Almost A Month

I've finally found a place where the Internet connection doesn't take forever. Finally, I can download my pictures, the few that I have taken at least. It's terribly frustrating to begin a long email and then lose electricity. Living in a developing country takes a lot of patience and contingency plans. It seems that I shouldn't plan to do more than two things in a day and it's almost unheard of to travel to several parts of Accra in a day. In New York I could leave Brooklyn to go to Manhattan, possibly stop into Jersey if necessary and then back to the city for dinner and home in one piece without breaking a sweat, but here it's almost impossible. I feel like I'm time traveling. Like I'm trapped in the past. I've seen the future and that's where I'm from but here in the present everything is so old and in the past. The cars are old models, without air con, CD players or even airbags, at first I wondered why cabs had fire extinguishers in the front seat and bottles of water in the back, it's because the cars don't get serviced and are constantly breaking down. The roads aren't paved, there's dirt everywhere, and ditches. The majority of homes are shacks or little mud huts with corrugated roofs with outhouses. I was in town a few days ago and had to use the ladies room, the Internet cafe I was using didn't have it's own facility so I had to cross the street onto someones property, pay them to use a rectangular build brick formation to squat. I was shocked but didn't have a choice I really had to go.
Life here is really peaceful and the Ghanaians really like to chill have a good time. They work really hard. But they face a lot of challenges, socially, financially and educationally. Many of the people I've met speak some English, but can't read. Several of the kids I teach who are already 8-10 have never been to a doctor for a check out. I met a women a couple of weeks ago who was 8 months pregnant, she had not seen a OB GYN nor did she know the sex of the child. The govt provide a free clinic but people just don't go. One of my students had a really bad burn on his head caused by his mother mistakenly dropping a pot of hot porridge the splashed on his head. The hair was burnt off like a old man whose grown bald. There was blood and puss on his head for several days to the point where flies heavily pursued him as though he was fresh carcass. We walked by his house on the way to town and just saw him sitting quietly by himself. The initial question was why wasn't he in school, it wasn't until we approached him that we saw his burn. He had been like that for 4 days. Can you imagine? We took him to the doctor and he received treatment. Some of the things I've witnessed here are unbelievable. Indescribable. Kids playing in ditches, eating and chewing on sticks, running barefoot. Babies crawling on the ground, 2-3 year olds running around with really long belly buttons as if someone forgot to cut the umbilical cord at birth. I'm in a different world and don't really know what to make of it.