Safari

An update on our premature baby boy... We returned to the hospital that afternoon to find the nurse by his incubator giving him oxygen. She said, "My baby isn't doing well." His heart rate had slowed down quite a bit, his breating was more erratic, and he looked much less pink than he had earlier in the day. We knew this was to be expected, as there was nothing that we could have done to prevent it, so we took him from the incubator to his mother. Initially, the nurse resisted, but per our request she explained the situation to the mother. We wanted her to see him, to hold him, but instead she asked that we take him away. So Anne and I held him, cried, prayed, until he died about an hour later. His name would be Kofi, meaning Friday born, and he lived almost eight hours that day until he died in our arms. We could only take comfort in knowing that this beautiful boy is now with God, where he knows no pain or struggle. He has to be in a better place now, I'm sure of it.
On Wednesday we went to Mole National Park in the more northern part of the country, a trip that took about 12 hours each way. We all packed into a small passenger van and drove the bumpy roads to the park. At one point, it takes over 3 hours to travel 40 miles because the roads are so bad, but we survived both getting there and back. We spent two days at the park, went on a walking safari one morning where we saw antelope, warthogs, monkeys, and elephants all in their natural habitat. It was pretty awesome - we stood about 100 feet from two huge African elephants as they went for their morning stroll. They are beautiful! At our hotel, which is in the park, the baboons jump right up onto the breakfast table looking for food. It's funny how people-like they are! The mothers carry their babies on their backs, just like the African women do, so cute. We even were lucky enough to come across the path of five elephants one evening when we were driving the road back from town. We got a really up-close look as they crossed the street in front of our van, moving so slowly and gracefully.
The people of Laribanga, the neighboring town, invited us one evening to see some native dancing. They brought benches and chairs for us and we sat in a circle around a lantern while they danced and sang. Anne and I even joined in a few times and I think we impressed them with our ability to keep up! It was a lot of fun to spend time in their village and I think they enjoyed our visit just as much as we did.
Our time at Mole gave us some quiet time spent with some other volunteers. Anne and I had a chance to reflect on the work we've done so far and sort out our goals for the rest of our stay here. It was nice to take a short vacation, to see the part of Africa that we always hear about. We enjoyed just sitting on the observation deck, looking out across the endless span of green. It was time well spent.
We came home to the mountain Sunday afternoon, after passing through Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana, where we had pancakes for breakfast at a hotel. They were like Chinese pancakes, and they had to make syrup for us, but they were so delicious!
We returned to work on Monday, very tired after doing laundry that morning. It took Anne and I two hours to scrub our clothes and hang them to dry - does it take that long to do a load start to finish with a washer and dryer? We definitely miss that luxury! But I'm getting better at it, my clothes seem to dry faster with each week of practice. This Friday we have planned to join a group of nurses on a trip to immunize children. According to Dr. Opare, I think we'll be going into towns just looking for children under age 5 who'd like a shot in the butt. Sounds like fun, a chance to see some of their preventative health care in action. We're looking forward to becoming involved in more trips like this, so we're excited, even though we are leaving at 6am!
As always, Anne and I appreciate all of the emails, thoughts, prayers that we have been receiving. Prayers are being answered here, I'm positive of that.