The End

I'm home!  Erin, Hannah, and I arrived in JFK at 4 AM Saturday morning, and I was on a plane to Pittsburgh by 8:15, where my parents were waiting for me (with a bouquet of yellow roses-so sweet!).  As I froze in the 50ish degree weather, my breath caught in my throat as we emerged from the Fort Pitt tunnels and the entire city came into view.  I've been enjoying everything about being home: sleeping, cooking, taking hot showers, Christmas decorating, catching up on Real Housewives and Happy Endings, and just enjoying being around my family and friends again.  The final blog post below was written last week before I left Dodowa for our academic blog site, for which we have to write a post every week we are abroad, bringing the total to 14 posts.  I meant to post it on this site too, but as you can imagine, the general excitement and business of traveling home has preempted that until this point.  It's been a pleasure getting to share this experience with everyone who has been reading, and I truly appreciate all of the love and support that has been sent my way since August.

All semester, I’ve been looking forward to writing this, the fourteenth blog post.  Not only would it mean that I’ve fulfilled the blog requirement and would shortly be heading home, but it would also mean that I’d be done in a more general sense-I’d be able to offer insight and perspective on my time here as a whole, and would be able to sum up this experience with my final thoughts for the rest of the I-Health community.  Well, the moment has arrived; I’m writing that magical fourteenth post, and words are failing me.  Every description, every story, every picture seems painfully inadequate to convey the rich experience that this semester has been.  I can’t decide how to feel, let alone what to write. 

I thought that I would be overwhelmingly excited at this point, counting down the hours until I board the flight back to New York.  I thought that after 15 weeks of bucket showers, running water that has a 50% success rate of being on, and electricity that goes off for 12 hours at a time, I’d be practically running into the airport on Friday night, not looking back at the hardships or challenges I was leaving behind.  Rest assured, I am not so enamored with bucket showers that I will go home and forego the nice shower with hot, high-pressure water that is waiting for me.  However, getting back to the comforts and conveniences of home is the last thing on my mind.  What’s on my mind is that I am not completely ready to leave, to say goodbye, and to end the experience that has changed me in so many ways.  It’s as if a slow-motion video of our time here is playing in my head: the sound of games being played on the dark patio outside Auntie Esther’s house, the faces of friends laughing during Thanksgiving dinner, the calls of “blafono!” and “obruni!” that echo across the road as we walk by, the million tro-tro rides we have taken on that long road into Madina, the yards and yards of fabric bought for African dresses and skirts, the sight of five kids running to greet us at the road when we arrive for dinner, the look of pride and satisfaction upon Dr. Gyapong and Sheila’s faces after we successfully presented our research projects, the spicy, delicious taste of Irene’s okra stew with banku, the smile on Lovelyn’s face when we visited her at school, the cry of sheer terror on a baby’s face when we weigh him on an outreach visit, the hours of conversations had in the evenings with Oti, the walk along the long red dirt road up the hill to the research center, the look of delight on Charity’s face when we finish all of our food, and the hugs from Ema and Elvis that never fail to make me smile.  I’m going to miss it all.      

I can only hope that the hundreds of pictures, videos, and blog posts will help keep those memories as fresh as they are now, but I know that nothing will be able to concretely sum up this experience fully.  I can’t remember the person I was when I landed in Accra.  I know that I was nervous, excited, anxious, and eager for the experience to begin.  I can’t remember what my expectations were, because the reality of my life here has completely erased them and surpassed them.  I knew that I would eat dinner with a family every night.  I didn’t know that I would leave feeling like a member of their family.  I knew I would come with two other girls from the department.  I didn’t know that I would leave with two lifelong friends.  I knew that I would go to work at the research center every day and conduct a research project.  I didn’t know that I would leave with a project that I am immensely proud of and excited about, as well as countless new friends and colleagues that I will surely stay in touch with.  I knew it would be a challenge living here, both emotionally and practically.  I didn’t know that the best parts of living here would outnumber the worst parts by a million to one. 

So,

To Dr. Gyapong, Sheila, and Irene,

To Millicent, Comfort, and Henry,

To Favor, Derek, Gina, JoJo, Bernhard, Kwaku, and Kojo,

To Gifty, Mary, Solo, Gloria, BD, EL, Dr. Adjei, Dr. Gyakobo, Christian, SR, Ayisha, Jonas, Jerry, and Ema,

To Oti,

To Charity, Auntie Esther, Valentina, Lovelyn, Ema, and Elvis,

Thank you.

Group picture on our last day

Kojo! My favorite little guy to have on my lap

"I love youuuuu snake!"

Being extra conspicuous on the streets of Dodowa on our last day

Erin and I with Elvis and Kojo

Dinner with Sheila and Irene!

Dinner with Dr. Gyapong and Oti before going to the airport

Sitting with Elvis and our Dodowa mom, Charity 

Kojo, Najulee, and Elvis getting a lift

Andrews, Elvis, Lovelyn, Kojo, Ema, and Bernhard

DHRC staff goodbye

Thanksgiving with the kids-note Elvis passed out on the floor

Gloria, one of our first DHRC friends!

Millicent, our seamstress, wearing the shirt we got her from Barcelona!

Gifty and Mary

+12 puppies, -1 chicken

I wrote this post on Friday, but waited to post it until I had good enough internet at our hotel in Kumasi to be able to post the accompanying pictures!  Mammy, I know you've been eagerly awaiting these pictures-as promised, I didn't post any super gross ones.

Not to go for the clichéd, Lion King African stereotype, but we had kind of a “circle of life” experience here in Dodowa yesterday-witnessing, and having a hand in, both birth and death. Our neighbor, Henry, breeds dogs, and one of them gave birth to a litter of 12 puppies! As we went about our daily business, we stopped by Henry’s porch to keep a tally of the ever-growing number of puppies, until late last night it was determined that 12 was the maximum. We also had our Thanksgiving meal, round II, with Charity’s family. A little backstory: every year, when Thanksgiving comes around, the girls here in Dodowa kill a chicken to make for the dinner and have the family over to eat. We had research center friends and our neighbor over for dinner last week on actual Thanksgiving, but planned a second dinner for this Thursday. So, all semester we’ve been hearing about this mysterious chicken-killing, and finally this week it came to the forefront. Charity brought it up at dinner on Monday, and asked which one of us would cut the neck. She first pointed at Hannah, whose face must have registered some amount of hesitation, because the next thing I knew she looked at me and said “Ally, you will do it, you want to be a doctor.” Well, she had me there. On Wednesday, we were leaving dinner when the issue of actually procuring said chicken was raised-we see chickens every day, everywhere, but aren’t clear on how one actually buys a chicken to kill to eat. Can you just grab one off the road if it walks by you? How do you know which chicken belongs to which person or household? Such are the enigmas we face as obrunis in Dodowa. Thankfully, Vale offered to buy the chicken for us during the day on Thursday, and sure enough, when we showed up for the execution after work yesterday, a giant white rooster was strutting around their patio. Hello, new friend. While I wasn’t super excited to be getting chummy with a bird that I would be eating in a few short hours, I was also eager to see how this process was done, and no way was I about to chicken out (pun intended) of a certainly unique opportunity. Ema had done his best to describe to us how to kill it the night before, as we perused pictures of girls in previous years doing the deed. However, since Ema’s main piece of advice was to spin the chicken around in circles quickly to make it “sleep”, we weren’t super confident in his guidance. Luckily, Vale proved extremely helpful. She grabbed the chicken by the wings and motioned for me to come over and hold it. So I spent the next twenty minutes holding the chicken in one hand and sneaking up on Elvis to scare him with it. Then came the moment of truth. I followed Vale out into the yard, where she dug a hole about five inches deep “to catch the blood”. I then proceeded to put the chicken on the ground, put one foot on its legs, the other on its wings, and grab its head to expose the neck. The surgery began-I sawed away at its neck, and soon deep red blood spurted out into our blood-catching hole. Vale had to help a little bit, as the neck proved to be quite tough, but soon the chicken stopped struggling and we brought our dinner back to the patio to clean and cut. 

Oddly enough, I was very proud of my chicken-killing ability, as I never thought I’d ever be able to do that, or ever even want to do that. Literally, I never again want to kill an animal that will become my dinner. However, I was proud to now be added to the succession of Dodowa girls who have killed the chicken for Thanksgiving. It’s clearly become a tradition and rite of passage, and Charity’s look of pride when we did it and cooked them a large dinner later that night said it all. As chaos reigned in our living room last night-kids hunting mangoes from the trees outside, drawing pictures for us, playing with the puppies, spilling Fanta, flatly refusing to eat the tomato sauce on top of their pasta, and finally passing out right on the floor from all the excitement, I thought of the twelve people we spent our Thanksgivings with this week and last. Research center friends, neighbors, families, roommates, and kids-twelve people that have welcomed us into their homes, helped and guided us as friends, and embraced us as their own daughters and sisters. We are unbelievably blessed in our lives here, and it took killing a chicken to remind me of that.