This week has flown by, and I can’t believe it’s already my second weekend here. Life has settled into a routine: research center work during the day, auntie Esther’s house for dinner, and then some evening relaxation time at home. However, each day has been unique and exciting on its own! On Monday, we went to the University of Ghana School of Public Health for the opening ceremony of the Institute of Infectious Diseases of Poverty Foundation Course. Our preceptor, Dr. Gyapong, was speaking there, discussing the need for more awareness and funding of the health research work being done here in Ghana so that improvements can continue to be made. After some refreshments with an African drumming group providing entertainment, we drove back to the research center for the afternoon to start working on some data entry. G.O. came in to help us start to design a simple data entry form, but we discovered that the program to do so, EpiData, would not run on mine or Erin’s computers, because we have Macs instead of PC’s. Though we had a brief moment of panic that we wouldn’t be able to get any research done during our time here because of our computer situation, Sheila and G.O. assured us that it would not be a problem. That led us to Tuesday, which was spent entering forms on EpiData. On Wednesday we went out into the field with Gloria, who is one of the commRDT supervisors here. The research they are working on involves malaria and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Basically, if people come into a chemical shop or pharmacy with symptoms of malaria, they want to be able to test to make sure they actually have the disease before giving anti-malarial medication to that person, in order to prevent unnecessary drug resistance to anti-malarials from developing. If this system of RDTs is shown to be effective and feasible, it could potentially become policy to require a positive test for malaria before one is able to buy medicine for it, because now anyone could just come in and buy anti-malarials when they feel sick, even if they don’t actually have malaria. We visited about 15-20 chemical sellers around the Dangme West district, and saw and heard about the various situations of the shops. Some sellers reported that people were very receptive to the study, even though it meant having to wait 20 minutes for the test to process; others cited an isolated location as a reason for lack of participation. There were some sellers that hadn’t participated in the training for the study, so it meant that either untrained sellers were administering tests or people had to be turned away if a trained seller wasn’t available. The reason we were out with Gloria was so that she could identify and try to correct these problems, because she doesn’t go to the shops every day, a field worker does. It was really cool to see the entire process at work, especially to be able to conceptualize one of the many research areas we’ve been hearing about. Once we were done in the field, we had some extra time in the afternoon since we didn’t need to go back to the research center. So we decided to head towards Auntie Esther’s early, because we had seen a lady with fabric down past the hospital. On the way there we actually ran into Elvis, Ema, and Lovelyn, who happily came along with us to pick out some fabric for skirts, since we are all running low on suitable clothes already. After a lot of thought (there were so many to choose from!) and with a little help from Ema, I chose a yellow and dark purple batik fabric. Then we just stayed over by Auntie Esther’s until dinner, and were all excited to help Charity cook! We had “helped” pound fufu the night before, but it was very clear that our skills were not up to par! That night, we helped to slice and fry the yams, which is definitely one of my favorite foods so far. It’s probably just because when fried they remind me of French fries! We had the fried yams with egg stew, which is a frequent side dish to the rice or yams we eat. It’s gradually been becoming spicier as time goes on, so we can tell that they are helping us ease into the spiciness of food here! After dinner, we taught Ema the macarena, the YMCA, head-shoulders-knees-and-toes, and red rover. He taught us one of his games, which involves jumping in and out of the “pool” and holding poses without moving until someone moves and then they’re out. Elvis especially loved red rover, and just ran over any time he pleased, after a very serious “vroom, vroom” like he was riding a motorcycle getting ready to go. Every day he does about a million adorable things! Thursday found us back at the research center to talk to different people about the projects going on here so that we can get more ideas for our first papers for school. We are to write about part of the Ghana health system, but can and should use information and resources from our work experiences to help supplement our work. We had a very enjoyable time talking to Jerry, a research assistant, about some of the malaria studies, and ended up spending the whole morning discussing a variety of topics, from the important of education for women to the US election to our future educational plans to travel destinations here in Ghana, and about 50 other topics in between! He seems like he will be a good friend to have whenever I have questions about anything, research-related or otherwise! Over our lunch break we headed into town to drop off the cloth we had bought the previous day to be made into skirts. I can’t wait until next Wednesday when they will be ready! We also found another fabric shop while we were in town, so we all bought a second round of different cloth, this time for dresses. Our afternoon was spent talking to more commRDT people, and then we headed to the Dodowa market to see if they had anything good. The market ended up being just larger quantities of the food we see sold right on the main street, but we did pick up some oranges and a coconut! Once we took our food home it was time for dinner and dancing, as Lovelyn had been promising to show us how to dance all week. The cameras were already out, per Elvis’s request, so of course most of this was captured on video. I think all of us were severely lacking rhythm, especially compared to Lovelyn, so I’m sure these videos are none too flattering. (Internet at the research center has not been working, and since our internet modems that we use at home are not very fast, it is pretty much impossible for me to upload photos/videos right now, but hopefully that will happen soon! I come home with about 50+ pictures every time our cameras come out at dinner, so there are many pictures to supplement these stories!) This weekend we are planning on going to Kokrobite Beach, which is not too far from Accra. It sounds like there are some cool places to go there-they have a drumming school and a really popular resort called Big Milly’s that sounds like a lot of fun. We found a place to stay called Barbara’s Village, so we’ll leave tomorrow morning and come back Sunday afternoon, with a stop at the mall on the way back to get groceries. We’ve had a lot of down time at work today, so we’ve been figuring out many more weekend trips, as well as our where to go for our week-long break in October. We’re excited to have so many awesome (and affordable) options since we are near the coast. Things like canopy walks, Cape Coast castle, and canoe excursions have been popping up in our searches, so we are eager to try it all!