Paga Crocodile Pond

Everyone likes to tour when in a foreign country, especially if the tourist attraction is bizarre or unheard of. Today we went to a very interesting place: Paga Crocodile Pond.

Paga is a place near Bolgatanga which is very close to the Burkina Faso’s (another African country) border.

Paga Crocodile Pond is a famous pond is filled with some of the biggest crocodiles in the world. According to history and some myth, one of the ancient crocodiles of this pond saved the life of the first man who settled in the area, by leading him to the pond to quench his thirst from a long journey.

After that incident, the man declared the pond be sacred and the crocs should be treated as royals. Up till now it's a taboo to harm or kill these reptiles. It is believed that the oldest crocodile is about 85years old.

Crocodiles are wild creatures but not the ones in Paga. These crocodiles coexist with humans and their friendly. Paga crocodile pond sanctuary is visited by millions of travelers from all parts of the globe. There are trained tour guides who perform some exercises before the crocodiles come out of water.

So, when we entered, we first had to buy a chicken to feed the crocodile. Then, the trained tour guides took us to a specific crocodile and then fed it with the chicken. While it was feeding we were allowed to grab the crocodiles tail and sit on it!

Paga is probably the only place on the planet where you can pose for your memorable photos, sitting and holding the tail of some of the biggest reptiles in the world. It was a very fun experience and a very good way to spend a day off! We also visited some museums next to Paga that relics from the old slave trading communities! It was a very fun experience and I learned a lot about slave life in the olden days.

Here are pictures of Paga:

Everyday is a new beginning!

Today’s blog entry is going to be very a special one, because I’m going to tell you a story of how one girl’s life is forever changed. You maybe thinking that I’m being “dramatic” or “cliché,” but that’s definitely not the case. This is a true story and I’m really proud to say that all it took to bring happiness to this one girl’s life is a single letter.

Meet Sana Idirrisu.

Before I tell you Sana’s story, I have to back up and tell you about this “letter.” While I was preparing for my trip to Ghana, I realized that I wanted my friends and family to connect with the Ghanaian people as well, more specifically to the patients that Unite for Sight was helping. And then a light bulb turned on in my head! I knew there was a simple way that I could connect two people separated by 6,539 miles – videos and letters! I immediately asked some of my Unite for Sight officers and members if they could write encouraging letters to some of the Ghanaian patients. Although, some of the officers were resistant to the idea, I received five letters that motivated the patient to seek help, had words of moral support, asked about their life in Ghana and also included a bit about life in the United States.

Today was the first day that I gave one of the letter’s to a patient: Sana. This letter was from Sai Alla – a rising senior at Saint Louis University and a member of Unite for Sight. Sai wrote with words of passion and asked the patient to seek help for her eye problem, to be fearless and to have faith in the end result. He continued to write about how important it is to just be strong, fearless and always seek the best from the situation. Sai wrote: “I can imagine how debilitating your cataracts must have been to your life and I hope from the bottom of my heart that this “magic” surgery will give you your life back.”

I gave the letter and the childhood picture of Sai to Sana and then recorded her responses on video while a translator helped us on the sidelines. Little did I know that the letter would impact Sana so much.

Sana is a 9-year-old Ghanaian Muslim girl that now lives at home 24/7 because of her debilitating eyesight. She has an immature cataract in her right eye (a clouding of the lens which impairs vision) and on top of that she has corneal ulcers on both of her eyes. Both of these conditions were caused from trauma about two years ago. She was involved in an automobile accident where she had glass and other sharp objects enter her eye and ever since then she has had bacteria feast on her cornea – leading to the ulcers. Corneal ulcers are extremely painful due to nerve exposure, and can cause tearing, squinting, and vision loss of the eye. Sadly, for two years Sana has had a very grim expression on her face due to the extreme pain she has been experiencing. She says that she has been looked down upon in her community because she does not go to school and neither can she help her elders. She said that she is a “little kid stuck in an old woman’s pair of eyes.”

As soon as she heard Sai’s letter you could see a smile slowly rise on her face. She began asking several questions: Is he a little boy like in the picture? Where does he live? Ask him what candies he likes and what he wants to be when he grows up! She was suddenly inquisitive, charismatic and jovial and her true personality came out. The past two years she lost that side to her and slowly transformed into a very quite and reserved kid. As soon as we told her that she would be referred to Tamale Eye Clinic and that the doctors would help treat her condition she jumped up and down and gave me a huge hug. It was a very long hug and I could truly sense how emotional she was. It was unbelievable. She told me to tell Sai that without him and the donors that paid for her eye treatment – she would never be able to get treated for her eye since her family is very poor. She also said that Sai’s words of encouragement were very near to her heart and that she wants to become a doctor so that she can treat the people of her village. Sana told us that the Village Chief had been suffering from stomach pains and that when she becomes a doctor when she grows up she will come back and treat him!

Sana also gave me her four most prized possessions to give to Sai: 4 bottle caps of different colors. Sana pretended that the caps were dolls and played with them everyday for the past two years she had been at home. Under each cap she wrote one letter of her name and told me to give it to Sai so he remembers her and he remembers to help out more people like her.

Yes, this is a true story. Shocking isn’t it? All these optimistic words came from a NINE YEAR OLD. A letter can go a long way and tomorrow will be a new beginning for Sana Idirrisu.

Ghanaian food

If there is one thing that you should know about me, it's that I get bored of things very easily. But,ever since I’ve gotten here, all I have wanted to eat is Ghanaian food. I'm in a Ghanaian food coma! My two favorite dishes that really make my taste buds jingle are Jollof Rice and Chicken Kebabs.

Joloff rice is common dish throughout West Africa, but its origin lies in Ghana. Its a very aromatic and flavorful rice meal. Its great on its own or even when accompanied with grilled meats. You can have a veggie, chicken or meat version of it.

Joloff rice with Kebabs!

Joloff rice!

Because I love food so much, I had to dedicate one blog post to food! As is true in most developing or middle-income countries, there is not a lot of variety in Ghanaian food. The thing that I miss most about food in the States is the variety. From what I understand, Ghanaian food has a lot more spice and flavor compared to many countries in West Africa. Food in Ghana mainly consists of rice or dough-type carbohydrates (fufu, banku), vegetables, fruit, chicken, and fish. They tend to use the same red pepper spice, Shito, in most dishes which makes everything taste similar.

There are a lot of delicious fruit and vegetables available in Ghana, though they are relatively expensive compared to other foods. I absolutely love the bananas, plantains, pineapple,mangoes, and avocado. You can buy plantains in all forms – fresh, fried, stewed, chips. I also love groundnuts (peanuts) that you can also buy in every form. Ghanaians eat a lot of yams as well. You can buy pretty much any kind of food on the street, which is very convenient. (So far I haven't been sick yet!)

Another thing to mention is that Ghanaians seem to eat and drink almost anything from a bag (sachets). I can imagine it’s because things melt so quickly in the heat. We drink our water from sachets, eat ice cream from sachetss, and you can even get alcohol in sachets.One of my favorite snacks is called Fan Milk. It is ice cream, frozen yogurt, or frozen chocolate milk that you suck out of a sachet. They are delicious and refreshing in the heat!

Sachets of Ice-cream and Water!

Savelugu - First Outreach.

I finally visited my first community today! Savelugu was about 10 miles away from the city of Tamale in a very remote area. We held the Unite for Sight outreach in a District Assembly Office and more than a 100 people came out to get their eyes checked, get glasses and eye-drops. Our staff today included:

1. Ali - Unite for Sight Tamale Coordinator
2. Dr. Daniel- ophthalmologist
3. Fuze - Chief ophthalmic nurse
4. Lina - Nurse
5. Daniel and Me - Unite of Sight Global Volunteers
6. Raza - The Visual Acuity Specialist

As people entered the office, they had to register with me. I recorded basic health information such as: name, date, sex, age, village. It was very surprising to me that many people did not know their age since their family did not keep track of their birth years. So, for many patients I had to estimate their age - a skill that I've gotten surprisingly good at now!

Next, Raza, a Unite for Sight Visual Acuity Specialist, screened people's eyes using an eye-chart. Each person would have to point in the direction the E faced. If all six lines were read correctly, the person would have 6/6 vision (perfect vision).

Fuze then diagnosed each patient's eye condition and recorded it. This way if a person needed a cataract surgery he or she was immediately referred to the Tamale Teaching Eye Clinic.

The final stop was the ophthalmologist. Dr. Dan gave some patients reading glasses if they had a hard time reading and others with itchiness or allergies were given Chloramphenicol eye-drops or Roncip-D eye-drops.

Here are some people patiently waiting for their turn in the whole outreach process!

Overall, I learned a lot about visual acuity screening today and how to administer reading glasses to people. There is a secret formula that I was taught: [((Age)-10)/20]. This gives you the power of the glasses that should be given to the individual!

African Beauties!

Today was my first outreach to the village, before I tell you about my experience I wanted to show you some beautiful faces of the village youngsters. I had too much fun playing with them, teaching them Indian and English songs and most of all I really enjoyed taking pictures of their innocent faces.

Here are just a few:

First Day At Tamale Teaching Eye Clinic and Operating Room!

Breathtaking; every single one of my experiences in a hospital as a medical professional has always been breathtaking. And today was no different at Tamale Eye Clinic. I seriously cannot explain the emotions I felt as I entered the Tamale Eye Clinic. All the sensations in my body were activated at one shot due to my anxiety and anticipation. My temporal nerve was pulsating, my heart was boom boom powing and at the same time I was having intense adrenaline rushes.

As soon as I was entered the eye clinic, I was greeted by Dr. Seth Wayne’s infectious smile and warm hug, instead of calming down – I was extremely thrilled. Dr. Seth Wanye is the only ophthalmologist for 2 million people in the Northern Region of Ghana. He is on Unite For Sight's Medical Advisory Board and I first met him in April when we invited him to Saint Louis University as a speaker. I cannot tell you how inspiring his story was to me. So far to date there are only three doctors that have truly swept me off my feet: Sanjay Gupta – the CNN Medical Correspondent whom I dream to be one day, Dr. Suman Pasupuleti – my cousin who inspired me to be a doctor and of course Dr. Seth Wanye – the selfless man who became an opthamologist to help his own people with the gift of eyesight. To really learn more about his story you should read about it here: http://www.uniteforsight.org/intl_volunteer/drwanye.php

After a whole day at the clinic from 8am-6pm I truly realized how special Dr. Wanye is and how passionate he is about being a ophthalmologist. He did a total of 36 cataract surgeries back to back without a bathroom or food break and neither did he complain one bit. He simply just smiled after each patient’s cataract was removed and would tell me about the history/personality of each patient.

Here is my day at the clinic in pictures:

Dr. Wanye first introduced me to these gorgeous ladies: Sr. Rachel and Sr. Cory from the Carmelite Monastery in Ghana. Sr. Rachel (on the right) had such a crisp sense of humor and was joking around with me the whole time.She told me that she was very nervous because she was about to get a cataract surgery today and didn't know how the experience would be. She moved to Ghana from the Philippines about 15 years ago to do missionary work and says she loves the hospitality and warmth of the Ghanaian people. She could not wait to see through her left eye once again and told me that once she had the cataract surgery, the first thing she would do is restart her passion of baking bread!

Here is my attempt to use a slit lamp to observe the cataract in Sr. Rachel's eye. She had a very dense cataract that blocked the light entering the lens of her eye.

All the patients with cataracts waiting for Dr. Wanye to perform the cataract surgery. Before each person has the cataract surgery they are tested for abnormal blood pressure and then given anesthesia for the surgery.

The Anesthesia Room where each patient's eye is numbed for surgery.

I'm getting ready for the Operating Room!

The Operation Utensils had to be sterilized by the Physician's Assistant before they were used for surgery.

Dr.Seth Wanye performing the first cataract surgery of the day.

I keenly watched on as Dr. Wanye performed a cataract surgery.

I have been talking so much of cataract surgeries and I just wanted to explain a bit about how they are performed. Here is the method that Dr. Wanye used:
1. Dr. Wanye first made a slight slit on the cornea.
2. Next, the cataract was taken out as a whole without being fragmented into the eye.
3. An intraocular lens was then positioned in the same place.
4. The eye was closed and bandaged.
The patient kept the bandage on for a day and then was able to see out of the eye again!

Today was very rewarding.Out of the whole experience I loved meeting the post-operation patients who were getting their bandages removed. Each patient had such a varying emotion when he or she could see again. Their appreciation and emotions made me realize that the 8 arduous years of fighting for a medical degree are so worth the wait and effort.

12 Hour Bus Ride to Tamale

The bus I traveled to Tamale in!

This is small bus station that I waited at before I boarded my bus to Tamale.

A street vendor at the bus station in Accra.It is very common for vendors to balance their products on their head.

Daniel: My Unite for Sight Co-Volunteer!

Buses have always been villains in my life. I despise long bus journeys due to many bad experiences with bumpy potholes, throwing up in plastic bags, trees falling in the pathway and incredibly horrible weather.

Surprisingly my twelve hour trip to Tamale was very comfortable and I learned a lot of random facts about Ghana. Oh, I completely forgot I first have to introduce you to my sidekick/ Co-UFS Volunteer that will be accompanying me on this entire trip: Daniel Yeboah–Kordieh. Daniel is a 21-year-old born Ghanaian that is currently a sophomore at Princeton University in New Jersey. Daniel attended one of the top high schools in Ghana : Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School and then for his last two years came to an international high school in New Mexico. He currently is pursuing a major in Chemistry at Princeton and wanted to get a taste of Public Health through this Unite for Sight program.

Daniel was the perfect companion on the bus and on this trip because he has such passion for public health, he knows enough about the U.S. culture and at the same time he has a lot of knowledge on Ghana and its conditions!

Here are just some of the things I learned on the bus trip to Tamale:

1.Ghanaians are never on time and are just like Indians – always running late. My bus ticket said that boarding time was 10 A.M. Guess what time I got on the bus? 1 p.m. Many people assured me that this would happen more than once and that if I don’t want to wait, I should always come late.
2. The people of Ghana are obsessed with the Bollywood industry. Bollywood stars are used for ads, the music is sold on the streets and many Ghanaian channels play Bollywood movies with Ghanaian subtitles. When people saw that I was Indian – they were trying to impress me by showing the Hindi they learnt from the Bollywood movies. The two Hindi words most people knew: Pyaar (love) and Nahi Nahi (No No).
3.The Ashanti tribe is the largest tribe in Ghana and one of the few matrilineal societies in West Africa. They are known for the splendor and wealth of their rulers; they are most famous today for their craft work.
4.Soups are the primary component in Ghanaian cuisine and are eaten with fufu (either pounded plaintain and cassava or yam), kokonte (cassava meal cooked into a paste), banku (fermented corn dough).
5.Soccer is a religion in Ghana. Everywhere you look people are wearing soccer jerseys, playing soccer, selling soccer balls, watching soccer and there are many statues of important soccer players.
6. As I looked outside my window and we passed the cities of Accra and Kumasi, I noticed that Ghana's urban centers were dominated by European-style buildings, a reminder of its British colonizers.

Daniel also introduced me to a lot of African Music Artists and I love the diversity of African pop,rock and rap.

Here is an African Song that I currently cannot get out of my head:

Click to listen: No One Like You - P-Square

Oi eh eh eh eh!!

Well anyway, I am almost in Tamale and I will write more when I reach there! Tomorrow is my first day at the Tamale Teaching Hospital with Dr. Wayne! I will get to shadow him and observe cataract surgeries!