This has been the longest over-night outreach yet. We left Sunday night and got back Thursday night. It was a really fulfilling trip as we saw numerous amounts of people everyday and got to see a little more of the Ghana culture.
To give the background of the trip, it was a 7 hour knee’s to the chest van ride to the very western part of Ghana. We stayed in a town called Esiama right near the beach, very beautiful might I add. We worked long days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and didn’t get home until 11pm on Thursday night.
Our first stop was to Bonyere Junction, around an hour away from the hotel. It was a great outreach and really fun because it was close to a school so we got to hang out and play with the school kids. I did visual acuity tests and of course hung out with the kids.
Our second stop was to Elubo, literally right off the boarder of Ivory Coast and Ghana. It was a neat day because a lot of the people we saw were from the Ivory Coast. They mainly speak French so I learned a few phrases to give directions while testing visual acuity. We also saw around 450 people that day! It was a long day to say the least, but of course a good day. On the way home we got pulled over by the military/police at a checkpoint, probably because we were white foreigners, and a few of us didn’t have our passports on us.. They were going to hold us for money but last second by miracle an officer changed his mind and let us go with no problems. Tender mercies.
Wednesday we went to Aiynase which was a smaller church packed with people. I again did visual acuity. What made it tricky was that it was pouring rain outside almost the whole day so everyone was stuck inside that tiny church. Nonetheless we finished what we needed and were able to help many people.
Thurday, our last day on the trip! We found ourselves in Axim which was somewhat on the way back to Accra. I dispensed medication and glasses. By far its the fastest paced job as you have to constantly be calculating money and grabbing medication for the several hundred people who come through throughout the day. Finally it was finished and we packed up and took that lovely 7 hour car ride back home, aka the telecentre.
Drew's Ghana Trip 