Reminder: Never forget how lucky we are!

We really have had a pretty interesting year - with our move to Ghana and all that goes with that; a great trip to France where we got engaged, and now a couple of weeks in London (ignoring the small fact that we're here because Warren had malaria!). This morning I went for a run in Hyde Park in the crispy cold, and then we went for lunch at a gorgeous patisserie just down the road. I think one of my favourite things is going for a run, and then having a good coffee afterwards - so as we were sitting there we were reminiscing about how lucky we are to be able to do all these things - and we really are happy and appreciative of the life that we have. Happy days!

A Lovely Day in Bristol

Yesterday we spent the day in Bristol with my friend Katie and her boyfriend Dave. We went for a great pub lunch in a small village called Chew Magna (strange name, but nice village and pub), where I had slow-cooked lamb which was tender and delicious.

After a long lunch we went a bit further out into the countryside to the town of Cheddar - where cheddar cheese comes from of course! Who would have thought!? Warren and I were so excited about the town of Cheddar - what a novelty! We tasted cheese and bought some to take home (which I'm embarressed to admit we've already finished!) After all that food and cheese, we thought we'd go for a big walk to work it all off - up to the top of the gorge and down the other side - it was lovely to get out and get some fresh country air in the lungs.

Katie and Dave are both very easy-going and good humoured so we had lots of laughs - all in all a really nice day out. Oh, and I discovered that Dave is a bit of a fan of "The Princess Bride" - my all-time favourite movie ("My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father - prepare to die!"), and he gave me his copy of the book! Yay!!!! I was so stoked - he'll be in my good books (pardon the pun) for a good while now. Thank you Dave! And thank you Katie for looking after us all day. We went home tired but very content.

Hangin' with the Druids

I took a day trip the other day to Stonehenge and Salisbury - I'd always been curious about those big old stones that no-one really knows the whole story about. Everyone loves a good mystery....

Well it seems the mystery is not really a mystery after all - aliens didn't put the stones in place, and the Druids didn't sacrifice humans (although recent investigations possibly suggest otherwise)or burn witches at the stake. The stones were put in place in various stages over the past 5000 years - some of the stones were moved from Wales, over 240 miles away! That takes some serious muscles! Apparently at least 500 men for each stone. The stones are aligned for sunrise on the midsummer solstice, and even today is a very popular place on the summer and winter solstice, and autumn and winter equinox when people come from miles around to celebrate and dance around the circle. They are the only times the circle is open to the public - nowadays it is closed to the public after too many drugged up hippies from the Glastonbury festival nearby thought they could fly after climbing up the stones!!! Crazy flower children!

It was an interesting place to visit, but man was it cold! We walked around very quickly and then ran back to the bus to get warm again. However the weather did make for some interesting photos (I hope).

Salisbury Cathedral was equally as interesting (and much warmer!). It has the tallest church spire in England (750m), the oldest working clock in England, and is also home to a copy of the Magna Carta - the basis of constitutional law in many countries throughout the world. This was written in the 13th century on sheep skin parchment, and is still in fantastic condition today.

The cathedral whilst very old, is quite liberal and forward-thinking. It regularly has art exhibitions and music concerts, and has a great cafe alongside it - where I saw a few of the priests eating lunch after 12o'clock prayers! I loved this water feature right in the middle of the cathedral - the water constantly flows over the edges but the water is so still it looks like a mirror, and reflects the ceiling arches and stained glass windows. Great for some arty-farty photos....

This Doesn't Look Like Konongo!

Hmm this definitely doesn't look like Konongo! There's not enough sun, and not enough green trees, and Konongo doesn't have old castles like this. So where are we?

If you guessed London - you're right. Good work on recognising those famous landmarks - the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Our visit is a little bit unexpected - we're here because Warren is still struggling to get over his malaria episode from about a month ago. So the company decided to send him to see a Tropical Medicine specialist here in London (not so far or as expensive as going back to Australia). We've been here for a few days now, and he's been to the doctors and is waiting on the results of a whole bunch of tests. It's OK - he's not dying! But he's not feeling that great, with headaches every day and feeling fatigued all the time. So he's resting up, while I entertain myself with visits to the Tate Gallery, Tower of London, Science Museum and a spot of shopping at Covent Garden and High Street Kensington. Fun for me, not so fun for poor old Wozi!

A Beautiful Photo

I met this lady at the first village we visited - she doesn't really have a disability, she's just old! However I thought she made an interesting photo subject sitting against the pink wall so I took a photo of her. She's not smiling in the photo, but she was very excited when I showed her the photo of herself on the camera. That's always a winner with adults and children alike...

The Mercy Mission Project

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been doing a project with a lady called Comfort who runs a charity called Mercy Mission. We have been going to some of the local villages within the mine concession to visit people with disabilities, and initially to determine how many people there are with disabilities, what their needs are and essentially what we may be able to do to help them.

Comfort is an interesting person - she was involved in a car accident 30 years ago, and had her leg amputated above the knee. Luckily she had enough money to pay for a prosthetic leg, and went on to have four children of her own (one of which is my friend Sandra). Since then she has been involved in helping people with disabilities on a voluntary basis, and has adopted three other children in Konongo of various ages. When she found out I was a physio she was very keen for me to be involved in a project with her, and I was more than keen to help her out too!

The village visits have been really interesting for me - I've seen some things that I have NEVER seen before! Many of the medical conditions here are no longer seen in western countries, and the people either don't have enough money or transport to get to medical services, or the medical services are sometimes not very good quality. For example, the young man in the photo in the wheelchair is named Emmanuel, 19 years old. When he was young he had some kind of reaction to a vaccination, and after that his legs became paralysed. That was a fairly common story amongst a group of people in the age range of 18 to 25, and all of them have been left with weakness or paralysis of one or both legs. I can only guess that it was an adverse reaction to a polio vaccine, but am not sure.

The young boy Stephen in the photos is about 8 years old, and has club feet bilaterally(you can see his feet are turned inwards). We saw quite a few cases of club foot, but only in two villages (?genetic component). Club foot can usually be corrected quite well when the children are young, but they need to attend a hospital for serial casting every week for a few months. There is actually a free clinic in a nearby town, but obviously this boy's family didn't or couldn't take him there. I hope that we'll still be able to help him - it gets harder to correct as the child gets older and he may need surgery, but hopefully if we can get him to the clinic he can be helped.

The lady in the blue dress walks bent forwards with her hands on the ground (a bit like a monkey!) and has some kind of deformity of her lower back. You can see the thongs on her hands! I have seen this condition before in textbooks but can't remember the name of it (it could be a form of spina bifida) and can't seem to find it on the internet. If anyone happens to know what it is, please let me know. She was a lovely lady, very happy and smiley.

Often people with disabilities struggle to get appropriate equipment and aids - their wheelchairs will have flat or worn out tyres, or they use crutches made from branches or scraps of wood. However sometimes they are quite ingenious, as you can see by the man on his hand cycle. He had his whole leg amputated at the hip after a lorry accident, but now gets around with this contraption which they built in the village using bicycle parts and timber. I think its quite ingenious really, maybe they'll have to patent it!

I have some more interesting photos too and will put them on here soon. Now that we have visited all the villages, the plan is to come up with some ideas of how we can help. That will probably be on both an individual basis (getting treatment for children like Stephen), and some long term strategies like a skills training program (Emmanuel wants to learn to be a shoe-maker), and lobbying to government groups for more funding for people with disabilities. It will be an interesting, and I'm sure a challenging project - but also very rewarding.

The Love Rug

This quilt has been my craft project for the last couple of months - I bought all the fabrics for it in Perth - I had a lovely time buying some on the internet, and some from Calico & Ivy in Mosman Park, and Hot Possum in Wembley - I would recommend both of them to anyone who likes a bit of sewing - they have loads of funky fabrics, which I could personally spend a fortune on. I know its not everybody's thing - but I love it!

So I machine sewed the main squares and then handsewed all the quilting and part of the border, which took me FOREVER! But I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and its very comfortable and a perfect summer weight quilt for Konongo. Warren nicknamed it "The Love Rug" for all the many hours of time and love that went into it - not for any other reason!

Rain rain go away!

October is the wet season here - the second wet season because there is also a short one in June. But this one at the moment is really letting us know about it - its raining every day and it hammers down! You can feel it coming - the wind comes up, then there will be a big thunderclap and then these big fat raindrops. The clay soil is really wet and muddy and slippery all day, and the mosquitoes have decided to come out in force - hence the malaria is much worse!

The only good thing about it is that it's a bit cooler than usual, but otherwise I wish that rain would go away!

How nice - to not feel tired!

I had a sudden realisation the other day - I don't feel tired! I think when I was in Perth I was always busy -working hard, rushing from one place to the next, trying to fit in far too much. And I felt chronically tired! I was always trying to pep myself up with coffee or chocolate or sweet food of some kind. And if I had the chance to lie down for 20 minutes - I would be asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. My hands were really tired and sore - the product of 13 years of physio work...

So it's been really nice to have a break, and live life in the slow lane for a while. I'm not sitting idle, but I'm never rushing to fit a million things in either (Ghanaians don't ever rush - things just happen when they happen - which drives you crazy sometimes!). There's not much to do at night so we go to bed quite early (usually by 9pm), and I don't have to get up at 5.30am to go to work!

I haven't felt the need for a daytime sleep at all, and those coffee cravings have all but disappeared. I think there's probably a lesson for us all in that - slow down!!