Malaria

So I guess I need to catch up on the past week. Last Friday was full of adventures. I woke up and ran and then headed to circle to get tickets for our trip to Kumasi. Then my adventures started when I was walking back to get a tro tro to the autism center. I heard someone talking to me but I just pretended not hear. Then I was getting ready to cross the street and he grabbed my arm. I was like what the heck. He kept holding on as I walked across the street even though I was not into it. He got on the tro tro with me and then tried to tell the driver we were together and that I was paying for him. When I stood up for myself and said no, the tro tro driver stopped the vehicle and kicked him out. AWKWARD! Kuame, was like how will I get to see you again? People are so crazy persistent!!

The autism center though was well worth it though. We sang songs and tried to get the kids to participate and be active. I love how they dance and smile to the music. Then I worked for a couple hours with a boy named Sedam. He was so sweet. We practiced and practiced trying to get him to answer “Sedam” to What is your name. A couple of times he did it and I was so proud. We also worked on trying to understanding the basic 1, 2, 3. I left around 1 because I was so exhausted. I decided to walk to circle rather than taking a tro tro because the traffic was bad. Poor life decision. I met Vincent. Vincent wanting to talk to me but I faked a phone call and kept walking. He continued with me and when I could no longer fake talk anymore I said hi. I told him my name was Cindy and he asked for my number. I said how about you give me yours. He gave it to me but then was still insisting on mine. I just rattled off a fake number and walked quikly off. Not a few minutes later I hear someone shouting Cindy! Unfortunately he caught up to me and was like cindy, that number doesn’t work. So I gave him the number of this other guy and faked another phone call. Then I made it to circle crossed over the bridge and overpass and was about to find a tro tro when I heard CINDY CINDY. Apparently he tried the number and someone picked up and it wasn’t me. Gah! Ridiculous! He grabbed my phone and called himself and now I have received several calls from Vincent. Of course I don’t answer haha.

So this weekend was our trip to Kumasi. It was so much fun. We left at 3 from the hostel to get a 4 am STC bus. We were hoping to sleep but false. They played loud Ghanaian movies. Haha, so no sleep for us. We got to Kumasi and left our stuff at the hostel and went to the cultural museum which was actually just one room with hand written labels. It was still pretty interesting though. Then we went to see this sword that supposably has been stuck in the ground for 300 years. They say a bulldozer has tried to pull it out and so did Mohhammad Ali. The Ashanti people believe if it is removed the Ashanti state will fall. At this point we were exhausted and we walked and walked and could not find a restaurant. Finally we went to the filling station which is basically a gas station with a whole bunch of little restaurant like things in it. It was delicious and I ate way too much. We decided to walk back through the market and we managed to find a few things. Then we were not functioning we said we were just going to nap for a few hours. But that didn’t really work out. We slept from like 6-11. Then we tried to stay awake for an hour and then just slept till the morning. In the morning went golfing which was hilarious. Our caddies Prince and Ellison were very nice and helped us a lot. It looks like I don’t have a future in pro golf. After golfing we went to the most amazing Indian restaurant ever. It was exspensive but it was air conditioned and we got to watch cnn news and eat delicious food. After that we decided to go to Owabi wild life preserve. We got to see monkeys in the wild!! We had to be super quiet not to scare them off. Then we headed back to Kumasi, got our bags, ate, and went to Ejisu. We arrived in Ejisu and were trying to get a taxi to our hostel but we couldn’t seem to get one.

So the big news is that Thursday I started feeling really awful. I couldn’t even get out of bed enough to go to my second class. I just slept from like 5 pm until 7 the next morning. Except I woke up a bunch during the night with chills and generally not feeling goodness. Sophie took me to the health clinic and we had to wait 8,000 years, but they finally said that they thought I probably had malaria. I was so tired and exhausted and achy, but they gave me medicine and said I should go to the hospital to get bloodwork done just to check to make sure it was malaria. So we walked there and had a sketchyish experience. They used a fresh syringe though, but no band aid or anything. After we got back to the hostel I just laid around all day and could barely move. I’m finally starting to feel better although I had the tripiest dreams ever last night. So ridiculous!