Day 26 & 27: Hilarious Malarious

 On Saturday morning, instead of our planned shopping trip to Accra, we took a bumpy car ride with Marc Bea to Tuba Medical Clinic to see if Elisabeth had the dreaded lergy.  Elisabeth had been showing the first signs of malaria after her simple cold had turned into vomiting, abdominal pains and coughing fits, not so hilarious.  Marc Bea had managed to steer us away from the large western looking hospital situated on the main road, and instead took us to his friends clinic up in a small village called Tuba.  The clinic was a basic concrete building, with a clean stark waiting room. Elisabeth was taken to the nurse for her blood pressure and temperature to be taken, before being looked at by the doctor. After receiving a small black bag full of medicines to treat colds, sickness, stomach pains and malaria, we returned to the hotel in hope that something would help Elisabeth’s pain.  Unfortunately Elisabeth’s vomiting meant none of the tablets given to her had a real chance of working and so a kindly nurse named Evelyn ended up coming to the hotel to dispense further treatment. Elisabeth was hooked up to a drip in the hotel room, casually hanging from the curtain rail, just along side her mosquito net (a lot of good that was!)

Having felt so awful Elisabeth had of course been on the phone to her brother who had been frantically searching for flights, calling the insurance people, and calling the doctor for confirmation of malaria. As it all happened very sudden and would have inevitably ruined her last few days, Elisabeth made the rash decision to book a flight home for Sunday evening. That night Ken came round to visit, to check Elisabeth, Sophie and I were still alive. I listened intently to Ken’s stories of the Omega origin; at first the plans fell through, when he was going to incorporate the Omega scheme into an already established school. But in the end he managed to get everything started up and the rest is history.  Although he has achieved a lot in a small amount of time, Ken himself is not proud of the quality of teaching in his schools. His focus is upon the materials which the students are provided with, not the teachers. He actually wants the teachers to move on and aspire to more themselves. With the minimal funds they have, the teachers are not paid much, so it would only be once they got a larger intake of money, that they would be able to take on more qualified and advanced teachers and improve the standard of teaching. But while they do not have those sort of resources, the money they do have is concentrated into providing quality textbooks and equipment (brand new computer labs) for the children.

On Sunday morning Sophie and I ventured into Kasoa market for some Ghana socks and African material while also giving Elisabeth some time to pack and relax.  Both Sophie and I embraced the African materials and after buying a colourful print i took mine to the tailor for him to make me some troooos (trousers).  Once Ken arrived that afternoon I knew it was time to say farwell to Elisabeth, leaving me and Sophie to continue on alone. It was sad to see Elisabeth go, but Sophie and I both knew we had to make the most of our final few days in Ghana.