Hey Everyone!

Well since the malaria video was delayed in posting, I actually had a relapse in malaria. It was markedly worse than the first time. My coach / boss had just come to visit me (July 18th) and we went out to visit some MoFA staff. At around 5pm I was struggling to stay awake during the conversation and I suspected something wasn't good. We got trapped by the rain on the way home so we took shelter underneath an overhang for about an hour and talked about my concerns with my placement and our impact. I was increasingly becoming cold and by the time we sat down to eat in my room I was wearing a sweater and feeling crappy. Wayne (my coach) was feeling warm in a tshirt so I figured I best be taking my temperature. To my great surprise it was a whopping 39 degrees Celsius! My 1st encounter with malaria had my fever reach 38, so I had let this go undetermined for far too long... and the consequences followed accordingly.

I took the Lonart pills again, but this time I awoke sweating with the chills at midnight and had to urinate pretty bad. It was a struggle to lurch the twenty paces to the "urinal" and I was feeling very weak. I feared I might faint so I zipped up and moved straight back to the room. As I entered the room I knew I was going to vomit so I kneeled down and searched for a bucket in the darkness. My head lamp found a bucket and I could feel in my chest that it was just in time. One heave, one litre later, I crawled into bed next to Wayne and slept intermittently thru the night struggling with the chills. That night sucked.

The next day I was feeling a bit better but still feeling weak and having plenty diarrhea. Nothing too bad though. One day later I was feeling more like my 1st mild experience with malaria. I am now doing well, but I noticed that since I arrived I have lost around 10 pounds. I'm now below 140lbs but not feeling much more scrawny!

All in all, doing well and my energy is returning. I think my malaria was a relapse from the 1st time. Malaria often chills in your liver for a while and I had drank three beers on three separate days for different occasions. Alcohol weakens your liver and provided the opening that those dastardly parasites needed to bust my defenses and rebel. You can bet your arse I'll be sticking away from beer for my last few weeks here!

I'll be heading to stay in a village for about a week starting July 29. After that I'll be left with 2 weeks, so if you have a question or request for Ghana, get on it!

And now for my most recent video:



All music made by my voice & tapping on tables.

Lyrics:
one time chilling in Takora's farm, when the rains came
all these little critters came from the ground, when the rains came
the circle of life was all around, and the lizard was eating them
keeping their populations bound, when the rains came
tons of little ants on the ground, there's so many
tiny ones, ugly ones, big ones brown, when the rains came
this one bigger than a Canadian nickel, let's keep it out of my shorts
these ones stuck in a pickle, cause the rain filled in their house

All the best!

Adam :)

Malaria

Hey everyone!

Ever wonder what it was like to get malaria? Hopefully this video will give you a glance into what the experience is like.



Adam

PS Since this video I have gotten malaria and recovered again

Here come the elephants!

Hey Everyone!

Here's a video from my trip to Mole National Park where we got to see baboons, lots of other monkeys, wart hogs and that's right...elephants!!




Hope you enjoyed it!

Adam :)

Pest Control

Hey everyone!

Here's a video on how to deal with rabbits and mice taking over your fields. Hope you enjoy. Elephants coming soon!



Adam :)

Wedding - Ghanaian Style

Hey everyone!

Check out some footage from my first Ghanaian wedding



Adam :)

Learning to cook - Ghanaian style!

Making yam and green leaf stew:





Adam :)

What does Ghana look like....and what am I doing here

Oh crap... it's that time again where I'm supposed to write something insightful and deep. Well I'm not feeling particularly deep right now... more tired than anything. Last night I had to sleep in an OK hotel/motel but I knew it would be a bit sketch so I brought an extra bed net. Problem was that the net was treated with something kinda nasty and was supposed to be aired out for 24 hours prior to its first use. I started airing it out at 11pm and decided that it was time to risk the fumes at 4am as it didn't stink as bad then and I was too tired to care.

I'll have a blog post about malaria next week as a number of my friends have already had the clocks cleaned by the parasite already. The part that sketches me out the most is that last weekend I spent the night sleeping next to a friend (who was on my left) that came down hard with malaria the following morning. The room didn't appear to have any skeeters so we just went to bed in our briefs. Let's just hope that any blood suckers in the room got their fill from him and didn't decided to sample me too! Hahaha... it almost seems in vain as I have been bitten maybe 10 times for sure other times and my other friend that slept on my right side that night just got treated for malaria...

Early in the week I was pissed off to find out that mosquitoes were biting thru my light (so I don't sweat to death) long sleeve shirt. Here I trying hard and it barely even matters... I was told that they couldn't do that... oh well, maybe the malaria carrying mosquitos can't bite thru my light shirts... I haven't fallen ill yet... let's just hope my doxy and army of vitamins can hold them at bay! If not, I'll be fine, it will just suck hard for a few days... I'm thinking like a nasty stomach flu experience.

Well... I'm shutting down the internet cafe again, so I will have to head out without saying anything insightful! I won't leave you with nothing though. There are two videos... one explaining my what I'm actually doing in Ghana and the other showing Ghana from the side of a bus (this video was supposed to go earlier but it would not upload so here it is now).

World Vision? Good Development in Ghana?
I've had some very interesting conversations with my coworkers regarding the work of development organizations (government and non) in Ghana. In fact, I promised my coworkers that I would share some of what my friends thought about organizations such as World Vision. Specifically, they wanted to know:
1) What people thought of World Vision
2) What people thougth of the effectiveness of our aid money.

As always, there is no correct answer and all opinions are WANTED!!! We are constantly "extracting" information from "Africans" and there really isn't as much of chance for Africans to get some info from us. If you don't want to share your opinion on the blog as a comment, send me an email adamfraserkruck@ewb.ca I promise to keep your opinion in full confidentiality.

Next week, I'll share their thoughts and responses with you!





Adam :)