We’ve completed four full days at the hospital now, and to be honest it feels like they’ve been a blur. It’s a blessing that so much is familiar to me from our last visit, but that still hasn’t prevented a little bit of culture shock when I’m actually in the hospital. Because of our living situation, we’re relatively insulated from the actual village life (something we had wished could be different after our last visit, and something we hope to change more of during our time here). The hospital sits on a 500-acre compound with approximately 15 housing units that at one time were all full with missionaries. Currently there are four housing long-term staff, and three housing volunteers. I must say it has eased our adjustment this week as we are able to eat dinner and spend time most evenings with American English-speaking individuals. While in the hospital, however, it’s total Ghana immersion. There are 6 wards plus isolation and maternity, each with 8-30 beds divided up among men, women, children, maternity, and isolation for more communicable diseases such as meningitis, TB, etc. The majority of the patients don’t speak English, so we usually go first to the nurses’ station to ask for assistance. The funny thing is that the English-speaking Ghanaian nurses have difficulty understanding our flat American accents which are different from their British/Tribal version of English. The doctors here change their “accent” when they speak to the nurses, which at first sounds comical, but after having nurses look at you with a blank stare and say “what” three times, you find out that they can actually understand you better if you try to imitate them.

In the three short days we’ve been here, African pathology has already been in abundant supply. So far I’ve admitted multiple patients with cerebral malaria, meningitis, pneumonia, severe malnutrition, abdominal infections, and miscarried pregnancies. Yesterday in clinic between two full-time physicians, 4 residents, and a few medical students, we saw over 400 patients in clinic. The most common surgical procedure here is elective inguinal hernia repair, of which I’ve helped with one, but in the last two days I’ve also performed multiple ultrasounds, two D&C’s and done my first African C-section. It wouldn’t have been a proper initiation without the power going out in the middle of the C-section, but thankfully it was daytime and the frosted-glass windows let in enough daylight for us to continue without interruption while the circulating nurse found a flashlight. The power came back on within a few minutes, which is a blessing because when the window AC unit stops, the surgical gown quickly becomes your own personal sauna. Yesterday evening I thought regretfully that I’d only taken 3 or 4 pictures so far of all of the strange swellings and pathology I’d seen so far, and then realized, “It’s only been two days.”

As I mentioned above, there several other volunteers from the U.S. here with us, two pediatrics residents and five medical students. So far the flow of patients and problems has been heavy enough to keep us all plenty busy. We usually start at 7:30am with rounds which last until around 9am, and then after a 30 min. break begin either clinic (OPD=Outpatient Dept.) or surgery (theatre). We finish around 6pm on clinic days (M,W,F), and a little earlier (b/w 3-6pm) on surgery days (T-Th). I've enjoyed re-connecting with Ghanaian hospital staff that I interacted with on our visit three years ago, including several translators and theatre (OR) staff. We've found that Ghanaians overall are a very friendly group of people, especially as we interact with them more and more.

Not all of the medical staff volunteers are associated with a mission organization, in this case the medical students being from a state university, so it’s been a mixture of people from different backgrounds whom we’ve enjoyed learning to know. We look forward to more time spent with them as well as with the English-speaking hospital staff and community members we see each day.

Our little ones are adjusting to the time change and heat fairly well, but spending a lot of time in just diapers. Our wives are doing well too; I’ll let mine update you with her own perspective on life in this new, strange place when she has time.

Last but not least, it really is hot…I tried to quantify how much water, milk, tea, fanta, lemonade, and crystal light I drank yesterday and stopped after about 4 liters. There’s rarely a time when I’m not at least a little bit thirsty. The upside is that we get to experience the satisfying feeling of having our thirst quenched a multitude of times each day. I realized that makes a great spiritual analogy- whether fasting intentionally from something or experiencing the unintentional fast of a difficult experience, I am finding that leaning into God for protection, strength, endurance, patience, and a good attitude brings a similar satisfying feeling to having thirst quenched as I see God work undeservingly on my behalf. It’s difficult to describe, but so is the feeling of quenched thirst, unless you’ve experienced it for yourself. May we all continue to lean on Him for our satisfaction from whatever dryness we may feel in our lives today.