First day in Nalerigu

Today we flew from Accra to Tamale, which took about an hour. To drive the same distance would have taken 12 hours over paved and dirt roads. We looked out over the city as we left, and then watched the countryside become more sparsely populated as we went further north. We were picked up at the airport and rode for 1 hour over a paved road, and 1 hour over a dirt road. The dirt is red here. Along the way, we went through several small villages. Homes are made of mud here. Each home is a compound of several small round rooms, connected by a wall. The roof of each small, round room is thatched. The extended family lives in the compound, with one room for cooking, one for guests, one for sleeping, etc.

Nalerigu is a larger town. It is the central town for the Mamprusi tribe and the chief lives here. The Mamprusi tribe rules this region of Ghana and the surrounding countries (Burkina Faso and Togo).
We settled in to House #8, which is a guest house with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a kitchen. We had 3 young boys on our doorstep as soon as we arrived, so we met them. They live in the village and like to hang out around the volunteers. Tracey sat with them for a while and got to know them.

Dr. Hewitt and Dr. Faile are the full-time family physicians who are career missionary physicians and live here all the time. We were pleased and surprised that there are some other volunteers here. There is a gastroenterologist, a retired surgeon, and 3 medical students. I think more students are coming tomorrow.

We had a tour of the hospital and met some patients. In our quick look around, we met patients with the following ailments: tetanus, malaria, typhoid, meningitis, gunshot, wound infections, and a really sick looking baby who might have pneumonia as well as malaria. I bonded with him and will check on him later. He is getting all that we have to offer (oxygen, antibiotics, and quinine for malaria). I hope he will get better.

Some of the patients' relatives were quite pleased and animated that we had already learned to say "good afternoon" in Mampruli, and the universal response, "Naaa."

Tonight we will all have dinner together and tomorrow we will round and then go to church.

I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.
Sarah