And the adventure continues. We were up until like 3am last night, even after taking anti-histamines, because of the jet lag. It’s 8 hours ahead of Seattle time here, and apparently that really makes a difference. 🙂 There are two different bedrooms in this place, and Lisa and I decided to sleep in the same room last night. Come on, we got here in the dead of night last night, have no idea where we are or what we’re surrounded by, and have all sorts of new noises to contend with…every last one of you would have done the same. 🙂 So, we’re laying there, at 2am, and all of a sudden we hear this pounding that sounds like it’s coming from the roof. We both try to ignore it and keep talking, but the pounding continues. It happens every maybe 45 seconds or so, and is really starting to freak us out. We’re trying to be logical about it, reminding ourselves we’re in a very safe place, that Cam and Anne have lived here for 10 years with no problems, etc etc etc. None of it works. So then we begin to pray, being the good Christian girls that we are ;). That doesn’t really do much for us either. Then we begin reciting all the things we’re thankful for in order to distract ourselves. Yeah, nothing. The pounding continues, and we’re both about to jump out of our skins. The only thing I can think to do is run screaming to Cam and Anne’s, which doesn’t seem appropriate on the first night we met them! Finally, Lisa has the idea to turn the light on and figure out who is responsible for trying to kill us (which is what we are convinced is what’s going on). We turn the light on, and almost simultaneously I see that the fan in our room is periodically causing the door of the armoir in our room to bang against the frame. Oh sweet Jesus, praise the Lord!!!!! We felt pretty stupid, but the relief was amazing. Turns out that we were not about to be killed on our first night in Africa. 🙂
We took a walk into Ankaase in the afternoon, and got mobbed by adorable African children. We don’t know any Twi yet, so we can’t talk to them at all, but they’re so cute. They all want their pictures taken, and are absolutely thrilled by seeing themselves on our cameras. The main road through Ankaase is paved, roughly so, but the rest of everything is dirt. We didn’t really walk around the town at all, we figure we’ll get a chance to do that eventually. We did find the hospital, and went in and walked around. It’s a totally open air building, with about 4-5 rooms where multiple patients are kept. The ‘isolation’ rooms are just a little separate from the rest of the rooms, and have mulitple patients in them too! From what I could tell, the rooms were ‘isolation’ in name only. Excellent….TB exposure, here I come! Words can’t describe the town or the hospital, so I will just post pictures when I get a chance. They call the ER ‘casualty,’ which I find quite ironic. They call the OR the ‘theatre,’ and there is just one. They have some rudimentary laboratory capabilities, and they can do plain film x-rays.
By the time we got back from seeing the village, we were dripping in sweat and exhausted. No wonder everyone just sits around here. You can’t really do much else in this heat. In the morning, it’s cool enough that it’s a nice touch to have the water heater. Even then, though, by the time I’m all dressed and ready to go, I’ve already begun to sweat. Gotta love the tropics!
Beginning to wonder if I have it in me to really move to another country like Cam and Anne have done. Definitely not a move I would make single, but who knows. Maybe it’s in the cards. Maybe I’m just excited to finally be in Africa. 🙂