The Past Few Days...

***So the Internet at the Telecentre has been less than ideal the past few days. I'm actually at an Internet Cafe right now! I'll try to keep my blog updated as much as possible despite the bad connections at the hotel. This post is a recap from Friday, July 2 to Tuesday, July 6. ***

Ghana suffered a heartbreaking loss in their final World Cup match. It was really sad to see everyone in streets so sad after being so hopeful that Ghana could make it to the next round of the tournament. A few of us watched the game at a little bar around the corner from one of the nearby restaurants after outreach on Friday, and we were all very sad after the long game ended in a loss for Ghana. So Ghana is out of the World Cup, and the games are not nearly as fun to watch as they were at the beginning. But Ghana represented for Africa the longest and we are so proud!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday, three of us had to observe surgeries at Northwest. I’m not going to go into had much I am annoyed with this clinic or how inefficient they can be sometimes, but it can be quite frustrating sometimes. They didn’t start doing surgeries 5 in the evening and we didn’t finish until around 10 that night. Everyone at the clinic is very nice, but I think they could use a class in time management. Lots of us went to the beach on Sunday. This time we went to Labadi Beach; it’s a lot closer to the Telecentre, but it’s a lot busier and it has lots of locals selling stuff all the time. It’s was kind of annoying to have people always trying to get you to but something when you’re just trying to relax, but it was still a pretty good afternoon. Afterwards, we came back to our hotel to get freshened up and then headed out for what we thought was lunch but actually turned out to be dinner. We arrived at this Chinese restaurant at about 4:45 and ended up leaving at 7:30. I guess I can understand since we had about 20 people at our table, but we definitely were experiencing GMT (Ghana Man Time!). Overall, it was a pretty good weekend with a good mix of work and play.

I’m at Northwest again this week, and so far it’s been a pretty interesting week. On Monday, we had 150 people at our outreach clinic. Of course we got a late start, and we didn’t leave this place until almost 9:00!!! That’s by far the latest outreach I’ve ever been on. Everyone, especially the optometrist on duty, was exhausted by the end of the night. Once again the inefficiencies are apparent. Today (Tuesday), our outreach was canceled because not many people had showed up to the site. There was a communication issue with the local volunteer and the clinic (something that happens regularly at Northwest), and the doctor decided not to go. We ended up having a short day at the clinic, and got home early!

Tomorrow is my day off, and another volunteer, Sarah, and I are going out ALL DAY to have fun and cover as much of the town as we can. I’m soooooooooo excited! Can’t wait to tell you all about it!