(Spencer) Oh the Polylinic

Hello Again!

Remember when I said a post a day? Things never go as planned. That is still the goal but something quite unexpected and certainly valid came between reaching that reality. Everything has been pushed back but is still coming.

I had a little bout of sickness over the past few days; I will spare the details of my suffering but suffice to say I was out of commission.  However I will share my condition, actually I laughed quite hard upon receiving the diagnosis. Plus a little tale of the rest of the day.

Being across the ocean I suppose I had a perception that illness would in turn be from “across the ocean”. As I was trying to sleep Thursday night I had a decent fever and all the tropical ailments were running though my head; do I have malaria? typhoid? or another exotic disease? Thinking to myself how glad that Canada does not experience this.

First thing Friday morning I made my way to the polyclinic of Karaga, met with a Doctor, got tested and was diagnosed. So curious was I to my sickness; he informs me that it is a respiratory infection, strep throat…ah it made so much sense just possibly the last thing I was expecting. Not tropical, not exotic, just plain strep throat. Ask my brother, Fraser, about how common this is (he has had it six times?).

In the end it was a lesson on checking my assumptions. I had jumped to conclusions in my mind based on all the stories I had heard and warnings that were given.  Amoxicillin in one hand; Malarone in the other; on top of the world.

Still things don’t go as planned. Later in the day after dragging myself to the last few hours of work at the District Assembly, I meet Mohammad who works at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. I told him that I just purchased a bike an hour earlier (the absolute lowest costed bike I could find in Karaga, and it was all by chance!), this guy loves his bike like no other loves their bike. It is covered in stickers of the flags of the world, colour strips, a waving Ghanaian flag and all the bells and whistles. He insists we go riding together, go with the flow so they say, and we depart.

We tour Karaga together, with him pointing out his favourite things in the town. Such as; his home, his wife, where he prefers to buy food, a group of friends, and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture office (MoFA) … all the while directing me as though I am ten years old, which is a common theme of people assuming you know nothing about the real world. One particular location I found interesting was the urinal, which was a metal box with a small hole on one side, a large privacy barrier; was contained by a padlock. A huge bonus was seeing Mark (a Ghana JF working at MoFA) and we had a nice little chat together before he left on his hour long bike home.

Here is the location where things diverged; we arrived at our final location, pull our bikes into a compound. He calls for some drinks, which are served to us in the shells of the guad fruit, called calabash; the beverage itself looks to be an apple cider. We start drinking together, the taste is quite nice, and actually hard to describe.

Halfway through the calabash I start realizing that this beverage is alcoholic….he then comments as if reading my mind, “this drink is local drink, not that strong, not 10% or 15% but 5% like beer.” Argh. I just got antibiotics and now alcohol, the two do not mix.  However I remember what my Grandmother told me when I was on antibiotics over Christmas and refused the punch, “when I was your age, I used to go partying while on antibiotics.” Thank you Grandma, all the justification I need we continue drinking happily together. A few calabash later and we head home, after sharing a great goodbye.

Go with the flow and don’t jump to conclusions

Suhuyini