University Hospital

Here are a few photos of the maternity and pediatric wards at University Hospital, where I have been volunteering for the semester. Not that it needs too much explanation, but it is worth mentioning that this hospital is enormously better than many others in Ghana. Doctors and nurses have to work with whatever they have in terms of supplies and technologies, and when they don't have it, sometimes the patient suffers. I have found that everything seems to be a little more natural here, they don't have all the expensive and extravagant ways of keeping people alive like they do in the US. Spending time here has been an adventure in many ways and has taught me a lot about what it means to be human.

Benin

Way back in October, my friend Sammy and I took a four day trip over to Benin. We stayed in Lomé, Togo for a night as we were passing through and then headed to Cotonou early the next morning. Spent a bit of time wandering around there. Not too much to see, seemed to be a pretty run-down city. Afer, we headed to Ganvié, a stilt village with a population of around 30,000. Was a nice boat ride there and the village was neat- church, schools, hospital, hotel, restaurants... it has lots of things a town of that size should have. Was pretty amazing that the whole thing was on stilts. A lot of women apparently didn't consider it important to wear clothes either. Always a bit awkward, but it was hot I suppose! After the boat ride, we headed up to Abomey- supposed to be a two hour drive, but it took 4 1/2 hours on one of the bumpiest roads I have ever ridden on. Got there around 9 PM and tried two places before finding a hostel with room for us. Much of the transportation around the cities is on moto taxis- the mini motorcycles. Felt a little bit erie being on the backs of moto taxis in the pitch dark driving through alley ways with no street lights heading towards "a great place to stay" that the driver knows of. Such is travel in West Africa though, and we had no problems! Got up the next morning and took a moto taxi tour of the Dahomey Trail. That was pretty neat, although our guide didn't speak a lot of English, so I think we missed a lot. There are eleven sights along the trail leftover from the Dahomey Kingdom. Headed back south to Oidah after finishing the tour. There, we visited the Voodoo Python temple, where you can drape the snakes over your neck! Kinda scary! Saw the Sacred Forest, which is essentially one tree. The Voodoo king apparently turned himself into a tree, and the tree is now considered sacred. Also took another moto taxi tour of the Route de Esclaves, the 4 KM walk that the slaves were walked down before boarding the ships. Pretty crazy to see where it truly happened. There is the spot where a large tree used to be called "The Tree of Forgetfulness" where the slaves were forced to walk around it several times and "forget Africa." The Point of No Return has a magnificent archway built on the sand. Seems so ironic to have a place of such tragedy be so beautiful. Spent the night at a cute place near the ocean. Everything was great there except for the 90234023759278 bug bites I got!