IVB gets to Kumasi

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  Kumasi, Ghana
Monday, July 14, 2008

We have started writing this journal for Monday 07/14 in the dark. We had one of the longest power outages today. It lasted for over three hours. We set up some candles and played rousing games of cards.

Yesterday Sunday June 13th was one of our first relaxing days while we were in Ghana. We slept in until 8:30 a.m. and then started on doing our laundry. We had two choices about how to do our laundry: 1) Turn it into the porters and they would do it or 2) We would need to do it ourselves. The first option seemed like it could hold some problems especially since we are working on Ghana time. It could be a week before we get a set of clothes back and we would of course need to pay for this service. So we decided that we would try to do it ourselves. We had been watching some of the other local students doing there laundry and it seems that they filled a bucket with water and scrubbed. We all decided to do the same thing. While the laundry didn't turn out as white and bright as a regular washing machine the dust and the grime was off. The clothes also smelled a ton better which is a major plus!

We then got a call from the IBV team saying that they would be leaving on the 12:30 p.m. bus from Accra to Kumasi. They finally got into KNUST around 6 p.m. After a little trouble finding out which rooms they were to be given, everyone got settled in. We then headed over to The Royal Basin for a celebration dinner. Nana's uncle came and picked us up in a pickup truck. All seven of us except Cory squeezed into the vehicle. Cory rode in the back. We were able to relax and have a lot of new energy within the team. It was definitely very refreshing.

The next morning we woke up and headed out to the International Programs office and the Commercial center. At the commercial center we showed the IBV team how to change money, buy food, ect. We then went to the International Program's office to introduce the IBV team to the school. After a short introduction we asked about our MOU and they said that it should be done sometime this week. It is currently with the lawyers and once they say ,"OK," then we'll just have to fill in some paper work.

The IBV team minus Nana accompanied by Mitch headed over in a taxi to Dr. Ebenezer Jackson's office. Dr. Jackson was super excited to meet the new students and talk about the device.

Marcie, Cory and Nana headed over to commercial center to buy a box of water. Marcie found another donut but it was not warm. Nana also got some food. It was from the same lady at the commercial center that Mitch and Marcie had a pretty bad experience. The second time was definitely the charm and the food tasted much better. We also fried up an extra bag of rice that we had gotten on Sunday. We all sat, ate, and talked about the plan for today.

We called Dr. Ankobea to see if he was busy at the hospital. It turns out that the medical students were taking there practical exam. He said that we would be done at 2 p.m. so we figured we had until 2:30 p.m. to get to the hospital. This gave us some time to show the IBV team around Kumasi. Our first stop was downtown Kumasi right in front of Vic Baboo's Bazaar. We did find a taxi driver that actually knew how to get there!

Once we got out of the taxi we were swarmed by our "friends" selling us the crafts and everything. This overwhelmed the IBV team at first but they did get to practice their bartering skills on the different merchants. Painting, sculptures, baskets and many different figurines where bought and bargained for. After an hour or so we finally started to explore the rest of downtown where it is a little more laid back. We walked much of the downtown seeing everything from places were you can buy mops and brooms to all kinds of clothing from Western styles to traditional dress. We got a first price for the Kente cloth; it ranged from 180 to 300 cedis for 6 yards. However, Emanuel said that he knew a cheaper place to get it.

After walking throughout most of downtown and still having an hour to kill we headed over to the cultural center. This also put us within walking distance of the hospital. We toured around the cultural center seeing beautiful paintings that belonged at galleries but also had similar to gallery prices. We headed over to buy painting from our friend. He was very glad that Emanuel wasn't there. Cory got a great deal on a painting but he was not so willing to offer Brooke a good deal. He started off with 2 for 40 cedis when Mitch and Marcie bought the same kind of painting for 2 for 16 cedis. Brooke was able to talk him down to only 2 for 25 cedis.

We continued walking around the cultural center and stumbled across another building where they were hand weaving kente. They still use the old traditional looms and part of it is even completely sewn by hand.

It was 2:30 and we decided in Ghanaian time that we should head over to the hospital. It is only a 5 minute walk. When we got to the hospital we tried calling Dr. Ankobea but he did not answer so we just decided to head up to his office area. Six white people walking through a hospital can cause some heads to turn. We got up there and sat down in the waiting area in front of his office. After after 5 minutes of waiting one of the nurses asked us to please go wait in maternity ward. We then headed down to sit in front of the public relations office.

After about an hour we finally got a call to head back up stairs to go meet with him. We had just finished the exams. We introduced the IBV team to him but he thought that Nana was actually there to fix the air conditioner. The IBV team took out of the infant heart monitors and explained the workings behind it. He then asked them if they had gotten the paperwork to be students at KNUST. We had told him we haven't received anything. He then went to go make a few phone calls. He came back in and told us that we should come and check on the IRB. We walked downstairs to his office. He told us that the committee would not meet until Thursday to even review the proposal and that it would be another two weeks until it could be passed. After hearing the news we headed out in the hall way to wrap everything up.

Dr. Ankobea started asking the IBV team about their plans for the week. He then asked if they would be willing to leave a few of the devices with him to do his own testing. After telling them that they really wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the devices in a hospital that they didn't do testing on and that one of the major points of doing the testing was to see how the devices can be improved. In the end we told him that we would contact him once they finished their testing in Sunyani.

We headed over to Baboo's Bazaar to grab some dinner and to plan out the week.