Fastest C-Section EVER

So I'm in a bigger hospital now. Not the big hospital I was supposed to be in, but at least this one does some major operations. Apparently the big hospital in Kumasi (the biggest outside of Accra) has had a falling out with TPA and no longer accepts volunteers. Don't ask me why.

Since Tafo Hospital did practically nothing by way of surgery, I plan on spending the last two weeks of my stay here in the operating room. Unfortunately, it's still a little slow. Today, for example, I spent all my time folding gauze. No patients came in. There's also apparently a health workers strike so the amount of surgeries done is decreased for some reason. While it can be slow, I have seen some interesting things. Yesterday I saw a gargantuan hernia repair and two and a half c-sections. I say a half of a c-section because this woman came in needing a cs because of fetal distress, but by the time they got her on the operating table the babies head starting poking out... I guess he didn't want to be a c-section baby. This little bugger was huge too. He weighed about 4 kilos, should consider a career as a linebacker. Unfortunately he was so big that he kind of "split" the mother. She had a female circumcision (I have no idea what that is) and the size of the baby caused tearing. It was a pretty hectic moment when they all realized the baby was coming out.

The other two c-sections I saw were crazy fast. They pride themselves here by saying the baby is born within one minute of the operation. Basically true to their word, within a couple of minutes after the first incision, the baby was out. The whole procedure took around 20minutes (including the sutures) For comparison, the c-sections I saw in India took around an hour, 40 minutes at the shortest. I've come to realize that the main procedure done in the operating room is a c-section. There is an occasional hernia or historectamy, but little else. I can't complain though, the nurse said that by the end, they might let me assist in surgery. How sweet would that be?

As for some other peculiarities that slipped my mind before, I've remember a few... some so strange I don't know how I forgot. Hair is an interesting thing here amongst the ghanaian women. Most have very little hair on their bodies and short hair on top. However, it is not uncommon to come across a very hairy legged woman (which apparently the guys like). While the hairy legs is a little off putting, what's even stranger is the facial. Many women get a small collection of chin hairs that they seem to cultivate and grow as long as they can. It's not enough to call it a beard or really even whiskers, I just call it gross.

Food is always a good source of oddities. They eat snails in Ghana. Not unheard of. It's considered quite the delicacy in France. Ghanaian snails, however, trump French snails ten times over. These guys are massive. I'm talking radioactively mutated to be super snails. They shells are almost the size of conch shells, to give a comparison. The like to tote these around in buckets on their heads selling them to passersby. OH yes, the head thing. It has become so commonplace I almost forgot that no one carries boxes or buckets or really anything on top of their head. Ghanaians carry EVERYTHING on the tops of their heads. The balancing act is an amazing sight to see. Sometimes I want to run over to them and give them a little hip check to see if they can keep it together without dropping anything. I've yet to work up the audacity. That's all for now folks. I'll write again at least once more before I leave. Take care.