our website. He was so excited about being on there. I never thought I would see that kid again, and here he was at our clinic.
After the clinic we all had the opportunity to split up into
the hospital and go work in the different wards. I went with a group to the kids ward. In there I met a mom with her 1-year-old son
Jerry. Jerry had been in the hospital
for 5 days now with diarrhea. His mom said
he was getting better but had to leave the hospital because she couldn’t pay
the 124 GHS bill ($40). I started asking
the mom about her life. She is 28, has a
6 year old, 3 year old, and little Jerry.
She sells pear juice in the market.
While she is at the hospital, her mother looks after her other two
children as well as her own disabled daughter (who is 19 years). I asked about the dad and she said he left
recently and said that he didn’t want to take care of the kids. I asked her how she would pay the bill and
she said she didn’t know. That there is no hope. This made me want to just go work so hard,
save all my money and pay all the medical bills in the hospital. $40 is nothing to me, but it was everything
to this woman.
I told Lisa the story as she came back to check on us. She went a spoke with the mother and through
donations, was able to take care of the medical bill, plus give her additional
funds to take her a Jerry home via a taxi.
I have worked very hard over the last year to show people
that one 20-dollar bill makes the difference in some person’s life. A simple gesture will affect that woman. It was one of the coolest experiences. All of the donations collected, money saved,
and hours spent spreading the word paid off in that one moment. I am so grateful for that experience.
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