Health Care

No, this is not a post about the continuing debate over health care reform in the United States (that's still going on, isn't it?). The past few weeks for Cori and me have been an adventure to say the least.

We spent Christmas weekend at beautiful Ada Foah. However, the day after we returned, I awoke with a spiking fever, terrible nausea and diarrhea. An hour later I was in Accra at a private hospital receiving an IV drip and having my blood tested. Turned out I had an acute intestinal infection - probably something I ate in the previous week. I was admitted and spent two nights at the place, first taking antibiotics via the IV, and once I was able to keep things inside my stomach, I was given tablets, and eventually discharged.
Some interesting notes and observations:

• All private health care is cash-before-care. At one point Cori had to hail a taxi to take her around the city looking for an ATM that would work so she could get the money to pay for my blood work. In the meantime I was laying on a treatment table connected to an IV moaning in discomfort.

• Doctors tend not to tell the patients what's going on with their treatment. And patients tend not to ask questions. It took a monumental effort to find out what type of medication I was being treated with, for what exactly, and how long the treatment was expected to take. Vast generalization here: perhaps Americans have a stronger preference to be "in control" in life compared to their Ghanaian counterparts.

• A few times a day a nurse would enter and give me a clear plastic bag with pills inside. I was instructed to take them, but wasn't told what they were. Once I found out that one of the pills was for stomach muscle pain I decided not to take it: I didn't have any pain any longer. When the nurse came back a few hours later she ask why I hadn't taken all my pills. I told her I wasn't having that symptom any longer (it was just a pain pill). On her face she wore the kind of look I would imagine would come from me saying something like "tomato puppy slippers are down yellow." Her reply, "but you must take your pills. Why wouldn't you take them?" Um, side effects, unnecessary consumption of chemicals, cost savings...? I don't have pain! "But those are your pills. You must take them." Eventually she left the room, confused and frustrated. I never took that pill.

• I was in a shared ward - my room had a total of four beds, three of them occupied. We had one bathroom/toilet...across the hall. There was no soap in the bathroom. In fact, I never saw any soap or hand cleanser the entire time I was in the hospital. Just prior to discharge I was "interviewed" by the head nurse who was looking for quality feedback on the hospital. I told her there was no soap in the bathroom. Her explanation: They have a soap dispenser but haven't installed it yet. See, the hospital is planning to remodel the bathroom and they want to wait for that remodel to be completed before installing the dispenser so this one isn't damaged in the construction forcing them to get another. Huh? How about a hand soap pump from the grocery store?

The hospital had strict visiting hours: 6:30-7:30 am, and 5:00-6:30 pm. And while I observed a handful of visitors to other patients asked to leave, Cori was never once hassled even though she would arrived around 7am, and stayed for 12 hours. Some have said I received obruni privileges.
It took me about a week to fully recover, and just as I did, Cori fell ill. I was at the embassy in Accra when I called Cori at home to discover she had a severe headache and chills. Uh oh! Classic malaria symptoms - according to all the books. I called a colleague and asked him to check on her. A half-hour later, Cori was at a local hospital. When I arrived she had a desperate look on her face. Minutes earlier the nurses had hooked her up to an IV, and just as the fluid started to flow Cori's throat closed up - she couldn't breathe. Scrambling to get someone's attention and gasping for air, she finally had the IV removed, her airway opened up, and she vomited. Within minutes she was receiving Malaria treatment even though the lab results wouldn't confirm that fact for another hour. We never did figure out why the IV solution caused the reaction.

By morning Cori's fever had dropped and her headache was mostly gone. But for five more days she stayed in the hospital with severe diarrhea. At some point the doctors started treating her for a GI infection (We weren't sure when because, remember, the doctors tell you very little). On the third day Cori was visited by the hospital owner (most private clinics/hospitals in Ghana are owned by a veteran doctor - I haven't seen any evidence of corporate health care here). He is an OBGYN and quickly diagnosed Cori's abdominal pain as the result of premature contractions (she's only 20 weeks). Talk about fear and concern! Thankfully the right doctor came along at the right time - he prescribed medication that ended the contractions, and spent the time necessary to answer all of our questions, really putting our minds at ease.
Thankfully two subsequent ultrasounds have shown a healthy baby with a strong heartbeat kicking and dancing around in there.

Blood tests indicate that the malaria is gone from Cori's system. Her stomach is about as good as it has been during this pregnancy - which isn't too good, but a lot better than it was during her time in the hospital. Still, we decided that that was enough adventure for our unborn so Cori left Ghana this morning, headed for Wisconsin.

It will be difficult spending the next few months apart. We went through this 4 years ago when I taught in Hungary, and it was rough. But this time it will be different. This time she's been where I am, she's seen Ghana. When I tell stories about people, places and society, she can relate. That will help us feel closer. At least I hope it will.
I plan to return to Wisconsin some time this spring to be with her when she goes into labor. She's due at the end of May. After that I may return to Ghana to finish the school year.

Until then I'll just try to blend in among the Ghanaians.

View my latest photos here

New Pictures Available

As a reminder, Cori and I are trying to upload pictures from our time here as frequently as possible. Until we get internet access in our bungalow we will continue to use our limited email time for adding pictures, not writing on the blog. So, we invite you to bookmark our picture site and check it for updates.

Christmas Greetings

Hello and Merry Christmas from Ghana!

Cori and I send our best wishes to all our readers both near and far. May you realize peace in all matters during the holiday season and share that gift with the world during the year to come.

Our Christmas celebration will consist of a trip to the beachside community of Ada Foah where we will board in small huts just a few meters from the sea! Plenty of stories to share I am sure.

In the meantime, I invite you to take a look at the latest pictures of our time here.

Tro-tros and Clean Clothes

Another update from Ghana, via an email Cori wrote last week to her family:

I keep trying to email news on a regular basis, but without internet service at our house, it's tough to make it happen. We do have access to internet at the school, but it's very slow. Last night, one of the teachers was "Skyping" with a friend and that took all the bandwidth, so the rest of us sat there staring at the loading symbol rotating on the screen and eventually gave up. Their internet service is a satellite feed from another country and stops promptly at 7 pm, so when I was still trying to load Yahoo mail at 6:56 pm, I knew it was hopeless.

This week started out very hot - our hottest day was Tuesday and we topped out at 95 with a heat index of 111. It was ridiculous! Even the Ghanains were saying it was oppressive. And then we got a huge break on Wednesday. All day it was overcast, which was a wonderful feeling - no burning sun. And then it got windy in the afternoon and early evening, it started to smell like rain. Lightning and thunder was constant just before it poured. Mike and I were so excited, we opened up all the windows and stood by the door and watched it rain. It actually felt cool in the house, got down to 76, and we decided to go to bed early, just to be able to lay there in relative coolness. We even had to use our sheet!.

Thursday morning the sun came back but it was a little cooler, back in the 80's. Thursday was also the day we went to the American Embassy for the first time for an orientation with the Cultural Affairs Specialist, Sarpei. If orientation means a learning experience, then we were definitely "oriented". First, we walked all over trying the find the main entrance. Once we located it we were stopped and required to relinquish all our electronics, including cell phones, laptop, all plugs and wires, my Ipod, camera, etc. We received visitor tags to wear around our necks, and walked through an airport-style scanner to enter the compound. Sarpei walked us into the building and up to his office. Here are my first impressions: lots of white people, lots of suits, lots of people with their hair done, conversational English, cubicles, Christmas decorations, air conditioning, the smell of good food, clean floors. During our visit, we chatted a bit with Sarpei, Mike got his official US Embassy badge so that he can enter the Embassy unescorted (but I have to be escorted, either by Mike or another official or security), we were able to withdraw Ghanaian money by writing a check to an approved Embassy bank - this is our only source of funds, and we were on our last few Cedis, literally, so it was a huge relief to refresh our cash supply.

We decided to eat at the cafeteria on the main floor, so we went through a short line, and there was a cooler of sodas, fruit drinks and Snickers bars and M&M's! Mike and I both grabbed the chocolate - I'm telling you, Snickers really does satisfy :) They were also serving jollof rice (a spicy, seasoned rice), chicken and salad (lettuce, tomato and onion). Mike got everything and I got everything minus the chicken. Then we sat with Sarpei to eat, and who should join us just after we sat down? The Deputy Director of Mission, the second in command at the embassy!! Julie was very friendly and we had a good time talking with her - she'd only been in Ghana for about 3 months and shared all sorts of stories about her service in other countries (from the Philippines to Haiti to Russia). She and her husband have raised 2 kids during all these travels, and they're both in the US attending college now. We met another lady in the cultural affairs office who had a similarly impressive travel history, and though I admired both of them, I do have to say that it must be different to travel around the world when you stay in an air-conditioned house, have a car and driver at your disposal and access to American food and the Embassy environment on a daily basis. God bless America, right?!

Once we left the Embassy, Mike and I headed to the Western-oriented Koala grocery store to pick up some things we couldn't find at the Evergreen store in Tema, and we decided to try the tro-tros (I highly recommend checking out the tro-tros link!) for the first time. These are the little 60's minivans carrying at least a dozen tightly packed people that careen around the city, and cost only a few pesewas per ride. During the first ride, I sat between three students who continued to read and do their homework while we sweated our hot, dusty way to the next tro-tro station. And then, because I was in the back, when I needed to get off, anyone seated in the side aisle way also has to get off temporarily, so I made myself as small as possible and slide along the side of the van to the door. And just like we we warned, I ripped a small tear in the leg of my capris on the jagged edge of some part of the van. At Koala, we had our pick of several European/American items, but at a price. Honey Nut Cheerios cost 15 cedis, or about $10.50. We skipped it. On the other hand, we bought butter bread, which is like our enriched white bread for about 3 cedis, or $2.10. And then we purchased some chocolate cookies for almost 9 cedis (about $6.70) because sometimes you just need chocolate cookies.

Our next tro-tro was a disaster! We sat in traffic for what seemed like hours, Michael and me squished in the front passenger's seat (which is still the size of a regular passenger's seat) heading for Lister Hospital. Lister is the Embassy's recommendation of a hospital for any medical treatment, including delivery. After a long, long climb up a hill, where the driver turned the engine off every time we stopped because we would be stopped for so long, we finally reached our stop: Flowerpot. So named because there are many, many handcrafted flowerpots for sale along the side of the road there. At that point we searched for the hospital and after a bit we found a sign pointing down a dusty road. So, we started walking. And walking. And walking. We soon discovered that the road to Lister was a lot longer than we expected. We probably walked about 1.5 to 2 miles before reaching the hospital's front security gate. And we were still carrying our groceries from Koala and Mike was toting the heavy computer backback the whole time.

Lister was very nice - clean and modern. We were able to sit down with one of the financial advisers and ask about the services and prices. A standard delivery including a 3-day stay in the maternity ward would cost us a little over $1000!!!!. Now we would have to pay the entire amount up front - no one here takes American insurance, but that amount just blew us away. When was the last time a complete delivery experience cost $1000 at the best private medical facility in the country?! Even with a C-section and a 6-day stay, we would be looking at about $3200. After visiting Lister, we coughed up the 20 cedis to take a taxi home, completely exhausted. Accra is dusty, dirty, loud, polluted and combined with the heat and our hunger by that point, we just wanted to collapse on the couch in our little house.

Today, all the laundry finally got done :) We have three students, Abigail, Sarah and Petra, who come each day to clean our house. It's part of their school duties. If they didn't clean our house, they'd be sweeping classrooms or scrubbing bathrooms or other campus maintenance tasks. So I handed them a big pile of stinky clothes and asked them to show me the best way to wash things by hand. Petra said, "You really want to learn? We will do it. It's our duty." But I insisted, and so she showed me how to do it, but the girls still did all the work. It's weird to have students working in your house for free, and I still feel like I owe them for their work, but I was so grateful for the help with the laundry. They just got right to work in the shower, dumping clothes in buckets, scrubbing everything with our Irish Spring bar soap, rinsing it out and hanging it on the clothes lines we installed in the house. As I worked elsewhere in the house, I could hear them singing hymns and Christmas songs, laughing, and talking. I checked on them a few times, told them to help themselves to the water sachets in the fridge, and helped them with the clothesline, which fell at one point under the weight of all the wet clothes. The rest of the time, I worked on hanging the curtains and sweeping, to make myself feel like I wasn't being too lazy while they did my laundry.

Reflections on our first week in Ghana

The following is excerpted from an email Cori wrote to her family:

I'm emailing from busyinternet, the best internet place in Ghana, and it's right down the road from the school. Mike and I take a taxi because it's so hot, but in normal weather, we could walk here. Our taxi ride cost 2 cedis (see-dees) each way, and cedis are worth about 70 cents, so our total ride costs $1.40. We usually tip 1 cedi each way also, as is customary.

Busyinternet is a huge room with lines and lines of computers, and great internet speed, usually. It costs 2 cedis an hour to use their computers, and 2.50 (2 cedis, 50 pesewas) for an hour on the laptop - they have wireless available. During the week, they also have a cafe that's supposed to serve coffee, smoothies, etc. As it's Sunday and the entire area is very religious, the cafe part is not open today.

I've been keeping a journal of things to mention in my emails, and since it's building up into pages and pages of notes, I'm just going to list some things so that I pass some of them along in a timely fashion.

12/1/09

Arrived in Accra. Met by school teachers. Driven back to TEMASCO in a double cab pickup with our luggage in the back.

Shown our house and asked to sit down to be greeted. Everyone looked at us and kept saying "you are welcome". We didn't know how to respond to that, so we said "thank you" but eventually we understand that they were saying "you are welcome (to our school/country)". We all sat around our living room and looked at each other while they said their official welcomes. Of course they all introduced themselves, and we were lucky if they had European first names, like Jennifer or Christopher. Otherwise we just smiled and tried to repeat their names as best we could - they were patient with us and repeated it back to us if we butchered it too badly. They had prepared breakfast for us - poached eggs with slices of green pepper and tomato, vanilla scones, hot dog-looking things, wheat rolls, tea and coffee. I ate a poached egg and part of a wheat roll but everything smelled funny and I had to work to get it down.

I couldn't wait to take my first shower that night, having traveled for a day and spent the next day in the heat, and promptly discovered the water was off. Apparently, the water pressure sometimes fails and so the water is "off". That's why we have a huge bucket of water in our hallway, for times when the water is off. I hadn't counted on that - I thought only the electricity was supposed to be iffy.

Our fridge wasn't working (It was repaired the following week), but the small freezer section functions like a fridge (it doesn't actually freeze anything but does keep it cold), so the staff had put bottles of water, Coke and Fanta (real glass ones) in there for us to drink.

12/2/09

We took our first shopping trip, to a local grocery store, Evergreen. Alfred, a music teacher drove us there. Just riding in the car with the windows down felt like the coolest experience in the world - I could have stuck my head out like a happy puppy! The grocery store was not very busy but it had many standard American items; we found canned beans, pasta, some toiletries, some laundry soap for hand-washing, etc. I was so hot and hungry that I bought three ice cream bars for Mike, Alfred, and me. As soon as I took them out of the cooler though, they started melting. By the time Mike and I starting eating them in the car, they were big globs of ice cream and chocolate and poor Mike's spilled all over him and the car floor. Alfred wisely kept his for later when he could refreeze it in his freezer at home.

Later, we took a tour of the campus with Joseph, an assistant headmaster. He's a great guy, wonderful smile and very helpful. The campus houses about 1300 students, with a total enrollment of over 1500! The buildings are all two story cement block painted yellow, and the staff housing is all one-story bungalows like ours, or smaller. The campus is large and mostly covered with dried grass or sandy soil due to the dry season which will last through March.

We met the headmistress - it was like meeting the queen. Her office was huge and air-conditioned and the conversation was very formal. We haven't seen her since as she currently lives off campus.

It's hard to eat in the heat, and the Ghanaian food has a unique smell and hard to eat, for me. For example, today I ate rice and beans that Jennifer, one of the teachers, made for us, and that ice cream bar on our shopping trip. Mike is faring a bit better. Jennifer prepared fried chicken for him and he ate it right down.

I did my first load of laundry by hand in the shower. In fact, I just combined taking a shower and washing the clothes to maximize my time under cool running water. We have a clothes line in the hallway for hanging the clothes and most things dry in a day. The towels we bought from REI are awesome - they dry in a few hours at most.

12/3/09

Today was the breaking point for me. I hadn't been able to sleep very well at night and would fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon for hours even though I was sweating just laying there. Plus, I couldn't get enough food in me to give me energy. While I slept in the afternoon, Mike went to the school computer lab, which has 2 old desktop computers and an Ethernet cord for his laptop. They also have somewhat effective a/c in there, but when I visited him later, the body odor from a bunch of sweaty teenagers negated the refreshment of the a/c, so I went back to the house and laid back down on the couch worshiping the ceiling fan.

In the evening, Lucy's sister, Vicki dropped by to meet us. She looks and sounds just like Lucy and it was fun to talk with her. Her husband is a pastor and she is a stay-at-home mom with 4 kids - 2 still live at home. She will bring them to visit us soon.

Jennifer sent over some more food for us in a plastic basket, carried over by a couple students, but I couldn't stand being in the same room as the smell. I hope this goes away because the whole country smells like their food and I can only breathe through my mouth for so long before I look like a large-mouthed fish.

12/4/09

Today Mike and I woke up early and went on a 2 hour "Health Walk" with the students and staff to celebrate a national holiday, Farmer's Day. We were both worried about walking for that long in the heat, but it turned out to be a great day for both of us physically and emotionally. We were like a parade going down the side of the road, winding all through Tema. It was a great way to see the city without looking so conspicuous as "obronis" (oh-brew-nees). We could stare and take pictures and talk to people without drawing too much attention to ourselves. A few small kids spotted Mike and waved wildly at him, shouting "obroni, obroni" and he waved back just like a mayor on a float :) The conditions we saw as we walked along were unbelievable. The sewers are open culverts here, and they have concrete bridges over them every so often so that you can cross them without jumping, though sometimes we had to jump them anyway to cross the road with the group. People were selling all kinds of stuff, from full-size living room furniture sets to fried plantains to bars of Dove soap to Ghanaian clothing to leather dress shoes to candy to wicker baskets to bicycle parts. Everyone looked remarkably healthy and functional considering the heat, the dirt, the smells, the random children running everywhere in bare feet, the goats wandering along the roadside, etc. Our heads were on swivels, we couldn't stop staring from one side to the other. Every time I looked to the right, I would glance to the left and feel like I was mising something important. Mostly, I couldn't believe the absolute poverty of most of the people I saw. It was like the stuff you see on commercials and in books on Africa - all the stereotypes were there. And yet, people moved around like it was the most ordinary day in the world. My outlook on life will NEVER be the same. When we got back, we were told that the two slum areas were on the outskirts of Tema, so what we had seen was clearly ABOVE what COULD be. Really?!?!?!??

If I'm not careful, I could be on a constant soapbox about the need to provide basic healthcare, food, education and clean water for everyone in the world. I have SO MUCH MORE than what I need. And that's living in the TEMASCO staff housing that I have now. I have running water, a bed with a mosquito net, a kitchen with food in it, a toilet, sachets of clean water in my freezer, money to buy a taxi ride to anywhere I need to go, and the education to know what's available to me. I am RICH!

12/5/09

Mike and I took a taxi to Accra for the first time. We ate a real meal at a sports bar which was reputed to have safe, fresh food. I had a taco salad!!!!! I thought I had died and gone to heaven. And I had a bottle of passion fruit juice - Coke and bottled water is getting very old. Mike had chicken strips and french fries. I could have eaten spoonfuls of the ketchup at our table - it tasted so good. Then we took a taxi to the Accra mall, which was a very modern mall similar to our malls - overpriced, loud, crowded, everyone dressed up, etc. We did some shopping at Shoprite, a huge grocery store and at Game, a Walmart-type department store. I fell asleep in the taxi on the way home - too much activity for me.

New Pictures

In the past few days, we've ventured out a bit, visiting the streets of Tema, and making our first trip to Accra.

I'll have more time to share stories later. In the meantime, here are some pics of Tema, and our house. The captions should give you an idea of what you are looking at.

Welcome to Ghana!

It was a Monday morning at 8:00 when Cori and I hailed a cab outside my sister's apartment in Chicago to head to O'Hare airport. It was a Tuesday morning at 9:30 when we stepped off the plane at Kotoka Airport in Ghana's capital Accra. 19 1/2 hours of travel is all it takes in 2009 to journey from the upper-midwest to the "center of the face of the earth." (Ghana lies just a few degrees north of the crossing of the equator and the Prime Meridian, the point of 0-degrees longitude and 0-degrees latitude).

Stepping off the plane in Accra was amazing! To gaze upon Africa, inhale its air, hear its sounds, all for the first time, was a joy I can not describe.

If Ghana has a national word, it must be "Akwaba!" (ah-KWAH-buh): "Welcome!" The people are so kind, so warm, so...WELCOMING!

Our first days have been filled with countless new experiences, many of which I will recount in the coming days. The heat (Daytime: 90. Nighttime: 82. Dew Point: 78!!)has sapped our energy leaving us with little to devote to creative activities like blogging.

In the meantime, please enjoy the first contributions to our Ghanaian Photo Blog

Five Day Forecast

The comparison is hardly fair, but here's the upcoming weather for Tema, and for Milwaukee:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
86° F | 78° F	89° F | 78° F	89° F | 80° F	86° F | 80° F	86° F | 78° F
Clear	Clear	Scattered Clouds	Scattered Clouds	Chance of T-storms 30% chance of precipitation

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
40° F | 31° F	47° F | 36° F	40° F | 29° F	32° F | 23° F	29° F | 18° F
Chance of Snow 20% chance of precipitation	Partly Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Chance of Snow 20% chance of precipitation	Partly Cloudy

Third Try's a Charm?

In just about 24-hours we'll be on the ground in Accra, Ghana where I'll (finally) begin an 8 month teaching assignment.

Our flight, Delta 166, is scheduled to arrive at 7:35 AM Tuesday. Ghana's time zone is "Greenwich Mean Time" - yes, THAT Greenwich - also known as GMT, or UTC-Zero. Simply, it's 6 hours later in Ghana than it is in Wisconsin (at least during the winter months, when WI is not on daylight saving time). So, if you're back home reading this, you should be sound asleep when Cori and I touch down. Of course, our brains and bodies will also be on Central Time, so I hope WE aren't sound asleep too!

Once we get to Accra, I expect we'll be met at the airport by someone from the school who will drive us to Tema. Once we get settled, I'll try to post an update.

Such anticipation (and nerves)!

Beautiful Ghana

As Cori and I wait for that slowly approaching period of departure (attempt #3), I continue to read about the magic and beauty that is Ghana. Or more accurately, the Ghanaian people. As Dan Lawton points out in the Christian Science Monitor, while the Ghanaians lack the material wealth of the US, they may be richer in another sense:

In the United States, I sometimes go a day or two without greeting anyone. It's easy to mix in with the masses – to drift to work or school in a bubble – simply nodding your way through the day. Nowadays, I handle most of my communication via e-mail and text message. In fact, sometimes I think my digital relationships are eclipsing those in the real world. I recently lived in a subdivided house for a year without speaking to my neighbors. We simply exchanged stoic nods as we passed.

In Ghana, I have danced, eaten, and spoken with more strangers in six weeks than I would have in America in six years. And this paradox – that despite its material wealth and technological might America is so standoffish and lonely – has been burning a hole in my head.

Thanksgiving

"Could you please pass the cranberries Mr Ambassador?"

Looks like Cori and I will have a Thanksgiving dinner after all. How exciting!























I wonder if we will be able to watch the football games?

Ghana Choir to Perform in Milwaukee

Even though Cori and I are not yet in Ghana, we can at least get a flavor of Ghanaian culture here in Milwaukee.

The Winneba Youth Choir is performing in Milwaukee this week. Lucy tells me they are very well known throughout Ghana; She has seen them perform a number of times and says they are quite good.

From a DC-area community newspaper:

The Winneba Youth Choir has been called the most outstanding youth choir of its nation and is made up of singers between the ages of 10 and 22. The full choir has 130 members, and the international touring choir has 24 members.

The choir was founded in Winneba, Ghana, in 1989 by George Mensah-Essilfie and John Francis Arthur-Yamoah (Paa John). According to Fred Onovwerosuoke of African Musical Arts of St. Louis, few youth choirs from Africa or elsewhere can demonstrate the diverse artistry for which the Winneba Youth Choir of Ghana is famed. With voices evenly balanced between boys and girls, they approach with ease a repertoire that ranges from complex choral harmonies to folk, American spirituals and gospel, always remaining true to their unique niche of African song and dance traditions.

Although it is from Ghana, the choir proudly bears a banner for all of Africa and thus showcases selections from around the continent. As musical director, Yemoah is well known and respected in choral circles in Ghana and the United States.

So you have the chance to see and hear this choir in Milwaukee:

Tuesday, Oct 20
7:00 PM
Our Lady of Lourdes (Directions)
58th & Forest Home

Foot Ball

I'm not a soccer fan. Never have been. But in my limited experience with teaching abroad, I have had some significant "soccer moments."

Ghana just won the U-20 (under-20 years old for you soccer "newbies") World Cup Championship beating Brazil.

Back in 2006, while teaching in Hungary, I had another brush with international soccer, watching the World Cup, being held in nearby Germany, from a street tent in the center of Szolnok (Hungary didn't qualify for the tournament, but that didn't seem to quell the Hungarian's interest).

Next summer, while Cori and I are in Ghana, the 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa. Ghana has already qualified for the tournament.

Interestingly, in route to winning this week's cup, Ghana defeated Hungary in the semi-finals. The Hungarians went on to take third place.

Aronow 2.0

To be perfectly honest, discovering Cori is pregnant, just three days before we were planning to leave for Ghana, has really left our heads spinning.
Of course, we had been planning for months to be in Africa by now: our bags have been packed (or at least they were packed before we had to start digging into them for clothes to wear); we have rented our duplex, fully-furnished, for the year; Sabr is living in Boston; we even canceled our car insurance. Most importantly, we were mentally and emotionally prepared to go. But now we are having to wait once again.
Since I have a few weeks to kill before we [hope to] leave next month, I am volunteering to sub temporarily at Germantown High School. It's uplifting to see and talk to so many awesome students who I have developed relationships with during the past few years. That has really helped rekindle a somewhat downtrodden spirit within.

Meanwhile, Cori is home with morning sickness, a head-cold, and a budding sinus infection. It's no small wonder that she has felt some resentment over news of the pregnancy...It's not like the fairy tales. We're both warming up to the idea of parenthood, and sometimes a positive boost comes from an unexpected place. That was the case this week when I received this email from my contact at the US Embassy in Ghana:

I am also excited to make your acquaintance. I can see clearly that you are one teacher who is committed not only to teaching, but to working hard to be part of the positive development of others of the human race. You have the beneficiaries of your profession at heart, and it shows. Bless you.

The prospect of little Michael/Cori Aronow entering into this still wonderful world through Ghana is also exciting for me. I have met a few Americans who were born here and the bond that was established between them and the people of this country has remained and matured. I would not be surprised, if in barely three decades hence, Michael Aronow II returns to Ghana to immerse himself into a project that would improve the lives of my people.

I look forward to meeting all “2.5” of you in November. All the best.

I forwarded this to Cori. Her reply:

I do love it! maybe I'm warming up to this 2.5 thing a TEEEEEEEEEEEENY bit.

And that in turn makes a husband very happy.

First Pictures

I never thought this blog would emerge as a "pregnancy tracker."

Yes, we are still going to Ghana. Cori and I have been researching all sorts of info about pregnancy in Ghana, all the risks involved, especially malaria. We'll be making some decisions very soon about when we will leave. Once we do I'll post it here.

In the meantime, here's the first look at our tiny, 6 week old, baby-to-be...



And, here's the fetal heartbeat...

This Time It's Not the Achilles

A week ago Cori and I were just a couple days away from boarding a plane in Milwaukee destined for New York City. There, we would wait a few hours before getting on a different aircraft. The next morning we would wake up somewhere over the Eastern Atlantic. Within minutes we'd be gazing out our window, squinting against the early morning sun, and watching with wonder as a vast brown and green landmass called Africa appeared on the horizon.

However, a week later we are still in Wisconsin! Again, we have postponed our departure. A month ago it was a re-ruptured Achilles that put the trip on ice (and my leg, too). I was pretty frustrated and angry that time. This time around, I'm not feeling that way at all. How could I be upset? I'm going to be a daddy!


It was last Sunday night, after a week of fatigue and nausea, that Cori called me into our temporary bedroom in her parent's house.
"It's positive" she said.
Staggered, I uttered, "seriously? ...Seriously? ...SERIOUSLY?"
The week that followed has been a spin cycle of emotion and questions.
Elation.
"We're having a baby!"
Uncertainty.
"What does this do to Ghana?"
Worry.
"Can you take anti-malarial medication while pregnant?"
Fear.
"What about malaria itself?!"
Concern.
"What does Ghanaian health care look like?"
Frustration.
"We were this close to leaving!"
Relief.
"Other ex-pats have had successful pregnancies in Ghana. We can still go. We just have a to wait a bit."
Excitement.
"We're having a baby!"


Cori and I have been married for a little longer than five years. If you had asked us if we wanted children, the answer probably would have depended on the day. People have told me if you wait until you're ready to have kids, that you'll never have kids. I think that's true about a lot of things. I don't believe there's any greater plan for each of us in life, although Cori might disagree. I think life is just a series of events, some affected (and effected) by us, others just the randomness of nature. It's how we respond in the face of these events that determines the type of life we live.

Nature has given us the opportunity to have a child. A week ago I wouldn't have told you that I was ready to be a dad. I still probably wouldn't. But if all goes well, in a little more than 7 months that's what I'll be. And I'm pretty damn excited.

Happy Birthday Nkrumah!

Note: Dr Kwame Nkrumah is a George Washington type figure in Ghanaian history. He helped Ghana gain independence from the yoke of British imperialism in the 1950's and went on to serve as the country's first president. Excerpted from allafrica.com

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, according to [the Ghanaian Vice-President], was the torchbearer, and undisputedly, for the independence struggle of our country, and should be regarded and recognised as such.

Making a direct reference to the self-sacrifice of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to advance his argument, His Excellency the Vice President pointed out, "This was a man who did not believe in property-owning democracy."

To him, the values, principles, ideals and ideas of Dr. Nkrumah should inspire the youth of Ghana to sacrifice and commit themselves towards making a positive impact on society, and overall national development.

According to him, Nkrumah laid a solid foundation for Ghana, which Ghanaians would continue to benefit from, even though he was no more, and cited the Akosombo Dam, which was still supplying over 50 percent of the country's energy, as some of the visible projects of the legend.

His vigorous infrastructural projects all over the country, he said, have remained visible, whilst in education, the scholarship programmes he initiated, helped many people, including northerners, to get an education.

Delayed

Regretfully, Cori and I have accepted that discretion is the better part of valor. We will postpone our departure to Ghana by about a month as I heal from a second ruptured Achilles tendon. I'll be in a cast for about the next two weeks, then in a boot for about four to six weeks after that. During the first three to four weeks in the boot I'll gradually begin to walk with weight on my left foot. My aim is to be walking without crutches by the time we fly out.

We haven't selected a fly-out date yet, but it will probably be around October 1.

Coffins From Ghana

Okay, obviously I hope I don't have to witness these in use. However, the Ghanaians certainly know how to have a send-off.

This is a picture of Ghanaian coffins.

Here are more



(h/t miss footloose)

Fixing the Achilles, Again

Wednesday morning I underwent Achilles repair surgery for the second time this summer. The procedure went well, although the doctor found more damage than he anticipated: Turns out when I re-ruptured my Achilles, I also tore the much smaller plantaris tendon, which he had hoped to use to help secure the Achilles.
Cori's sister, Shana, sat in on the surgery. She's a physical therapy doctor and wished to observe an Achilles repair since she helps rehab people like me post-op.
The most common question I get now is, "what's this going to do to your trip to Ghana?" Well, it seems likely our departure is going to have to be pushed back. Our tickets are for September 1, just 20 days after surgery. I was kept in a cast for only 13 days after the first surgery and we know how well that went. I have to imagine I'll be in a cast for at least 21 days this time, and perhaps longer.
I certainly know that when I go to Ghana I'll be walking with crutches. I just don't want to be wearing a cast.