Emily: Last Day of Work!

Hello all!

What a day to close out our stay here in Ho. We got up a bit later today and we mozied around getting ready. We, or rather Erica, decided that we would make our last day here “pink day,” and so we all put on our pink polos and dresses in an effort to somewhat match. Regardless of the slight awkwardness of it all, we headed off to breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed the last bit of peanut butter along with the oatmeal, bread, and jam on the table. Though we had previously intended to leave super early, we had to wait for Isaac (one of the members of the NGO) and ended up chilling around until about 10. At that point we boarded a tro with a bunch of the new college kids from the UK and went around making stops, as if we were on a school bus dropping people of at their respective workplaces for the day. Interestingly enough the very first stop was somewhere that we had never seen let alone worked at before.

But soon enough we were at the municipal hospital and made our way to the Pediatric ward. To our surprise one of the college kids, Allie, was in the ward already reading a pediatric studies textbook and talking with the nurses. We said hello to everyone and gave out a number of the remaining stuffed animals that we donated to the new patients in the ward. We were hoping to get to see a birth today as well, and so we asked Allie to show us the way. Once we got to the Labor ward we talked with the nurse, and she informed us that two women had started the labor process but that they weren’t very close to giving birth. We were advised to come back every hour to check on their status, and she would see if we could catch one.


So we returned back to the Pediatric Ward for a while and colored with these two little
girls. Gladys found some 101 Dalmatians coloring pages, and I sat with Emelia, a 12-
year-old girl who was in the hospital due to a snakebite, for a little while. While Erica
and I continued to sit with the girls, Linh and Chandler checked to see the status of
the births. They quickly rushed back to us saying that one of the mothers was making
progress. So we promised the children that we’d be back afterwards to say goodbye,
and we practically ran over to the labor ward.

We sat around labor watching some sort of press report that was a nice distraction as we anxiously awaited our scrubs to watch the birth. We all shared the unspoken understanding that the birth could take place at any moment now. Isaac finally swung by and talked to the nurses and the college kids to ensure that everyone was ok with our observing. He took us to go buy real scrubs, and we rushed back to labor to change. One of the women who was about to give birth was going to have twins, so they planned on giving her a Caesarean section (aka a C-section). In response to this plan Isaac lead us over to the theater, where we kicked off our shoes and put on these special boots. And then we waited. We waited for what seemed to be a significant amount of time, and Isaac had left us. We should’ve figure out that something was up. But we didn’t. And when the surgeon came and told us that the first twin had just been born and that we had missed it, we were crushed. Just minutes before we couldn’t stop talking about maybe getting to hold the scissors, analyzing whether they were going to give the mother anesthetics, and other such curiosities. Now, we were deflated and disappointed. But we were woken from this dreary state when the surgeon told us that we should hurry to catch the second twin. There still was a chance that we might get to see a birth!

 

We half walked half sprinted over to labor and waited outside the room with some of the college kids. We sat and stood in relative silence. The college kids would occasionally lead the way into the room, and we would go along with them to check on the adorable newborn baby boy awaiting his sibling and the poor mother who was struggling. As the woman’s contractions continued to come closer and closer together, the nurse rushed in and we followed behind. The time had come. The whole team of nurses and doctors encouraged the woman along in a sort of apathetic manner in the local Ewe, and we observed in awe. Meanwhile another mother waddled in, clearly in labor, and was hastily set up on another bed mere feet away from the other birthing mother. Chandler had joked that the births might happen at the same time, but we just laughed it off dismissing the notion to the low probability of the occurrence. But sometimes things just defy the odds. The second twin finally was making an appearance, but immediately we all saw that something was wrong. The baby’s head was blue! The umbilical chord had wrapped around the baby’s neck and disallowed oxygen to get into her lungs and, in turn, her blood. The doctor cursed and went about cutting the chord. Without ultrasounds they had no idea that this would happen. The doctor fixed the situation though and pulled the baby out by its head, plopping it on the mother’s stomach. And while the nurses cleaned the one baby, the other baby was born without much fuss and grabbed by the nurses. We stood there in awe of what we had just witnessed and unable to believe how amazing it all was.

Afterwards we changed out of our scrubs very quickly and popped into the room to say thank you to everyone, especially the mothers. We rushed back to the pediatric ward to say goodbye to the kids and Gladys, and then we made our way out of the hospital to the main drag to grab a taxi. Getting a taxi at this hour proved to be more difficult than anticipated, but no matter we were able to grab one back to the hostel and get back for a real lunch. We were welcomed back to the hostel with the all-too familiar scent of friend chicken and rice. To my surprise, lunch was the rice that I had remembered most from the last time I was in Ghana. It had some oil on it, but yet it wasn’t quite what we would consider fried back in the states. And it was full of vegetables. Once we could eat no more we took some time for ourselves before heading out to the orphanage for the last time.

When we arrived at the orphanage the kids didn’t race to get us like they usually did. They knew just as much as we did that this was going to be a more solemn visit, a goodbye. I surveyed the place for the little kid that I usually carried around, but I quickly realized that he wasn’t there. My heart broke a little knowing that I wouldn’t get to say goodbye one last time, and I was worried that something bad might have happened to him. But at the same time I was comforted by the fact that I had said somewhat of a goodbye the last time we visited since I mistakenly believed that was to be the last day we were swinging by. We played with the children for hours, lifting them up and carrying them around, giving them piggy-back rides, letting them hang upside on us, and lifting them to grab onto the trees and to pull the leaves off some of the branches. We played monkey-in-the-middle and some football (soccer, in American English) for a while, and I played a few hand games with Edem and some of the other girls. Believe it or not some of the boys even got kind of into it. We spun and danced and jumped and had a grand old time together. One girl in a camp rock shirt grabbed by hair and just started braiding it like a pro. She didn’t expect my layers though, but she powered through it. We stuck together as the sun went down and twilight settled in. I could see that it was getting late and darkness was falling upon the orphanage. It was time to go. On a whole we stayed remarkably composed, though some of us got a little weepy. I just kept hugging them, each and every one of them again and again, telling them to be happy, live well, and love life to the best of their abilities. I promised shoes and bags to Edem and Susanna and this one other girl with gold hoop earrings and wearing a sailor outfit. And I told them all that I’d try my best to come back next year. We told them how much we would miss them, and how much we missed them already. The kids walked us to the road, and we waved as we attempted to catch up with the college kids who got a pretty good head start on us. As we hopped into the cab we could just barely make out the kids still standing  twenty  feet away and waving. On our way back to the Polytechnic Institute, we realized that this was our last bumpy cab ride of the trip.

Our stay here in Ho was a fantastic experience, and I still can’t believe how much we got to do and just how much we learned here. I will never forget this trip, and I can only hope that the bonds that all five of us formed with one another and with all those we encountered in Ghana will last. And I hope to go back some day and visit everyone and everything again, to go and experience some more things and to help some more people. It’s been a great trip. And it has been a pleasure sharing our experiences.

Much love,

Emily
06.15.2012