A Few Stories

Things are going fine here in Ghana, Yesterday the team that I had been going with out to the villages took off for home. The rest of this week I will be helping Jen out in the hospital as well as a few random things. There are many memories created that I will never forget. I wanted to share a few: 1) The second night here, a woman was rushed in to the hospital in a truck, Jen and I happened to be right there when they arrived. She had just given birth to a baby, but did not survive the car ride. I standing with her sister as Jen and another Doctor tried to revive the mother. It was a hopeless feeling to console her as she became aware her sister had not made it. I had no words for her, I was almost thankful for the language barrier. I hugged her as she wept. The baby was ok, and within minutes was sent home, an orphan, with the weeping aunt. 2) I will also never forget meeting many chiefs in the villages we visited. We would visit their 'palace' give them gifts of appreciation and respect by way of our translators and bows. At the end of the day they would thank us for our work by giving us live chickens or doves, I am thankful that our translators knew what to do with them, perhaps it was their dinner. 3) At a small village a few days ago, we were providing dental care. Some woman set up a market in hopes that we might buy a few items. I bought some nuts that are sold in little plastic bags. After a transaction lost in translation I ended up with five bags of nuts for one Ghana Cedi (about 65 cents). With my extra nuts I tried to give a some to some children who were standing near by. At first they were reluctantly surprised I was giving them nuts. When they realized what I was doing, the group grew, within a minute I was surrounded by 20 to 30 small children all with the palms open asking/begging for more. I had plenty of nuts, but the distribution became the problem. For the life of me I couldn't get them to stand in a line. When I tried to get the nuts into the smaller hands the bigger hands would win out. The battle lasted for five minutes or more. The adults in the village laughed at my predicament, I wanted to cry. Finally I had to give up, the parents scolded the children and I walked away, still with most of the nuts in my pocket, I desired to give them away, but I didn't know how.

-Ben