I am writing this on the long journey back from Accra. I am already half way through my 4 week elective placement in Ghana, time is going by very quickly.
For my blog today I was wanting to focus more on life in Ghana and how I have felt while calling it my home.
The house that the students live in is amazing, very clean and has everything you need. I have a room to myself as there are so few of us in the house at the moment, I am in a bunk bed with a mosquito net over and I have my own bathroom with plenty of wardrobe space and a lockable box. There is no air conditioning in the house, I have a ceiling fan in my room which is sufficient, the nights can get warm when you’re trying to sleep but with placement I seem to sleep fine. There is no hot water but I actually appreciate a cold shower with it being so hot. We have to hand wash our clothes outside, but there is a lady that lives next door who will hand wash our clothes costing approx 20p an item, which I have taken full advantage of as I’m pretty sure I would do a terrible job myself.
We have 2 cooks who prepare our breakfast and evening meals from Monday to Friday, We normally have leftovers for our lunch or use some of the food in our kitchen to make our own meals, they are also very good at keeping the snacks cupboard filled well. Every Thursday there is a BBQ at the house, everyone sits together outside with the music on with the house staff and even the lady who washes our clothes has us up dancing to many well known European songs such as the Macarena and Saturday night. The house does have Wi-Fi, which, as we are all very reliant on is good to have, it can be very temperamental but we all appreciate having it. The hospital is about 10 minutes away from the house and we share a taxi each day which works out about £2 each way, most of the drivers know where we live and work so it is very easy to get about. The taxis aren’t as we know them back home, these are mainly very old cars and because the roads have many large speed bumps and pot holes the cars are damaged quite badly.
We are very lucky and have a seamstress who comes to the house once a week, she comes each Tuesday evening after dinner and we buy the fabric we want and she takes measurements and makes whatever you require, fabric shopping was so much fun, there are so many amazing patterns and styles of fabric, I could have bought them all, but I didn’t, I have an order for a summer dress and trousers for myself and also a few bags and purses as presents for when I am home. Within a week she has all of your items done and the price is reasonable and the quality of her work is brilliant. We also learn the local language once a week, I am terrible at this but I try my best as it is very much appreciated by the people of Ghana if you can speak some ‘Fante’, this week we even learnt a song.
The first weekend I was in Ghana, myself and 3 of the girls from the house went to a Lake, We booked a lodge and made the epic 6 hour journey there, the lodge was basic but we were all very excited about there being prawn curry on the menu, as we do eat a lot of chicken and goat at the house so the prawns were a nice change. The next morning we set off on a bit of a hike to a horse ranch by the lake, plenty of stunning views as we walked, but typically I had only brought flip flops to wear so I was filthy by the end of the day. We reached the ranch and were met by a French lady who owns and run the ranch which is also a lodge. They have 9 horses and you can ride for as short or long as you want. We chose to ride for 1 hour, I was a bit, actually very apprehensive about getting on a horse as it has been well over 10 years since I’d been horse riding, my horse Eclipse didn’t seem to like me much but once we set off I started to feel more comfortable, the views around the lake were stunning and I felt like Eclipse was starting to warm to, right up until the end when he got spooked and tried to buck me off, but I am here to tell the tale and now it’s in the past I really enjoyed it.

As I mentioned I am currently travelling back to the Work the World house from Accra, we left the house on Friday and made the 5 hour journey to Accra, this time just 3 of us, one of the girls was flying home on the Saturday night and we didn’t want her to travel on her own so we went with her to Accra with her and stayed over for 2 nights. The hotel was nice and I managed to have my 1st hot shower in 2 weeks, we had Wi-Fi and air conditioning in our rooms and even filter coffee with our breakfast, which made us all very happy. Yesterday the 3 of us ventured to James Town in Accra, we had a tour guide who took us to meet some of the children at the local school, the children are very friendly and want to hug you and hold your hand, they always want to have photos with you too. We spoke to some of the children that were having lessons there then we moved to the fishing village, this is the poorest part of Accra and I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the level of hard work and poverty that I saw, also a lot of fish. We all felt very privileged to go and see this community of fishermen, their wives and families, it really did leave a lasting impression on me. We then heading to the mall in Accra and the contrast of the way people live was shocking, from extreme poverty to how the rich live and shop. That night we said our goodbyes to one of the girls who flew home, even though I’ve only known her for 2 weeks, I am going to miss her. So as I write this travelling back there are 2 of us, with 2 other girls travelling somewhere else this weekend. I am now the only student nurse as all the other girls all training to be doctors, but it is nice to exchange views, skills and experiences between each other.
My next blog I will talk more about my experiences at the hospital as I did manage to visit the morgue, twice, and also be part of the mother and baby HIV clinic. Tomorrow I start my 2 weeks in NICU which I am looking forward too as I thoroughly enjoyed my Neonate placement in my 2nd year and it is an area I may pursue once I am qualified. Until next time I’ll say bye, once again thank you for reading my blog and I hope you are enjoying it. If you are on Twitter you can follow university account for my more regular updates with photos @A011340fKatie