Week 7 and life goes on! It’s been a good week: thanks to Harriet’s return I now know where to eat – I have found some places that serve markedly better food, either that or my taste buds have atrophied to the degree that anything tastes good. Either way it’s a plus – lunch most days is from a chop bar – a mix of noodles and rice with some stew sauce, a hard-boiled egg and some ‘meat’. I don’t often ask what type.
This week I have done two new things:
Firstly I have been tasked by Harriet to improve sales in the market town of Kasoa. Kasoa is located about half an hour East of us on the way to Accra, it exists because there is a crossroads there and like the market towns of Britain which sprung up around bridges because of the increase in traffic at those points the same has happened here. Kasoa is, no bones about it, a completely uninspiring place – the buildings are new and ugly, the rubbish overflows – buildings come first then you set up the infrastructure – it is not a sensible way to do things. Still I have found an orphanage there which will hopefully start taking juice on Monday – we sell at a discount to orphanages because we see them as being in the same business as ourselves. Because of the wars all around Ghana there are lots of orphanages, people see Ghana as safe so they flee here if they can. Considering we have just had a swift, untroubled transfer of power in the country , I can see their point.
Secondly I had to take one of the schoolchildren to the hospital. Vida is 19. She has a hole in her heart and is waiting on an operation – on Thursday we finally got her booked in and it will happen in September. The hospital was better than I expected, cleaner, some of the buildings were colonial era others were newer. The waiting room was crowded like the NHS but what struck me was the lack of doctors, this is Accra’s main hospital – there was one cardiologist on duty for the entire ward, one. The problem is that if you have a medical degree you don’t stay in Ghana – instead you take your family and go to one of a dozen countries (including the UK) which will give you a work visa – the brain drain is a huge problem. Another problem is the blood bank – they are almost always running out – in fact for Vida’s operation we have to donate the same amount of units of blood that she will need – this is the standard policy of Ghana.
Tonight we have two new volunteers joining us for a month, they arrive shortly from the UK. So this is my last night of peace and quiet for a while. I’m using it to write to you guys and work on my dissertation.
I hope you are all well and once again thanks for the letters - they keep me going.
James
