Burkina-bound after a malarial scare

After seeing the hippos I booked it down from Tamale to Accra on a mission for Mama Zida. Coolers (you know, what you keep beer in at a BBQ) are useful items in sub-Saharan Africa, and she asked me to pick some up for her while in Ghana. Apparantly they are cheaper in Ghana than in Burkina. I had intended to buy the coolers in Tamale and continue to Ouaga from there (it's only a few hours from the border), but the people in Tamale assured me that even with the price of bus tickets there and back, it would still be cheaper to buy the coolers in Accra.

One twelve hour bus ride later, I arrived at the Volunteer Abroad house in Accra on the evening of Thursday, March 25th. It was planned as a surgical strike: I would buy the coolers on Friday and by Saturday morning I would be Burkina-bound.

But life always has its own plans for you. On Friday I got the coolers at a store called Melcom (with fixed prices, it was shopping heaven!!). I decided to take them back to the VA house and drop them there before buying my bus ticket to Burkina.

Upon my return I developed a headache. Then my joints and muscles started to hurt. I felt feverish. And I was nauseated. "Great," I thought, "this is probably malaria."

I waited a few hours just to see if the symptoms would pass on their own, and when they didn't I dragged myself to the closest clinic. It was an interesting glimpse into Ghana's health care system.

First I had to register with the clinic, which cost 6 cedis (approx. $4 CDN), and only after that did I get to sit and wait to see the doctor. Everyone, including Ghanaians, has to pay this "user fee" to access healthcare here. This might explain why there was absolutely NO line of people in front of me waiting to see the doctor. After working in my Dad's busy Canadian clinic where patients routinely wait an hour for their appointments, this experience with a pivate (or possibly public-private) healthcare clinic was a bit of culture shock. I wondered how many people felt as awful as I did but couldn't afford the 6 cedis.

The doctor asked a few questions, checked my vaccination record, and prescribed a malaria test. The test cost 8 cedis (about $5-6), which locals would also have had to pay.

The nurse used a rather large needle to pierce my vein and withdraw my precious bodily fluids, but after that the process was really cool. The clinic had this neat little centrifuge, about as big around as a dinner plate, that spins the blood super fast to separate the serum from the cells. Then they check the serum for malaria and have the results in a matter of minutes. Normally one has to wait at least a day for bloodwork results, so I was thrilled.

My malaria test was negative, thank goodness, and the doctor figured I was probably suffering from mild heat stroke and exhaustion. I had travelled far and hard over the last week, and for the last five nights I hadn't slept in the same town two nights in a row.

Still, he prescribed malaria meds just in case and forbade me to travel on Saturday as I had planned.

So I bought my ticket for Monday (tomorrow) and spent the weekend resting and eating. And today (Sunday) I went with everyone to watch Ghana's national soccer team, the Black Stars, play against Burkina Faso's Etalons. Ghana won, of course, but the score was only 1-0. Considering the Black Stars made it to the final game of the Africa Cip of Nations and will represent their country in South Africa this year, the Burkinabe team did pretty well.

I leave tomorrow at 10am and I am really excited about going back to Burkina. Time for Easter and a wedding - it'll be party time! And church time, too. I'm not kidding myself on that one.