HamanahamanaHA!

Hellloooo all!

What a week! Phew, I'm so glad it's over.

As the countdown begins to our return to the States, NYU students are dropping like flies. Malaria, respiratory problems, robberies, concussions, typhoid scares, GI issues, flu bugs, strange rashes, meningitis scares--every thing imaginable has hit us all at once. I myself came down with this ridiculous flu that outsmarted every homeopathic trick I had--then proceeded to outsmart every Western medicine trick I had! I was at a loss. In about 2 hours I went from sick to thinking I had strep throat. That turned into flu symptoms after a sleepless night, which then turned into symptoms of a sinus infection. My symptoms changed every 30 minutes on Tuesday and I called into work for my first sick day ever. I was an absolutely miserable mucusy mess. The doctor paid a house visit after a few of the girls had to go to the hospital for respiratory problems and told me that I could develop pneumonia quickly in this part of the world and needed to go on antibiotics. Being onery, I refused. By Wednesday, my "flu" symptoms suddenly went into my chest and I felt the feeling of pneumonia coming on. I decided to give in and take the antibiotics. Of course, the pharmacy was out of my last day's dosage....so I ended up spending WAY more money than I should have :/ But the antibiotics worked like a charm and now I'm suffering from the sniffles and a cough.

That being said, the conference that I was organizing came off yesterday. The conference was geared to be a student discussion on the effectiveness of aid in Africa, based off of the September Aid Effectiveness Conference regarding the Accra Agenda for Action and the Millenium Development Goals. Over the past week, naturally the logistical craze caught up to my team and every thing turned to chaos. Being a complete and utter useless mess, I was pretty sure the conference was going to fail miserably. Half of my team was sick, the other half angry and stressed, our supervisor a complete space cadet, and me hacking through it all. But, I am pleased to say that it was an enormous success. We had about 50+ attendees (non-organizers) which ended up being the perfect size for our small group discussions. The Vice-Provost of NYU attended as well as the Director of our program. While I was running around trying to get every thing running smoothly, I was unable to actually sit in on the group discussions. From what I heard, the discussions were actually very educational and taught both International and Ghanaian students a lot. We ended up getting speakers from the World Bank, UNDP, CARE International, and an NGO. The speakers did a good job, but the discussions were definitely the highlight of the conference.The response was overwhelmingly positive, so I'm pretty happy about it :)

So, not to worry any one, but this past week one of my friends was robbed. We have been warned since day one not to wear our purses diagonally or facing the road...of course, none of us ever listen. Unfortunately, one night walking home from dinner a car came from behind, snatched the purse, and caused her to fall back onto her head. Thankfully the bag's strap ripped so that she wasn't dragged along...also, she did not have very many valuables in her bag. However, 24 hours later she starts vomiting uncontrollably and the hospital here treats her for malaria....yea. We were all pretty pissed that they didn't even know how to diagnose a concussion. At the end of the day she's ok, but we certainly all learned a lesson.

On Monday I changed supervisors. The COP and dCOP had an intervention with me as they had expected way more work from me and had been forwarded my frustrated email from Gigi (my internship professor). I have now taken the lead on data analysis and collection. Of course, then I fell ill. My dad and I had a nice chat about not letting people take advantage of my work ethic...I'm definitely going to have to put that into perspective as finals have begun and the USAID reports are still for an unpaid internship. Sigh. Too much to think about. I really do like working working more than academically working. I think I'll get it done. As long as I don't get sick again!

Other than that, nothing really new to report. I grabbed an ankle in my back bend which gave me a huge feeling of accomplishment :) I'll be returning to the States in 3 weeks. It's either too little time or too much time. I think I either needed to go home a month ago or stay here for another 6....but I guess beggars can't be choosers!

I'm ok with Ghana today. I don't hate being here.

It is, however, getting HOT and HUMID. I thought it was hot and humid when I got here...ha. Ha ha. Funny joke, eh? I will really appreciate being cold and unsweaty. The "hamana" (or whatever it is called) is here--it's when all of the dirt and dust and sands blow into Ghana and linger in the air making it absolutely impossible for the asthmatics among us to live without wheezing, hacking, and getting pneumonia. Superrrrrrrr.