Days 22-25: Familiar, Fresh, Frenzy, Forward, Freaky

Something Familiar

On Saturday, we had a nice evening at the Faile's. They invited us over for some yummy, homemade pizza that Mrs. Faile made and to play games. While I really do enjoy the Ghanaian food we've had, a good pizza is hard to beat and it really hit the spot. After dinner, we learned how to play the game Chickenfoot, a board game played with tiles and similar to dominoes. It was a relaxing and fun time.

Something Fresh

On Sunday, we went with the evangelist Tommy out into the villages. Nalerigu is the main town in the area, but it is surrounded by lots of smaller villages. There are more than 20 different languages spoken in the nearby villages. We drove for about an hour and a half to get to an open school area where Tommy shares the Word of God with local people. His message this Sunday was talking about being a light to the world, just as Jesus was, and allowing that light to shine on others. Here are some pictures from our trip:

Pretty much everybody in the villages lives in mud huts with straw roofs:


As we drive by, people love greeting/waving to foreigners:


A nice view of the savannah grasslands during the dry season.. it looks quite different during the wet season:


Riding along in Tommy's truck:


Amara had a lot of fun playing with the kids and chasing them around to tickle them..


Here is Tommy sharing his message to the people:


Frenzies of People

It's pretty amazing how many crowds of people we have encountered. Here in Nalerigu, every third day is market day, which means that people from near and far come into town to sell their goods (be it produce, clothing, wares, and whatnot). The scene at the market is like a tightly packed flea market. Dr. Hewitt brought us into market on Sunday afternoon to buy a few items. Here he is being swarmed by people while trying to get some rice for his dogs:


Amara and I have made some progress in the number of patients we've been seeing. On Monday, which was particularly busy for the clinic because last Friday was a holiday, we saw 98 patients between the two of us. Dr. Faile saw well over a hundred patients by himself. The pharmacy people are especially busy since all of the patients go through the pharmacy to pick up medications and pay their bills. There were so many people yesterday that the pharmacy people were working until 11:30pm, and they still had a large number of people to see this morning that they had sent home for the night to return today. This is a picture taken outside of the hospital on a typical clinic day (which are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays). While this already seems like a lot of people, keep in mind that it is early morning around 7:30am and the doctors generally don't start seeing patients until 9:00am.. the crowd only grows from here!


Driving Forward

During this trip, Amara's had the chance to learn and practice how to drive a stick-shift truck. She's done great and only stalled once!


Freaky Bugs

There are a lot of interesting bugs here, many that end up in places not as welcome as others. Here's one that I found crawling into my sandal this morning at the hospital.


Here's another fun flying bug that kept following us while we were walking outside. It hovered in front of our feet for a while, as if it wanted us to take its picture. In fact, right after it landed and we snapped a shot of it, it took off and left. I guess it got its wish..