WOE ZO! (welcome!)

We actually have wifi at the house so I will be able to check my email often. However, the two volunteers that were here before us said that it has been down for the last 2 weeks so I think it really depends on the day.

Today we didn't have much for planned for the day so I was able to sleep in. Apparently I was the only one to take advantage of this because when I woke up at 9 everyone else had already left the house to walk around the city. This gave me the chance to check out our showers which turned out to be in much better condition than I had anticipated. The night before one of the other interns who had been here for the last three weeks told us that she had to do the crab walk to use the facet that had pressure in order to wash her hair. She is about 6 feet tall so I think that had something to do with it, because I really did not struggle with the water or the temperature even though we have no hot water. 

After I had battled the showers I met our cook, John. He was busy preparing lunch for the staff and knowing me, I offered to help as I love being in the kitchen. First he just had me put away the dishes, but after I was finished he gave me a lesson in Ghanian cooking. John taught me about the different staples that are common to Ghana such as the yam, cassava, and plantain. They also use many different spices than Americans. In particular, as he was preparing a cooked spinach dish, he added almost a full cup of crushed up seeds of a white melon. He said it is similar in look to a watermelon but the insides have more of an eggy taste. He let me help make this spicy chili sauce by using a mortar and pestle (not sure about that spelling). Most of their food is super spicy for me, but its still good. We will typically have rice, chicken, some sort of tomato sauce and the freshest and best tasting mango and pineapple I have ever had! He is an expert cook and doesn't use any recipes. He told me that back in his home town of Ho, he learned how to cook at a hotel, but for the past 6 years he has been working for CCS. John also taught me how to handshake in Ghana. I got a kick out of it because I love making up secret handshakes and thats exactly what this felt like. To start, you would just shake someone's hand like in the US, but then you grab thumbs, another typical move in the US. Following that however, you shake hands again but interlock fingers into a snap. I thought it was so funny because that is the typical handshake here, but to me it feels like something middle school girls would do. 

Tomorrow we are starting our placements. I am actually going to be in a hospital instead of the health center because they do more of the actual medical work there. There are 7 of us working there. Tomorrow we will have a tour and then be assigned to a ward. So far it has been a great day but I can tell it is going to be one of those trips that we all head to bed at an early hour because we are all so tired.

Sweet dreams 

Elizabeth