15 November 2010

Levell (pronounced “level”) is a Taysec employee.  Taysec is the company that built and manages our apartment complex.  Levell is the gardener/grounds keeper.  He washes our car twice a week.  He greets us every morning when we leave for work.   He always has a smile and a wave.

For months Marsha and I have fantasized that when we finish here in July we will bring Levell to the states with us, employ him as a gardener/grounds keeper/car washer, assist him in going to school and then return him to Ghana in several years, educated and ready for a family.  Seems logical, doesn’t it?   Everyone wins.  We get an outstanding house employee and Levell gets an education.   Well, we made one wrong assumption while formulating this plan.  We assumed that Levell is single and probably 18 – 25 years old.    Last week we asked Levell about his family, thinking he might tell us about his parents and siblings.  Instead he told us about his wife, Cecelia, and their three children.  Levell is 39 years old!   You could have knocked us both over with a feather.  I didn’t believe him.  He doesn’t look older than 25.  The next day he brought us photographs of his family.  I still can’t believe he’s 39 years old.  I think we’ll have to abandon our plan.    

We’ve had a busy week taking care of a North American missionary working in Togo (the country immediately east of Ghana.) 

Togo is the pale pink country to the right of Ghana.

I was contacted on the 20^th of October and advised that this missionary had slipped on wet concrete and fallen on his head.  He had a brief loss of consciousness.  I had him observed for 24 hours to make sure he did not develop symptoms/signs of an acute brain injury.  He did not.  Last Thursday (13 days after the injury) I was notified that he had developed nausea and vomiting.  Nausea and vomiting are not uncommon complaints among our missionaries who have to deal with contaminated water/food on a daily basis.  I wasn’t too concerned about it.  I gave my usual advice for treatment.  After four days he had not improved.   I had him hospitalized in Lome.  On the second day in the hospital I received a call indicating that he was very ill and had to be “evacuated to the states urgently.”   I was told that he had undergone a head CT which was abnormal.  I was given no other details.  Thinking he had developed a subdural hematoma I arranged for land transportation to bring him to Accra where I could have him evaluated and treated.  He arrived at my office at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday.  Surprisingly he did not look ill.  I reviewed his CT scan and could see immediately that there was no evidence of an acute/subacute bleed.  Instead there were multiple defects in the tissue of the brain on the right side.   I had never seen anything like this before.  I shared the films with the neurosurgeons at Korle Bu and they were all concerned about possible infections or tumors.  We did an MR scan on Thursday which ruled out tumors.  But none of the physicians (three neurosurgeons and two radiologists) could definitively tell me what the lesions were.  They were all still concerned about infection.  I arranged for this young man to return to the states.  Marsha and I took him to the airport, with CT scan and MR scan in hand, on Friday night.  I hope I get feedback on his workup.   

We had another cockroach encounter this past week.   Fortunately, it was not up close and personal as the others have been.  We didn’t have to smash this one.  We were at Mama Mia’s with the Froerers getting ready to order dinner.  Mama Mia’s has become our favorite restaurant.  They serve a variety of pizza, all of which are delicious, and a few other Italian dishes.  It has outdoor seating under umbrellas.  Nice atmosphere.  It would be perfect if they could guarantee no mosquitoes.   We were seated right next to the kitchen with a glass wall between us and the cook who was preparing the pizzas.  We were entertained watching the cook roll out the dough and toss it by hand.  There were about five clear Tupperware lids standing up from the counter top leaning against the inside of the glass wall.  While watching the cook we all noticed a cockroach in the space between one of the lids and the glass wall.  I’ve described these insects before. 

They are dark brown and appear to have a shell.  They are about two inches in length with another two inches of antenna.  They are frightening when you encounter them for the first time.  We all watched the bug.  He seemed to be content.  We all watched the cook preparing the food.  If the cook knew the cockroach was less than two feet from his food he sure didn’t seem to be bothered by it.  I quickly searched the menu.  In a country where a favorite delicacy is fish head soup, and all of the fish head (ALL OF IT including the eyes, the mouth, the gills, the brain, the lips) is eaten I thought for a moment that maybe Mama Mia’s had a Ghanaian specialty pizza:  Pepperoni, black olive, and cockroach.

“Waiter, we would like to order a large pepperoni, black olive, and cockroach pizza, with extra cockroach, please.”  Ugh.

Earlier this year I wrote an entry about Rebecca Tetteh (21 Feb 2010.)   

Rebecca, Roseline, Michael

We continue to look for options to improve Rebecca’s ambulation.  She was born with bilateral hip dysplasia and bilateral club feet.  The feet have been repaired.  Rebecca walks with crutches.  She has been seen by two orthopedic surgeons who have not offered surgical options for her hips at her present age.  For the past three months Rebecca has been seeing a physical therapist who is teaching Rebecca and her mother how to strengthen Rebecca’s hips/back/trunk.  Two weeks ago Marsha and I drove Rebecca and her mother, Roseline, and her brother, Michael, to Nsawam to have Rebecca’s shoes and crutches repaired.  While we were standing with other customers at the service counter the technician  behind the counter asked Rebecca for her crutches.  Rebecca gave the crutches to her mother and then Rebecca proceeded to walk the eight feet to the counter.  Her walk was very labored, but she did it!  It gives us hope that the current physical therapy might allow Rebecca to eventually discard the crutches. 

On our way back from Nsawam we encountered the worst rain storm of our lives.  For thirty minutes the rain came down so heavily that we could not see with the wipers working at the fastest speed.  All of the traffic slowed way down or stopped.  In many places the road disappeared with a river of water running over the surface.  At one point we had to drive about two kilometers of dirt road.  We had red rivers of water flowing through mud holes as deep as the wheel wells.  We each thought “this is how cars get washed away in rain storms.”  Marsha decided that had we been washed away she would have tried to save Michael and that I would have had to save Rebecca.   A bit melodramatic, perhaps, but at the moment it seemed a possible necessity.

I want to describe another humorous encounter this week.   I wish I could have captured this on video.  I was driving north on Independence Ave toward the apartment in very slow moving traffic.  We were inching along in front of the Empty Palace.

(This is a government building that looks like a large stool, built by the Chinese but never occupied by the Ghanaian government.)  I noticed a yellow van that looked like a small school bus across the median in the opposite lane coming toward me. The van pulled out of its lane of traffic into a bus stop area.  About fifteen little children, probably 2 to 3 years old poured out of the bus.  They were all dressed in school uniforms – dark brown trousers or skirts with orange tops.  The children ran onto the grass in front of the empty palace and started chasing each other around like puppies.  I couldn’t hear them but I’m sure they were all giggling.  They played for half a minute, and then, as if on cue, all of them stopped and dropped their drawers and urinated.  The boys had their pants down to their ankles and were proudly peeing, as little boys do, and the girls had their panties down to their ankles and were squatting like little puppies.  They finished in ten seconds or less, pulled up their drawers, and piled back onto the bus.  All of this happened while I was inching along in traffic.  Hmmm.  Had it been adults I would have been disgusted.  Instead I was entertained. 

Here is a great picture.   

Marsha and I were walking the neighborhood early morning last week when we noticed this woman sitting on the curb crocheting.  She appeared to be making some kind of a top.  It is the first time we have encountered a Ghanaian using yarn. We stopped and talked with her.  She knew enough English to carry on a limited conversation.  She gets her yarn at Makola Market.  She likes to crochet.  She likes bright colors.  She was very kind to let us take her picture. 

Here are some photos taken while driving.  It is always interesting to see the sights.  

This Toyota truck had the license plate tied on with string.  It was flopping all over the place, soon to be roadside litter, I'm sure.

Looks like one stop shopping for all of your medical needs, with three clinics to serve you.   

I want to write something about palm trees.  I have spent my entire adult life misinformed about palm trees.  I can probably blame it on Disneyland/Disney World or the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I distinctly remember being told that there are only two kinds of palm trees: coconut palms and date palms.  That is wrong.  There are more than two.  Google “palm trees."   You will have over four million hits.  It is hard to decide where to start researching the hundreds of varieties of palm trees.  Here is one web site www.palm-trees.org that features a different palm tree each month.  It’s something you might consider viewing about the middle of January when the snow is becoming a real nuisance.

Here are some of the palm trees that are either within our apartment complex or within a quarter mile of the complex. 

These are coconut palms.  They are tall.  The bark is smooth.  These are the ones that come to mind when someone says "palm trees."  

This is a date palm.  Date palms are shorter than coconut palms with a bark that is more rough.  It appears to me that date palms have two different kinds of palm fronds.  The first is similar to the coconut palm with fronds that arch out and down when mature.  The second is demonstrated in this picture.  The fronds are more erect and remain upright until they wither and die. When the wind blows these fronds make a sound like large sheets of plywood rubbing against each other.

This is a plam tree that produces a red berry.  The trunk is very small.  Palm oil (unhealthy cooking oil that I am sure is labelled by the American Heart Association as off limits) is made from the berries.  The oil is red, just like the berries, and thick.  It is used for frying foods.  It is sold in 5 and 10 gallon containers in the stores and along the roadsides.  

I do not know what type of palm tree this one is.  It is adjacent to the swimming pool.   It is taller than the date palms but not as tall as a coconut palm.   It has rough bark.  It must be some kind of a decorative palm.

These large palms are outside the complex.  They, too, must be decorative palms.  The trunks are very large. The bark is very smooth.  I cannot ascertain if they produce fruit.

This is my favorite.  It is a fan palm.  This one is outside our window.  It is fascinating to watch an individual frond unfurl in the center at the same time that one at the bottom withers and dies.  

Why this discourse on palm trees?  I think I’ve discovered the reason for the slow/faulty internet in Ghana.  It’s the palm trees.  It is very common while walking around the neighborhood to see the overhead communication wires disappearing into foliage.  

The deciduous trees are not dangerous to the lines because the branches usually remain attached to the tree and do not fall off.  Palm trees, however, drop their lower branches on an ongoing basis.  Some of these branches are very heavy.  Over the space of two months I watched through our kitchen window a palm slowly take down the communication line into the office behind our complex.   The dead branches continued to weigh down on the line until it was almost to the ground.  When it finally went down someone removed the dead palm branches and restored the line.

So, now you know all about palm trees.  If you have slow/faulty internet at your home or office look around to see if it’s the palm trees.    

I have decided to start a new blog feature:  What’s In The News?  If you are a Dave Barry fan (the writer who used to publish a weekly humor column for the Miami Herald, see www.davebarry.com) you will recall that Dave would often introduce the topic for his column with a sentence like this:  the subject for this week’s column is “blah blah blah” (something relevant to the times such as tree hugging in Idaho) and thanks to alert reader “blah blah blah” (a name) who sent in this article on the subject which appeared in “blah blah blah”  (the newspaper.)  Dave Barry would then describe the article, often quoting from it.  The articles were usually hilarious (such as the lengthy description of a government study where frozen turkeys were shot into airplane jet engines to assess the damage that fowl in flight can cause to airplanes – this was before the Hudson River incident.)  Kevin and Pam Page

are the missionary couple assigned to be in charge of Public Affairs for the church in West Africa.  As part of their responsibility they have to read all of the local newspapers to know what is current interest in Ghana.  Kevin frequently clips articles of interest and gives them to me.  Some are medical related.

Here are the four major newspapers in Accra. 

You can immediately tell that we are dealing with journalism of the highest National Enquirer standards.

Here is my first entry:  What’s In The News?  The topic for this week’s blog is a snake in Kumasi who turned into a woman, sent in by alert reader Kevin Page who found this in The Daily Guide.   As described in this riveting report an eyewitness with the name Adelaide Yeboah (aka “Ama Ataa”), the wife of a church pastor, heard shouting outside her home and went out to investigate.   Quoting the article, Mrs. Yeboah discovered “.  . to her surprise  . . an extremely large black cobra crawling slowly in front of the church.”   The snake then crawled into a culvert.  The crowd poured hot water into the culvert.  Quoting the article, again, “a wretched – looking woman emerged from the culvert to the utter shock of the multitude that had gathered there.”   The article then goes on to describe the interview with the snake woman, with “visible burns on the body,” who stated “she was a native of Mampong, who is married to one Lawrence and has two children and that she came to Kumasi for business.”  So much for Kumasi hospitality.  I bet this woman won’t come back to Kumasi and do her snake thing again.

I have copied this article in case someone wants to know more details. Click on the photo to enlarge it.   

 Last item:  I was with Marsha at Woodin on Saturday.  Woodin is an upscale fabric store in Osu, the Rodeo Drive of Accra.     Most of the time the store is pretty quiet with customers, men and women, looking over the displays and tables of fabric.  Saturday was different.  When we entered the store we noticed a group of native women dressed in their brightly colored dresses and matching elaborate headwraps.  There were probably 8 – 10 of them.  They were spread out through the store but were jabbering back and forth in their native tongue.  They were serious about the fabric shopping.  Some of them had large stacks of fabric selected.  Marsha and I moved around the store trying to be unobtrusive but it was very difficult not to watch these serious Ghanaian fabric shoppers.  They were all so beautiful.  After ten minutes in the store the front door opened and, as Marsha described later, another group of similarly dressed women “exploded” into the store.  It looked like a reunion.  The groups acknowledged each other with verbal greetings, bowing to each other, and embracing.  And then they got down to business.  They surrounded the tables examining the fabric, excitedly talking to each other, and holding up the fabric to each other.  I found it even more difficult not to stare at these women.  They were a visual delight in all of their brightly colored outfits.  We stayed in the store for another fifteen minutes, paid for our fabric, and left.  A bus was parked in front.  We’ll probably never know who they were (Marsha is sure they were professional dressmakers in Accra at a convention) but they provided a half an hour of entertainment.

This is a closing photo.  It was taken on the bridge over the Tema highway.  

Quick update on the Ghana tomato project:  Hope is gone.  I’ll give more details with the next entry.  My fingers are tired from typing.