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4th – 6th November Agroyesum: In the middle of the rainforest

Day 13 – 15 Agroyesum: In the middle of the rainforest

Our living room is furnished with two armchairs, two sofas, a big table which is surrounded by seven uphostered chairs. On the table there is a white tablecloth embroidered with light and dark red flowers. The fan is running. Instead of using the flatscreen TV in the evening we are sitting together and talking. On Friday we were just discussing some general topics when Annika went outside. As she came back we could see imediately that something strange happened. She stood with a perplex face in front of us and said: ” Guys, you don´t believe what just happend!” The reason for her confusion was that when she went out of our house for a moment she had totally forgotten that we are aktually staying not in Germany, but Ghana; more precisely in the middle of the jungle in a small town called Agroyesum. And indeed as funny the situation was for us inside of our accomodation our life often feels more like a luxury shared flat in Germany where friends are discussing their current projects.

But to be honest we also have a live outside our comfortable home. Our first meeting was to exchange information and expections about our project with the administration of the hospital. After that together with the maintenance team we went through every ward of the hospital to register broken devises, talked with the nurses and (the most important result for us) to get an overview about the current situation of the hospital from as many perspectives as possible. With this information and also the experiences we already made in Techiman we started to make a long term plan for a sustainable support of the maintenance team here at the St. Martins Hospital. We also had to make a detailed plan for next week and prepare our meetings on Monday. This took us the whole Saturday. Today on Sunday we wanted to go to the church service, but our cook who brings us fried eggs everyday for breakfast told us that there will be no church service in this town today. So we decided to take a walk to see the town and enjoy the beautiful nature around. After this relaxed day we have new power to start our busy week tomorrow.