Akwaaba!
Greetings from Kumasi, Ghana! This update has been in the works for awhile but
somehow through all the traveling and experiences, ideas have yet to meet
paper.
It is
hard to believe so much has happened since we last wrote – leaving Nepal,
spending time in India (including an incredible Yom Kippur in Cochin), a brief
layover in Egypt with enough time to visit the pyramids and Sphinx, and now we
are a month into our 6 week stint in Ghana – it’s difficult to know where to
even begin! When we last left you, we were nearly on our way to India. We spent
Rosh Hashana with Chabad in Kathmandu (with roughly 300 other Israelis!) and
spent our last full day in Nepal soaking in the markets, streets, alleyways,
monasteries, and stupas that we had found and come to appreciate for the
chaotic beauty that comprised Kathmandu. Having arrived not knowing what to
expect, we left Nepal amazed and awed by not only its culture, history, beauty,
and charm but as much with the initiative and incredible people we were
fortunate to meet and learn from.
We
arrived in India after a full day of traveling with a bit more of an
inauspicious start…our ride from the airport never arrived, the taxi driver
wasn’t quite sure where we were going
and we had no phone…than no one at the guesthouse seemed to know of our arrival
and securing us a room was a longer process than necessary. It seems though
that these few inconveniences gave us the good karma needed. The next two weeks
at Aravind Eye Institute were simply incredible, both professionally and
spiritually. I could write reams and reams about this eye hospital, the largest
in the world – its founder, Dr. Venkataswamy who wanted to build the McDonald’s
of eye care, and the unique worldview and vision he had to create an entire
system dedicated to preventing and treating curable blindness. This place,
where a phrase such as compassionate care is not an oxymoron with cost-efficiency (they are a non-profit
but run in the black. All patient care services including building and
development is self-funded), and where every member of the team, from
housekeeping to unit heads, understands their role and that they are working
for something greater, something simultaneously both incredibly human and
divine. We’ll be talking about this place a
lot when we come home, so I won’t go on too much here[1],
suffice to say that we both left Aravind inspired, encouraged, challenged, and
with a greater sense of peace and purpose than when we arrived.
Zvi
spent his time at Aravind observing with Dr. Rathinam in her uveitis clinic. We
had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Rathinam in July during the uveitis conference
in Kathmandu. Despite her very busy clinic and research schedule, she welcomed
both of us to Aravind, ensuring we were well connected and meeting people to
learn from. We were also fortunate to meet her family (and her adorable
grandson). I largely spent my time with folks with the LAICO (Lions Aravind
Institute for Community Ophthalmology) Center – a major training institute that
provides management and leadership training for professionals around the world.
My time was spent learning about Aravind’s model and research, helping out on
several small writing projects, learning from the outreach department, and
soaking in the atmosphere as much as possible.
One
last impression about Aravind to share was how open and transparent the entire
hospital was. Though we were only there for 2 weeks (which were interrupted by
Yom Kippur and other holidays), we had immediate access to anyone we felt we
needed to talk to. We met and spoke with nearly all the remaining founding
doctors of the hospital, the current CEO and chief administrator (A Michigan
MBA alum!), the CEO of Aurolab – the hospital’s own intraocular lens factory,
and so many more movers and shakers of this world. Not once were people
hesitant to open their doors to us, spend an hour to discuss and share and
learn from each other, or help us use our time at Aravind to its
fullest….needless to say we are incredible grateful for our time there, and are
trying to share what we’ve learned here in Ghana…
There
is so much to write and share – about Madurai and South India, about our Yom
Kippur in Cochin with the last remaining remnant of a Jewish community that
traces its roots to the destruction of the 2nd Temple (70 CE),
praying in a 400 year old synagogue in a sleepy harbor town, spending our last
week in India in Mumbai racing around to get our Ghanaian visas sorted out
before Simchat Torah started and the relief after nearly a week of uncertainty
of having those visas in hand before the holiday started, our amazing chag
spent with a Bene Israel family in Mumbai and learning new songs and foods,
feeling the rush and bustle and insecurity of Mumbai all around us, the amazing
small kindnesses we experienced along the way, seeing a Bollywood movie in the
flesh…there is simply too much to write! Though our time in India was
short-lived and was ad-hoc (we had not originally planned on an India stopover),
it is time very well spent…
The
old saying , “Man plans and G-d laughs” sometimes can work out to your favor.
We had booked our tickets to Ghana via Egypt Air with an initial 12 hour
layover in Cairo. We know you are probably shaking your heads in angst as you
read this and thinking, “Cairo? Who in their right minds would go to Egypt now,
especially with a few Israeli stamps in their passports?” Well after hours of
searching, these flights were the
best deal going and so we resigned ourselves to spending that layover in the
airport, though wistfully thinking how great it would be to see the pyramids or
other amazing sights. On the plane from Mumbai, we could see the endless Sahara
stretching out below us, the outlines of towns and gas lines stretching here and
there. We arrived around 12pm and almost immediately were met by Egypt Air
officials informing us that due to the length of our layover, we were entitled
to a free hotel room, free airport transport, and meal vouchers. We also were
met by Egypt Air’s own travel agency who assured us that the security situation
was quite stable that day and they could arrange a private tour of the pyramids
and Sphinx for us…so who were we to say no? Not only were we walked through the
VIP immigration line, less than hour after landing we had our own private van
and English-speaking tour guide to the Pyramids of Giza and Sphinx. Following
an amazing tour and ride through the city, we were checked-in to a 4 star
hotel, complete with sauna/steam room and enjoyed a few hours of rest and
relaxation before heading back to the airport for our connecting flight.
Driving around Cairo, we did see many people with protest signs and trucks
filled with young men, and no we were not anywhere near Tahrir Sq. The day we
spent in Cairo the streets were full, businesses were open, traffic its usual
nightmare. We did not discuss the current situation with many people, though it
was painfully obvious at the near silent pyramids that Egypt was suffering in
many ways. We left pleasantly surprised
and thrilled that we got to add a second original Wonder of the World to our
itinerary (the Great Wall of China being our first), though consciously aware
of how fortunate we were to have the experience.
We
have now been in Ghana for about a month, and it will probably take us ten
times as long to process everything. We are working with the Komfo Anoyke
Teaching Hospital (KATH), a tertiary referral center in the Ashanti Region of
Ghana. Our sponsor, the Himalaya Cataract Project, has been working with the
eye center here for the past several years and recently supported the
construction of a brand new eye hospital with the help of USAID. Unlike the
hospitals in Nepal and India, KATH is a government institution, which brings
with it all the inefficiencies and bureaucracies that one might imagine. The
Eye Unit currently has 4 residents and 6 full time ophthalmologists, along with
14 ophthalmic nurses, 2 optometrists, and any number of “staff nurses” (regular
RNs who do not have further ophthalmic training), national service volunteers,
administration, etc. As there are only roughly 50 ophthalmologists in the
entire country, the eye unit is particularly well staffed. Regardless though,
there are many challenges and opportunities here and it seems we keep uncovering
or realizing more every day. Zvi has mostly been working with the residents,
giving lectures on uveitis and also consulting on any uvietis patients that
come in. Last week we attended an outreach at a local district hospital with
two of the doctors, but mostly Zvi’s work has been in the general clinic. He
has also been helping develop cataract surgery protocols and check-lists for
the operating theatre. I have been working closely with the administrative
staff, helping with visioning and developing strategic plans for the coming
year. I’ve also been focused on the clinic systems and doing small studies on
patient wait times and flow, and giving workshops on using data for decision
making.
We are
staying in Ghana’s second largest city, Kumasi – a green rather laid back city
that has the amenities but none of the hussle of the capital. We are staying in
the hospital guest house, with several other visiting American medical
personnel, giving us a built in social life. Kumasi is also home to West Africa’s
largest market – Kejetia. This market is a maze of stalls, food, vegetables,
and stuff, from entire rows of stalls selling toothpaste to women making
groundnut butter and rows and rows of dried fish, open air butchers, stalls
selling fetish items such as dried chameleons, animal skins, turtle shells and
more. We’ve gone several times now and are able to navigate to different areas
fairly well. Words do not do this market justice, between the hundreds of women
and children carrying items for sale or transport on their head, the open-air
preachers stirring the crowds, small children following us into alleyways
yelling “Obrunoi!, Obruni![2]
Hi!”, the smells of dried and salted fish, peanut butter mingling with mud,
vegetables, ginger, chili pepper, trucks overflowing with plantains and huge
coco yams and cassava backing up to deliver their good in alleyways and
bypasses crammed with people, animals, merchandise, the whirr and snip snip of
the tailors’ row creating the brilliant dresses, vests, and pant suits that men
and women wear here, the blind beggar’s we passed on the railway track rattling
their coins in supplication…Sunday’s are quieter here, we went last week to buy
fabric to make some clothes. Zvi noticed that the vendor we bought from had a
hypermature cataract and encouraged him to come in to KATH. Though we haggled
fiercely over the cloth, we parted with a hearty handshake and smile. The
gentleman came in to the clinic this past week and he’ll be having surgery in a
few days….just another day at the market…
As
with India, there is so much more to tell – from our Shabbat adventure out to
visit the Sefwi Wiaso community, a group of Ghanaians that profess to be a
“Lost Tribe”, the deeply religious nature of the country (there are signs
everywhere for 3,5,7,14, or 30 day prayer/fasting events nearly everyday of the
week), the morning singing and prayers at the eye unit before clinic starts,
seeing the Ashanti King, swimming in a nearby crater lake where the water is
warmer than bath water, participating in World Sight Day, watching French
movies at the Alliance Frances cultural center, getting Kente cloth and other
clothes made by local tailors, to watching Ghana’s pride, the Black Stars
defeat Egypt 6-1 in a World Cup Qualifier match….
We are
gearing up for our last few weeks in Ghana, they’ll be busy with work and
another outreach camp. We can’t wait for Frayda to arrive and are sure to have
more adventures to tell when we reach the US in a few weeks!
Keep
in touch and can’t wait to hug and speak to you all in person,
Much
love,
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