Good Weekend :)

So happy! On Friday I saw ALL live births, yet they still ambu-bagged every child even though they were breathing. Their practices are strange...but the kids were all alive and gorgeous. Hallelujah. Oh one weird thing was that they gave one woman general anaesthetic for a C-section. I asked the doctor why they did that, and he said it was because there were students giving the anaesthetic and they were better at giving general anaesthetic instead of an epidural. Strange. And definitely not the best option. Would never fly in Canada.

After work on Friday we headed down to Mole (pronounced mole-lei) National Park which was about 3 hours away. We hired a driver and all crammed into a van and headed on down. The road was awful, awful, awful. But...IT RAINED!!! It was so nice to be in the rain (and it helped with the dusty roads :)). It poured all night long, and we woke up at 6am on Saturday morning to go on the walking safari for 2.5 hours. After seeing antelope, warthogs, and monkeys, and getting attacked by fire ants (SOO not fun, and the bites hurt), we finally saw elephants!! These were crazy big, and so majestic.

We had planned to spend two nights at Mole but we decided against it. After the safari, spent about 4 hours relaxing at the pool that they have there. It was great but I burned sooo bad. It definitely hurts. We then crammed back into the van and by the time we got back home we all looked native because of all the dust that we encountered along the way! It was soooo dusty!

Yesterday we went to the football (soccer) game in the gorgeous stadium here in Tamale! It doesn't fit in at all with the look of Tamale. The game was between Tamale and Accra and only cost us 3 cedis to get in (equivalent to about $2). So exciting to be there! The fans get so into it and it was so fun.

A shocking thing was that each team has a team of about 8 medics who will run onto the field if anyone falls and doesn't get up instantly. It'd be nice if the hospital staff worked with this mentality.......

Today I was supposed to spend the day in pediatrics but opted for the emergency room instead. It's a difficult place to be when you know the necessary tests can't be done due to a lack of resources...it makes for diagnosing patients very difficult. Tomorrow I'll be going to pediatrics, then emergency again on Wednesday, and then 2 days in a clinic here. The clinic is run by someone who gets a ton of donations and does free surgeries for kids. This weekend we're planning to hit up Kintampo waterfalls which I believe is a couple hour bus ride away and I hear it's gorgeous there!

We left Canada about 2.5 weeks ago and the novelty about seeing new things and doing all the touristy things is slowly wearing off. Don't get me wrong, it's still totally amazing to be here, but we've got into a routine now where we're all realizing that this isn't just a quick holiday touristy trip. We're living here for 7 weeks. To be honest, sometimes it's overwhelming to think that I am still here for 4 more weeks, but it's all about attitude. It's so important to embrace the opportunity I've been given and cherish every moment cause I know that once we get back to Canada I'll want to be back here!!

We've made quite a few friends here, both black and white. We tend to run into the same people everywhere, and the British med student and nursing student that I met at the hospital last week came to Mole with us.

To all you Vancouver-ites, I hope the Olympics aren't making life too chaotic! Must be fun to be there!

Miss you all, and.......the good ol' washing machine. Handwashing clothes is no longer fun.